As a student in photography school I worked for an Atlanta based valet company called Ameripark. Sometimes this involved nothing more than sitting on your backside all night while occasionally parking cars for residents at high-end condos. Other times it involved all out sprinting to get cars as quickly as possible in the heat of summer and cold of winter. Rain or shine. It actually was a fun job, and got me where I was in the best shape of my life I think. Fast forward several years and I am still working for them, but as a vendor now. They were one of the first clients I shot for coming out of photography school, and I have since shot for them a few times. Most recently I went into their headquarters and photographed the company founder and CEO, Chip Patterson.

Chip built the company from the ground up in 1986 and they now manage parking lots across the nation. On top of this, he is apparently a great person to work for — Ameripark was recently named as one of the top companies to work for in Atlanta by The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Their headquarters remind me more of an advertising agency then a valet company due to a few different dogs running around that employees bring to work with them and both a ping pong table and a practice putting green in their break room area. As a location photographer, I have worked in many different office environments and those where it is obvious that the company wants to make their employee’s job as enjoyable as possible stand out to me.

The shots included in this post were taken to give their marketing director a variety of images of Chip to send out for promotional reasons, from a formal headshot, to a more casual portrait — and also a environmental portrait. We were both happy with the results I got — and the shots included here are a few of my favorites — all of which were taken right there in their offices.