Spontaneous getaway anyone? Yes please! My team and I got to work closely with the folks at Instagram and Hotel Tonight on this amazing ad campaign called “Tonight I Am“. Hotel Tonight is a hotel booking app that let’s you book a great hotel from a curated list of hotels in just 3 clicks. No matter where you are, or what you are doing, you can book a great hotel without spending hours researching and comparing prices. To show this, we came up with 6 scenarios from daily life, and styled the subject in each scene as if they are already in the place they want to be. Travel is just 3 clicks away, and mentally they are already there. The campaign has done really well so far, and has received a lot of great press, including this article by AdWeek.

Big thank you’s to Hotel Tonight and Instagram. Let’s do it again soon.
The six set’s we shot on were designed and built by Adi Goodrich and her team (we both have the same great rep - Redeye!). High five! Retouching by Ryan Cleary.

Behind the scenes pictures by Olivia Lazer and Taylor Reed.

I’m not sure if it get’s much better than this. You know that old joke about the photographer in the doughnut shop… well, it’s true. The joke goes, you can’t have too many doughnuts, when a photographer…er, uh, tries to eat…with cameras. Anyway. I have no will power, and I really like doughnuts. You get the point. And if you know me, you know I am addicted to Top Pot old fashioned doughnuts. Keep your camera close, and your old fashioned doughnuts closer.

Aside from eating my favorite Top Pot doughnuts all day on set, this was a very exciting campaign for us because we got to develop and produce the creative. Top Pot came to us wanting to create something memorable for their marketing and advertising efforts. This is something I have been moving into more and more in recent months, but this was the project that really set things off. Top Pot is an institution in Seattle, and their slogan is “Hand Forged Doughnuts and Coffee” and the logo is a blacksmith hammering away on an anvil. We thought it would be fun to bring that idea to life with three images depicting bakers hand forging doughnuts and coffee on an anvil. To keep things authentic, while having a bit of fun, we shot it all in the actual bakery where Top Pot makes all of their delicious doughnuts in Downtown Seattle.

Thank you so much Top Pot. You were wonderful hosts and clients!

Behind the scenes pictures by Zoe Rain, and retouching by Gigantic Squid.

Food Lifeline is a great organization that is fighting to end hunger in Western Washington. “Working with the food industry and its surpluses, we come up with creative solutions to stopping hunger, including redirecting good food from manufacturers, farmers, grocery stores and restaurants that might otherwise go to waste.” - Food Lifeline website

There are some pretty staggering numbers on food waste in America, so it was especially gratifying to work on a project like this that I know is going to have a positive impact. For example, did you know nearly 40% or 170 billion pounds of the available food supply at the retail and consumer levels in America will go to waste? - via Food Lifeline website

I worked on this ad campaign with the folks at Green Rubino, who I also shot The Recommendeuer with last year. Big shout out to my friends Joe Quatrone and Dennis Budell who I love collaborating with!

Here is a fun little post production fact I thought you might enjoy. I photographed each of the subjects bare arms and legs, and those assets were used to make the arms and legs on the apple and carrot. Gigantic Squid did a fantastic job retouching these, and you can’t help but feel happy that the apple and carrot found good homes.

Cal McAllister / Co-Founder and CEO

Gabe Hajiani / Production Director

Stephanie Peirolo / Director of Strategic Partnerships

Christine Wise / Director of Planning and Strategy

Ian Cohen / Co-Founder and CCO

Todd Grant / CCD

One word sums up the experience of working with the team at the Seattle based ad agency, Wexley School for Girls: AWESOME. The long and short of it, is that these guys and gals are a riot, and life is never dull when working or hanging out with Wexley. They never so much as bat an eyelash when John shows up asking them to take their shirts off, dress up in chicken costumes, sprawl across the baby grand, or any other fantastically strange idea John has thrown at them over the years. Well, actually, not everyone was on board with this concept off the bat, but everyone came around eventually after a good pep talk.

Most business executives need headshots for speaking, press, articles, etc., and the leaders at Wexley are no different. These portraits are of the Wexley senior leadership team. As you can see, not only are they all pretty much topless, but they have Sara Coates and I smashing and manipulating their faces with our hands. At least the men do. The women got a couple of male interns to stand in, and it just so happened to be their first day on the job. It was awesome, and one of those shoots where we were laughing so hard we cried a little. Some people may have cried from awkwardness too, but it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes. Thanks Wexley for being great sports, and for working with us to create such awesome photography. I like to think this kind of work is the stuff that stands the test of time.

These pictures have already received some of the greatest comments on Facebook. It’s almost like a social experiment the way some people are so confused by these portraits. “They aren’t really going to use those for press are they?” Yes, yes they are.

Here is a quick behind the scenes video of the shoot. Can’t wait to see what happens next time.

Thanks team Wexley, and thanks as always to Gigantic Squid for retouching!

