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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Lunch is Served

The world of food photography is much like the world of sculpture. This is so true when it comes to building sandwiches for the camera. We recently did a series of shots for Bar-S Foods for their shaved and sliced turkey and ham luncheon meats. Each sandwich was carefully “constructed and engineered” by food-stylist Kim Krejca and her assistant Jill Flewellen. Each slice of meat was carefully chosen, folded and balanced on cosmetic sponges. Tomatoes, onions and cheese were sliced with a meat slicer to provide neat layering of the items on the bread. A stand-in sandwich was built for the purpose of lighting and composing the photograph. Once the composition and propping were approved the “hero” was placed on the set and further tweaks were done to both lighting and the composition of the sandwich. During the final process the sandwich was kept moist until the final image was complete. If we were in the restaurant business preparing food like this we’d be out of business in two hours!

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Summer Still Life

Now that labor day has come and gone and summer is almost a memory I’d like to share a small selection of summer vacation still life images with the kind viewers of this blog. As I began to edit the images I realized all of the images below have something to do with food…who would have thought that a guy that shoots still life, product and food would have picked mostly food oriented images…go figure!

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Chris “Beanie” Wells For Blimpie Campaign

Arizona Cardinals running back Chris “Beanie” Wells is the new spokesperson for the sub shop Blimpie. We recently had the opportunity to photograph him for the introduction of their new healthy menu. We were asked to produce all new photography for their  promotional and  advertising needs.

We’ve shot a handful of celebrities and this shoot was amazing, Beanie gave us four hours to accomplish the shot list we had to produce. Generally when shooing these types of portraits we can count on getting a mere 20 minutes if we’re lucky. To say the least he was very patient and the consummate professional!

Kate Unger from Kahala Corp contacted the studio and we discussed the creative strategy along with Robb Penney of 602 Design.

The wonderful crew that made the shoot “swing”…Kate, Robb, Robert, Gidget, Allyson, Ron, Nola, Madison, and the rest of the support team.

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The Meaning of These Blogs…

I started the blog thing back in November of 2009. I’ve been trying to figure out the meaning behind my efforts and have decided that these posts are simply about photography and my pursuit to make images and ultimately share all this stuff with you. There’s satisfaction in shooting for no particular reason other then exercising my eye and feeling joy. The samples below are from some of my most recent ventures out of the studio.

Photographer Imogene Cunningham was once asked, “What is your favorite photograph?” she replied, “The photograph I haven’t taken yet.” I can certainly agree with that!

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The Staff Of Life

Well it is 2010 and I thought I would start the year out with a personal project. Who doesn’t like bread? They say that” bread is the staff of life”. I’m not sure that’s true. Anyway, shoot what you love and I love bread so check out the shots.

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Ranch Market

The Ranch Market is a cool ethnic grocery store at 16th street and Roosevelt. I went there to find some interesting food items to shoot. The images below are from my still life exploration.

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