The Penthouse at Smith Tower
WHAT IT’S LIKE…
Having lived in Seattle for nearly three years I’d never stepped foot in the Smith Tower prior to my arrival to tour the penthouse. The agent (Moira Holley), stagers, and myself were doing a walkthrough together in preparation for the marketing efforts to come. Immediately upon entering, the warm glow of onyx walls, sheen of brass trim, and wooded tones of Native American heads that line the molding of the lobby are an affirmation of the acclaim the Smith Tower rightfully deserves.
The elevator to the 35th floor is a beautiful piece of history in itself which certainly confirms the adage, that “they sure don’t make em like they used to.” Watching the floors go by through brass gated glass you arrive at the speak-easy for your final ascent to the penthouse.
Climbing the stairs into the unit I immediately take note of a wooden slat wall providing a gentle facade to a small seating area. Reaching the stop of the stairs; taking it all in, there are two recessed triangular windows; iconic reminders of where you are in the building. A second staircase leads to the main living area and behind you a large pivoting door to the singular bedroom of the unit.
The bedroom is large and open. A wooden closet corridor offsets the white of the room and these iconic windows become a real presence as they begin to define some of the architectural beauty around you. Each window has a lipped recess just large enough to be the favored nook of a child.
The penthouse seems to inherently save the best for last. The final set of stairs opens up to an architecturally beautiful space that is both modern and historic with a steepled ceiling near 30ft tall. The exposed foundation of Smith Tower’s steeple is a dramatic textural display brought to life through a well thought out arrangement of up-lights, track lights, and a chandelier unlike anything I’ve come across in my years shooting interiors.
The space is also abundant with natural light. Twelve windows across 360 degrees create a light filled space at all times of day. And while these windows provide amazing panoramas, the beauty of this unit has no dependency upon the quality of view. Standing in the center of the penthouse feels all about the architecture and trips to the windows feel like an intimate affair. It’s ironic that you have unparalleled views of sunset over the waterfront, the shipping yard, down 2nd ave, and rainier but the penthouse doesn’t feel like a “view” unit.
THE PHOTOGRAPHY PROCESS…
The initial scope of the project was to photograph the penthouse both vacant and staged and then to photograph the building itself via helicopter. In its entirety, photographing the Smith Tower took place over 4 days, one for vacancy, two for staged, and one for the helicopter.
Discussing Layout. I am the brains behind this award winning photograph.
Overall, we ended up with a rather diverse representation of the unit. The vacant photos were mostly to be used internally and so the task was relatively simple by comparison. Photographing the unit staged, however, was a whole other story.
Meeting the stagers for our walkthrough was a bit overwhelming. In total there were six of us present, all with our own vision and thoughts of how to bring this space to life. It was an essential piece of the puzzle, however, as I was able to share with the staging team my vision for compositions and a few basic requests to help keep the layout photogenic. When it finally came time to photograph the space, they did an amazing job.
My plan going into the now staged penthouse for our 2nd floor hero images was to shoot three vertical images per composition and stitch them together to create a horizontal image. This space particularly is much taller than it is wide and doesn’t have a ton of working room to begin with. Shooting horizontal wouldn’t provide enough height to show the cross beams above the room which are a defining feature of the space. This strategy, of course, created its own set of challenges.
Here I am setting up one of my lights for an overall shot.
First, and most obvious, I had to do a ton of shooting just to create one final image. Second, lighting the image was a bit of a nightmare. I had to set up lights on one half of the room, photograph it, shift the lens to the center of the room, photograph it, move the lights to the now photographed side of the room, rephotograph the center, shift the lens, and photograph the other half. All in all, each of these 4 or 5 hero shots, took me roughly 30-45 minutes each to photograph, not including editing.
The other big challenge was with the furniture. The stagers had selected primarily black pieces made of a felt-like material, which looked great in person, but in this space were incredibly hard to shoot. I didn’t want the furniture to appear as black holes in the unit and so I had to light them carefully, but due to their material they just eat light as they have no reflective properties. Not to mention, I had to do it all twice.
For our first trip, the weather was overcast and wet, not at all uncommon for the PNW, but we had thought that given the dramatic interior of a Seattle icon, the weather might play into that drama a bit; and it did! Going into the unit under such conditions caused the windows to absolutely glow with this brilliant blue that translated to photo rather well. Sure, you couldn’t see the mountains, but as I had mentioned before, the beauty of the penthouse doesn’t depend on being able to see mountains.
Of course, the beauty doesn’t depend on the view, but when it comes to marketing one of/if not the most coveted listing in Seattle, you’ve gotta show it. Que the return trip. Once we get a clear streak of weather, it’s on to round two.
The second go around was a bit more straight forward than the first. The main goal was showing off views and sunset and so the vast majority of shots tend to be more intimate in nature. Lighting was much easier and I didn’t need to spend anywhere near 45 minutes on one composition, but I did recreate one or two to make sure we had the best of the best. The rest of the penthouse was also photographed on round two.
Then came the fun part, the exterior. It felt important to everyone to photograph the tower from an aerial perspective given that the penthouse itself was like an aerial experience of the city. Contextually an elevated view connects you more to the unit than shots from the ground would. Reese Films was doing the video portion of the project and so we rode in the helicopter together as a two-bird effort.
Trying to get this portion done was a long road plagued with inclement weather and scheduling conflicts. Who would’ve thought predicting the weather more than 48 hours during autumn in Seattle was such a fools errand. By this point we were into the second week of November when we finally got a clear window to go for it. But boy oh boy was it worth the wait.
It’s hard to photograph from a helicopter during sunset. We were doing video as well and so the helicopter is moving at high speeds almost the entire time so using a slow shutter speed is not an option. There’s no such thing as bracketing in those conditions and exposure changes pretty rapidly. There’s about a 10 minute window where the exposure of the city matches the sunset perfectly and you’ve just got to sort of go for it. There’s a bit of spray and pray involved, but you only need a couple winners.
Photographing the penthouse at the Smith Tower may be my most prestigious assignment and the project I’m most proud of at this point in my career. I’m extremely honored to have been chosen for this by my friend, Moira Holley (@moirapresents), and I’ll never forget the experience. A big thanks to everyone involved!