LET THE BIG DOG HUNT

The great thing about my career is the diversity of it. When I see something that I think is beautiful or an interesting challenge I come up with a plan and shoot it. Each project presents a visual problem that I devise a solution for. I think that I learned this early on in my career while working for Nick Vedros. He created meticulously lit still life imagery the same way he photographed people and the results were always inspiring. I ultimately want to be hired for the way I think and how I approach a problem.

Golf has been a huge part of my life. I have a passion for it much like photography. I have played the game since I was seven, worked as a fore caddy, cart boy, range rat, instructor and pro shop assistant through my teens and early twenties. While I don't play much at all these days because I am more focused on being a good dad and growing my business I still find time to take my kids to the range every so often and hit a few balls. The following images are a series of shots I produced as a test, bringing two things I am passionate about together. I had an idea and shot it.

Thanks to Pete DeLong for cleaning these images up.

STAND BACK

Just over a year ago I was lucky enough to get called up to work on another project with Eric Lindgren over at Integer. Eric and I had produced a job for Miller Lite a year earlier, see post here. For this one we needed to shoot a baseball player diving for a ball. My approach was to shoot the field and stadium separate and shoot the players in studio, matching to the lighting we had in the stadium. Unfortunately it was later decided the stadium could not be used in the ads. We shot somewhat generic looking uniforms so they could be easily altered in post. These ads ran in several different markets and depicted the Rockies, Braves and A's, that I know of. TIG studio did a killer job on adapting each teams uniform.  I really liked the idea of showing this in a realistic environment so I worked with Pete Delong to bring the idea to life. Now I just have to decide if I like the cropped version better than the full version.

COWBOYS REWORKED

Just over two years ago I produced a great project for Miller Lite. One of the shots was a tailgating party outside of the Cowboys stadium. Unfortunately, due to budget and timing we did not have the opportunity to actually shoot at the stadium. Instead we shot the scene in a large sound stage here in Denver and The Integer Group Studio composited the image we produced with an illustrated image of the stadium. The ad turned out great and the client was happy. I however had always wished that we had photographed the stadium as well. In late May of this year I found myself in Dallas for another shoot. With a few hours to spare on the day I flew in, I drove over to Arlington and grabbed a few angles of the stadium. The thin clouds in the sky gave a really nice softness to the sunlight, very similar to how we lit the original shot. I am really happy with how this one turned out and am looking forward to getting it in the portfolio.

HANDCRAFTED

Inpend is a custom notebook produced by the fine folks over at Foils + Dies. One of those things you look at and think, why didn't I come up with this. Our idea was simple, handcrafted notebooks need a handcrafted looking website. Almost all of the type was letter pressed on vintage machines and then photographed for the site. The entire site is just one big navigable photograph.

HOOPS

Last fall I ran into an art producer that asked me if I had some gritty basketball shots. After a short search of my archives I found a few shots but nothing that I felt fit my definition of gritty basketball. So I shot a test. It seems like once I get an image in my mind I just need to produce it. We ended up shooting over a thousand frames one afternoon but this one stood out. Many thanks to Solomon and Ray for taking part in the shoot and to Andrew Webb for his post stylings.

Motion With Beer

A producer recently asked me if I shot motion. My answer was, My camera says I do. Not sure I ever see myself as a cinema photographer but right now motion seems like a fun thing to experiment with. The extreme shallow depth of field you can get out of a DSLR rig just amazes me. This clip was just an idea I had and wondered if we could do it with out CGI. It is a bit rough but all in all a good test.

Beer Anyone?

Something amazing about glass and liquid. If this shot makes you thirsty I did my job.

WORKING ON MY GAME

I have always loved photographing shiny things. I credit one of my mentors, Ernie Block, for my fascination with reflective objects. While shooting for him on a catalog he told me you don't light chrome, you light what chrome sees. That simple phrase has stuck with me for over fifteen years. On that particular job it seemed that I got to shoot all of the chrome items for a kitchen catalog he was producing. We are talking spoons, knives, ladles and the list goes on. Every so often he would walk by me on set and say, "Its a discipline builder" and how right he was. It really gave me a love for photographing chrome objects, however some might call it a sickness.

I have photographed quite a bit of chrome product in my career and in most cases we produce really clean chrome. I recently wanted to photograph a golf wedge, this had absolutely nothing to do with me wanting a new wedge. I found quite a few wedges with cavity backs and bronze or brushed nickel finishes that would have made great subject matter and been relatively easy to photograph, but I wanted something with a classic shape and reflective chrome. I ended up with a relatively inexpensive Callaway wedge from a local big box store. I started with a similar approach that I had used with other chrome product, large sources creating big fields of clean white reflections. The clean chrome was fine (unfinished version pictured below) but I wanted to do something sexier with lots thin edge highlights. So I changed up my angle and started from the beginning. After a couple of hours I got to what I had pictured in my head. A dark moody photograph with lots of razor thin edge highlights. I included the final capture as well as the retouched shot. As you can see most everything was done in camera and not a lot of retouching was needed. Thanks to Andrew Webb for straightening out the minor imperfections. Really happy with the outcome and the wedge was a long needed addition to my bag.

LATEST AND GREATEST!

Late last year we had an idea for a shot that called for a really cool car. We were lucky enough to get our hands on a Tesla Roadster. We shot the road scenes outside Boulder and the Tesla in studio last fall. Then, as they often do, the shots waited on a hard drive until we had time to finish them early this month. Part of the delay in finishing this other than a pretty busy spring was I was not entirely happy with the sky I had shot. So I put my ego aside and did a little search for some stock. I was able to find two stormy skies that we composited for this shot. All together the finished shot has five separate images in it, so I clicked the shutter on the majority of the images. We have a couple more Tesla shots waiting to be finished it is just a matter of having the time to get them done. Really pleased with the way this one came out,no small thanks to Andrew Webb!

JUST BUSINESS

In January and February of this year we had the pleasure to work with Level 3 Communications and Carbon8 on a really fun project. A big thanks goes out to my producer on this adventure, Lisa Schrag She was able to orchestrate six days of shooting, with a cast and crew of more than thirty-five people, within our budget and with a smile. While we had a lot of surprises like subzero temperatures on at least two of our shoot days, frozen pipes in one of our locations, an ice storm out east on the very day we had to travel east, the crew operated like a well oiled machine and we pulled off some great shots. It was hard to choose from the thirty-four shots we delivered but here are my favorites. Thanks again to everyone involved.