We recently had a really fun shoot with Casey Crescenzo of Dear Hunter for Alternative Press Magazine. We got to use the Midland Theater as the backdrop for the shoot and had a great time with Casey. He’s that kind of artist who is really laid back and fun to work with. We found a nice spot to take the photo with incredibly beautiful lighting - massive South facing windows on a luckily soft cloudy day - and it had this killer chair and fireplace as a prop. 

These are definitely the kind of shoots I love - a little bit of luck and a whole lot of fun.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Alternative Press Magazine

Art Director - Christopher Benton

Talent - Casey Crescenzo

Assistant - Matt Shepherd

We’ve been photographing for SHS for Shatto for a long time now, probably five years, and we had a new opportunity to capture their series of limited edition themed bottles. These are the first two - one for Valentine’s Day and one for St Patrick’s Day. Needless to say the milk was delicious and it was lots of fun working with SHS, as always. We went with a little harsher lighting set-up than we normally do with Shatto and I loved the punch on the final images.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Shatto Milk

Agency: SHS

Art Director - Seth Gunderson

Stylist - Sarah Thompson

Assistant - Adam Caselman

We’ve been capturing images of Helzberg Diamonds retail locations for several years now and it’s been an absolute blast. It’s a tricky shoot to capture as the jewelry cases are so bright and the casework wood tone is so dark, coupled with the variety of locations to contend with (each mall has totally different rules and different limitations); but I love the final results we’ve created and I love getting to see all the different cities and work with all the different Helzberg teams. 

This was one of their outlet mall stores - a different product mix and slightly different fixtures. After the shoot the images were featured at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting this year, along with many of the other stores we photographed.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Helzberg Diamonds

Art Director - Parke Wellman

Assistant - Adam Caselman

Retoucher - Adam Caselman

Since our first shoot with Farmland last year (check it out here) we’ve had a few more great opportunities to work with them including this one for a tasting Farmland participated in. The theme was “Tastes of the World”; and Trina, Chip and I had a really fun time tracking down a whole host of props to make a fun set of images. 

Each of the food dishes was meticulously planned by Farmland and we worked really hard to pair those dishes with the props and I’m very happy with the results.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Farmland Foods

Art Director: Chip Morgan

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Food Stylist: Trina Kahl

Client: Farmland Foods

My Inspiration...

I want to try and share some of the things that I watch to really inspire me to make better images; so here’s some links:

Peter Belenger creates the stunning images used by Apple in their marketing materials and he created this incredible behind the scenes video. Here’s the whole article on him.

Then there is this fantastic billboard campaign by Grey Emea; lenticulars are pretty cool when done correctly and they have been around a while, but this is a fantastic implementation of them.

And this video…yep…this one was really worth watching.

And if you’re wondering where we’ve been recently…here you go:

We love working with Houlihan’s on their J Gilbert’s and Devon Seafood brands, and as we’re working on one next week in Chicago I figured I’d share this project from last year. We have a lovely time working with Dean on set; he’s a great art director and really makes me giggle during the insane hours we have to be on-set. 

The images are really fun to work on as we end up spending a lot of time tweaking the lighting and staging to make the images perfect ; plus they are some of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve been in.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Houlihan’s; Devon Restaurant

Art Director - Dean Woods

Assistant - Adam Caselman

This is a project shot we’ve been playing for a while - just trying to get that perfect outline on the edge of the bottle, then that perfect sharp line reflection that shows the shape of the bottle, the soft fill for the label and then the back-lit glow from the wine itself. I loved this particular bottle design and it happened to be down at the local supermarket - no doubt we recycled the contents on the front porch too. The horizon line was part of the lighting design - where we just raised the flag enough that some light crept through and then lifted the bottle up a half inch - as you can see from the reflection we did actually raise the bottle - no photoshop in creating the line, just in taking the block out. I loved the final shot and I was really happy when it was a winner in this years local ADDY competition.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman 

williamhessphoto:

Santa Cruz Mountains, CA

My assistant made this photo while we were in CA for Helzberg. He is pretty damn good.

We recently wrapped a really fun project for a pharmaceutical company with a top secret product - yep, this is another one I really should check and see if I can talk about all the details, but I’m going to get on and show off some of the photos.

This was a huge one for Kate to deliver everything in production - we ended up with a total of nine talent, and five locations stretched over two days. Two very hectic and very successful days.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Tell Ya Later

Art Direction: See Above

Talent: Talent Unlimited

Styling: Shelly Walker

Production: Kate Crockett

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman 

Sometimes I fall in love with outtakes - just totally in love with them. This is from a project that is all retouched and finished and you’ll be seeing a really cool tearsheet of the final ad soon. The brief was to crack an egg and take a photo of it. Luckily Shaun is really creative and wanted to crack a lot of eggs and have a lot of fun. So he brought about a hundred eggs…and an air rifle.

