White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

P042409PS-0004, originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

The White House has begun posting images from daily activities onto a Flickr account.
This is what I thought they meant when they said transparency in government...

A meal to remember

Robert recently photographed a new restaurant in town called Evoe.
It's a beautiful little place open a few days a week for a a limited schedule.
It reminds me of places I've traveled and long to return to...

Video is the new direction?

We recently had the editing completed on the long version of the video for Phagans' that has been in the works.

The editing and camera work were done by our compadres at 245 Media, I'm sure you're read here about how highly I think of these guys but I can't say enough about them...

It looks so great and we are so excited to share it with everyone!
Let us know what you think...

Oh, to be a kid again...

Last weekend, we worked with some of the amazing kids from Puddletown Talent, shooting new images for their portfolios and getting them ready for a busy season.
There were some amazing kids, wonderful smiles, and great laughs all around!

This was interesting & inspiring...

I heard this on NPR's Weekend Edition on Sunday, March 29, 2009.

This was written by Matt Harding of Seattle, he is the guy that has the videos of him doing silly dancing all over the world...

I believe globalization is forcing our brains to evolve.

I've had the privilege to see a lot more of the world than anyone my age could reasonably hope to. A few years ago, on a backpacking trip, I made a video of myself dancing terribly in exotic locations. I put it on my web site. Some friends started passing it around, and soon millions of people had watched it. I was offered sponsorship to continue my accidental vocation, and since then I've made two more videos that include 70 countries on all seven continents. A lot of people wanted to dance along with me, so I started inviting them to join in everywhere I went, from Toronto to Tokyo to Timbuktu.

Here's what I can report back: People want to feel connected to each other. They want to be heard and seen, and they're curious to hear and see others from places far away. I share that impulse. It's part of what drives me to travel. But it's constantly at odds with another impulse, which is to reduce and contain my exposure to a world that's way too big for me to comprehend.

My brain was designed to inhabit a fairly small social network of maybe a few dozen other primates—a tribe. Beyond that size, I start to get overwhelmed.

And yet here I am in a world of over six billion people, all of whom are now inextricably linked together. I don't need to travel to influence lives on the other side of the globe. All I have to do is buy a cup of coffee or a tank of gas. My tribe has grown into a single, impossibly vast social network, whether I like it or not. The problem, I believe, isn't that the world has changed, it's that my primitive caveman brain hasn't.

For the rest of the article, go here


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

color to spare

I recently came across this image on FotoComa.net by Nik Anthonie and thought the idea and application was really cool.

Bowling, anyone?

Our new promotional email went out today featuring one of the recent shots we did at the Lovely Interstate Lanes. It was part of the LaCoste project we did last month.

What do you remember about your prom in the 80's?

Last weekend, James Holk, our first assistant and associate photographer, recently photographed an 80's themed prom party for the 2009 United States Barista Championship, hosted by the Albina Press and Barista Exchange. A huge thanks to Matt Milletto for hiring him, his assistant Jeff Lewis for the hard work put in on short notice and for all the help received from Burk Jackson and Chad Boutin at Bulb Studio.

James is such an awesome guy, we're so glad to have him working with us, even when he does his incredible Eyore impersonation...

You can see the photos here

Williamette Week Story on Phagans' Model Behavior 09 Shoot

We just found out today that there was a story in a local publication about our recent shoot with Phagans'...

You can read a bit of it here -

It feels like America’s Next Top Model in here!” remarked Samantha Borenheim, Director of Admissions for Phagans’ School of Hair Design. And her statement couldn’t have been more accurate. I half-expected Tyra Banks to jump out from behind the white screen and tell me I was eliminated. The room buzzed with activity as five people descended upon one professional model, each armed with hairspray bottles, combs or makeup palates. Once the shirt was rolled and scrunched to the photographer’s liking, the digital photos flashed quickly on a huge television screen along the far wall. The sounds of students talking and instructors introducing themselves fell and it was as though the entire room was waiting in hushed anticipation. Finally, after so much head-shaking that a person with an inner ear problem would have passed out, the model and the camera connected. There was a collective round of “ooh” and “ahh,” followed by a female student yelling, “It’s all lips, hair, and boobs!” Now I’m no expert, but that photo was freakin’ hot.

