A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to shoot the new University Hospital’s Ahuja Medical Center outside of Cleveland.  This thing is a beauty.  I’ll post more shots and details about the hospital but I thought I’d try to sneak in a blog post prior to boarding my flight back home after a week of shooting on the east coast and in the south.  Enjoy!

So there is some good news and some bad news.  The bad news is that I’m going to have to cut back on the gallery posts for the next few months.  To replace them I’ll be sharing more images that are embedded in to the blog posts.  The good news is that my site and the infrastructure it’s built on is being rebuilt and will soon offer limitless galleries and also will be flash free so you can have the same great desktop experience on your mobile device via crafty HTML 5 coding.

Lots of great stuff coming up but I wanted to fill you all in on what the gallery posts have been a little lean these days.

Enough about how much I love the desert climate, enjoy the images of the new facility.

This shot comes from last year’s shoot at Las Vegas’s City Center project.  You can check out more shots from that shoot here.  Enjoy.

In 2009/2010 I spent quite a bit of time photographing the new stadium.  You can read all about the shoot here on the blog 1,2,3.  As you all have heard by now, this things a real monster.  I’m not even going to begin to go through the facts and figures about how big it is because I’m sure you’ve heard them all.  So instead I thought I’d share some of my favorite shots as well as a link to the gallery that has all the images from the shoot.  Enjoy

The crazy part about Capella Pedregal was the site.  The developer and the design team realized there was an incredible stretch of beach that would be perfect for their property, there was just one problem, a mountain.  Yep, you read that correct, there was a mountain that was hiding this stunning strip of beach close to downtown Cabo.  The solution involved a very long and painstaking process of drilling out a hole through the mountain so you could drive through to the other side.  Their efforts were rewarded though by a striking piece of property to situate their resort on.

The final shots aren’t quite ready yet but I thought you all would enjoy a teaser.

Since the project isn’t finished we are staying up the mountain at the developer’s mansion that overlooks the site.  Needless to say life is good when you have 360 degree views of the ocean and a full staff cooking you meals.

While I don’t have images of the project to share yet, I thought you all would enjoy some quick iphone shots from the grounds.  Enjoy

Enjoy the new summer images from the shoot and if you’ve got a spare $68 million dollars laying around it can be yours (just make sure you mention my name as I’d love to get a taste of that commission!)

Looking like it was plucked out of the Swiss Alps, the new Four Seasons Vail is stunning.  Situated in downtown Vail there’s lost to walk to as well as an amazing mountain just waiting to be conquered.  Enjoy the shots from the shoot.  Much more to come later this spring as this was a pre-opening shoot.

While many people aren’t familiar with the Montage brand of resorts, you soon will be.  I’ve had the pleasure of shooting their resort in Laguna Beach as well as Beverly Hills.  Marketed as a hyper luxury resort (I’m currently working on trying to copyright that phase!) the Montage properties do not disspoint.  I would put them up against a Four Season or Ritz Carlton any day of the week.  On top of being visually stunning, the service at Montage properties are incredible, you really get the feeling that their employee’s sole purpose in life is to make you happy.

And speaking of their employees, let me first say that this shoot would not of been possible without the incredible effort and cooperation from the Montage Deer Valley staff.  To get ready for the onslaught of press releases and publications, it’s often necessary to shoot a project prior to being opened.

Anyone who has been involved with even a small residential project knows that the weeks/days/hours leading up to the opening or completion of a project is quite a mess and sometimes can lead you to believe you are in fact months away from being done and not hours.  With over 1200 people on site each day to wrap up the resort in the final week of construction, getting a clear shot can be quite a challenge.  Needless to say there were very long days and lots of post production.

Even with morning temperatures reading 5 below zero, there’s not much that will stop me from hiking up closed roads to get the shot.  Good news though, the shot from that mountain journey is being selected as Montage’s new signature shot for the resort which I couldn’t be more honored by.  So without further adieu, I give you the new Montage Deer Valley!

