Snowed-In at Squiers Manor

This beautiful 6-bedroom, 6-bathroom 19th century property in Maquoketa, IA is just 45 minutes from I80/Davenport, and a little over an hour from Cedar Rapids. We enjoyed the opportunity to capture it's Victorian elegance as we moved from one luxurious room to another photographing it's beauty.

We met the owner at a local event for entrepreneurs.  He purchased the manor and began a complete renovation last year. Every detail, furnishing, and finish is top-notch.  He has literally thought of everything... from the state-of-the-art kitchen to the thoughtful decor details in each bedroom.

He reached out to us to see if we would be available to come capture the beauty of the manor in feature photographs to be used in the marketing for this vacation rental. He also invited us to stay there, use the facilities, and to give him honest feedback. So, that is exactly what we did! We ended up staying there two nights because of a severe winter storm.  As you can see from the photos, a substantial amount of snow fell!  But, it allowed us time to perfect each shot.

This was truly a team effort. We went through, room-by-room, to make sure everything was spotlessly clean and staged correctly. Once we were happy, we took "reference shots" with an iPhone, so we could assess the fine details, best angles, and lighting set-up. That saved a lot of time when we actually came to photograph each room! We simply looked at the reference photo and matched the angles and setup to get the best possible result with the Canon.  The house has a ton of natural light, which is beautiful, but it can also make it difficult to get the lighting right for the camera. We had to play with opening and closing the beautiful window shutters, and supplementing with our pro-lighting to get the perfect set of exposures for each room.  We took three shots at each angle with different exposures so that we could stack the shots in post, combining the best of each exposure. We stayed really organized, cataloging all of our shots as we went, making notes for each set of shots.  That was a HUGE time saver and stress reliever later on in the edit!

We are extremely happy with the results.  The place is gorgeous, and the photos we got really capture the beauty and spirit of Squiers Manor.

Available now as a whole-house vacation residence: https://www.squiers1882.com/