Cade Martin “Teas” It Up for Starbucks

Many artists make an effort to inject whimsy into their imagery, especially in work done for advertising clients. However, few are able to combine that free-spirited creativity with an unmistakable promotional message as well as Cade Martin can.

The Washington, D.C.-based photographer has shared this talent with a wide range of clients including dozens of companies, products and organizations you know like Cadillac, the National Geographic Society, Grey Goose, Merrill Lynch, Tommy Hilfiger and many others. Recently he brought his unique view to bear for Starbucks, helping the ubiquitous coffeemaker promote the opening of its first Tazo Tea store in Seattle.

“It was an amazing project and the Starbucks team was a dream to work with,” Cade says. “They contacted me last spring and I happened to be out in Seattle on another project at the time… They really seemed to like the body of my work and the magical, cinematic-narrative nature of my images.”

The first half of about a dozen “Alice in Wonderland”-esque images – each sprinkled with Martin magic, like a touch of cinnamon atop a pumpkin latte – has already been released through Starbucks, with more to come. The images, each depicting the tea as a sort of enchanted elixir, will be used for various promotional platforms, including wall-sized murals inside the new store, digital ads and Tazo Tea packaging.

Collaborating with the creative minds at Starbucks to “create a magical world was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,” Cade notes.

“The client couldn’t have been more supportive of everything that I wanted to do,” he says. “We all got along great, worked hard and really had a good time.”

Click here to see more of Cade’s imaginative work.

On The Move With Angela Coppola Adding motion to their repertoires has become a familiar course for many still photographers, and Angela Coppola is among those branching out. The namesake of Coppola Studios in Boston has dabbled in video for over a year now, and admits it has “inspired me to see a project differently.” “You think differently about every aspect: lighting, angles, how you want to say something,” Angela says. “Timing and production all change when you have moving parts.” One of the photographer’s most ambitious motion projects to date is “Urbanites,” a self-assigned piece she’s using as a promo for new clients. With a crew including a set designer and logistical challenges like wardrobe changes, “Urbanites” involved considerably more preproduction than the motion work she’d done before. “My previous videos involved a piece of time,” she notes. “‘Urbanites’ is more a fashion piece with a story behind it.” Angela has loads of experience working with kids, but took extra steps to make her young “Urbanites” models comfortable. The set consisted of backdrops and props the kids could easily move around – “The kids place each building or pigeon or sidewalk in a certain place,” Angela notes – and the artist also carefully selected music to play during the shoot. “The kids could use the beat to walk through the scenes,” she says. “That made it easier to edit the piece.” According to the photographer, all that thoughtful preproduction work paid off. After sharing the piece with several potential clients, Angela received a call to estimate three new videos – hopefully, she says, the first of several potential clients who will be attracted by her video skills. “I think of video as an extension of my photography,” Angela says. “It gives a client a more complete way to say something. My hope is that clients will use the still work for packaging and ads, and the videos would be added to their websites as sizzlers or informational videos.” Click here to see more moving work from the kid-friendly photographer.
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On The Move With Angela Coppola

Adding motion to their repertoires has become a familiar course for many still photographers, and Angela Coppola is among those branching out. The namesake of Coppola Studios in Boston has dabbled in video for over a year now, and admits it has “inspired me to see a project differently.”

“You think differently about every aspect: lighting, angles, how you want to say something,” Angela says. “Timing and production all change when you have moving parts.”

One of the photographer’s most ambitious motion projects to date is “Urbanites,” a self-assigned piece she’s using as a promo for new clients. With a crew including a set designer and logistical challenges like wardrobe changes, “Urbanites” involved considerably more preproduction than the motion work she’d done before. “My previous videos involved a piece of time,” she notes. “‘Urbanites’ is more a fashion piece with a story behind it.”

Angela has loads of experience working with kids, but took extra steps to make her young “Urbanites” models comfortable. The set consisted of backdrops and props the kids could easily move around – “The kids place each building or pigeon or sidewalk in a certain place,” Angela notes – and the artist also carefully selected music to play during the shoot. “The kids could use the beat to walk through the scenes,” she says. “That made it easier to edit the piece.”

According to the photographer, all that thoughtful preproduction work paid off. After sharing the piece with several potential clients, Angela received a call to estimate three new videos – hopefully, she says, the first of several potential clients who will be attracted by her video skills.

“I think of video as an extension of my photography,” Angela says. “It gives a client a more complete way to say something. My hope is that clients will use the still work for packaging and ads, and the videos would be added to their websites as sizzlers or informational videos.”

