CASE STUDY - OLYMPIA DUMBO
Olympia DUMBO is a luxury residential tower in one of Brooklyn's most architecturally significant neighborhoods, developed by Fortis Property Group and marketed by Douglas Elliman. When the marketing team reached out, the building was still in the final stages of completion — amenity spaces were being finished, model units were being prepared, and the sales launch was on the horizon.
This is the kind of project I love most: getting involved early, understanding the full scope of what's being built, and building a visual library that carries a development from pre-launch marketing all the way through to editorial coverage and media licensing.
The Approach
Large-scale new development photography isn't a single shoot — it's an ongoing creative partnership. At Olympia, the work unfolded across multiple phases over roughly two years, each with its own objectives, spaces, and deliverables.
Before any camera was raised, I was part of the planning conversations. Shot lists were developed collaboratively with the marketing team, floor plans were reviewed in advance, and we held dedicated prep calls to align on priorities, timing, and creative direction for each phase. That level of pre-production is what keeps a complex, multi-phase project on track and ensures nothing gets missed.
Creative Direction & Styling
A key element of what made this project successful was the collaboration with an interior styling team, led by Samantha Deitch of Deitch + Pham. Samantha and her team were engaged as the styling leads across all phases — amenities, model units, and the penthouse — and were present as active collaborators from the earliest planning stages, included in our prep calls alongside the Douglas Elliman marketing team.
The creative process was genuinely collaborative. We made decisions together about prop choices, color palettes, and how to use natural and evening light to bring out the best in each space. For the outdoor amenity areas, we identified that late-day light gave the rooftop and pool areas a warmth that connected the architecture to the Brooklyn skyline. For the interiors, the focus was on restraint — clean styling, neutral tones, and compositions that let the materiality and craftsmanship of the building speak for itself.
That photographer-stylist partnership is what separates polished new development photography from standard real estate imagery.
Phase 1 — Exterior & Lobby
The first phase focused on establishing the building's identity from the outside in — capturing Olympia's presence in the DUMBO skyline from multiple vantage points, at multiple times of day, and introducing the lobby as the first interior chapter of the story.
For the exterior work, I scouted locations across DUMBO, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the East River waterfront to find angles that showed not just the building, but its relationship to the neighborhood and the city around it. Timing was everything — certain shots required early morning light, others called for the blue hour, and some worked best as aerial drone captures at dusk when the building's warm interior glow could be balanced against the fading sky.
The lobby required a different approach altogether. The commissioned art installation — hundreds of hand-painted suspended discs forming a sweeping sculptural cloud above the reception desk — demanded careful lighting decisions to render both the installation's detail and the surrounding space with equal weight.
The tower rises above the surrounding DUMBO neighborhood at dawn, with the BQE and Brooklyn skyline spread out behind it. The warm glow of lit interiors against the fading sunrise sky makes the building feel alive and inhabited.
Marketing value: This is a hero establishing shot — it communicates scale, presence, and the building's dominant position in the neighborhood. Perfect for campaign launches, billboards, and press.
Photographed from across the East River at blue hour, the tower stands tall amid the glowing DUMBO waterfront, with the historic Empire Stores and Jane's Carousel pavilion in the foreground.
Marketing value: The most editorial of the exterior shots — this positions Olympia as part of DUMBO's cultural and architectural fabric. Ideal for lifestyle press and brand-level storytelling.
An elevated shot showing the building's curved facade up close, with the Manhattan Bridge looming just behind it and the East River visible. The warm interior lighting through the windows adds depth and warmth.
Marketing value: Shows proximity to the bridge in a dramatic, cinematic way — reinforces the unparalleled views available from the residences without going inside.
Shot from street level in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the tower rises in the right frame alongside the historic Clocktower building, with the Brooklyn Bridge and Lower Manhattan skyline — including One World Trade Center — visible to the left. Fall foliage fills the foreground.
Marketing value: This shot sells the neighborhood as much as the building. It answers the buyer's question of "what is living here actually like?" in a single image.
The full lobby is shown — a large commissioned art installation by Jacob Hashimoto called "Behind the Light of the Sun,” made of hundreds of hand-painted suspended discs, floats above the reception desk, which is clad in rich red-toned wood. The space is calm, refined, and hotel-like.
