Airbnb,
I’m Bowen Ames. I am a creative with 15+ years of experience leading storytelling for major tech companies, sustainable fashion brands, global non-profits and other smart businesses working hard to improve the way the world works.
While the breadth of my career and skill spans motion, CGI, graphic, and product design, photography is my foundation, a deep passion, and where I begin to craft any story.
I’m excited to share selection of photo art direction case studies that show and tell why I’m excited and uniquely qualified to offer my skills to your creative team.
Kindle
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Amazon’s beloved e-reader enables millions of users to browse e-books, newspapers, and magazines from anywhere in the world. But a picture is worth a thousand words.
To showcase Kindle’s unprecedented portability and glare-free legibility—the brand’s visual strategy is anchored in use-case-driven travel photography.
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As Art Director of Device Engagement, I translated data insights into targeted photo directives and led productions, collaborating with a diverse roster of photographers to turn complex user metrics into culturally resonant stories across Kindle’s marketing channels.
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The Challenge: Sustaining worldwide engagement requires a massive volume lifestyle imagery, but production models rarely scale to meet global demand within budget.
The Solution: I led an agile, three-tiered photo production strategy that maximized creative ROI based on campaign visibility:
Hands-on: I put premium marketing spend toward top-tier productions for high-visibility product launches and campaigns.
Remote-Directed: Scaled global seasonal photography by remotely directing a trusted network photographers.
Low-Touch: Issued RFPs to travel-focused influencer agencies to source authentic, low-cost user-generated content.
The Outcome: An operational ecosystem broke the bottleneck between volume and budget, drastically reducing cost-per-image while maintaining a high bar for visually engaging, cohesive and culturally resonant photography.
Travel Oregon
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To boost the state’s tourism economy, Travel Oregon launched a massive campaign defining seven iconic regions as the "7 Wonders of Oregon." The goal was to inspire experience-driven travelers to explore beyond urban centers and visit remote regional landmarks, therein boosting hospitality revenue stays across the state.
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I spearheaded the location-driven visual narrative, leading a nimble, fast-moving crew that covered 3,000 miles in 17 days. After extensive location scouting, we bypassed traditional styling to cast real locals, athletes, and adventurers. To bring the vision to life, I partnered with photographer Chantal Anderson to capture large-format analog landscapes for print and worked with director Christian Sorenson Hansen to capture cinematic motion showing real people authentically engaged in outdoor recreation.
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To avoid cookie-cutter Instagram shots, we chose photos that leaned heavily into the raw, unpolished geography, overlayed with custom illustrations—a strategic decision to keep photography minimal, letting the texture of analog film and ambient lighting provide depth without competing with the art.
Conversely, we brought the campaigns energy in the motion anthem with VO-driven video of outdoor recreation. Leveraging my relationships with Oregon-based brands including Nike, Pendleton, Nau, Shwood, and more, I overcame budget constraints and outfitted talent entirely in gear that felt completely authentic—yielding a massive organic reach when those brands cross-promoted the campaign on their own channels.
Filson
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For Filson’s September catalog, the brief was to move away from stylized staging and lean into craftsmanship. So, we embedded our production within the historic Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding in Port Hadlock, Washington, to capture a community defined by grit, tradition, and generational craft.
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As Photo Art Director, I led the visual narrative across studio and on-location, ensuring our production was non-intrusive to the genuine atmosphere of the school. I worked with photographer, Kyle Johnson, doing hands-on styling and improvising compositions to harmonize the product line with the workshop's natural elements. By shooting staff and students rather than models, we captured the authentic sweat equity and passion of people who live and work brand’s ethos.
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The true challenge of this campaign was honoring the integrity of a living, working institution while meeting commercial delivery needs. By treating the students and instructors as partners rather than subjects, we unlocked an unparalleled level of visual honesty. The resulting imagery didn’t just sell a seasonal wardrobe; it told a timeless, culturally resonant story about the preservation of human craft, community, and a deep sense of place.
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From the Pixel smartphone to the Nest Home Hub, the mandate for devices #madebygoogle is to demystify complex consumer technology through a warm, human-centric lens for high-impact product launches down to daily social engagement on a global scale.
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As Photo Art Director for Google Brand Studio, I set the overarching look and feel of Google Hardware photography, balancing technical precision with stylized storytelling.
Later, as the Senior Art Director for the @madebygoogle channels, I led cross-functional teams, external agency partners, and creators to translate this visual DNA into an agile, always-on social ecosystem that maintained that distinctly-google brand visuals.
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Google’s hardware aesthetic is defined by a distinct sense of optimism—it is hyper-stylized, meticulously staged, and rich with color. To capture this signature friendliness without losing a premium feel, every set was an exercise in deliberate composition and vibrant color theory. I curated bold, graphic color blocking and playful prop styling that framed the devices not just as utility, but as joyful additions to a modern home.
BUT WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO—
A short, true story about how Airbnb changed my life…
I discovered Airbnb 14 years ago as a junior art director hungry for adventure, and frankly—income. So, I curated, photographed, and marketed my tiny Portland studio to other creatives visiting Portland. When the listing took off, it quickly became much more than side hustle—I hosted global travelers, grew my network, and gained collaborators I work still with today. That humble little studio served as backdrop for a few low‑budget shoots and became a self‑sustaining home-base that let me travel, find my people, and hone my creative perspective to what it is today.
So thanks, Airbnb. Much the work here started there.
