Recent Work: South Falls Tower shot for Walter Parks Architects

I photographed South Falls Tower in Manchester across multiple visits in the fall of 2021, and summer of 2022. It is not hyperbolic to say that the building provides the best views of downtown Richmond - as evidenced in the photo of the pool on the South Falls amenity deck.

South Falls is an extremely unique building. The white precast concrete absorbs natural light like none other - making the building appear to change colors throughout the day.

I’ll leave it to WPA’s Nate Goodenow to describe South Falls further:

“South Falls is the first tower in a planned 3-tower development on the James River in the Manchester Neighborhood. The building sits on a narrow spit of land between the Manchester Canal and the river on the site of abandoned 18th & 19th century paper and cotton mills. Accessible only by a bridge across the canal, the west wing of the building juts out towards the river on a small peninsula. Like no other building in Richmond, the tower provides unprecedented views of the river and Manchester from its apartment units. A panoramic amenity plaza affords breathtaking views of the Falls of the James and the downtown skyline.

The structure is precast concrete with a custom white color and sandblasted texture that exposes a fine granite aggregate. The commercial base and window wall beams are clad in a custom medium bronze metal cladding. The form of the building is inspired by an image of two rectangular hollow tubes colliding together. The building is 14 stories, has 225,000sf of residential apartments, 2,500sf of commercial space. The development has 255 apartment units and 281 parking spaces and was completed in 2021.”

Thank you for taking a look at South Falls Tower. If you’re interested in having me photograph any of your projects please reach out to me to discuss my process.

Case Study: Starbucks Pick Up - Main and Harrison

Starbucks reached out to me this fall to shoot one of their new Pick Up locations on Main and Harrison in Richmond. As an avid coffee drinker and Starbucks consumer this was very exciting.

If you haven’t heard of Starbucks Pick Up it’s described on their site as “a streamlined store experience designed especially for Starbucks® Rewards members who use our app to order ahead and pay”

The design of the Pick Up locations is awesome. The first thing it reminded me of was Mad Men (minus the boozing at 9am).

Check out the final photos!

The very gracious and patient Starbucks crew and I worked hard to get the photos composed and shot in-between guests coming in and out for their coffee.

I’d love to take photos of your new space, or project. Please e-mail if you’re interested in learning more about my process and pricing.

Case Study: St. Joseph's Villa Sarah Dooley Center for Autism

Many of my clients are doing incredible work, not just in terms of design, but also making a huge impact in our communities. Earlier this year I had the chance to work with St. Joseph’s Villa, in Richmond. SJV is a huge campus dedicated to working with children who have “developmental disabilities, diverse learning styles, mental health issues, homelessness and other challenges.”

SJV recently completed their new Sarah Dooley Center for Autism and, along with Odell Architects and Daniel & Co., hired me to photograph the finished product. 

SJV will be using the photos to help support their fundraising efforts. It is very important for them to have high-quality photos that clearly show how well the staff at SJV, and the building itself, support their students.

SJV’s staff and I worked hard to duplicate some of the key renderings.

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This shot was particularly challenging, because it had to be taken from the front doorway - with very little room to spare. It’s a panoramic shot including about 15 different images stitched together. 

One of the biggest challenges for this shoot was coordinating with the staff on “models.” The new building is not open to students yet, so there wasn’t anyone in the building. The SJV staff worked hard to stick to a schedule - based on our scout day and shot list - to have a variety of students come from different buildings at different times to model in most of the photos. 

Most of the students and staff had not seen the space - so, as you can imagine, there was a lot of excitement. 

We had to be patient with the kids, but they had to be even more patient with us! As you can see, they did an awesome job. Thanks so much to the staff at St. Joseph’s Villa!