Friday At The Movies.

You know those really nice fancy new theatres that AMC are opening up. Yep, one of our clients designs those - BRR Architecture to be precise. They are lovely theatres and very comfy and I love watching movies in them. So we got to work with one of the trickier interiors I’ve shot - virtually no control over the interior lighting and absolutely no daylight led us to use over a dozen lights on each set-up, lots of fun.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Client: BRR Architecture

Location: AMC Theatres 

More Before and After Gems. 

This was a job we did for our friends out in Omaha, Nebraska. DLR Group designed the building and runs their firm in the top two floors. It’s an awesome looking building, and they’re awesome people.

The first image of the building square on was taken very early in the morning, and let me just say that the mosquitoes from Omaha must have found a bottle of anabolic steroids somewhere. It was my job to attract the bugs away from Alistair while he took the shots. I did alright, although one or two might have gotten by me. On the retouching end, I replaced the grass with some grass images we keep in stock just for such an occasion. The building was squared up, the cars were cloned out as well as a light pole right in front of the building, the tone was adjusted as well as a boost of saturation.

The second image had a lot of work to be done. The cars and the light pole right outside the window needed to be cloned out. The light pole took a little time because it crossed over a couple of buildings. The two vents in the floor had to come out. One of them went right under the chair which was fun to clone out. I adjusted the tone in the image as well.

The last shot was a doozy. Again, it was an early morning shot. The bugs were out and biting. Adam Wells from DLR had put out construction cones in the parking spaces the night before so cars wouldn’t be able to park on the street and obscure the view of the building. It worked well, but I think some people were slightly irritated by it. If only they could see the shot and realize the sacrifice they made to produce such an image. The cars in the before image were there when the cones were put out.  All of those cars had to be cloned out, all of the construction cones had to come out, three light poles were cloned out, and the grass was replaced.

This was a very cool project. Good looking building inside and out. 

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Author: Adam Caselman

Retouching: Adam Caselman

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group

Sometimes Photography is Yummy.

I can remember the day I heard that Shatto Milk Company was launching a line of ice cream sandwiches. I knew they were going to be marvelous and I fully enjoyed being a part of this tasty debut. The sandwich packaging was shot on white seamless, so all that was required on the background was a bit of cleanup and some level boosting. The shadow from the packaging gave the sandwich some dimension, so it was left in. Some of the packages needed to have the creases taken out or reduced, so there were compositions used for that task. Some careful manipulation was used to align the packaging comps that didn’t line up perfectly. Yay liquify tool!

The shot of the ice cream package in between the two cookies was a result of combining three images. The cookie wasn’t large enough to cover the whole top of the package, so I blended all three positions of the cookie to create one big one. It wasn’t too hard because the texture and color of the cookie was fairly easy to blend. The last thing to remove was the reflection coming off of the plexiglass. It was easy since the ice cream and cookies were shot on white. Simple and sweet!

Credits: 

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Author: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Client: Sullivan Higdon and Sink/Shatto Milk

Ask More Questions Than You Think You Should.

One can never overlook the importance of details. It’s always better to ask as many questions as you need to get the details that will help you do your job more effectively. When you don’t ask enough questions you wind up assuming things, which is essentially guessing at important facts. This never ends well. Whether you are bidding out a job, planning out a shoot or working on marketing it’s always imperative that you ask questions. Trust me the aggravation you encounter from the person you are asking questions of is no where near the disappointment, anger or exasperation that being ill-prepared will cause. So ask away. 

A good example involves the shot above. We were at the end of the shoot for this lovely piece of salmon and had gotten what we thought was THE SHOT. And then we opted to ask.. “What would happen if instead of cutting the skin we peeled it back and pinned it?” Well, you know what happened? A MUCH cooler shot than the one we previously thought was THE ONE. So never take anything at face value always dig a little deeper and ask questions. 

It pays off. 

