Snow? In June?

It's almost Memorial Day, the ceremonial start of summer fun and inevitably every year it's the time when I get the call. "We need snow ... on the road ... in June." Aéro Film in Los Angeles working with the Richards Group in Dallas are producing a TV spot for Bridgestone tires and need snow on the road to show off the performance of their tires on slippery surfaces. When you live in a state where roads travel up over 10,000 feet, the answer is always "no problem"

Another great thing about Utah is the ease of permitting, one online permit and an insurance certificate and we are approved to start right away. Which is important when the snow melts a bunch everyday.

Hip iPhone App

We all know how bad photos turn out from the iPhone camera. So you might as well have a little fun with it. Chris Jameson introduced me to the Hipstamtic iPhone App on a job and I've been having fun with it ever since. For $1.99 you get your first camera, 3 lenses and 3 rolls of film, each giving you a unique feel or look to the final picture. You can then purchase additional "hipstapaks" for $0.99 containing an lens, roll of film and sometime a flash or filter kit. Another great feature is after you've taken a picture and the application process' it you can go back in and change the camera settings if you like the picture but not the effects. The only drawback I find is it's slow to process the images and if you don't wait until it's completely processed then it will be erased.

Website

* In no way am I paid or compensated for this post, I just love the app!

Steelcase

Running around like a chicken with its head cut off was the concept of the ad and when an unpredicted storm shows up on the shoot day, concept becomes reality.

Matthew Turley was assigned the first of three ads for Nurture by Steelcase, a line of furniture for the medical field, the other two will be produced in June. Some quick thinking on Matthew's part lead him to run out and grab the landscape background plate before the storm arrived. Leaving only the chicken to shoot on the day. With a small break in the weather the crew was able to capture all the elements needed. Thanks goodness for persistence, talent and photoshop.

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association

I have admired the work of Chris Wimpey for years now, he was one of the first "big landscape" shooters and has had a long successful career, thankfully long enough that I had the opportunity to work with him.

Our task is too stock a photo Library for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association with images of the strip at night. We spent Monday and Tuesday scouting rooftops, restaurants and bars with vantage points of the strip. We'll return next week to shoot Five nights in the city of lights.

With tools in our arsenal like the ability to turn all the lights on the strip on an hour early, changing the time of the Bellagio Water Show and Mirage Volcano and of course some helicopter time, we are sure to get some amazing images of the ever growing Vegas skyline.

Vacation

For the Third year in a row, the Currie's escaped the last bit of snow on the ground in Park City for the sunny beaches of Northwest Florida, Seaside to be exact. Made famous by Jim Carey's movie "the Truman show" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/locations. The only mistake is staying a week, way too short.

Smartwool

When Smartwool from Steamboat Springs, CO looks for a place to shoot Skiing, Snowboarding, X-Country Skiing, Telemark Skiing and Trail Running all within 30 minutes of each other they leave Colorado for the Sunshine and Snow of Utah. After waiting for 2 days for a storm to pass, we we're left with nothing but blue skies and snow everywhere.

Todd Meier from Boise, ID working with Jon Gelder of Orca Creative used all real people, skiers, snowboarders, athletes from Utah and Colorado to create realistic lifestyle images for Smartwool's Fall 2010 line of base layers, socks and accessories.

Pictured above (l to r) Chris Jameson, Assistant, Carla and Sam Merrill, "real" skiers from Alpine, UT

Honda Motorcycle!

Comedy and Motorcycles are rarely seen in the same concept, but these clever ads from Dailey Ideas and Creative Director Marcus Wesson pull that off quite successfully. In a typical motorcycle or car advertisement we concentrate on the action of the vehicle and the background becomes a blurred graphic element, but in this situation we needed to tell the story and have the "gag" read, while showing the motorcycle in action. Ebo Fraterman was chosen for this careful task, as his understanding of compositing imagery enabled us to tell the story and show off the motorcycle.

Shot On location East of Palmdale, CA. Pictured from left to right, Rob Lawrence, Ebo's rep, Ray Dougela, digital tech, Ebo Frateman, on camera, Dominic Disaia, Assistant. In the distance (from l to r) Thomas Gertz, Camera Assistant, Marcus Wesson, Creative Director and Denise Pelton, Account Director.