Portrait of a Good Father

Sometimes my favorite portraits happen when I am not exactly ready for them. I call these instances "happy accidents". For example, I was using Jason as a stand in while I got my lights dialed in for a series portraits of his family. This first photo was taken with a single diffused flash and no fill which gives it a dramatic look.

It is the times when the subjects are not expecting you to click the shutter that they are the most relaxed, and you see their true personality. I was able to capture this quiet moment between a new dad and a baby who is his favorite little girl. You can't fake moments like this.

Promo Video for a World Class Glove Corporation

Creating promotional videos for clients is a creative process that we really enjoy at Graphic Works because it uses every artistic skill that we possess. This particular video was built for Showa Best Glove's annual sales meeting, and for later use on their web site.

This project was a true team effort involving several people. I wrote the basic script and storyboard with some tweaks from my boss and the client. Then we sent the script to a professional voice talent to record. He nailed it on the first take.

From there, custom graphics were created for different scenes, and other audio and video assets were gathered, including some last minute footage shot by the client in their manufacturing facility and other scenes recorded with the Canon 5D Mark 2 DSLR.

The last stop was in the hands of our in-house video editor, David Struve, who pushed the concepts from the storyboard even further making the final video better than I had envisioned it. We all added small details to improve the final product.

Like Hannibal from the "A-Team" used to say...
"I love it when a plan comes together!"

Photoshoot for New Cut Level 5 Gloves

Being in the advertising business gives me a first hand look at incredible products before they become well known on the market. At Graphic Works I regularly work for a large global glove manufacturer who has over 1800 different varieties of gloves and sleeves for hand protection. They have a glove for every occasion and for every segment of the market including chemical resistant, cut resistant, hi-tech, disposable and general purpose. I have personally tested many of them and they are tough!

This photo was taken with a split diffuser to get hard light on the glove and soft light on the background.

For Showa Best's latest offering, we needed to photograph 3 of their new high-level cut-resistant gloves. These products have some of the highest ANSI cut level protection ratings available. We often take 2 types of photographs of the gloves... beauty shots and application shots. Both of these photos can be used in advertising, catalogs and web sites.

The top layer of metal on this photo was white foam core which was later digitally replaced by metal textures.

The photographs often start with a rough concept and we then build a small set in studio to bring the sketch to life. Sometimes we have to have the elements positioned exactly like the sketch to fit the photo into a specific layout. Other times we can use the sketch as inspiration.

Here are the three photos all shot in studio. After each image is carefully retouched, hopefully they look like they were taken on a dirty construction site.

My boss had fun smashing these wood pieces! What a racket!

One of My Web Sites Goes To Lithuania

You never know where your work will end up on the world wide web. A web site called www.eurofotovideo.com that I built for local photographer, Justinas Bartkevicius, was expanded from the Atlanta market to include the European market. We just added a directory here: www.eurofotovideo.com/lt

It turns out that Justinas's father is also a photographer who needed a web site to advertise his photo and video services in Alytyus, Lithuania. It's kinda cool to think that something I made here is being used thousands of miles away. So if you are going to get married in the old country, give Jonas Bartkevicius a call.

New Web Site for Honey Do Done!

Anyone with a "significant other" understands the importance of a "Honey-Do" list. This is the one that hangs on the refrigerator or next to a calendar of short and long-term projects that need to be completed. The more one get's done on the list, the more honey one gets... or at least that is what is implied.

That might have been the inspiration for Honey Do-Done, a handyman business in Atlanta that can handle practically any job from small to large. Shane, the owner of the business, has a lot of experience doing many different types of odd jobs. I personally think this company provides a way for local husbands to get out of the doghouse... which coincidentally he can build for you too.

I built a basic web site for Honey Do-Done, and we will be adding to the site in coming months when he gets more project photos taken.

Holiday Cards

I always get a kick out of getting holiday cards from my clients during the Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanza season. Here are 2 from last year.

Social Media Portraits of an Old Friend

My old coworker, Jason, asked me to take some portraits of him to be used in social media. Since it was cold, bleary and pitch black outside, we decided to work in the studio.

It seems that Jason has discovered nice clothes at Macy's because he brought a couple of different shirts to change into. I had to get used to this "new" Jason because the old one was 40 lbs. plumper.

I was proud that he could be this diligent and it made me think... "I had better hit the treadmill myself". Kinda hard to do around the holidays, but the thought sounded like a great 2011 New Year's Resolution.

Anyway, I decided to try a few different approaches to the portrait session from artsy black and white to silly as seen in this superman pose. Jason is quite a ham and we had fun.