Click here to see more moving work from the kid-friendly photographer.

Jim Cambon Goes Beneath the Surface Photographer Jim Cambon has a love affair with shiny surfaces. Over three decades of commercial photography shooting thousands of different products, he’s often found himself working with chrome, silver, gold and aluminum objects, not to mention glossy surfaces of all shapes and sizes—so when Waterpik needed an image to show how easily the reservoir of its Cordless Plus Waterflosser is filled, they knew just the artist who could make it happen. “Most of the products I shoot feature one or more special surfaces,” says Jim, who notes all those shiny, reflective objects have their own special – often conflicting – lighting requirements, as do clear and colored plastics and stationary and running water. All of these singular surfaces appear simultaneously in Jim’s Waterflosser shot, which was used on their website, print and packaging materials. The son of an MIT engineer, Jim developed a fascination with machines early on (“before I started walking,” he claims). The photographer believes that enchantment with the inanimate has enhanced his ability to shoot challenging surfaces and angles.  Other artists might balk at the challenge, but Jim’s portfolios are filled with shower heads, faucets, watches, bikes, automobiles and enough other polished products to reflect exactly how skilled he is. A good example of his work with reflective surfaces is this classic Waterpik shot, which “presents one solution to the conflicting requirements of chrome and water, transparent and white plastic,” he says. Click here to see more of Jim’s amazing photography of shiny products.
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Jim Cambon Goes Beneath the Surface

Photographer Jim Cambon has a love affair with shiny surfaces.

Over three decades of commercial photography shooting thousands of different products, he’s often found himself working with chrome, silver, gold and aluminum objects, not to mention glossy surfaces of all shapes and sizes—so when Waterpik needed an image to show how easily the reservoir of its Cordless Plus Waterflosser is filled, they knew just the artist who could make it happen.

“Most of the products I shoot feature one or more special surfaces,” says Jim, who notes all those shiny, reflective objects have their own special – often conflicting – lighting requirements, as do clear and colored plastics and stationary and running water.

All of these singular surfaces appear simultaneously in Jim’s Waterflosser shot, which was used on their website, print and packaging materials.

The son of an MIT engineer, Jim developed a fascination with machines early on (“before I started walking,” he claims). The photographer believes that enchantment with the inanimate has enhanced his ability to shoot challenging surfaces and angles. 

Other artists might balk at the challenge, but Jim’s portfolios are filled with shower heads, faucets, watches, bikes, automobiles and enough other polished products to reflect exactly how skilled he is.

A good example of his work with reflective surfaces is this classic Waterpik shot, which “presents one solution to the conflicting requirements of chrome and water, transparent and white plastic,” he says.

Click here to see more of Jim’s amazing photography of shiny products.

The Art of Marketing, According to Scott DuBar Like many freelance artists, Scott DuBar often finds himself putting his own promotional efforts on the back burner to focus on a client’s immediate needs. However, a recent effort to catch the attention of a particular client unexpectedly led to one of the biggest marketing moves of his career. When a “big potential client” requested a PDF portfolio, Scott went the whole nine yards. In addition to creating a top-shelf DVD of his sometimes surreal (but always insightful!) work, he created a special DVD case design…which wound up serving as Scott’s full-page advertisement for his first-ever appearance in the Directory of Illustration. (He’s Page 527, Scott notes proudly, of the January 2013 directory.) Based on the design and content of his website, blog and other promotional materials, the DVD cover/full-page ad is actually a collage of nine different images, each intended to highlight one of Scott’s multiple styles and some of his offbeat humor. “My goal for the design was to showcase a range of style suited to both editorial work and children’s illustration,” he says. “That way, art directors could see the consistency of my work overall, rather than just relying on the strength of a single illustration.” While Scott’s yet to learn if he captured the heart and mind of that “big potential client,” he’s extremely proud of his Directory of Illustration ad – and he notes he’s “been getting work from other clients since I started using this promo piece.” “This whole experience was a great reminder of the power of branding,” Scott says. “I’m super-excited about how everything came out!” Click here to see more of Scott’s humorous and effective imagery.
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The Art of Marketing, According to Scott DuBar

Like many freelance artists, Scott DuBar often finds himself putting his own promotional efforts on the back burner to focus on a client’s immediate needs. However, a recent effort to catch the attention of a particular client unexpectedly led to one of the biggest marketing moves of his career.

