Our client, Columbia Hospitality, assigned us the task of photographing the newly updated hotel and restaurant at the revered and historic Marcus Whitman Hotel in Walla Walla, Washington. We had previously photographed the Tu Tu Tun Lodge in Gold Beach, Oregon for Columbia Hospitality.

We photographed the painstakingly-restored lobby interiors over 2 days in the Winter and returned to capture the restaurant spaces and menu items in the early Spring of 24.

Over the years, John and I have found quite a niche, shooting for smaller, independent hotels. This happened naturally for us—we love to travel and our travel experience helps us understand the visual cues of great hospitality. It also helps that we share an aesthetic and have the same visual vocabulary. Our superpower when working together is that we can absorb the feeling of a hotel or a restaurant—and then articulate that feeling in our photos.

Our footprint on site is small and nimble—it helps that between us we’re creative director, photographer, assistant, and producer all in one. John is the rare photographer who can shoot interiors, people and food with equal skill and fitness.

At the end of a gig we ask ourselves, “Do the photos make us want to go there?” If the answer is “yes”, then we feel we’ve done our job.