Magazine Cover Portrait of Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy

The other job I shot in Atlanta in January was a portrait of Chick-fil-A president and COO Dan Cathy (son of founder Truett Cathy) and Mark Miller, CfA's VP for Training and Development. I originally wanted to do something involving cow costumes, but the magazine shot that down. I then came up with the idea of photoshopping them into a photo of a giant chicken. There's one of those right around the corner from me. That one got shot down as well. They ended up using a shot of the men inside one of their mock restaurants that they use for training. So here is the idea that I liked, and will use in my portfolio, and the image that the magazine used on their cover...

Corporate Executive Portrait for O-I Annual Report

In January I shot 2 jobs in Atlanta GA. This one is a portrait of 10 of the top executives from O-I. O-I (Owens-Illinois) is the worlds leading manufacturer of glass beverage bottles. Named after the company's founder Michael J. Owens (the same Owens from Owens Corning) who in 1903 invented the automatic bottle-making machine. So the folks at O-I wanted a portrait of these ten people to be shot while they were having a global leadership meeting at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in downtown Atlanta. My challenge was to figure out something interesting to do with them, so it wasn't just another boring group shot. I called the hotel and asked about photographing in their lobby or any place else they had that would be interesting, but I was informed that I was prohibited from shooting in any part of the hotel that O-I was not specifically renting. That meant, shooting them in a meeting room or dragging them outside somewhere. Neither of those ideas sounded like a good idea, so I proposed shooting them on white, in a loose confident, relaxed grouping. The marketing rep loved the idea. Since I couldn't drag all of these guys away from their meeting and stick them in a proper studio, I would have to make the studio in their meeting room. The only trouble is trying to shoot a loose grouping of 10 men on a 12 foot seamless backdrop! I decided to shoot 2 groups of 5 and piece them together in photoshop. That worked, and the client is ecstatic.

Advertising Portrait for Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

I recently wrapped up a portrait I did of Marin Alsop, the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The client called me saying she wanted to make a portrait of Marin for a circus themed program they were doing. We had originally talked about shooting in a prop warehouse with a bunch of circus props around her. After calling around to a few places, we found it would cost a minimum of $3000 to rent the props and space for shooting for the day. I proposed having me fabricate a backdrop for the portrait in photoshop. Of course I would have to charge the client for the extra computer time I was going to put in, but it still represented a huge savings to the client. I made a few quick sketches, got a little direction and approval from the client, and away we went. I hope you like the results...

Environmental Portraits for the State of Maryland part 2

Here are the last two environmental portraits I shot for the State of Maryland - Bryan Voltaggio & Claire Fraser-Liggett. Many of you may recognize Chef Bryan Voltaggio from his runner-up performance on Bravo's "Top Chef." He is currently Chef/Owner of Volt restaurant in Frederick MD. Claire is the head of the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore MD.