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant/Retouch/Arm Model: Adam Caselman

Stylist: Trina Kahl

The Importance of Being Creative.

Since I started working back at the ripe old age of 15 I have worked in and amongst what people refer to as “creatives”. These are folks that use the right side of their brain primarily to do things like make music, create films, design things, draw, paint or any one of a hundred ways to express ones creativity for profit. But I’ve always thought that giving someone the label of “creative” implies that those on the other side of the equation - the planners and organizers are not creative. While this might be true of some who work on the flip side of the ‘creative coin’ I have always felt that those who are best at what they do - no matter what they do - are extremely creative. It takes creativity to problem solve, it takes creativity to juggle a clients whims and needs, it take creativity to schedule, plan and organize a project. Without creativity your options for solving a dilemma decrease dramatically. Just because your title might not have the word creative in it don’t let that dictate how you go about the job you do. We could all stand to be a little more creative, no?

Author: Kate Crockett

How do you retouch a cup of coffee?

Ahhh, smell that? That’s the smell of coffee brewing and Photoshop layers. This was a shot we did in studio while experimenting with different beverages. Trina Kahl was our food stylist extraordinaire. What might appear to be a cup of espresso is actually a mosh pit of a few images and lots and lots of cloning.

To get the swirls, we shot the coffee as the milk was being poured into the glass. It mixes quickly so you only have a second or two before the coffee and milk merge. I took these shots of the coffee and milk mixing and cloned them over and over. It would have been a lot easier to use the liquify filter to make these swirls look genuine, but because of the design of the glass I had to alter the liquid without altering the shape of the glass. Arrr, photography, she’s a cruel mistress! Oh, and of course the reflection had to be added in after all the swirls were done. I would love to say that I had an exact image in my head, and it was a symphony of retouching, but to be honest, it was a whole lot of trial and error, and what I like to call the “optometrist method”. What is the “optometrist method? You know when you go in to the optometrist’s office and they put that eyesight machine up to your face and ask you, “Better or worse? Better or worse?” That’s what I did with this image. I would manipulate for five or ten minutes, then turn the layer on and off asking, “Better or worse?” Occasionally the image will get worse before it gets better, but that’s for another blog post.

Sometimes an image is retouched without an exact destination. Alistair knew what he did and did not want out of the image, and that was enough for me to create this delicious composite. Excuse me, I think I’m going to go make myself a cup of coffee.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Food Stylist: Trina Kahl

Retouching/Assistant/Author: Adam Caselman

A Little Photoshop Makeover

Our retoucher, Adam Caselman shares a unique perspective on post production.

Here was a situation where the conditions for making a beauty shot were a little less than awesome, so I gave it a healthy dose of Photoshop. This is a shot from a project we did in Washington DC for Ply Gem. There was quite a bit to do on this photo, and I remember sitting in my chair looking at this thinking, ‘Where do I start?’ I think the best approach is to just pick the most obvious thing, make it look fantastic, then move on to the next thing. Just about everything in the image has been worked on in some way, so put on your gloves kids, we’re about to get messy.

The most obvious things to me were the basketball pole, the 'Case’ pole just to the left of that, the zig zag gutter in the middle of the frame, and the mailbox on the left. Everything must go! While these tasks weren’t like flipping on a kitchen light, I luckily had enough material around the objects. The challenging part of taking these objects out was cloning the siding of the house and keeping the pattern believable. The mailbox and the 'Case’ pole weren’t hard to deal with, but the basketball goal and the gutter were tricky.

Now that the cloning was done, I felt like I could take on the house. The large tree on the left was shading the left side of the house, so I had to lighten the left side and even out the tone. The tone gradually changed from right to left on the house, so I had to do my best to match that, lots of feathering. Then the color of the shutters had to be bumped up. Easy enough.

