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.

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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:
Food Stylist - Trina Kahl
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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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

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Parade of Pups. We love them.

So 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:
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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We Couldn't Be Prouder Of Our Architectural Photography

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.

So here it is:






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
Creative Director - Dave Swearingen
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Why do I do it...

So I typically use the blog to show off the new images, so I wanted to try and post some stuff that's a little less shoot based and a little more me based. I occasionally get asked "how did I end up here", pretty much all the time - it's the accent I think - and while it generally relates to me being in America and talking in a strange way, I think it could equally relate to my photography. So yeah, how did I end up here. I started off in a very different direction; I was going to be an architect, like my father, and wound up doing an exchange program to the University of Kansas - there's a long story there - and then wound up designing retail interiors and exhibits all over the country - several long stories there. I loved it, it was a really cool job with some really exciting projects...and then I started photographing them.

That was that.

I just bought a camera from Best Buy, and twelve months later I was done, I chatted to some wonderful full-time professionals, who critiqued and advised and helped me adopt the best practices. I went to the library and read, I picked up the camera and practiced, I looked and looked, at my work and other people's work and then just walked out.

So why?

I love the camera, I love the physical nature of capturing that fragment of time, that moment, I love the technique, the multiplicity of options to solve almost any visual option. I love the incredible range of styles.

That's why I do it.

So I take a lot of photos, a lot of photos, and sometimes I get asked what my favorite image was. Last year I finally had time to go home at Christmas and see my family for the first time in four years...yep, it sounds soppy but my favorite image was this outtake that really took things full-circle for me. There are some images I want to frame, some I want to frame and have in the house, but I don't have many images that make me this happy.



Credits:

Mum and Dad

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I Make Beautiful Kids...

And it's true...not of me of course, but of my wonderful friend Stephanie Malcy. It's my luck to try and capture a bit of that beauty and I got a chance to do that this year when I went to visit Minneapolis and visit some of it's wonderful agencies. Stephanie relocated with her husband Jay and her expanding family a few years ago and has always been a fantastic supporter of mine - particularly in designing my incredibly wonderful branding (both round one and two). So when I was on my trip I went by with a camera and forced her to let me take a couple of photos, ironically Merik (her eldest boy) has always been a staple in my portfolio (thanks Amanda Sosa Stone). This time it's Ryah I'm in love with.

So what's better - colour or black and white?



Oh, and here's Merik, being a little goofy.

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All of the Lights...

It's really good fun shooting architecture and sometimes we find that the simple things get really complicated to get a quick shot. This week we're out in Atlanta, shooting for Houlihan's at their Chequers location, focusing on the private dining rooms.

One of the details we love to capture are these simple "down-the-line" shots featuring the table setting and capturing the room ambience...for this one we ended up with nine lights and got a really nice shot.





Credits:
Chequers
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Here's the rub...

So it's been a while since we last did a physical mailer, so we knew we had to come up with something that would stand out, amuse people and show off some really nice images. We were coming into Spring and Valentines Day was just around the corner, so we figured we'd make it a gift, with a twist. Kate, our resident genius, came up with the double entendre of a meat rub - so we could show some portraiture and some food imagery with a twist - in this case we went for "Give your meat a little rub...THIS MEAT" as the copy and went with a good old fashioned Kansas City strip for the meat. Thanks as always to Trina Kahl and Sarah Thompson for their fabulous styling skills as well as Chris Galloway our perfect "find" from Kate's morning workout at the gym. We heard some great feedback on the mailer and apparently there was a lot of use of the included BBQ rub. This is part one of a three part series - so get ready to see some more wonderful imagery soon.






And for those unfortunate folk who didn't receive the mailer we're sorry, but here's a look at the package:



Credits:
Food Stylist - Trina Kahl
Stylist - Sarah Thompson Lift
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Some fun with syrup.

Recently I got approached by the wonderful Layne Haley to take some photos with her. Layne's one of those collaborative artists who like to create work for fun - I like that. So she wanted to photograph some waffles and make some yummy in-studio photos. So that's what we did. The big question now is what are we going to work together on next?




Credits:
Layne Haley
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Fruit & Light.

One of the big advantages of having a bloody huge studio is that I get to play around sometimes. I'm really enjoying working with some reflections and translucency recently - so here's a couple of quick shots from a very relaxing afternoon. Enjoy.





Credits:
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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San Francisco: Beautiful Scenery AND Beautiful Offices.

We've been working with BRR Architecture for several years now and it's been wonderful watching them grow and some of my favorite shoots for them have been the satellite offices. Most recently, we got to visit San Francisco and photograph their incredible new downtown offices. I loved the interior with its beautiful open feel, and those old-school plan chests in the conference room are gorgeous.






Credits:
BRR Architecture
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Love Shooting Kansas City's Most Beautiful Homes.

So when it comes to summer I can think of few places I'd rather be than here. Another great chance to work with the wonderful Andrea Darr from KCH&G and photograph an absolutely stunning home.






Credits:
Kansas City Home and Gardens

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We Love Restaurant Shoots. It Makes Lunch Tastier.

We've had a great history of working with Houlihan's and while I love photographing their food I also really enjoy photographing their interior architecture. Recently they opened a new J Gilbert's concept restaurant in St Louis and it is simply breathtaking. As always we loved working with Dean and were delighted with the results - lots of careful lighting and staging, but it's a beautiful restaurant.

PS The food is pretty delicious too.







Credits:
J. Gilberts
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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Beautiful Interior Design.

If you're going to be the owner of a leading interior design studio then you really should have a wonderful home - and this one is no exception. Full of gorgeous details and stunning vignettes one of my favorites was the skulls and antlers over the bed.







Credits:
Kansas City Homes & Gardens

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House Envy.

If you're going to have a couple of different homes - then why not have a condo like this - it's an absolutely stunning Plaza home right here in Kansas City.





Credits:
Kansas City Homes & Gardens

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Why Just Use a Regular Chair, When You Can Have A Piece of Art?

3 Axis is one of our wonderful Rosedale neighbours and our paths have crossed before - most recently at Arrowhead where they built the insanely cool 12' tall football helmet for the sports science exhibit - it's cool. So when they came up with an idea for a line of plywood stools we leapt at the chance to photograph them. These are wonderful and they literally are made out of half a sheet of plywood each.





Credits:
3-Axis
Assistant - Adam Caselman

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