The TV Cop...

In December, I shot this ad campaign for the 100 Club of Chicago, which is a non profit org whose mission is to provide for the families of Police and Firefighters that lose their lives in the line of duty. When an officer dies, they come in, write a big check right off the bat, and help take care of the family and the kids of the fallen officer. The concept of the campaign was to photograph actors from Chicago, who play cops on TV. The copy was very simple tag lines like "Real first responders have more to worry about than low ratings", and "real first responders dont get body doubles". It was cool to do a very well written, simple portrait campaign like this. And very cool that it ran in black and white. It wasnt supposed to run black and white, but on set between actors, i was editing and messing with my selects and converting to black and white as i felt thats what would make them graphic and strong. The creative director, Joe Stuart from Downtown Partners in chicago, was on set and loved it so they went that direction with the whole campaign. The actors i got to shoot were Gary Sinise, Dennis Franz, Joe Montegna, and Dennis Farina. These guys are all friends in real life, and the best part was listening in to them all catching up and gossiping as they dont all get together like this very often. It was like the rat pack, very quick witted, giving each other a hard time, and the language these guys were using made even me blush. Farina in particular was one funny dude, giving everybody a hard time and having a good laugh all day. These will be running in local chicago mags and on bus shelters this year, so hoping to get there soon and see them on the bus stops...

first published of the year..

Here's some assorted tear sheets from jobs I did in late november/december....lots of good shoots to round out the year...the fisherman shot was for Money magazine, to illustrate a story about new strategies to increase your investments...the idea was that while in the past we would put lots of money into one big portfolio (hence the marlin on the wall), nowadays you must be more nimble and spread the money around for good returns (hence the group of small fish). It was a blast shooting and concepting this. We had a set built, and styled to look like a stereotypical fisherman. I got to work with creative director Neil Jamieson again, which I can honestly say i've never had a bad shoot for...the next job was for Runners World magazine of marathon runner Desi Davila, shot in detroit...Desi came in second in the boston marathon recently, and was getting ready for the olympic trials for the games in London this summer. It was a great day hanging with her on the shoot..the concept was an homage to the old Rosie the Riveter posters from WWII..SPent all day with her, shooting her training and also portaits. The hardest part of this job is that it was the coldest day of the year. Shot in early december, it was 19 degrees in the morning when we started. For this opening portrait we had to shoot for a minute, let Desi go inside to get warm, shoot for a minute, etc. until we got the shot. Desi is not glam like some of the other women runners, and she kinda came out of nowhere on the elite scene, but in the last year she has been kicking but..and I am very happy to say that she did indeed qualify for the olympic team last week at the trials in Houston. I will be watching for sure this summer crossing my fingers for her...The corporate portrait was for Bloomberg Markets magazine. shot in November in my favorite place to shoot, Central Park. The particular spot in the park I have shot at before, its a favorite for sure. the cool thing about this spot is that you can make it look like its out in the woods, middle of nowhere. Its pretty easy to shoot without showing the skyline in the backround, but for this shot we left a little bit of it in. I love this shot, definitely one of my more fav corporate shoots last year..And the last tearsheet is from Outdoor Life magazine, of bass fisherman Gerald Swindle, shot in Dallas in november. Again, cold, windy, hard conditions, but had to make it work. And make it work we did. Never come home without a great shot, no matter how bad/tough the conditions are, because honestly, your editor just doesnt want to hear it!! heres to another awesome year, 2012....