Next came the grass, which I had to bring in from a shot we had on hand that we use for cloning in grass. Grass can be very tricky to match. Special attention needs to be given to the time of day when putting completely new grass into a scene. Even the contrast of the grass needs to be correct for the time of day, or it won’t be convincing. The driveway needed replacing, and in an amazing coincidence Alistair came back the day I needed a new shot for it with a nice clean shot of a driveway, almost like it was meant to be.

The last piece was more challenging than I originally thought, the sky. I was able to replace the sky without too much painting. I used a series of contrast and color selections. Those techniques saved me what might have been hours in painting. Phew! I’m really pleased with how the image turned out, especially the cloning. I’ll admit to smiling when I flick through the before and after shots. I hope the client did too.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Author: Adam Caselman

Client: Ply Gem

Client: Blacktop Creative

Tasty treats from both Dolce Baking and Shatto Milk. 

Everyone's Poop Stinks...

…even mine! I learnt a few different things in school; primary amongst them were:

1) How to tie a real bow tie - yep, I actually learnt this during a math lesson - the teacher brought in a whole bunch of bow ties and taught us how to tie them. You may be wondering how this could ever be useful - well…if you’re a little tipsy at a black-tie event there’s no better chat-up line than actually knowing how to tie up a bow tie.

2) The other lesson I learnt was that only your friends would tell you when you “stank”; your real friends, the useful ones. And this was a really useful life lesson.

I’ve long been told and believe very strongly that the best way to find success and to accomplish great things very quickly is to find mentors…ones that will tell you that your poop stinks AND how to freshen it up a little, or even make fresh, better poop, that isn’t poop at all. This proved invaluable as I made the shift from architectural designer to photographer, a career move that has been unbelievably enriching and challenging.

In architecture the first mentors I found were those seasoned industry veterans who could tell me the pitfalls and the trampolines and most importantly how to think completely differently - learning how to think is very useful. As I moved into photography I found many mentors in the ranks of local and national photographers who were willing to give me incredible advice on how to look. Learning how to look is pretty much essential in this line of work. They also told me how the industry worked and taught me how even though I was a small part of the industry it was essential that I protect that industry and play a roll in improving it. So who are my latest mentors? Luckily my mentors now include the people that work with me at the studio. Last week I had a really challenging conversation with my studio manager, Kate, who’s kinda awesome. We made an overview of all the work I’ve done and then chatted about the industry, clients and both the strengths and weaknesses of my work in it. It was one of those tricky conversations where it’s really important to be objective and have an opinion and it was a lot of fun and really bloody productive. You will definitely be seeing the product of this conversation very soon.

So, I would definitely recommend finding yourself a mentor and making sure you keep them very handy as you make decisions and develop your portfolio, your business, your brand and you.

Cabin in the Woods…not that cabin.

We photograph a lot of very unique buildings - but this one was a little different; a stunning lakeside log cabin. We originally photographed the exterior for Ply Gem’s marketing materials and had a really fun time - we were then approached by the contractor and a magazine to photograph the full interior and off we went again. This time we worked with the fabulous Glenda Bailey and the home owner on some beautiful styling and created some really lovely images - a huge thanks to the home owner (you know who you are!) for making all of this happen.

Credits: PlyGem, Glenda Bailey - Stylist, Adam Caselman - Assistant

Nutella = Yummy

So we’ve been doing a lot of images in the studio with strobes, and so today we decided to play a little with our windows. You may not have had a chance to taste Nutella - it’s one of those European things - but if you see it, buy it, spread it, eat it. It’s yummy.

Credits: Trina Kahl - Food Stylist, Adam Caselman - Assistant

The Importance of Impartial Input to your Business.

We all know how it goes…you’ve created something. Whether it’s an image, a piece of art, a campaign or even a recipe it’s something you spent your time and energy creating. The creation of anything, whether creative or not is an emotional event. It’s exciting, exhilarating and wonderful. You have experienced a range of emotions surrounding this amazing thing you’ve created. The downside is you’ve experienced this range of emotions and now you are emotionally connected to this creation. So when it comes time to decide how to edit it, share it, ditch it, promote it or sell it you can’t separate yourself from the emotions you now feel for it. And the emotions aren’t always good ones. Let’s face it not all projects go as smoothly as you want them to. Some projects take more out of you than you anticipated. Some projects weren’t as exciting as others.

