Corporate office campus, photographed by Paaause

Hospitality, Architectural & Historic Preservation Photography · Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti & Southeast Michigan Rooms worth staying in, photographed at the hour they were designed for.

42.24° N  /  83.61° W
Patio and landscape at a corporate office campus
Corporate campus, patio
“Space is the breath of art.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

Stand in a good room long enough and you understand what he meant: the walls are almost incidental. What you are actually inside of is a volume someone shaped, and light that arrives on a schedule the architect knew about years before the concrete was poured. A photograph can hold that or it can miss it entirely, and the difference is rarely the camera. It is whether anyone bothered to be there at the right hour.

Hospitality and architecture photography for the people who design, build, and run buildings worth being inside.

High-rise hotel tower in Hawaii against the sky
01—AHigh-rise hotel, Hawaiʻi
The Seattle Aquarium and waterfront seen from a downtown office window
01—BSeattle Aquarium, from downtown
Rooftop terrace
01—CRooftop terrace

Hospitality & Travel Photography

Most guests choose a hotel from its photographs. Those photographs have to answer practical questions as well as set the mood: how big the room is, what the view is from the bed, where breakfast is served. We shoot guest rooms and suites, lobbies and public spaces, restaurants and bars, amenities, and the neighborhood around the property, scheduled around occupancy so the building stays open while we work. Files are delivered cropped for booking engines, travel listings, social media, and print.

  • Guest Rooms & Suites
  • Lobbies & Public Spaces
  • Restaurants & Bars
  • Amenities & Wellness
  • Openings & Renovations
  • Booking Engine & Listing Sets
  • Destination & Travel
  • Aerial & Drone Photography
A property, hour by hour

A hotel changes character several times a day. We plan the shoot around those changes, so each space is photographed at the hour it looks the way guests remember it.

  1. i.

    Morning

    Guest rooms in soft window light. Beds dressed, curtains open, the view from the pillow.

  2. ii.

    Midday

    Pool, spa, fitness and meeting rooms, photographed in the quiet stretch between check-out and check-in.

  3. iii.

    Golden hour

    Terraces, patios and the dining room as the tables are set and the low sun comes through.

  4. iv.

    Blue hour

    The exterior, in the twenty minutes when interior lights come up and the sky still holds colour.

  5. v.

    After dark

    The bar and the lobby, lit the way guests actually see them on the way in.

Photographed for
  • Hotel openings & renovations
  • Boutique hotels & inns
  • Restaurants, bars & cafés
  • Breweries, distilleries & tasting rooms
  • Event & wedding venues
  • Vacation & short-term rentals
  • Wellness & spa
  • Tourism boards
Downtown Chicago skyline
02—ADowntown Chicago
Chicago City Hall reflected in the facade of the Daley Center
02—BCity Hall, reflected in the Daley Center

Architectural Photography

A building is designed to be moved through, and we photograph it that way: the approach, the entry, the sequence of rooms, and the details that hold them together. Verticals stay true, lines stay straight, and each elevation is shot at the hour the light does what the design intended. The finished set explains the building to someone who has never stood in it, and it arrives sized and licensed for portfolios, awards submissions, and publication.

  • Exteriors & Elevations
  • Interiors & Circulation
  • Details & Materials
  • Twilight Exteriors
  • Awards & Publication Sets
  • Aerial & Site Context
  • Construction to Completion
  • Architect Portfolio Sets
Statue at the Vanderbilt mansion
03—AVanderbilt mansion, statuary
Historic commercial buildings in downtown Ypsilanti, Michigan
03—BDowntown Ypsilanti, Michigan

Historic Preservation Photography

Preservation work needs a record that holds up to review. We document historic structures before, during, and after restoration: original fabric and existing conditions, the work as it is carried out, and the finished result. Camera positions are fixed on the first visit so before-and-after sets line up frame for frame, and coverage is planned around what a National Register nomination, state historic preservation office review, grant application, or tax credit file needs to show. Preservation societies, architects, contractors, and owners use the same set for the archive and for showing the public what was saved.

  • Existing Conditions Surveys
  • Detail & Craftsmanship
  • Before, During & After
  • Adaptive Reuse Projects
  • National Register & SHPO Submissions
  • Grant & Tax Credit Files
  • Facade & Structural Records
  • Archival-Quality Files

How we shoot

Real blue hour, not composited twilight.

We wait for the twenty minutes when the interior lights and the sky are in balance, and we photograph it as it happens. We don't paint it in afterwards.

From where the guest would stand.

The camera goes where the occupant would actually be: in the doorway, beside the bed, at the bar. Verticals stay true and rooms keep their real proportions.

Nothing hidden.

Nothing that changes what is there is hidden; anything added is disclosed. The photographs have to hold up when someone walks through the front door.

Openings · Renovations · Awards submissions

Tell us about the building.

Send the address, the timeline, and where the photographs need to end up. We'll come back with the right hour to shoot it and a scope to match.

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