I feel like I am beginning to repeat myself a little, because each ad campaign I have done this year feels like one of those dream jobs. This one for Washington Healthplanfinder was no exception. With Obamacare rolling out I got to work with the folks at GMMB on this hilarious ad campaign. If these images don’t convince you to get yourself some health insurance, I don’t know what will.

The first shoot (the seagull attack) took place on our own private ferry at 4:30am on a beautiful Sunday. It was maybe one of the coolest things I have done on a shoot. Drifting around in the Puget Sound at sunrise. Beautiful!

The next shoot was a 4:00am call time, which feels so early to me! Not a morning person, but the show must go on. The skateboard crash was the hardest and most technical of all the shots. Although my assistants might disagree since I have no idea how they managed a 12×12 and two 7 ft. softboxes on a windy ferry.

The roofing accident shot was at the end of a very long 12 hour day, but it was so fun. The talent with the nail gun, Gabriel, had us all dying with his dialog. I like to give people scenarios to work with when shooting this type of work. I find it helps me work through the situation, and also helps the talent get into character and make the image more believable. There are a lot of little details to think about on a shot like the roofing accident. What are these guys doing? What is happening on and off camera that I want the viewer to think about? Are the interactions of the two guys on the roof believable? And so on.

So for this shot, I explained to Gabriel:

You are putting a new roof on your home before the winter hits, and your good friend is helping you because he owes you a big favor (You traded him Russell Wilson for Trent Richardson in your fantasy football league.). You are almost done with one side of the roof, when your neighbor walks by and see’s you up there. He gives you a puzzled look because he knows you are not the handiest guy on the block. Hey, what the heck are you doing up there!? he yells. Gabriel looks back at his neighbor with a big smile, and says… And this is where Gabriel took over with his improv. “Oh, we roofin’ man! Yeah, we roofin’!” “What’s it look like we doin’ up her man, we roofin’!” You might think over an hour of this might get old, but somehow it didn’t. We just laughed, took pictures and, yeah, we roofin’.

Here are some of my favorite behind the scenes images from this shoot. Big thanks to my new rep Redeye, Kontent Partners (who are super amazing people, and amazing at what they do), GMMB, Gigantic Squid, Cara Aeschliman, Gregg White, and so many more. I am blessed to work with such fun people.

Wait! You mean, there is a 3rd cosmonaut outfit? I’m going to need to wear that… It only makes sense. It will help me understand my subjects and connect with them better. I’m a method photographer, what can I say.
It seems like it was just yesterday I was in this very same room at Wexley School For Girls with Cal and Ian for my first shoot with them. They were flexing on the white baby grand piano. It was magical. Since then, we have done I don’t know how many shoots together, but this is definitely one of my favorite ones.

Thanks to AdWeek for a fun assignment, and thanks to Wexley for keeping the magic alive.

The three cosmigos.

Chris Buck needs no introduction, but I am going to say a few things about him anyway. I had the chance to meet up with Chris in New York a few years ago, and he was very gracious to make time to meet with a young photographer such as myself. I have always admired and been inspired by his photography, and over the past few years, he has had a tremendous impact on me from the business side of photography, as well. He has taught me some valuable lessons I will never forget. I will always be grateful to him for that. Chris is an award winning celebrity, advertising, and editorial photographer, and he just started a blog which I can promise you will be worth following. Do yourself a favor and check out his website chrisbuck.com and make sure to add his blog chrisbucknews.wordpress.com to your reader. You will be glad you did. Welcome to the blogosphere, Chris. Do we still call it the blogosphere?

Image © Chris Buck

This is the first look at a campaign I have been working on for MiiR Bottles over the past several months. These ads will be both online and in print. Soon to follow will be the debut of my first commercial as a director, which will be equally clever and funny. As simple as a water bottle sounds, there are so many great ideas to work with because there are a lot of water bottles on the market that are difficult to use. I think this comes across pretty clear in these ads.

I would like to say thank you to Bryan Papé of MiiR who is always so supportive and trusting of my vision. And thank you, also, to Ian Goode of Gigantic Squid for making the waterbeard magic and going the extra 100 miles to make these turn out as good as they did.

If you were wondering, this is the campaign I hinted at last month when I posted an image from one of the water capture shoots.

That’s my neighbor Mark Miller, reporter for ABC affiliate KOMO in Seattle, getting water thrown in his face. No, I am not waterboarding him. That wouldn’t be very neighborly at all. I am simply teaching him a lesson. Ok, I’m kidding. Mark sees some pretty interesting stuff at his job, but I would guess this is the last thing he expected he would be doing when he woke up today. “Hey neighbor, would you be up for getting water thrown in your face while I take a few pictures?” He did mention he expects nothing less when I call, though. Fair enough. Why did we throw 121 bowls of water in his face? I just finished shooting an ad campaign and it is in post production this week. Today we realized we needed a few more assets to really make this thing shine, so with Mark’s help, we made it happen. Mark won’t be in the final image, but I needed to capture water splashing on skin. It’s going to look great when it’s finished.

Thanks Mark! You are a true professional and a good friend.