Illy Coffee

Peter Shikany from PS Studios contacted me to shoot a recipe booklet for his client Illy Coffee. The main content of the project were recipes for drinks that fit into different times of the day to show the versatility of the product. This assignment is exactly what I love to shoot…tight graphic images.

Here’s the layouts Peter supplied followed by a few spreads from the booklet.

Thanks goes out to my assistant Robert Humanski, Creative Director Peter Shikany and Art Director Andy Cruz!

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Save The Date Oct. 20th

Just  a heads up…The Portraits Of Opportunity exhibit I participated in along with other area photographers is this Thursday night. Southwest Human Development started this fundraiser 3 years ago…a wonderful organization. Check out the Channel 8 interview with Laura Chasko and me.

http://www.azpbs.org/horizonte/detailvid.php?id=798

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An Apple A Day….

I like grabbing my camera and going on a photo-safari…what I call “A Walk About.” I decided to cruise the neighborhood by the studio and I found a lot of cool things that I would have never seen if I were driving. As I walked I saw a ton of red shapes that turned out to be apple cores…cool! I went back to the studio, grabbed a trash bag and harvested the apple cores and brought my new found booty back to the studio to shoot.

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After Dinner Coffee

Genus Imports is bringing high-end coffee service to the best of the best in restaurants and resorts. They have the North American license to sell Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee to these high-end purveyors of service and fine food. We were recently contacted by them to produce rich images for their website and marketing materials. They provide their clients with everything including table side service items and custom-made coffee flutes. My warm thanks goes to my assistant and my stylist who provided just the right props to help tell my clients story.

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Brownies 2011

Ten days of shooting brownies and cookies…what a great gig! We wrapped the shoot just a couple of days ago and thought I would share a couple of the cover shoots. So, here they are…this is no time to be counting calories! Big thanks to Robert Humanski, KimKrejca, Jill Flewellen and my clients David Kravetz, Erin, Kari and of course Kat!

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Healthy Eating

We recently had the pleasure of working with Petra Kovacs from Isagenix International based in Chandler Az. She contacted me about producing a small cookbook using their nutritional products. This readers digest size booklet is going to be inserted into their client based publication.

Isagenics  message:
“Our vision is to impact world health and free people from physical and financial pain, and in the process create the largest health-and-wellness company in the world.”
Jim and Kathy Coover, Co-Founders

Thanks to my wonderful crew for making this shoot fun and successful!

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Photography Improv

My two favorite improvisational comedians are Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams. Their minds are fast and furious. They can respond to a word, a sentence or a prop of any kind and create their own world and bring the audience along with them. I regularly go on photo walk-abouts and shoot whatever attracts my eye…to me this is like a photographers exercise program. So, I decided to pull things from the house and bring them into the guesthouse and set up an available light studio. Window light, one camera, one lens and me. The idea was to do improv still lifes where objects were composed simply for the pure relationships that developed. I worked fast and loose and had a great time. I processed the files to look and feel like some of the autochrome color images from early in the 20th century….http://www.galerie-photo.com/autochrome_plate.html

The Light Source:

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Plastic Glass

Russ Hahn from After Hours Creative contacted me a few weeks ago to do the photography for a new company called Drinique. They specialize in manufacturing high end plastic-ware for hotels, restaurants and bars. The beauty of this new product is the design and longevity of the glasses. I love what light can do with glass and how you can play with highlights and reflections. The cover shot allowed me to really play…thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Some inside spreads:

Back Cover:

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Healthy Cereal

Besides shooting ice cream cereal is probably next in line for complexity. In the world of packaging photography food products require a clean, simple and meticulous approach. A fast read and a quick to the point design is a must because the shopper has rows and rows of products competing for attention.

We recently shot a cereal-packaging project for “Peace” brand healthy cereals with graphic designer Randy Palmer.  I thought I’d share the process and the final outcome with you folks.

Here’s one of the shots:

Here are a few of the packages:

We had several shipping boxes full of product that was used to painstakingly go through and pick the best flakes and clusters:

Individual clusters were built into larger clusters using hot glue:

Each bowl was built on a foundation of Crisco that acted like a platform to keep the composition of flakes and clusters in place:

Once on set final adjustment to the contents were made to adjust for lighting and composition:

The final touch is adding white glue to the bowl in place of milk. Glue is heavier and whiter then milk and also doesn’t make the cereal soggy:

Finally, yours truly and designer Randy Palmer and the client and marketing folks:

Thanks goes out to Randy my trusty assistant Robert Humanski and the stylists Kim and Jill.

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Fun In The Kitchen

In the world of commercial photography, it’s my job to be true to the clients conceptual needs. So every once in a while I just have to let things evolve.

These images that I call “Fun In The Kitchen” evolved from having a discussion with food and prop-stylist Kim Krejca. We decided to pair toy farm animals with the food items that come from these little “critters”. At first we were on set going for a more traditional food image that you may see in Bon Appetit magazine, and then we decided to be more playful and loose.

Food and still life photography have been in an evolution over the past few years, moving away from a very clean and even sterile approach to a more real and believable approach. Both styles require the same amount of attention to detail. In one case you are tweaking perfection and in the case of these images we are tweaking with a styled quirkiness. Please enjoy and smile if you like!

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