I know you’re thinking, “Hey Blake, 70 projects my ass, you only posted like 5 of them” and my response is, I’m sorry and I was a little busy traveling like crazy and making tons of stunning images.  Good news is 2011 will be just as exciting and I’m really going to try hard to get back in to the blogging habit.  I’m already working on several blog posts I hope to share in the coming days and weeks.  Until then, happy new year and enjoy this night shot from Aspen!

Now traditionally when you think of Des Moines (sorry to my Des Moines readers out there) you don’t think of sleek glassy buildings, but Aviva really wanted something special so they called up some of my talented friends at HKS.  In doing so they have an amazing building that both caters to their employees but also the environment.

With great employee perks like free espresso machines on all floors, collaborative work environments, outdoor fire pits, and even an outdoor amphitheater that looks out over several ponds on property, this projects got something for everyone.

Enjoy the images in the gallery and much thanks to the entire team who helped put this shoot together.

Several very early mornings (3am wake up calls) and some very late nights shooting (1am) later, we came away with some great images of this project not to mention a few choice run ins with some wild turkeys.

Part of the challenge of shooting spaces that often gets overlooked is how much labor goes in to making everything appear to be pristine and straight out of a Herman Miller catalogue.  The unfortunate reality is that when a building has been occupied, people do what people do best, and that is to settle in and decorate their cubicles with an onslaught of trinkets, magnets, pictures, half eaten food items, stuffed animals, pedants from their alma mater, and general workplace mayhem.  This means lots of clean up.  In doing so, each desk gets photographed in it’s current state, then completely taken apart trinket by trinket, then staged, shot, and then then painstaking put back to it’s previous glory.

Even though it’s a lot of work (and 99% of the time overlooked and never appreciated unless you were there on set) it’s really amazing to see how a space can be transformed by a little house cleaning and staging.  Enjoy the behind the scenes shots as well as the gallery of finished imagery here.

You can read more about the great shoot we had this winter here 1,2,3,4.  I’m always amazed by how different mountain properties look and feel when shooting both winter and summer versions of them.  While stunning vistas of snow capped mountians are great, I’ve always felt that during the winter some of the finer details of a property get overlooked or hidden.

One of these details is a great stream that passes through the property.  During the winter the stream is completely covered up, just like so much of the great landscaping that has been done at this property.  Either way the project is sensational.  I’ll let you be the judge on what’s better, summer or winter.

Enjoy the first teaser shot and be looking out for more imagery in the future on this one.

This week I bring you the resort in which I first realized outdoor showers were the way of the future (read here).  Situated on an incredible piece of land near Pinnacle Peak outside of Phoenix, the resort fully embraces the outdoors.  From it’s great bungalow style layout, to it’s winding paths through the abundance of natural flora (the cacti were a challenge to work around).

Enjoy the image of the week and be sure to check out the full gallery of shots here.

I had the great pleasure of shooting this property on several occasions.  One of the great things about shooting a property like this is you get to stay at the ranch.  There is nothing more intimate than spending a weekend living in the project you are shooting.  Detail after lovely detail emerge as each hour passes.  The craftsmanship in the woodwork, ironwork, and stonework are simply breathtaking.

Unfortunately, unlike the resorts that I shoot, this is not a project that is open for everyone to experience in the flesh.  So until you get buddy buddy with Nunzio and get a chance to see it in person, enjoy these images of the project.  Don’t forget to go out and support the good folks at Cowboys and Indians by buying a copy of July’s issue (get it here).  You can also check and an extensive gallery from the shoot here.  Enjoy

I’ve decided to create a new category of post for this exact purpose.  Behold the image of the week.  Each week I will post a new image, sometimes a couple images and sometimes just one shot.  Some of these will be new projects that I’m working on andsome will be older favorites of mine that most of you have never seen.

Let’s start off with a high school I shot a few weeks ago in North Richland Hills Texas for HKS.  With most K-12 projects there are extreme budget limitations along with really short construction timelines.  The North Richland Hills project tackled both with grace and yielded some really nice imagery as well as just wrapping up their first year in the new building.