Does that make the work any less impactful? Not to the end viewer, but sometimes you have trouble seeing past the emotion and experience of the creation to be impartial. It’s these times when you need to engage and rely on the input of someone you trust to be impartial and help you select the best of your work to represent your talents and skills.

We trust our portfolio to the talents of Amanda Sosa Stone. She takes a years worth of images and culls them down to the few we need to showcase on our website and in our printed portfolio. She has the amazing knack of looking at an image for what it is, not how it was created, what the experience was like shooting it or GASP how much money we made or didn’t make creating it. We benefit in more ways than we can count by having someone like Amanda as part of our team.

Check out her work on our latest website update.

Credits:
Amanda Sosa Stone

Amazing School Architecture

A year or two ago I had the privilege of travelling to Hutchinson, KS to photograph the vocational school there for DLR Group - it was a lovely shoot and definitely one for the books. So last fall we got to go back to Hutchinson, visit the Cosmosphere and photograph some beautiful architecture - I love the tree-like trusses in the lobby.

Credits: DLR Group, Adam Caselman - Assistant

Ohhhh..maha Office. Beauty in Design.

DLR Group just got a beeeeeaaaaautiful new office space in Omaha, designed and owned by them. It’s pretty darn gorgeous. Last fall, we made the trip up there, while the whole of I-29 was submerged, and got the chance to photograph it for posterity. The interiors and exteriors are lovely, but I have to admit the roof angle was my favorite - glad someone had a hold of the back of my pants!

Credits: DLR Group, Adam Caselman - Assistant

Why You Should Come to Kansas City.

So the new VisitKC magazine is out for 2012. We are excited to be included representing the wonderful KC Chiefs - from our great shoot last year with Populous. Last year wasn’t all I’ve come to expect from the Chiefs. But I’m quietly confident for this next one!

Credits: Burns & McDonnell, Populous, Turner Construction, Kansas City Chiefs

Parade of Pups. We Love Them.

Kate, our lovely studio manager, promised her husband, Shaun, some beautiful portraits of their puppies as a present - and then we got the chance to take them. So welcome to Hunter and Gracie, Hunter is the Hunter looking one, while Gracie is the soft, fluffy lab. Definitely a pair of lovely pups.

Credits: Adam Caselman - Assistant

When Showing the Portfolio.

The oddest things can happen - I’m always certain to meet incredible people and see some of the most beautiful, creative offices around the country. But without a doubt my favorite was this year when visiting Campbell Mithun. Yep, this is a photo of me in a soundbooth, doing a voiceover for the agencies entries into “The One” show. I have to admit that while my silly accent has proven very entertaining over the years I’ve spent in America, this was the first time I actually had someone choose to record it for posterity - thanks go to Kat Dalager for a very entertaining time.

Credits:
Kat Dalager, Campbell Mithun

The Big Adventure.

Finally home from a really fun job - definitely a huge dash around the Mid-West. AWG came to us with two aims - firstly to capture the last twelve months of construction and new design in their supermarkets for their annual report and secondly so they could enter a design competition in Progressive Grocer. The big part of the challenge was that from the phone call to the final delivery for their competition we had three weeks. Three weeks to drive over 2,000 miles and then fly to Odessa to get that one outlying store that needed a plane flight

A lot of the blog posts I read chat about the wonderful imagery, or the equipment, or the craft services - lunch, yum - but the big part of this shoot wasn’t Adam and I running around in the field, working twelve hours a day, shooting, driving, retouching, repeat, but rather the front-end organization that enabled us to get out there and deliver the wonderful imagery, on-time and within budget.
Of course all that production is handled by Kate, our Studio Manager (also referred to as the Stupid Manager - she manages the stupid, i.e. me). One thing about Kate is that she is pretty wonderful; she works her arse off on the front end to ensure we all prepared when we go in the field, that our travel prep is all in place, the locations are all ready for us and job packet has all our info in it ready to go. This one was pretty insane, a different location almost every day, hundreds of miles apart and it was flawless, and quite often fun.