Marketing value: The lobby is the first impression every resident and guest has of the building. These shots immediately communicate that Olympia is not a typical residential tower — it's a curated, art-forward building with boutique hotel sensibility.
Photographed from outside at night, the lobby glows warmly through the full-height glazed facade, the art installation visible within. The reflective glass, precise steel framing, and soft interior light create a quietly cinematic image.
Marketing value: Night exterior shots of lit lobbies are among the most powerful tools in luxury residential marketing — they create aspiration. This image works perfectly as a closing image in a campaign or brochure.
Phase 2 — Amenities Photography
With the building's amenity floors ready, it was time to bring them to life visually. This phase was one of the most creatively involved of the entire project — and one I'm most proud of. The scope was broad: outdoor pool and cabanas, rooftop tennis court, BBQ terrace, indoor lap pool, spa, sauna, steam room, juice bar, club lounge, and more. Getting all of that to sing in a single cohesive set required more than just showing up with a camera.
For this phase, I partnered closely with Samantha Deitch and her team at Deitch + Pham, who came on as creative director and stylist. Sam and I worked together from the planning stage — talking through each space, how it should feel, what story it needed to tell, and how styling could elevate the architecture rather than compete with it. On shoot days, her team activated every space: sourcing and placing props, setting tables, styling the pool deck with floats and loungers, staging the sauna and steam room with towels and accessories, and making the juice bar feel genuinely used and alive. That collaboration made a tangible difference in the final images — the spaces don't just look designed, they look inhabited.
A straight-on dusk composition of the building's main entrance, designed to let the full scale of the concrete columns and double-height glazing speak for themselves. One creative decision that significantly elevated this shot was to place a receptionist at the desk. Having a receptionist in the center of the shot does something a purely architectural shot cannot: it communicates the building's level of service and signals to any prospective buyer that this is a fully staffed, secure, and welcoming place to call home.
Marketing value: Grand architecture alone doesn't convey luxury living — the human element does. A staffed reception desk in the frame confirms that this is a building where residents are genuinely looked after.
Olympia offers something genuinely rare in DUMBO — a private driveway leading directly to an underground garage, giving residents a seamless, hotel-caliber arrival experience in the heart of one of Brooklyn's most densely populated neighborhoods. The composition was built around that idea: the warm glow of the wood-clad entrance canopy, the private drive receding into the frame, and a car placed deliberately in the foreground to activate the scene and tell the full story. The car wasn't incidental — it was a conscious creative decision to show the space in use and make the lifestyle it represents feel immediate and real.
Marketing value: In a dense urban neighborhood, a private garage and dedicated driveway is a genuine differentiator. This image communicates that without a word of copy.
One of the most creatively enjoyable setups of the entire phase. Olympia's rooftop playground is built around a full-scale shipwreck structure — complete with masts, rope bridges, a slide, cannons, and wooden barrels — and the challenge was capturing it in a way that felt as magical as it actually is. To bring the space to life, the team set up a bubble machine that filled the entire frame with hundreds of floating soap bubbles catching the late afternoon light. Colorful props — cones, toy vehicles, backpack and tennis rockets — were scattered across the blue rubber play surface to add energy and a sense of active play. The building's glass facade rises behind the structure, grounding what could otherwise feel fantastical in the very real luxury context of the building it belongs to.
Marketing value: Family amenities are often an afterthought in luxury residential marketing. This image makes them a selling point. It communicates that Olympia was designed with children's experiences in mind at the same level of intention and quality as everything else in the building — and it does so in a way that is joyful, surprising, and completely unforgettable.
The outdoor pool rooftop demanded a thoughtful creative approach from the team. We styled the deck with pool floats, loose towels, white padded loungers, and small personal touches — sunglasses, a camera, a vase of yellow sunflowers placed on a lounger — details that make the space feel genuinely occupied and alive rather than pristine and untouched. We shot in full daylight to render the turquoise water as vividly as possible, with the Manhattan Bridge and Lower Manhattan spanning the entire background. The images move between joyful and intimate, vibrant and quietly personal — covering the full emotional range of what it actually feels like to spend an afternoon on this rooftop.
Marketing value: The styling and timing work together to give prospective buyers multiple ways to picture themselves here — and that range is what turns an amenity into a lifestyle.
