Formerly known as the Center Court Building and originally designed in 1927 by renowned Oregon architect, A.E. Doyle, the newly renovated and renamed Broadway Commerce Center in downtown Eugene, OR, now has Pivot Architecture as their first tenant. I was privileged to photograph their beautiful new office space for them just prior to the holiday season. The green wood panels shown in this picture, and which also surround the rest of the sides of the office, is a digital rendering of the Willamette Valley and was carved into recycled wood from Oregon.

Holophane LED manufactures commercial lighting systems. They hired me over the summer of 2011 to photograph the parking lot lights that were supplied to the Jones Farm Campus of Intel in Hillsboro, OR. In order to photograph the lights properly, they must be photographed from above, or at about the same level as the light source. If they’re photographed from below, you can get unappealing looking “flare bombs” coming off the lights and into the lens of the camera. Photographing from them above also allows a potential client to see how the light is dispersed, how much surface area is covered, and the color of the light.  So, in order to achieve all this, I had to rent a 26′ scissor lift to get me up that high. That night was particularly challenging because it was not only windy, but at almost full height, any movement by me made the whole platform shake. So, between the wind and my movements, I had to wait several minutes sometimes before each exposure until the platform stopped shaking. Earlier in the evening while I was waiting for the light to change a bit, I looked in the opposite direction that my camera was facing and saw this half moon and a perfectly clear sky as a backdrop to few light posts in another parking lot. I wasn’t focusing on that lot but it turned out to be one their favorite pictures from the shoot, and mine!

The Vancouver Public Library is a beautiful new building in downtown Vancouver, WA. Completed in the summer of 2011, I was hired by Livers-Bronze, the company that made the handrails of the staircase to photograph the space. Obviously with a specific focus on the staircase and the handrails. I had to shoot into the night in order to highlight the lighting underneath the handrails.

This is part of a large home in the West Hills of Portland, OR that I photographed for Realty Trust City over the summer. It took almost the better part of 3 days to shoot this house, as we were challenged a bit by weather conditions on the first day, and then just waiting for the right light to fill every room and to light all the different exterior angles of the home.

Shortly after I returned from my trip to Cuba, almost immediately, actually, I had to fly down to Los Angeles to photograph the exterior of the Family and Consumer Studies Building at the Los Angeles Mission College in Sylmar, CA, about a half hour outside of Los Angeles. Of interest was the terra cotta lattice work that surrounds the building. A product of Shildan, Inc., they are the same company that manufactured the tera cotta tiles that were used for the Mercy Corps Building here in Portland, OR. I made this picture by using a ladder to get myself up on a cement ledge that would get me behind the lattice screen. This shoot represented my last day of 70°+ weather before I headed back to what would be the beginning of winter in Portland

I was greeted by a gorgeous full moon on my first night at Maya Tulum in Mexico. After having spent 9 days mostly being visually, and mentally stimulated by the hustle and bustle of of Havana, Cuba, it was a pleasant change to arrive at such a peaceful place. The moon lit up the whole beach!

Cuba has been on my radar as a place I’ve been wanting to travel to and photograph for well over a decade. I finally got the opportunity to go there legally just this past November. As I learned, it’s not illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba, it’s illegal to go there and spend money. That’s why one needs a license from the US Treasury Dept. to travel there…legally. I made this picture one afternoon while walking through the neighborhood of Havana Centro, a grittier section of Havana just outside of Havana Vieja (Old Havana). Sensory overload doesn’t even begin to describe the experience of walking through the streets of Havana. The feeling that you’re visiting a place that’s trapped in a time warp, is palpable. For more pictures of my trip to Cuba please visit this page.

Halloween night Cancun, Mexico…the night before I was catching a flight to Havana, Cuba. There had been a torrential downpour most of the afternoon but the sky cleared up enough in the evening to just around the neighborhood I was in for a bit and make some pictures. This was the south side of the hotel/hostel I was spending the night in. It actually is a bit nicer, and less spooky than the picture makes it out to be.

Another one of my background images that was used for a Mercedes campaign. Actually, several were used but this is the only one where I was able to see how it was used. Thank you CGIB! The image was shot in a new condo development along the waterfront in Portland, OR.

Al’s Den is a music venue in the basement of the McMenamin’s Crystal Hotel. The historic building in downtown Portland underwent a complete renovation by Ankrom Moisan Architects 2010. I was hired by them to photograph the hotel late in the summer of 2011. The presence of the hotel is a great addition to the ever improving neighborhood.