lara@swimmerphoto.com
206.284.5213

Lara Swimmer shoots on assignment for architecture and design firms around the globe. With a background in documentary film, her approach to architectural photography starts with what she considers the "found object," real moments in the life of a room, space, streetscape, or building. Then working with natural and available light to interpret the scene, she works on instinct and emotion, to depict the space as she experiences it. By incorporating human or animal elements, her images are imbued with a sense of life, movement, scale, and humanity. 

Her work has been featured in publications including Architect, Architectural Record, The New York Times, Dwell, Gray, Wallpaper*, LUXE, Metropolis, Residential Architect, Seattle Magazine, and Texas Architect, among others. Lara’s images have been included in national and international exhibits, as well as in numerous architecture and design books. She has also contributed to and authored over five books with publisher Documentary Media, most notably, PROCESS: Seattle Central Library, INSPIRED: Churches of Seattle, and now in the works from Artifice Press, READING ROOM, New and Reimagined Libraries of the American West, 2023. 

Lara was featured in the European Cultural Centre's 6th international TIME SPACE EXISTENCE exhibition at the 2023 Architecture Biennale in Venice. Sponsored by the Embassy of the UAE in the US, Lara was invited by the Meridian International Center to take part in an architecture delegation to the UAE in 2019. In 2014, she was included in the prestigious show, Beyond the Assignment,
with the Julius Shulman Institute at the WUHO Gallery in Hollywood. Lara was listed in ArchDaily’s international "12 Women in Architecture Photography"’ in 2018, and made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects in 2005. 

A Los Angeles native who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, Lara is now based in Seattle. She was a student of film theory and media at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School in Philadelphia, and at the Sorbonne's Center for Film and Critical Studies in Paris. Lara holds degrees in both Film & Media Studies and French Literature.

SELECTED CLIENTS

Architecture / Design

A&E Design        atelierjones                          Building Works
Graham Baba Architects
Heliotrope Architects
Hacker                          Hewitt                             HGA                                Holst                                
Integrus
Lake Flato                          Lever
LMN Architects
Miller Hull Partnership Mithun
MSR Design
NBBJ                    
Olson Kundig      Perkins+Will                          Schemata                              Signal R+D
SKB Architects                    Skylab                        Studios   
Weinstein AU        Workshop AD                        ZGF

Arts

4 Culture
Documentary Books
MoPOP
MOHAI
Seattle Art Museum            San Francisco MoMA
Seattle Symphony                    Traver Gallery

Build|Develop

Blanton Turner              Dovetail                              Gerdin Edlin | Green Cities
Krekow Jennings
Lease Crutcher Lewis            LEICHT USA 
MKA
Schultz Miller                  Sellen
YS Built
Vulcan

 

EXHIBITIONS

ALL EXHIBITIONS

TIME SPACE EXISTENCE - group

2023 - Palazzo Mora, European Cultural Centre at the Venice Architecture Biennale

FOUR BY FOUR - featured

2023 - SoDa ARTS, Seattle

UNION STABLES DOCUMENTATION - solo

2015 - present - Permanant Installation at the historic Union Stables building

BEYOND THE ASSIGNMENT - group

2013 – at Woodbury University Hollywood Gallery & Julius Shulman Institute

CARTASONONIC - solo

2012 – multi-media installation Jack Straw Productions, Seattle

LA VILLE FERTILE - group

2011 – Cite d’Architecture et Patrimoine, Paris

SPIRIT OF FLIGHT - featured

2009 – Seattle-Tacoma Int’l Airport & Museum of Flight, Seattle

PALOUSE PROJECT - solo

2008 – Suyama 3x10 Showroom, Seattle

TOPOGRAPHIES IN BUILT + NATURAL LANDSCAPES - solo

2008 – University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery, Moscow

INNOVATIONS & RENEWAL: SEATTLE & BERLIN - solo

2001 – ATL Phillips Campus Bothell, Solo Exhibition

THE GEHRY EXPERIENCE - solo

2000 – Experience Music Project, Seattle

HENRY BASH, juried group invitational 

1998 – Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (Through 2007)

THE MAKING OF BENAROYA HALL - solo

1998 – Benaroya Hall Information Center, Seattle

MAKING OF THE KEY ARENA - solo

1997 – AIA Seattle, Solo Exhibition

COCA ANNUAL - juried group invitational

1996 – Center On Contemporary Art, Seattle

WORKS IN METAL - solo

1996 – AIA, Seattle

JOURNEYS TO THE EAST - solo

1994 – Lead Gallery, Seattle, Solo Exhibition

CONSTRUCTIONS AND DECONSTRUCTIONS IN THE EAST - solo

1994 – Elliott Bay Books, Seattle

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