The calendar says November and everyone is in fall mode, but there are a few souls who love to stretch out summer as long as they can. Hank and Luke are prime examples. Their parents hire me each year to capture their boys as they grow into young men. This year they rented a house on the beach for a week, so we went for a late afternoon stroll. Below are some of my favorite images from our time together. You can almost smell the sunscreen.
My friends over at Mungi Bands called back with a new challenge. They were hearing that some people online could not figure out how the magnetic silicone bands connected. He thought a video would help demonstrate, but with such limited action to it, I suggested another solution. By using some simple layers in Photoshop you could show the motion of the two ends coming together. A clean white background and a single word of type kept the eye on the “action”. It was fun getting back to my roots of studio photography. It’s all about visual problem solving. In this case, to the benefit of one of my best clients and hopefully several new customers for them.
PPD is a pharmaceutical research corporation and one of Wilmington’s largest businesses. They’ve hired me in the past to photograph an internationally recognized Ironman triathlon (see 3 posts from November 2010 in the Archives section). This new assignment was to shoot one of their “heroes,” Emily Shaller, who benefitted from medical advancements assisted by PPD and who participated in this year’s Ironman. Emily was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as an infant. Although most patients like her only live to be teenagers, Emily is now 30 and competes in sports regularly. Emily’s favorite leg of the race is cycling. So we spent a great day with her both on location and inside the gym at PPD headquarters. Her spirit and zest for life is truly inspiring.
I love working in my yard, so when I got a referral from a friend and found out the client was a nursery wholesaler, I was thrilled. David Johnson, owner of Johnson Nursery, had a bit of a twist with his goal for their video. After being in business for 30 years, they didn’t need new clients, they simply wanted to share with their current customers the effort and dedication that go into delivering farm-fresh plants to garden centers along the eastern seaboard. In fact, their process involves a highly coordinated workforce that picks, labels, loads and ships plants all in the same business day. Depending on the destination, plants literally go from nursery to retailer in a matter of hours. Quite impressive. So our goal was simple: Show this extreme operation along with the employee’s dedication through a day-in-the-life film. While it made for a long day of shooting, we created a fresh branding piece that leaves customers with new-found impressions.
Good friends the Vetters asked me to do a family/maternity session for them. While it’s not a call I get often, I was really honored they asked. And a little nervous given that the daddy is an accomplished designer and art director. To make it even more interesting, the family includes an adorable little guy named Charlie. Now Charlie is all boy. He’s very curious and asks questions about everything. We thought it might be cool to visit the local arboretum where mom could be comfortably barefoot and young Charlie could explore. The late-day light made for a perfect family session. Baby Evy is gonna be a very lucky little girl. Thanks for bringing me out!
Local entrepreneurs (and good friends) needed to update their product shots. Owners Christian and Kelly Nye produce delicious treats they aptly dubbed Nye’s Cream Sandwiches. Homemade ice cream nestled between two homemade cookies with delicious flavor combinations makes for an awesome dessert or snack. Kelly did a great job securing several props and Christian kept his babies cold. We used a stand in for the pre-light and then worked a few ingredients into the shot. A nice mix of hard light for the cookies and soft fill for the ice cream was the recipe for these still life pics. If your mouth is watering, you can order some from this link – www.taigan.com/shops/nyescream And yes, I brought home a few for our freezer!
My friends at the Gospel Music Channel in Atlanta called with another still-photography assignment. This time they needed stills of a full-length feature film. Starring Lynn Whitfield and Michael Jai White, “Somebody’s Child” is about a terminally ill mother whose son befriends an ex-con, played by Byron Minns. The scenes I covered took place in a hospital. Swirl Films secured an abandoned facility for the shoot. This obviously made being on set even more fun (and, honestly, sometimes a little creepy). Here are a few of my favorite images from the production, directed by Gary Wheeler. Check out GMC’s website for more family-friendly shows.
If you don’t live around here, you may not realize what a water-sports mecca we have in Eastern North Carolina. Area lakes, rivers, an intracoastal waterway, plus a little body of water called the Atlantic Ocean, present the perfect playground if you like to get wet. A new company is teaching folks of all ages some new ways to enjoy the water. Wake Up Water Sports enlisted my company to create a call-to-action piece for this very purpose. They teach wake boarding, wake surfing and of course traditional water skiing. We filmed from dawn to dusk and put together a fun little film that gives you a snapshot of a day at their “office.” Everything’s better when wet!
After NC Healthy Start Foundation received great feedback from the SIDS PSA we produced last spring (see blog post – http://cdphoto.com/blog/?p=1697), they called with a new assignment. This time the message was essentially the same — make smart decisions — but the target was broader: young women around our state. The foundation wanted wanted this piece to really stand out. An idea the client presented featured two women having a discussion on the couch. But we decided to take it one step further by showing one woman having a conversation with herself. Our makeup artist and actress had a lot of fun with the transformation process. Many thanks to NCHSF for their trust and flexibility with this production. Which “you” are you?
For Spring Break 2012, my wife and I decided to take our daughter, Lucy, on a little road trip to our nation’s capital. Despite growing up only a few hours from there, I had never been. So it was a blast walking (and walking and walking) around the city, seeing some of the places I had previously only seen on TV. Lucy and I often has the same looks of “Wow” on our faces. Before we arrived, I knew I wanted to capture a few of the sites in B&W. Here are a few of my favorite images from Washington, D.C.
