Blog
Pittsburgh-based design/build firm, PWCampbell, sent me over to First State Bank in Saint Clair Shores to capture the branch’s night-and-day transformation! Here are a few favorites from the shoot, along with a couple pre-renovation photos to show the vast improvement.
A white cedar whole log home in Spring Lake hot off the presses from Homestead Timbers (www.homesteadtimbers.com) with styling by Sweet Magnolia Design (www.sweet-magnoliadesign.com)!
This twilight shot of CityFlatsHotel in Holland is my favorite shot so far of 2021! The hotel arranged to leave all the front-facing hotel rooms unbooked so that we could make sure each room was lit up for the photo. I got up around 5:15am on a Friday morning, drove down I-196 to Holland, scurried up a ladder onto a neighboring building, and got all set up just in time to capture the lit-up building 20-30 minutes or so before the official sunrise time when the sky has that rich blue hue to it. I also got the glowing yellow-blue sunrise sky and clouds reflecting in the windows, not to mention the perfect timing with the springtime tree blossoms!
A Rockford lake cottage kitchen renovation that I photographed for Rivershores Hardwood Flooring and Cabinetry!
Some shots of the newly completed Ransom District Library in Plainwell by TowerPinkster Architects!
Smart, simple design in South Haven by Kristine Kay Interiors—I wouldn’t expect anything less from them!
Pretty thrilled to have my photo on the cover of American Farmhouse Style! I’ve done a couple cover images prior with Grand Rapids Magazine, but this is the first time for me on a national magazine. The cover story features the home of Carey Johnson (@careyscountrygarden on Instagram). I shot this in LeRoy, Michigan, in May 2020 and didn’t know I got the cover until late February this year when I received a surprise yellow envelope in the mail. Since it’d been so long since the shoot, I forgot to even be expecting this issue. So my heart really skipped a beat when I saw what it was and that my shot was chosen for the cover! The editor mentioned this particular shot might be a good cover option, so I made sure to put some extra time on site making sure things were framed and staged just right. It was worth it!
Shoots with Kristine Kay Interiors are always a breeze—great shots are just ripe for the picking!
When Kelle Contine Interior Design asked me to fly south to Columbia, South Carolina, in the dead of January to photograph their student housing project, The Rowan, it was a no-brainer for me! In fact, the last time I flew was in 2019 to the same city to photograph another one of their projects there. It was kind of a nightmare logistically. Somehow, a checked bag of mine got held up, and I missed a connecting flight. So I ended up snagging a way overpriced rental car and sped from Charlotte, NC, all the way down to Columbia to complete my journey. A shoot is stressful enough, let alone when it’s preceded by hours of unexpected travel chaos. It’s one of those incidents in life you look back on and feel so bad for your poor former self! Anyway, I somehow made it to the shoot and eked out a halfway decent photo shoot in the end. Now when this year’s photo shoot came up, it was my chance to do it right. I flew in the day before so that any potential snafus had plenty of time to get ironed out. Thankfully, I had none, and I was able to be extra fresh for the photo shoot and redeem myself!
I can happily call a photo shoot a success if I eke out at least one shot I deem good enough to add to my website. Otherwise, I leave the shoot a tad unfulfilled. Luckily, I found that portfolio-worthy shot at this shoot last month with Kristine Kay Interiors in West Olive—thanks to Kristine and her team’s staging skills that turned an empty slate of brand-new construction into a tastefully lived-in home for the day!
