I want to try and share some of the things that I watch to really inspire me to make better images; so here’s some links:

Peter Belenger creates the stunning images used by Apple in their marketing materials and he created this incredible behind the scenes video. Here’s the whole article on him.

Then there is this fantastic billboard campaign by Grey Emea; lenticulars are pretty cool when done correctly and they have been around a while, but this is a fantastic implementation of them.

And this video…yep…this one was really worth watching.

And if you’re wondering where we’ve been recently…here you go:

We love working with Houlihan’s on their J Gilbert’s and Devon Seafood brands, and as we’re working on one next week in Chicago I figured I’d share this project from last year. We have a lovely time working with Dean on set; he’s a great art director and really makes me giggle during the insane hours we have to be on-set. 

The images are really fun to work on as we end up spending a lot of time tweaking the lighting and staging to make the images perfect ; plus they are some of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve been in.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Houlihan’s; Devon Restaurant

Art Director - Dean Woods

Assistant - Adam Caselman

Hi-Res

This is a project shot we’ve been playing for a while - just trying to get that perfect outline on the edge of the bottle, then that perfect sharp line reflection that shows the shape of the bottle, the soft fill for the label and then the back-lit glow from the wine itself. I loved this particular bottle design and it happened to be down at the local supermarket - no doubt we recycled the contents on the front porch too. The horizon line was part of the lighting design - where we just raised the flag enough that some light crept through and then lifted the bottle up a half inch - as you can see from the reflection we did actually raise the bottle - no photoshop in creating the line, just in taking the block out. I loved the final shot and I was really happy when it was a winner in this years local ADDY competition.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman 

Hi-Res

williamhessphoto:

Santa Cruz Mountains, CA

My assistant made this photo while we were in CA for Helzberg. He is pretty damn good.

We recently wrapped a really fun project for a pharmaceutical company with a top secret product - yep, this is another one I really should check and see if I can talk about all the details, but I’m going to get on and show off some of the photos.

This was a huge one for Kate to deliver everything in production - we ended up with a total of nine talent, and five locations stretched over two days. Two very hectic and very successful days.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Tell Ya Later

Art Direction: See Above

Talent: Talent Unlimited

Styling: Shelly Walker

Production: Kate Crockett

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman 

Sometimes I fall in love with outtakes - just totally in love with them. This is from a project that is all retouched and finished and you’ll be seeing a really cool tearsheet of the final ad soon. The brief was to crack an egg and take a photo of it. Luckily Shaun is really creative and wanted to crack a lot of eggs and have a lot of fun. So he brought about a hundred eggs…and an air rifle.

We started with cracking the egg and placing the cracked egg on set and trying all the different ways we could crack the egg and get different shell fragments, then playing with the yolk and then rotating the shell all over the place…god fun.

Next we got the air rifle and that was an enormous lesson in trial and error. Deciding to go for it armed with the words “Three…two…one…” we shot a lot of eggs (next time we’re going to get the auto-triggers and have less fun, but more images). My favorite moment was not having all the guards in place and getting a crotch full of yolk from shot number one as the egg exploding right in the direction of my pants. Joy. Anyhow, we pushed on and get some lovely images, of which I have posted my two favorites.

After the air rifle we decided to continue the theme of random destruction and went for a simple drop - lots of different velocities, and heights - and that was where the final client select came from - which will follow soon.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Client: Merck Animal Health

Agency: AdFarm

Art Direction: Shaun Crockett

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

mrshaun:

An enchanting spot about cooking food.

This is inspiring.

Making a Beautiful Red Mess

We’ve been working on some liquid shots recently and using some really fast recycling strobes, coupled with our fancy new 1Dx camera…yep, I’m name dropping. It’s kinda cool making the images as it looks like a dance club in here when we’re shooting them. Not quite sure what we’ll use them for, but I definitely want to print a couple of them out for the wall!

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Oh boy, it’s a party now! This was a fun shoot we did in the studio of a Johnnie Walker “Red Label” bottle, and a rocks glass. All we’re missing are some whiskey stones. We played around with different light modifiers at different angles to get the look we wanted on the label. We did the same thing with the rocks glass. 

In post, I blended the different comps with the different light angles in, and gave the label a little bit of a punch with a curves layer. I took out the outline of the Johnnie sticker on the front, and I took out the rear reflection in the glass. There were some rainbow artifacts in the glass, so I desaturated every part of the glass that didn’t have a whiskey color in it. Speaking of whiskey color, I matched the whiskey colors in the glass and in the bottle to each other. There was a little more reflection than we wanted, so I feathered in some black to cut down on some of that reflection. 

I’m a big fan of this shot. It just seems to pop off of the screen, which I would be alright with if it actually did. Who else needs a glass? I can’t drink alone.

- Adam

This is a shot Adam and I have been working on for a while - capturing perfect glass - a beautiful outline showing the shape of the glass and a mixture of highlights on the glassware - the soft broad highlight on the glass and the sharp line that runs down the side of the bottle. All this with the spot light on the label with plenty of fall-off and the backlit bottle to bring out the color of the beverage. Overall we did about six shots with a whole series of different highlights and modifiers to form the final composite.

I love tinkering like this in studio - always a good time.

- Alistair

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Independence…we finally achieved it.

After Garden City we rolled on and went to the other side of the state to Independence, KS (that’s right Missourian’s, there is an Independence in Kansas and it’s home to the incredible Neewollah Festival) and worked on another school. This time the brief was to capture images showing the sensitivity that DLR had shown in renovating an existing high school. Focusing on the entry areas and the transition areas that had been built fresh for the students and again using student to show purpose and scale. 

The tree in the exteriors really make that shot for me - there’s nothing like a true old growth tree to really bring architecture alive. 

The nighttime exterior was the tricky shot, as we really wanted to bring the facade to life; we lit it throughout the entire face of the building and made sure to put some uplight into the tree as well to ensure it was part of the image.

I’m really pleased with the final image, but I’m still wishing I could actually make it to the darn Neewollah festival one of these days…

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group

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