When a “big potential client” requested a PDF portfolio, Scott went the whole nine yards. In addition to creating a top-shelf DVD of his sometimes surreal (but always insightful!) work, he created a special DVD case design…which wound up serving as Scott’s full-page advertisement for his first-ever appearance in the Directory of Illustration. (He’s Page 527, Scott notes proudly, of the January 2013 directory.)

Based on the design and content of his website, blog and other promotional materials, the DVD cover/full-page ad is actually a collage of nine different images, each intended to highlight one of Scott’s multiple styles and some of his offbeat humor.

“My goal for the design was to showcase a range of style suited to both editorial work and children’s illustration,” he says. “That way, art directors could see the consistency of my work overall, rather than just relying on the strength of a single illustration.”

While Scott’s yet to learn if he captured the heart and mind of that “big potential client,” he’s extremely proud of his Directory of Illustration ad – and he notes he’s “been getting work from other clients since I started using this promo piece.”

“This whole experience was a great reminder of the power of branding,” Scott says. “I’m super-excited about how everything came out!”

Click here to see more of Scott’s humorous and effective imagery.

Martin Crook Is An Addict

Ontario-based illustrator Martin Crook freely admits to his dependency on caffeine. It would be hard to hide it, actually, as references to the stimulant are littered like so many used coffee filters throughout his colorful, imaginative work.

These java-fueled illustrations are “entirely autobiographical,” Martin notes—though he wonders if the proper reference might be “autopictorial”—and while he’s not ashamed of his penchant for percolators, he does consider his addiction “a double-edged sword”. While it consistently fuels his art, it occasionally over-stimulates it.

Like any good insomniac/artist/dental school graduate who might someday seek public office, Martin has a plan to save himself and others addicted to espresso, cappuccino and other takes on the beloved Arabica bean – a “state-sponsored effort to wean them from coffee.”

“I’m envisioning free clinics of the future where those similarly afflicted drag themselves every morning for a dose of innocuous tea,” he says.

However, the illustrator acknowledges that no plan to stir up such drastic social change is perfect: His idea of Free Tea Clinics is less a view of some decaffeinated Utopia than “a nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision,” and therefore requires “staggering hordes of zombies sheltering from the nuclear winter.”

But that idea might change, he adds, after his morning cup of joe.

Grab your cream-and-two-sugars and click here to see what else Martin’s been brewing.

Inside The Mind of Michael Clinard

When Adweek Magazine contacted Michael Clinard about conceptual images for the mag’s year-end “Hot List” issue, the photographer knew he’d have to make a tight turnaround time, made tighter by the Thanksgiving holiday. But for an artist who thrives on pressure and never hesitates to push the creative envelope (or shred it), this was the good stuff.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Michael got his marching orders: create imagery representing Twitter for the magazine’s “Biggest Time Suck” list and the hit AMC program The Walking Dead (rated by Adweek as “Best Edge-of-Your-Seat TV Show”).

With an assist from a master prop builder, his friend John Lavin, the Seattle-based photographer concocted a brilliant design for the Twitter shot: a flock of blue Twitter-esque birds stealing the numbers off a simple clock. From his own gently bent mind he conceived an image of a zombie arm pointing a remote toward a television’s glow (beside an enormous bowl of cheese puffs, a Clinard staple).

This level of creativity—and impressively swift execution—is nothing new for Michael, whose work is always ingenious and just slightly off. Well, maybe that’s an unfair comparison to artists who actually are just slightly off: Michael is way off, a brilliant and imaginative conceptual artist who thinks so far out of the box his thoughts can’t even see the box from there. Whether he’s capturing images of a man swallowing a rainbow, hamsters guzzling Jack Daniels or a variety of oddly contorted models, Michael’s eye for angles and mind for messages never disappoint.

Both the Twitter-clock and zombie-arm shots scored with Adweek. The magazine’s creative director was especially pleased with the clock shot, which Michael notes started as a German cuckoo clock but evolved into the analog clock face and time-snatching bluebirds.

“I’m really thankful to have clients who trust my intuition and drive to deliver imagery that pushes both their expectations and those of their readership,” the artist says. “What a fun job!”

Click here to see more of Michael’s amazingly inventive work.

Flying High With Andrew Buchanan

Photographer Andrew Buchanan has always loved the feeling of being in the air—so much so, in fact, that he got his pilot’s license when he was only a teenager.   It seems natural, then, for a man who loves flying so much to make aerial photography such a big part of his career.

