behind the scenes

Editorial shoot of a hard working veterinarian

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Back in November, I was hired by Loomis Chaffee, an independent prep school located in Windsor, Connecticut, to do an editorial shoot for the winter issue of their alumni magazine. The assignment had me travel out to Plainville, KS to photograph Lauren Mack, Loomis Chaffee alumn and hardest working veterinarian I’ve ever met.

Plainville, KS is in the definition for “middle of nowhere”, about a 4hr drive from my studio in Lawrence. I arrived in Plainville at 8am(an early rise for sure!) and followed Lauren out to a ranch where she proceeded to do internal exams and vaccinations on 70 pregnant cows….and these cows were not happy about this exam. It was Crazytown. As a photographer, there are times that I have to get dirty in order to “get the shot” and I did get pretty dirty on this assignment, but I have never witnessed a person doing a job quite as physical and downright filthy as the amazing vet, Lauren. She was the boss of those cows and it was awe-inspiring to watch/photograph.

These are my favorite assignments, hands down. Traveling to new places and photographing people in their own unique environments is what keeps me excited about being a photographer. Below is the cover shot and the article about Lauren in the new issue of the Loomis Chaffee Magazine. I’ve even included a little behind the scenes video for your viewing pleasures…bonus!

A tale of a popular stock photo...

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Stock photography is a touchy subject for commercial photographers these days. The stock business underwent a huge change with the introduction of digital photography. Now that everyone including their Grandmas can shoot and upload stock images, the competition is enormous. A lot of photographers say you can’t make a living selling stock images anymore and I say foowee!(or is it foowy?, fu wee?..eh you get what I’m saying!)

I’ve been in the stock business for over 12 years and in that time I’ve built a portfolio of more than 2,500 images. It’s a fickle business, you shoot something that you think will sell like gang busters and then it never does. Some images just sell better than others, no rhyme or reason. This is a little story about an image of mine that has sort of gone “viral” in the stock photography world.

Earlier this year, I shot a series of images that feature a collection of musical instruments. Basically, I threw a bunch of instruments on the floor of my studio, set up a couple of lights…badda bing badda boom…I made this shot…

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Fast forward to now and this image has sold more than 1,200 times. I don’t know why this image is so popular, but I sell it on average 10 times a day. It is by far the most popular stock image I’ve ever shot and it took me maybe thirty minutes to make. It blows me away to see how this image has been used. It’s been used by a university in Bogota, the Viva Citizenship Institute of Brazil, and even on the Quito Ecuador travel site. I think it’s pretty cool and it really motivates me to keep making stock images. (below are just a few samples showing how this image has been used)

the Force was strong with this one.

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[editorial shoot for Sunflower Publishing]

This four year old Jedi proved to be almost too powerful for the likes of Kylo Ren(Dad) and one photographer(me), but even the most temperamental Jedi can be defeated.  You just have to let them see a photo of themselves.  Cheers them right up, works every time.