Last week, I shot photos for an interior designer who wants to build her online portfolio. She had recently quit her job with a design firm in favor of starting her own business. This is her house:

Doesn’t exactly looked lived in, does it? Don’t be fooled. For many of these setups, had I turned my camera 90° to the left or right, you would have seen the stacks of paper, the piles of kids’ toys, the boxes of junk. Who honestly lives in a home that looks this clean, organized and decorated?

Not even an interior designer. ☼

This Fallbrook property sits on its own mini mountaintop. Gorgeous views from every vantage point. It was rehabbed to accentuate its Sante Fe styling (less the bathrooms – those all received modern updating). There’s a main house (3/2) and a guest house (2/1).

Views, a pool, (near indestructible) tile floors, plenty of rooms to crash… all it needs is some furniture and this place would be perfect for a total rager party. ☼

My friend Dominic and I drove to the harbor for a sunset surf session. The waves were a smidgen big (ok, they were way too huge) and crowded for me, so I walked the length of the jetty with my camera while Dom jumped in the water with his board.

I started shooting at ISO 800. As the sun set, I kept upping the ISO hoping I’d get a good shot of Dom. Never satisfied, I ended up shooting all they way through twilight. My ISO ended up at 6400 — you can see the resulting noise in the last few photos. It got to the point where I couldn’t see through my viewfinder anymore. Just as I decided to call it quits, I took my face from the camera and… surprise! A set wave crashed onto the rocks and drenched me from the waist down.

What were you doing 9 months ago, today? ☼

Heinz Goehring was an electrical engineer who worked for General Motors. During his career, he worked on NASA’s guidance systems for the Apollo missions. Later on, he set up production lines for the catalytic converter in the US, South Korea and many countries in Europe. He achieved much with his brilliant mind.

But, that’s not what I remember him for.

I remember him for his wonderfully silly jokes.

‘Opa, come swimming with us in the lake!’ my sister and I would say. ‘I can’t today,’ he’d reply. ‘The water is too wet!’

[Opa and me]

I remember him for his pleasantly content demeanor. He loved watching the world go by on his deck in Wisconsin overlooking the calm of Lake Brittany and on his lanai in Florida watching boats speed past towards the Gulf of Mexico. I remember his favorite drink, the long-winded name of which I learned to recite before I had any idea what was in it. I remember him for his love of chocolate, sweets, especially ice cream.

[Omi & Opa on the lanai]

[My cousin Lindsey, me, my cousin Kristin and Opa]

I remember him working in his workshop. Down in the basement, the brightly lit space was full of tools and funny machines that measured invisible things that I didn’t understand. When my parents, sister and I came to visit, Omi would greet us. Seeing the basement door ajar and light down below, my sister and I knew where to find Opa. We’d rush downstairs to see what wonderful things he was working on this time.

He created dozens of household inventions. He rigged the lights in all of the closets to turn on when you opened the door, off when you closed it. The toothpaste on the bathroom sink had a tiny wooden dowel attached to roll up the tube as you used it. A security system protecting all the windows and doors of the house led to a hidden red button under the desk in the kitchen that you could manually trip if an intruder threatened entry.

He made toys. Out of nothing but scrap wood, metal and wires, he built an electric go-cart that Kelly and I could drive. He fashioned a wooden box with rows of LEDs and two dials to teach us multiplication tables. He built a perfectly to-scale 4-foot remote-controlled ocean liner that we launched into the lake. The boat was complete with life rafts and a string of working lights hanging between the smoke stacks. His workshop was a magical place.

I remember him for taking a big leap of faith. In 1954, with just $60 to their names, he and my Omi decided to immigrate to United States in search of a better life than what could be had in post-war Germany. I remember him for his unbelievable war stories — especially the one about jumping into a Tiger tank for fun with his buddy, taking it at full speed to the end of the block, accidentally driving it straight into a vacant house and ‘parking’ it in the basement.

[The Goehring Family: my Aunt Karin, Opa, Omi & my mom, Heidi]

I remember him for his blue eyes. Eyes just like my mom’s, just like my sister’s. I remember him for his love of sailing, and his tiny Sunfish he’d take out on Lake Brittany on bluebird days.

I remember him for his utter appreciation for my Omi. “I wouldn’t be anything without her,” he’d say.

~ ~ ~

Thursday night, after Opa passed, I picked up Kirk from the airport. He was at a conference in San Francisco, but left a day early to come back to be with me. We left the chaos of the airport and drove to nearby Harbor Island where we parked next to the water. Sailboats tacked back and forth in the bay. Kirk turned to me. “What was Opa’s favorite drink?” He knew I would remember.

“A CC Manhattan on the rocks, perfect with a twist.” I smiled. “I still don’t even know what the perfect part means.”

We went to the bar at C Level, a restaurant with a magnificent view of San Diego’s downtown skyline. I had never ordered such a complicated drink before. On my phone, I looked up what ‘perfect’ meant: equal parts sweet and dry vermouth. I ordered with the bartender.

“Sure, I can make that. For you, sir?”

“Make it two,” said Kirk.

From our table on the patio, the view of the city and the sailboats was absolutely perfect. We raised our glasses. “To Opa,” said Kirk.

“To Opa,” I said.

May your soul rest in peace. I love you. ☼

For these properties, I photographed a few dozen empty suites and a handful of exteriors. Below you’ll see most of the exteriors; they have more aesthetic appeal than the interiors.

Shooting commercial property is different than residential. Most of the interior spaces (of the properties above, and I’d figure the same for most commercial properties) were completely unfurnished. This made my job easy since I had no furniture to move, but boring considering (for most of my setups) my subject matter was — literally — emptiness.

Sometimes, going on mental autopilot is nice. My routine flowed: room walk-through, tripod setup, camera frame-up, settings check, shoot. And again. I don’t usually listen to music, but since I was shooting alone (the client wasn’t onsite), I put in my earbuds, turned on Pandora, and grooved out to Grand Funk Railroad Radio. ☼