When he first moved to Seattle in 1998, Andrew fell in love with the city’s architecture.  Like most major cities, the unique designs of its buildings are a reflection of the character of the city itself.  Seattle residents like Andrew are a mirror image of their city: quirky, progressive, but solidly built upon a firm foundation. The photographer decided he wanted to capture these buildings as they’d rarely been seen, so he started booking architectural and land design firms as clients for his photography business and took to the skies to photograph what exactly he found so fascinating about the landscape and urban planning of his new hometown.

As word about his unique talent began to spread, Andrew’s business began to take off. Of course, there are challenges inherent in aerial photography that more traditional shooters don’t have to deal with: Andrew quickly found that at about $5 a minute, the cost to rent a helicopter for each individual job for which he was commissioned was prohibitive for his clients.

So to better serve them, and book more jobs, Andrew started combining projects from multiple clients into a single session in order to cut down on costs. His clients are happy to wait considering the quality of his work, and creatives are also happy he can charge lower prices by fulfilling multiple commissions in a single flight. 

Perhaps because of its uniqueness, the business model has managed to pay off. Andrew now averages between eight and ten aerial shoots a year for clients as varied as The University of Washington and global architecture firm NBBJ.  In fact, in 2012 he was commissioned for seventeen aerial jobs!

His work has deservedly garnered a lot of recognition, the most recent example being a featured spot on Photoshelter’s main buyer’s page—particularly impressive when you consider Andrew’s photo was chosen from a pool of 70,000 accounts.

Andrew looks forward every year to flying the friendly skies and doing these exciting shoots. “I think I enjoy it so much partlybecause of the way I look at the world and see photographs–it’s very graphic- and design-oriented. I love the challenge of compressing a three-dimensionalspace into a two-dimensional photograph.  That’s aerial photography in a nutshell. You don’t get much volume from 500 feet up!”

See more of Andrew’s impressive work here.

Jeff Berting: Man of Action The art of the action shot often eludes even the most talented and resourceful photographers. Capturing a blurred image of an athlete whirring by is no great shakes; managing to focus on bodies in motion is only slightly more impressive. But freeze-framing high-speed subjects mid-spin, -kick or -jump, at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right light … that ain’t easy. By remembering two key pieces of advice – one from a high school art teacher, the other from his wife (a fellow photographer) – California photog Jeff Berting has become a master of dynamic photography. His “Surf/Sup/Body,” “Active Lifestyle” and “Craftsmen” portfolios are filled with unparalleled examples of humans doing their thing, captured at precise angles and in moments that add beauty and depth. For a fantastic example of this you need look no further than the above image, part of a shoot Jeff was hired to do for Southern California skateboard manufacturer Maki Longboards. The image was selected as part of PDN’s recent “The Shot” Sports Photography competition, and it perfectly frames one of the moments Jeff knows so well, “when you wish your eyes had cameras in them.” “That moment when everything just lines up and comes together, so viewers can relate, whether they actively participate in the sport or are a fan,” Jeff says. “My goal with active-lifestyle photography is to capture those moments.” That always leads Jeff back to the good advice from his high school teacher (“take the ordinary and make it extraordinary”) and his wife (“don’t just use the camera to describe what you see, use it to interpret what you see”). “By taking this advice to heart, I’m constantly challenging myself to keep looking for new perspectives,” Jeff says, “to go beyond the immediate and give the work my thumbprint.” Click here to check out more of Jeff’s signature, action-packed work.
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Jeff Berting: Man of Action

The art of the action shot often eludes even the most talented and resourceful photographers.

Capturing a blurred image of an athlete whirring by is no great shakes; managing to focus on bodies in motion is only slightly more impressive. But freeze-framing high-speed subjects mid-spin, -kick or -jump, at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right light … that ain’t easy.

By remembering two key pieces of advice – one from a high school art teacher, the other from his wife (a fellow photographer) – California photog Jeff Berting has become a master of dynamic photography. His “Surf/Sup/Body,” “Active Lifestyle” and “Craftsmen” portfolios are filled with unparalleled examples of humans doing their thing, captured at precise angles and in moments that add beauty and depth.

For a fantastic example of this you need look no further than the above image, part of a shoot Jeff was hired to do for Southern California skateboard manufacturer Maki Longboards. The image was selected as part of PDN’s recent “The Shot” Sports Photography competition, and it perfectly frames one of the moments Jeff knows so well, “when you wish your eyes had cameras in them.”