A rooftop tennis court with the Lower Manhattan skyline as a backdrop is one of the building's most compelling differentiators, and the team approached it with the same level of creative intention given to every other space in this project. We coordinated with a local tennis club and invited players to participate in the shoot, bringing the court to life with genuine energy and movement. We styled every court-side detail — the sports bags, the rackets, the accessories placed along the sideline — to feel considered and real. We shot from different distances and angles to build a set that captures both the intimacy of the game and the full scale of the court against the city behind it. The result is a set of images that feel spontaneous — which is precisely what required the most planning to achieve.
Marketing value: The combination of players in motion, Sam's careful styling on the court-side details, and that skyline creates images that work equally well for press, advertising, and digital — and communicate one of the building's most unique amenities in the most compelling way possible.
The outdoor dining and BBQ terrace was timed deliberately for early evening — that specific window just before dinner when the light turns warm and golden and the city begins to glow. The creative intent was to place a prospective buyer inside a very specific and believable moment: cooking for the family, hosting a dinner party for guests, watching the sun drop behind the Manhattan Bridge with downtown Manhattan glowing across the water. Sam's team styled every detail of the setup — the grill station, the dining table, the food and drinks — to feel like an actual dinner in progress rather than a staged vignette. We shot from different distances to build a set that moves from the intimate details of the kitchen setup to the full sweep of the terrace with the skyline stretching behind it, giving the space both warmth and grandeur in equal measure.
Marketing value: Lifestyle imagery works best when it puts the buyer inside a specific, believable moment. This set does exactly that — communicating not just that the terrace exists, but exactly how and when and with whom you would use it.
The dry sauna and steam room were approached as a cohesive set, each one requiring its own creative consideration but both connected by the same underlying intention: to show that the building's commitment to resident wellbeing is genuine, considered, and spa-grade in its execution. Stylist’s team calibrated the styling for each space with deliberate restraint — a folded towel and hanging robe in the steam room, a few carefully placed accessories on the sauna bench — trusting the architecture and materiality to carry the image rather than competing with it. Together the set communicates a complete and considered approach to health and restoration built into the fabric of daily life at Olympia.
Marketing value: Wellness amenities at this level need to be shown with the same precision and intention that went into designing them. This set positions Olympia not just as a place to live, but as a building that actively supports how its residents feel every day.
The indoor lap pool and juice bar were treated as connected chapters of the same wellness story — spaces that together communicate a complete and uncompromising approach to how residents take care of themselves within the building. For the pool, we chose the time of day carefully to maximize natural light through the full-height windows, and the rippling reflections that played across the white walls became the defining visual element of the set — something the team couldn't have fully planned for but recognized immediately as the detail that made the images. Stylist’s team laid out the towels, staged the loungers, and stocked the shelving unit, and everything converged in a way that felt both precisely designed and completely natural. For the juice bar, the creative conversation centered on the difference between a stocked amenity and a genuinely curated wellness space — fresh produce, a pineapple, greens, and juice bottles arranged to feel as though someone thoughtfully prepared it that morning rather than set it for a photograph.
Marketing value: These spaces together tell a story about a building that has thought carefully about every dimension of resident health and daily ritual — from the lap pool to what you drink after. That level of intention is exactly what buyers at this price point are looking for.
The outdoor cabana lounge was a space where our creative direction was particularly visible in the final images. The team understood that this kind of intimate outdoor setting can easily read as generic without the right eye — and approached it with the same level of intention given to every other space in the project. The combination of cream upholstery layered with earthy accent pillows, the bold red coffee table, the dark horizontal wood slat screens, and the lush surrounding planting came together to create something that reads far more like a boutique hotel terrace than a shared amenity deck.
Marketing value: Private outdoor retreat within a shared residential building is a concept that requires the right imagery to land convincingly. This set makes it feel entirely real — and entirely desirable.
The residents' lounge and guest waiting area required a composition that communicated both the scale of the space and the quality of its design without overstating either.Deep navy lounge seating lines one side, warm wood paneling runs the full length of the walls and natural light arrives through a large window at the far end bringing a glimpse of greenery with it. The corridor framing was a deliberate compositional choice, emphasizing the depth and length of the space and lending it a quality of quiet, understated luxury that feels entirely appropriate for a building of this caliber.
Marketing value: A well-designed guest waiting area signals to buyers that the building has considered every touchpoint of the resident experience — including how their visitors are received. This image communicates that without needing to explain it.