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.

Still going...

So, after eight weeks of pretty much non-stop shooting (with a few days of rest thrown in for travel), we're still moving along in our product photography for the holiday season.
I mentioned earlier that we had done a lifestyle shoot out at Bybee Howell Park on Sauvie Island. Well, one of the images that we produced got selected for a the email campaign for the Hilfiger Kids Fall Campaign.

This isn't the first time for us... no, we're experienced in this sort of fame and recognition...

Just kidding... But it's nice to see it when our work gets sent along to thousands of people.

As we continue on, I'm attempting to work on our website and keeping up with things such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

Further exploration into "Lifestyle"

In an effort to continue photographing different work, different ideas, and different people - we recently did some more "lifestyle" images for Hilfiger's Fall Kids line.

We ventured in a new direction for this foray, utilizing studio lighting and creating a more dramatic and moody feeling for the work.

We worked with talent from both Puddletown and Sports Unlimited, both agencies providing us with outstanding young models to work with and a pleasure to have in the studio.

As we continue to work to develop new and different strategies on how we might approach the concept, it's always interesting to see what the result is.

What is lifestyle?

Wikipedia defines lifestyle as "A lifestyle is a characteristic bundle of behaviors that makes sense to both others and oneself in a given time and place, including social relations, consumption, entertainment, and dress."
Then what does it mean to do lifestyle photography?
Is it that we attempt to mimic the lifestyle we have or that we strive to attain?
I'm sure someone smarter than myself has tackled or will tackle this...
Until then, you're welcome to check out some new "lifestyle" imagery we created last weekend.

Ride a Dark Horse into the sunset...

Recently, we were asked by the nice people over at Portland State University to come to photograph an event.
Being the socially out of touch people that we are (working all the time, getting things accomplished, spending time with our loved ones), we don't seem to get out in the world too often.
The event being requested was the gifting of the entire Dark Horse Comics library to the PSU Library for "research". While i believe that research may be one component, who wouldn't want the entire current and future collection of one of the most amazing comics companies at your disposal. I see hours, if not weeks, wasted trolling through some of the most amazing artwork created to date.
Anyway, the history of comics, explained by Mike Richardson, was alone worth the time and effort to be there and participate.
Here is a link to the article in the Vanguard.
You can see some of our images here.

it's all about the rainboots...

So, it's been a busy few weeks in the studio, with hardly a day to rest and recuperate between shooting days...

Our poor wardrobe stylist has only made it home to Seattle for three days in the past three weeks!

In the midst of all the lovely chaos, we found the time to get outside on a beautiful Monday afternoon and do some shooting

Last week, we did another lifestyle shoot for the Tommy Hilfiger Kids line for Fall 2008, similar to the one a few months ago, that some of you may remember...

This time, we shot out at Bybee Howell Park on Sauvie Island.

It turned out to be another outstanding adventure for us and we got some amazing images out of it.

Here is an abbreviated sample of our idea and the images we created from it.

We used the amazing Hunter rainboots in a kaleidoscope of colors on all the kids to bring it together for us.

Photos for a cause

Recently, one of our photographers, Chad Boutin, did a photography project working with the Oregon Special Olympics. The event was the Special Olympics Youth Games held here in Portland, Oregon. They had in attendance as special guests, Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Johnson and Portland Trailblazer Channing Frye
You can see some of Chad's amazing images here.