“That moment when everything just lines up and comes together, so viewers can relate, whether they actively participate in the sport or are a fan,” Jeff says. “My goal with active-lifestyle photography is to capture those moments.”

That always leads Jeff back to the good advice from his high school teacher (“take the ordinary and make it extraordinary”) and his wife (“don’t just use the camera to describe what you see, use it to interpret what you see”).

“By taking this advice to heart, I’m constantly challenging myself to keep looking for new perspectives,” Jeff says, “to go beyond the immediate and give the work my thumbprint.”

Click here to check out more of Jeff’s signature, action-packed work.

Dark, Wet & Noisy with Eszter + David

San Francisco-based photography duo Eszter Marosszeky and David Matheson certainly have a knack for capturing unique, human poses. Their diverse portfolio depicts athletes twisted and contorted, tradespeople hard at work, families amid the majesty of nature, and even more examples of people being people, with all the beauty and complexity that entails.

A pair of recent ambitious photo projects falls into the first category: both shoots involved a sixteen-foot trampoline, and a whole lot of water.  First, the photo duo collaborated with Easton Lacrosse General Manager Doug Appleton to convince lacrosse star Mike Powell to show off his stuff.  The second shoot was done for cancer awareness non-profit Get In Front, and Eszter and David recruited a super talented slew of dancers from the San Francisco Ballet and Alonzo King Lines to pose for their cameras. 

The sessions were shot in their studios, some of them during an “Open Studio” event (where San Francisco artists open their studios to the general public to view their work, and in this case watch a photo shoot in progress).  Preplanning was key, as Eszter and David knew that dark, wet, and noisy can be less than ideal conditions for photography. As part of their preparation, the two rigged up some garden hoses and even more sprinklers to the studio ceiling. They played with different lighting to get the perfect feel, but after that there was still more work to be done: they needed to figure out how to safely contain the falling water so their landlord didn’t void their lease!

Once the shooting conditions were ideal (and risk-free), Eszter and David began to shoot their subjects twisting, turning, and posing in mid-air as water cascaded down around them from the ceiling.  During the shoot a live audience of onlookers watched as the photographers battled loud fans, exhausted dancers, and the difficulties inherent in being understood through fairly thick Aussie accents—and, of course, everything was wet.

Despite the chaotic nature of the shoot, there’s a singular peaceful beauty in the final photographs: something about the water droplets frozen in place around the front-lit dancers makes them the perfect crystalline complement to the chiseled perfection of their human forms. 

The photographers love the creative opportunities that using a trampoline for a shoot affords them, and they’ve used a similar concept for many other projects. “What I love about using the trampoline is that it affords a lot more freedom for the subject, and tons more latitude for the photographer,” explains David.  And creatives love it too: The duo’s raw talent and the fun and beauty of their shoots have clients jumping at the opportunity to work with them.

Click here to check out a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot and see more of Eszter and David’s work.

Overnight Sensation: Dan Wagner Can’t Sleep, Again

The night belongs to Dan Wagner.

His latest self-published photography book, Insomnia: The City That Never Sleeps (August 2012), is drawing significant attention (Joel Rose, author of The Blackest Bird and Kill Kill Faster Faster, calls Dan “as sure-handed and accomplished a storyteller under whose spell we…could ever hope to fall”). Insomnia takes an unblinking look at nocturnal New York, and now the Huntington, NY-based photographer is putting a night-in-the-city sequel to bed.

Dan is the creative force behind two previous photography books: Few Are Chosen: Photographs 2010-2012 (February 2012) and Never See Nothing: Photographs (May 2012). While his artistic skill is evident in all of his collections, there’s a clear edge to this native son’s love affair with his city. “Images illuminated by my 30-year-old Sylvania flashbulbs are emblazoned on my overstimulated brain,” he says in the Insomnia intro, which goes on to explain his fascination with nighttime in The Big Apple.

“I toss, turn and wonder what’s happening at Webster Hall in the East Village, if there’s a good crowd of club-hoppers at the West Side Meat Market, or how Steven, my favorite bouncer at The Fat Black Pussycat, is doing,” Dan writes.

That same passion will fill the next edition of his black-and-white Insomnia series, expected later this year. “Because city nightlife changes with the seasons, I’m already planning new night shots,” Dan says. “In fact, just thinking about the moments I’ll catch as snow falls on busy New Yorkers is already keeping me awake.”

Click here to see shots from the first Insomnia collection and other examples of Dan’s signature work.

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