If you follow my blog then you've heard me talk about the importance of testing to develop your work and your style. It's a little different than interpreting a layout and then giving your input to an art director who already has a vision in his or her mind. With testing you are the art director as well, dealing with your own interpretations and desires and doing all the execution as well, and utimatley having to please no one but yourself.

It's important because first, it pushes your craft, and second, it gives you a tremendous understanding of what your clients deal with everyday.

A few weeks ago I finally put into motion an idea I had thought about for sometime about shooting kids in all out summer fun mode. Given I love kids I thought this would be a total blast! As I got into the planning of it I also realized how seamless the production would need to be if I was going to achieve my goals and get the images I wanted. So my crew choices and the model choices were going to be absolutley critical.

I'm happy to report that everything went perfectly and the crew and models were fantastic! We had a beautiful day, lots of laughs and a bunch of kids who went home exhausted and full! Many, many thanks need to go out to my crew: Joy Howard for her awesome food styling of popsicles and ice cream in 90 degree heat; to Lizzy Williams for all the fantastic toys and props for the kids to play with; to Coco Grace for her always perfect hair and make up, to Erin Riley for the sweet wardrobe choices. Also have to acknowledge my producer Sharon for always keeping me on track and the engine running at full speed and Katherine Hennessy, my rep for pushing me to do more than I thought I would. Finally if you ever shoot with kids...... Do. Not. Forget to call Kelly Naugler; amazing ability to motovate kids.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the shoot:

The crew:

We are well into shooting fall now but we recently received the Family Fun magazine featuring a shoot we did for Easter. It was a great shoot with Photo Director Mark Mantegna, Kimberly Stoney creating all the crafts, Julie Paquette on props and wardrobe for all the kids and Erica Fagan doing all their hair and make up. The kids were so good and we had a great time making some very fun images. Here's a look behind the scenes and at the final story.

Today I just wanted to remember what warm days and wearing shorts was like and since we are shooting with Staples again next week I thought a look at our production this past summer was perfect! We had multple sets going at the same time for multiple days and a good size crew so there was always a lot happening. Here's a look behind the scenes.

Sometimes I just have to shoot something differently. Sometimes an assignment comes along to let me do just that.

A couple months ago I was shooting for Yankeee Magazine and had the great pleasure of meeting and photographing Diana and Vojin Vujosevic who own Pain D'Avignon a restaurant and bakery down in Hyannnis. The way I approached the Yankee shoot impressed Diana and she approached me at the end of the day and asked if I would shoot some images at Pain D'Avignon. They did not have a shot list or an agenda (except to get in a couple of food shots) she just wanted me to explore and shoot whatever I felt would communicate the feel of the restaurant and bakery.

After scouting their place I felt it had this old world feel, very European. However, even though the bakery and the restaurant are connected  they each had a slighlty different feeling to them so I thought overall pictures wouldn't really communicate what it felt like to be sitting there. I suggested to Diana that I shoot lots of detail images and shoot in black and white or very desaturated color to give it that old world feeling. 

She loved the idea, so I put together a suggested shot list and off we went. Here's a sampling of some of the images I created.

Since we have another shoot for Manitowoc coming up I thought I'd post some pictures of last year's production for today's TBT. 

 As usual it was a very serious shoot...