P.S. The Tampax shot was a special request from Kate - she wanted to see what we could do with it - she’s very silly.

Credits: Associated Wholesale Grocers, Adam Caselman - Photographer

winner of the 2012 pdn photography award

Ever since I started my journey into photography I’ve been an avid reader of PDN. For me it’s the primary source of news and advice for almost all aspects of the commercial photography industry - ranging from advertising photography, to photojournalism, to fine art and wedding photography and pretty much every thing in between. It’s read by a lot of photographers and a lot of art buyers. The magazine runs a few specialized competitions - chief amongst them the “Photo Annual”, their annual photography competition. It’s a pretty big deal, from what I know.

So we did the usual thing of entering a couple of pieces (I think we entered last year as well) and you know what’s really weird and unexpected and quite wonderful? We actually won - we’re amongst the winners! We’re actually going to be published in PDN. That’s right, the magazine I love is going to actually feature a photo of mine. Yep, it’s in the June issue, out any day now (the on-line version is out and apparently it’s page 77 if you want to take a look). And having had a brief look through the on-line work the other images are absolutely breathtaking; and it’s an absolute honour (British spelling of course - we’ll talk about aluminium next) to be amongst folk like that.

I’m kinda shocked, I have been for a couple of months since we heard. We’ve been holding off on chatting about it until we saw it on the on-line version. And we got an email the other day saying we can feature the fancy graphic below and I get to go to a party in Manhattan - the fancy one - to meet the other winners - this is kinda cool.

Needless to say I’m “chuffed to bits” and pretty humbled to get this sort of recognition. I know that Kansas City’s had a lot of attention from PDN over the years - David Morris was featured for his really cool blackboard image this year. Austin Walsh had that wonderful Christmas video in there last year and, most ironically, The Wade Brothers are on the facing page to me this year - congrats lads. I’m sure they are others as well but this, for me, is pretty darn amazing!

So what did we win for? It was a really cool project that we worked on with Blacktop Creative and Ply Gem. We’ve done several projects for them over the years documenting their exterior home products. For this project they teamed with Extreme Home Makeover and donated all the exterior finish products for all seven of the homes they built in seven days for their Joplin Christmas Special. It was an incredible donation by them and a pretty emotional project to work on. The homes were incredibly unique and we were charged with capturing overalls and individual details of each home. Over the course of several days we worked on all the different aspects that Ply Gem had delivered. We had, honestly, some bloody awful weather. That meant we were on location for long periods, up well before the dawn, trying to get that perfect moment and we definitely found some gorgeous images of the homes. One angle we settled on immediately was a front elevation shot with a really dominent portion of sky in each image to make a set where the unique designs would hang together as a set. For this series we had a really short gap of good weather, and we literally ran down the street to get each image in as nearly identical lighting as we could get.

Thanks to everyone for all their hard work on the project - it was a really fun set to be on and the co-operation with the film crew was wonderful. The final result had some real meaning for a wonderful group of families.

Credits: Ply Gem, Blacktop Creative, Dave Swearingen - Creative Director, Adam Caselman - Assistant

Shatto means tasty.

I’ve been working for a few years with the wonderful people at Shatto and SHS and have loved seeing the packaging design/packaging advertising evolve in new and exciting ways. So, here’s the latest products (which I think you can already find in your neighborhood grocery stores). A new ice cream flavor with new ice cream packaging and three new butter flavors with radically new packaging. This stuff not only looks great, but it tastes delicious!

Credits:
Shatto Milk
SHS
Assistant - Adam Caselman