Only slightly more exciting than the shoot itself was being in the presence of so many passionate people. Dylan Welch, former owner of Toni and Guy, served as the art director for the shoot and was the impetus behind the event. Welch told me about initially approaching Phagans’ president and owner Barbara Climaldi with the idea: “Barb, what would you think about some photos for these walls?” From there, the photo shoot idea blossomed into a way to market the school to the general public and develop some promotional materials for the school’s admissions department to use. “The public doesn’t know we’re here for those services. And there are some really talented kids here!” Welch says of acclimating Portland’s population to the notion of getting their hair and nails done at Phagans. As far as chosen photographer Chad Boutin was concerned, both his appearance (sporting a NY Islanders jersey, jeans, and white sneakers) and his myspace motto (“life ain’t nuthin but bitches and money…”) made him seem much younger than his 40 years. But his portfolio firmly secures his spot in the world of highly experienced and envied photographers, having graced the pages of Vogue at one point. Boutin was joined by photographer Burk Jackson, whose clients include Lucky Magazine and Diesel Footwear. Jackson wasted no time in telling me about the difficulties of finding hair models because usually models don’t want to make any changes to their physical appearance once their comp card has been created. I had no idea what a comp card was, but his expertise was impressive, if not familiar.


If you're interested in the rest of the article, click here

everybody's an author...

After a few months of wrangling ideas and images to work in our favor, we just ordered our second round proof book from mypublisher.com
it's been a while coming, between images selection, critique, and proofing, but it's finally in process.
We'll get the next one as our final proof and then move forth from there with our distribution of them.
If you have any desire to check it out, it's online here

Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair...

We did a hair shoot for a local academy yesterday and the images turned out really well.

It was a great experience!

We worked with our friend Dylan Welch as the Art Director for the shoot.

Chad absolutely killed it working with our amazing models.

Our girl, Ali Megan, came into town to do the make-up for us.

The students & instructors at the academy were responsible for the hair for the shoot and did a wonderful job, showing up early and staying late to experience what a production a job like this can be.

Darris and Cody from 245 Media came up from Eugene to produce a video of the whole production, including an amazing behind the scenes piece.

Check your mail

So, we get an email yesterday from this amazing client of ours, it's a promotional email with an image of ours from the fall.
Some of you may remember it, it's one of our favorites.
All of these pages contain images we produced through the fall...

Spring color

We spent the weekend shooting some catalogue work here in the studio, trying out some new ideas.
We had some great models here, they were all such a blast to work with!
Here's a little sample of the images.





You can see the site here

Wooden, boy...

We have been working on a new idea to photograph product.
How would we represent product and bring a different sort of style and feeling to the images.
We came with an interesting concept and thought we'd give it a shot.



You can see some more of it here

Are you a fan?

We recently created a Facebook page for the studio where you can become a fan of our studio.
I thought it might be an interesting experiment in another level of social networking and how businesses with no immediate interest in people's lives might be able to let people know what they do online.
In the same thought pattern, I received a notice about an event tomorrow night that addresses on how to network like a superstar...
It looks interesting but i already have an OCI event tomorrow night and can't make it...

Iconic Ironic America

I get email today from Tommy Hilfiger about this web based TV show they've done.
They send a poet and a supermodel out on the road to show her what America is about.
I've watched a bit and it's pretty cool...

"Ironic Iconic America is a unique and whimsical tour of contemporary American culture. Hosted by spoken word poet & performer Rives (HBO's "Def Jam Poetry") and Israeli supermodel Bar Refaeli (Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Maxim, GQ, Arena and Tatler covers) their road trip across America sees them exploring beauty, love, design, food and much more.

From Buffalo, New York to Catalina Island, California, from Andy Warhol to Barbie, we see American popular culture as an interconnected web, tied together by the observations and adventures of our two characters. Produced in association with American fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger, this special takes the audience on a voyeuristic journey from the iconic to the truly astonishing– seeing America like it's never been seen before."

Check it out here

Casual Video Ideas

Over the past however many months, we've been playing around with the concept of incorporating video into our workflow at the studio.
We definitely believe that the concept of motion will surely incorporate itself into our business, we're looking to see how we may use it in different fashions to encompass what we do.
Hope you enjoy this little videos we've made...

Local Talent

We recently worked with a great new client out of Eugene, Oregon.
They are Xylem Clothing, an organic manufacturer of beautiful women's clothes.
We had a great shoot with some outstanding models doing what we love.
It couldn't have been better if we tried.
We're already looking forward to working with them again soon.
You can see the results here

Christmas Squirrel

So, in addition to doing legitimate work around the studio, we always make time to photograph our unique and interesting gifts, especially ones given with the thought of photography in mind.
A member of our site, Chad Boutin, has such an affinity for taxidermy that it borders on obsessive...
So, in the spirit of giving, we found the most amazing taxidermy grey squirrel out of Canada that was already prepared for the holidays.

Oh, the holiday season is bearing down upon us...

So, I'm in the studio this morning working on post-production, as usual, and an email shows up from one of our clients inviting me to partake of stocking stuffers for all my family and friends. just as any consumer would, I open the email to find a whole slurry of our images in an email sent out to tens of thousands of people.
Somehow, it's gratifying to see our work used and enjoyed by millions, even if it isn't helping humanity directly, at least people are getting something pretty to look at.