Pristereo

It started a bit like those old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials: “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” “You got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” Only in this case, it was a dim early morning on the Oakland Airport parking shuttle. Someone asked the usual question: “What do you do?” “I’m an architect.” “I’m an architectural photographer.” That four-minute ride was the start of a lasting friendship and an ongoing working relationship with Zach Meade, founder of Pristereo in San Rafael.

Our first project together was “just” a hall bathroom—a remodel that probably cost about as much as my first house, complete with a steam shower and a fully gutted, reimagined interior. From there, the work kept growing. We’ve crisscrossed California—San Luis Obispo, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Laguna Beach, Davis, and all around the Bay Area—documenting Zach’s projects as they’ve become more ambitious. Most recently, we drove back to Davis to see him win his first AIA award.

Every shoot, often spanning two days, is a true collaboration: fussing over each composition, deciding what tells the story, and what distractions to remove (Zach’s “less is more” aesthetic is real). For me, it’s been just as rewarding to watch his architecture evolve as it has been to refine my own approach in response—how I use light (turkey bags over strobes outside on the rainy day = sun streaming in the kitchen windows), how I frame spaces, and how I work side by side with a client who cares about the details as much as I do. Six years in, it’s exciting to imagine what we’ll be looking back on a decade from now.