We started with cracking the egg and placing the cracked egg on set and trying all the different ways we could crack the egg and get different shell fragments, then playing with the yolk and then rotating the shell all over the place…god fun.

Next we got the air rifle and that was an enormous lesson in trial and error. Deciding to go for it armed with the words “Three…two…one…” we shot a lot of eggs (next time we’re going to get the auto-triggers and have less fun, but more images). My favorite moment was not having all the guards in place and getting a crotch full of yolk from shot number one as the egg exploding right in the direction of my pants. Joy. Anyhow, we pushed on and get some lovely images, of which I have posted my two favorites.

After the air rifle we decided to continue the theme of random destruction and went for a simple drop - lots of different velocities, and heights - and that was where the final client select came from - which will follow soon.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Merck Animal Health

Agency: AdFarm

Art Direction: Shaun Crockett

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

mrshaun:

An enchanting spot about cooking food.

This is inspiring.

Making a Beautiful Red Mess

We’ve been working on some liquid shots recently and using some really fast recycling strobes, coupled with our fancy new 1Dx camera…yep, I’m name dropping. It’s kinda cool making the images as it looks like a dance club in here when we’re shooting them. Not quite sure what we’ll use them for, but I definitely want to print a couple of them out for the wall!

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Oh boy, it’s a party now! This was a fun shoot we did in the studio of a Johnnie Walker “Red Label” bottle, and a rocks glass. All we’re missing are some whiskey stones. We played around with different light modifiers at different angles to get the look we wanted on the label. We did the same thing with the rocks glass. 

In post, I blended the different comps with the different light angles in, and gave the label a little bit of a punch with a curves layer. I took out the outline of the Johnnie sticker on the front, and I took out the rear reflection in the glass. There were some rainbow artifacts in the glass, so I desaturated every part of the glass that didn’t have a whiskey color in it. Speaking of whiskey color, I matched the whiskey colors in the glass and in the bottle to each other. There was a little more reflection than we wanted, so I feathered in some black to cut down on some of that reflection. 

I’m a big fan of this shot. It just seems to pop off of the screen, which I would be alright with if it actually did. Who else needs a glass? I can’t drink alone.

- Adam

This is a shot Adam and I have been working on for a while - capturing perfect glass - a beautiful outline showing the shape of the glass and a mixture of highlights on the glassware - the soft broad highlight on the glass and the sharp line that runs down the side of the bottle. All this with the spot light on the label with plenty of fall-off and the backlit bottle to bring out the color of the beverage. Overall we did about six shots with a whole series of different highlights and modifiers to form the final composite.

I love tinkering like this in studio - always a good time.

- Alistair

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Independence…we finally achieved it.

After Garden City we rolled on and went to the other side of the state to Independence, KS (that’s right Missourian’s, there is an Independence in Kansas and it’s home to the incredible Neewollah Festival) and worked on another school. This time the brief was to capture images showing the sensitivity that DLR had shown in renovating an existing high school. Focusing on the entry areas and the transition areas that had been built fresh for the students and again using student to show purpose and scale. 

The tree in the exteriors really make that shot for me - there’s nothing like a true old growth tree to really bring architecture alive. 

The nighttime exterior was the tricky shot, as we really wanted to bring the facade to life; we lit it throughout the entire face of the building and made sure to put some uplight into the tree as well to ensure it was part of the image.

I’m really pleased with the final image, but I’m still wishing I could actually make it to the darn Neewollah festival one of these days…

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group

Here is a shot we did where the client requested to have part of the siding replaced on the house. I kind of have to laugh at myself, because when the client asked if it was possible in Photoshop, I said, “Yeah, I can do that.” I spent the rest of the shoot thinking, “How am I going to do that?” Luckily, the client sent over some samples of the siding that they wanted to replace the old siding with. It wasn’t a big sample. In fact, I had to spend about an hour building up a pattern big enough to use on an entire side of a house. It had to be smooth enough that you couldn’t tell where the seams were, and the shake had to be in scale to the rest of the house.

After I got that done, it was time to map the pattern on to the house. The pattern that I had built so far was a straight on shot. There wasn’t any angle or depth to the pattern. So for each shot I had to give the pattern the same perspective as the walls of the house. Then, the overall contrast had to be matched to fit the lighting scenario. After that, shading had to be done to make the pattern not so obvious. The color even had to be matched to a specific color. I believe some sky was added in for texture, and grass was brought in over the dead grass that was originally there. For something that doesn’t look so complicated, it sure wasn’t easy. 

- Adam

This was a really fun trip out to North Carolina - I love our road shoots. We had a stunning set of houses in a brand new development; the weather was a little tricky, so we had to get lucky on a couple of occasions with some gaps in the clouds. But the much bigger problem was that siding wasn’t exactly what the client wanted…and the grass was completely dead (but that’s an easier fix)…so Adam got to really work through some crazy steps to make the exteriors perfect. And of course this was on a tight deadline for a trade show ad. I’m really happy with the result.

