San Francisco design firm Sköna was already familiar with the beautiful work of photography duo Nat & Cody Gantz, and sought them out to capture the style, structure, and life that make up San Francisco’s Ferry Building. The Ferry Building, originally purposed solely as a building used to dock ferries traveling throughout the San Francisco Bay, is now home to San Fran’s most famous farmer’s market. Sköna was looking to get some beautiful and tasteful photography that would bring this vibrant marketplace to life, and they couldn’t have been happier with bringing Nat & Cody to the team.
The Ferry Building Marketplace has acted not only as a historic landmark of the city, but as a cultural connecting point for San Francisco with the Bay area. The building had gone through a slight decline in patronage leading up to the millenium, but with the addition of its farmer’s market, along with the dedication of the landmark’s managers over the years, the site has been restored to its full grandeur. The farmer’s market includes the best of independent farmers, artisan producers, and local wine-sellers from all over the San Francisco area. Nat & Cody were asked to document every detail, representing the culmination of this renaissance, to be featured throughout The Ferry Building’s fresh website redesign by Sköna.
Initially, the duo was set to capture images of the exterior and interior to give a sense of what it’s like to visit the location. However, the project was expanded to also include photos of each merchant showing their products, the individual vendor locations, and employee environmental portraits. Nat and Cody were excited for the challenge.
It’s difficult to showcase something as broad as the Ferry Building, with so many shops and visitors, with a consistent look. We chose a to use a minimal amount of gear and an editorial style to give a ‘person-eye’ view of what it’s like to visit the Ferry Building.
The team was strategic in the timing of their shoot, evaluating which days would have lower foot traffic to avoid large crowd interruptions. The Ferry Building crew did an amazing job coordinating the production, and everyone was able to successfully meet deadlines and reach the detailed goals of the series. Getting full access to the building’s multiple levels, as well as access to a rooftop across the Embarcadero allowed the team to get the perspectives (including a wide exterior image of the building) they needed to make the series come together as a whole.
This was a dream job in so many ways. The client was amazing at facilitating anything we needed, and trusted us to take the vision into reality. The design team did an excellent job directing what they needed on their end to make the project a success, and of course, the opportunity to photograph a city landmark was incredible.
Sköna has put Nat & Cody’s images to use all across the Ferry Building’s website, giving them exactly the redesign they envisioned.
To see more of Nat & Cody’s photography, visit natandcody.com.