brand photograpy
an album of selects from my professional lens
the problem
The problem here wasn’t a business case, it was a professional one.
In all my years as a marketer, I’ve always worked with visual assets in one way or another - whether by adding mood boards to my creative briefs in my agency days or by managing entire asset libraries at Microsoft, my job has always involved making an impact on the visual work.
But until BBC moved me to LA from Vermont, I hadn’t had much professional experience actually creating the content I was strategizing for. Sure, I could take a decent photo and I thought I had a good eye, but that didn’t totally prepare me for the learning curve that was becoming my company’s go-to internal photorapher.
But like most learning curves, you start at the beginning not knowing much and learn as you go. Over that span of time, I can’t possibly quantify the volume of stills produced - but I can qualify my experience and process as one guided by experimentation. I’ve shot cans in every conceivable lighting condition, I’ve scouted dozens of locations across LA, and I’ve sliced approximately one metric fuck-ton of fruit, all in an effort to get that one shot.
One key lesson that hit home for me was tone. There’s so much talk about brand tone in marketing, usually in reference to written word, but I’m biased to believe that visual tone is equally, if not more, important. Everyone eats with their eyes first - our brains subconsciously register visual data within milliseconds, before our conscious minds can even begin to think about reading any messaging. Capturing the right tone in an image can either take a tremendous amount of effort to fabricate, or it can simply present itself to you - the latter happens far more often than you’d think, it just takes time to train your eye to notice those moments, they come and go so suddenly. You have to learn to listen with your eyes.
You also have to listen in general - none of these images would’ve developed without the support and collaboration from my creative directors, brewers, chefs, interns, bartenders, and friends.
I’ve planned, tinkered, produced, published, failed and succeeded in all my efforts. This page is dedicated to some of my favorites.
In all my years as a marketer, I’ve always worked with visual assets in one way or another - whether by adding mood boards to my creative briefs in my agency days or by managing entire asset libraries at Microsoft, my job has always involved making an impact on the visual work.
But until BBC moved me to LA from Vermont, I hadn’t had much professional experience actually creating the content I was strategizing for. Sure, I could take a decent photo and I thought I had a good eye, but that didn’t totally prepare me for the learning curve that was becoming my company’s go-to internal photorapher.
But like most learning curves, you start at the beginning not knowing much and learn as you go. Over that span of time, I can’t possibly quantify the volume of stills produced - but I can qualify my experience and process as one guided by experimentation. I’ve shot cans in every conceivable lighting condition, I’ve scouted dozens of locations across LA, and I’ve sliced approximately one metric fuck-ton of fruit, all in an effort to get that one shot.
One key lesson that hit home for me was tone. There’s so much talk about brand tone in marketing, usually in reference to written word, but I’m biased to believe that visual tone is equally, if not more, important. Everyone eats with their eyes first - our brains subconsciously register visual data within milliseconds, before our conscious minds can even begin to think about reading any messaging. Capturing the right tone in an image can either take a tremendous amount of effort to fabricate, or it can simply present itself to you - the latter happens far more often than you’d think, it just takes time to train your eye to notice those moments, they come and go so suddenly. You have to learn to listen with your eyes.
You also have to listen in general - none of these images would’ve developed without the support and collaboration from my creative directors, brewers, chefs, interns, bartenders, and friends.
I’ve planned, tinkered, produced, published, failed and succeeded in all my efforts. This page is dedicated to some of my favorites.