- Alistair

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Creative Director: Dave Swearingen

Art Director: John Stephenson

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: Ply Gem

Agency: Blacktop Creative

rookiemag:

escapekit:

 Chromatic Typewriter Prints

Tyree Callahan has recycled (or upcycled, perhaps) a classic 1937 Underwood typewriter by replacing letters with sponges soaked across the spectrum with bright yellows, reds, blues and combinations thereof.

true art.

This is incredible.

More Family

As a follow-up to my trip home last week I figured I’d share a couple more images from my trip home in January. This time it’s my Auntie, Felicia, and my wonderful Mum again. They’re lovely.

Home was a pretty wonderful experience, as usual, I went out to Cardiff and watched the England vs Wales game with my brother and father. England…didn’t do well…we lost 30-3 to the Welsh. Luckily my dad is Welsh so he spent the entire game giggling. 

Credits: The Family

Rock and Roll…finally…

We had a great photoshoot last year with the wonderful Kristen May of Fly Leaf for Revolver Magazine. We worked really hard with Kristen and her team of Simon Jackson and Chanel Jezek for the hair and styling and also with Jimmy Hubbard over at Revolver to ensure we got a fantastic style that would be absolutely 100% her for the final image. The lighting I wanted to use would emulate her appearance on stage with a spotlight giving some sharp contrast on her face while we got soft light in for the fill and the red highlight to emulate our great curtains at the Vox.

I added a bonus outtake showing off one of Kristen’s damn fine tattoos. Great folk to work with, and a lovely wrap photo to boot.

- Alistair

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Talent: Kristen May, Lead Singer of Fly Leaf

Hair: Simon Jackson

Styling: Chanel Jezek

Art Direction: Jimmy Hubbard

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: Revolver Magazine

This is a dusk shot we took for DLR Group in Garden City. This is their high school and it is one of the largest in Kansas. We started setting up and shooting about an hour and a half before the sun was going to set. Throughout the evening, we set close to a few dozen lights in different locations and at different times. I can also remember being very cold towards the later hours of the shoot. Brrrrr! Lousy unpredictable temperatures.

In post, I blended two skies, one from earlier in the day, and one from later in the evening. I comped in a series of images where the lighting was switched up as we placed lights in a series of locations throughout the elevation and comped in for the interior lights in the window on the left side of the frame. I remember running all over that school trying to figure out which room that was. It’s kind of funny now that I look back on it. After all of the comps were brought in, I had some things to clone out. There was a bright spotlight on the side of the building, a couple of security cameras, and dust specks of course.

There is one thing about this image that I wish I could change. The star patterns around the street lights are a bit distracting. I could clone them out, but it would take a while, and there’s got to be a better way! I think it has to be done in camera. I can’t think of any way to get rid of them in post production. Possibly a circular polarizer? I’m open to suggestions if anybody has them.

- Adam

This was one of the main images that the client absolutely had to have done perfectly so they could really show off their design work. They wanted to show off the transparency in the large glazed prow, and so we determined it was best as a dusk shot. We set up the camera and over the course of six hours carefully lit sections of the building to bring out the texture and landscape. As a road trip we only had enough lights to get a section at a time, and then combined those in post for the final shot. The cool thing is that everything you’re seeing was captured in camera, just a lot of work to combine them all.

If you take a look through the images above you’ll see a shot of the building as lit it (mostly foreground and the prow), one of the first frames we captured at the start of the shoot, and the last frame which shows you the actual lighting on the building. This was a really fun shot and well worth those six hours!

- Alistair

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group

Western Kansas - it’s Fun, who knew?

Last year we got to work with one of my favorite clients - DLR Group. They do some incredible schools and for this one we got to capture, what we were told, is the third largest high-school in KS. It’s a biggie alright. We had a lot of conversations with Jim French, the lead designer, and Bob Carlson to ensure we knew what the main focus was of the design and how we could record that.

After a six hour drive (across the beautiful flatness they call Kansas) we got to the school and immediately staked out the key shots. The top shot you’re seeing here was the one we decided to capture that evening…six hours later, a couple of pizzas, a stunning sunset, a few dozen well-placed lights we had the perfect shot, and three perfect frames to get the building lit properly…as shown by Bob’s one word response to it - “Spectacular”.

The other critical shot was the student breakout spaces. These areas were incredibly tight, but I really wanted to avoid using something silly like a 14mm to get it in one shot. So we brought the kids in (who were great FYI) and carefully lit the scene to bring out the best in the signage and mezzanine and then arranged the talent and briefed them on what we needed to make the shot work best. Then we stitched the shot together using the really fantastic 24mm tilt to capture two images - one of the mezzanine and one of the ground level. The alignment was perfect and the image looked so much better than going crazy wide could ever have done.

Thanks Garden City for hosting us and thanks for all the help from our talent - this was a wonderful shoot.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group