Would love your feedback on when during the week that you’d like to see the new posts?  First thing Monday morning, maybe a little midweek hump day surprise?  Would love your feedback, either post a comment or shoot me an email at blake.marvin@gmail.com.

Enjoy the images and look forward to the weekly updates!

Realizing you’ve flown around the circumference of the earth 40.22 times is very exciting.  Unfortunately the excitement sometimes is overtaken by the feelings you get when you realize how many many important and not so important events in your life you’ve missed while orbiting the globe (read: birthday’s, births, anniversaries, dinners with friends, or just a nice glass of wine at home with your wife and dogs).

So with that being said let me thank all of those people close to me who have embraced my travel schedule and allowed me the room to grow as a photographer, a husband, a friend, a person, and a traveler while on the road.  I couldn’t of done it with your support.  So as I board another plane tomorrow heading home, here’s to a million more miles.

So where should I start?

We could start off by saying I’ve been real busy shooting, or we could talk about the fact that my lovely and super talented wife is now Dr Wife, or we could talk about how when in town I now look out my window and see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.  Any of these would be a good starting point so here we go.

Yep, I’ve been shooting, quite a bit I must add.  Detroit, Westlake, Las Vegas, Flower Mound, North Richland Hills, Omaha, Palmdale, Los Angeles, Temecula, etc, etc..  So I promise I haven’t put the camera down and left for a career in the circus.

So if I’ve been shooting so much how come no new blog posts?  We that leads me to my 2nd and 3rd thing going on in my life.  Just this last week my wife graduated medschool.  So after 4 years of undergrad, 2 years of post bacheloreatte work, and 4 long years at medschool, she is now Dr Wife and I couldn’t be more proud of her.  Her thirst for knowlege, compassion towards her patients, and her insane work ethic humble me on a daily basis.

So what’s this I say about the Pacific Ocean you ask?  Well as those closest to me know, my wife and I have relocated to San Francisco for her residency at UCSF.  As you can imagine moving from Texas to San Francisco takes quite a bit of time, planning, and lots of sweat (hence the absence of blog posts these days).  Now that the boxes are unpacked and the dogs have fully mastered the doggie door it’s on!

It’s going to be a hell of a summer with shoots planned each weak all around the country for the next several months.  So stay tuned for more updates and ramblings from the road.

Man it feels good to get that off my chest.  It’s been killing me not being able to share all of this with you all.  So with all of that being said, enjoy this shot of the pacific near our house.

It was also great to see the new imagery utilized all through out their site to help prospective guests get a feel for the truly magical destination that is Las Ventanas.  Last year was a year of countless numbers of resort shoots but my shoot and experiences at Las Ventanas ranks as my most memorable one.

It’s truly an honor to help Rosewood Hotels share this amazing resort with the rest of the world.  So stop by their site, or better yet, book the next flight to Cabo San Lucas and say hello to Lionel and his amazing staff at the resort.

Billed as a city within a city, the new MGM CityCenter is just a beast.  Comprised of multiple hotel towers, residential towers, extensive retail, and how can we not mention the endless amounts of casino space.  Just as extensive as number of buildings in this project are the number of world class architects that were commissioned.  The credits read as a who’s who list of architecture: Helmut Jahn, Rafael Viñoly, Fosters + Partners, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Pelli Clarke Pelli, Daniel Libeskind, the Rockwell Group, and Gensler.

As always, enjoy the new imagery and check back for more updates from photo shoots as well as the finished imagery.

Enough rambling, let’s get back to the pretty pictures!  Aspen Valley Ranch, what can I say about you that I haven’t already.  Maybe I could talk about what it’s like to wake up to a valley of untouched snow looking out on the ski mountains of Aspen.  Or I could talk about sharing wine with new friends talking about design, mountain living, travel, and even a couple dirty jokes (for the first time I wasn’t the one behind them).  All of these are great anecdotesbut I think spending a few minutes with the images will give you all a feel for the warmth, grand views, and all around stunning beauty of the project.  Enjoy the gallery.