Location and studio photography for catalog and e-commerce. The best part of this work, to me, is always the amazing amount of behind the scenes work that goes into creating these images. That’s probably the part I love the most - the collaborative efforts of stylists, assistants, grips, photographer, and art director, and their relative skill-sets all come together in an amazingly chaotic and often joyful process to create a single image. It’s wonderful to behold, difficult to explain.
The goal, of course, is to trigger the buying decision. Nothing sells until it’s photographed, and the better the image the more sales it will generate. The brand has to be represented well, elevated if possible - a whole team of execs and creative types have made a million decisions about the look, tone, and feel of a brand and the photography team has to bring that to life for the customer. Sometimes you’re selling an item. Other times you’re selling a lifestyle. It takes a team of talented people to pull that together into one image. That’s the best part of the process, to me.
I’ve included in this gallery some of my favorite catalog pages. Ideally, a commercial photographer is always shooting to a layout, with the final page in mind. The added elements of layout and typography can really make an image - the context in which the final image will be seen really is the most important element and should always be driving every decision made on set.
Nothing sells until it is photographed. I’d love to talk to you about your product or project, and work with you to create high impact imaging that will drive your sales.
I was raised in the mountains. There’s no real reason I should feel so drawn to the sea, but its might and its mystery have always called me to it. I especially love being on the beach on cold and foggy days. I look out into the mist and fog that hangs over the water, and I want to ask questions of it. On those days the sea seems to have something to say, and I want to hear it.
Everyone is beautiful. Everyone. I love these faces - I love looking into the eyes of people who have lived, who have something to say, who can teach us things. We tend to listen to celebrities, to politicians, to “experts” - but we forget the plumber may have more to teach us than the philosopher. The people around you have better stories than celebrities. The wife who stays with her husband while he is dying knows more of love than any politician, the young boy who defends his sister is has more courage than any soldier. I think we need to look to each other more . . .
These paintings are all oil and cold wax medium on paper. They remind me of places I’ve been, and seem to be both the endlessly repeating horizon as you travel, and the view from your window as the landscape whizzes by, like a long exposure that blurs into soft lines of color. Their simplicity is beautiful to me, and the action, the simple smooth pull of the brush across the paper is meditative - a breath, a brushstroke, and a consideration of the color. Each of these is 22.5” x 30”, on Arches oil paper.
Pricing and other information may be found on the Shop page. Prints of these works are also available.
When I make a portrait I try to step away from the conventional posed image and find a more natural, spontaneous expression and posture. It’s tricky and it fails as often as it succeeds - but when it does succeed I find that I’ve created something I want to keep looking at - it’s harder to get bored with an image that appears to have been captured by surprise.
A series of paintings based on the Office of the Hours, the prayers offered at prescribed times of the day in the Catholic tradition. I am not Catholic, but I find the idea of people offering prayers at set times, globally, somehow comforting and inspiring. The first three are Matins, Prime, and Vespers - they’re all oil and cold wax on wood, finished with encaustic. There’s a depth to them I really enjoy, and although they appear textured the surface is quite smooth and can be buffed to a gloss. Eventually there will be seven paintings in the group.
Food is one of my favorite things to shoot - there’s an intensity to it, a focus - it requires great concentration, speed, and timing - and the help of a skilled food stylist. There are few areas of photography, though, that offer the opportunity to explore color and texture in the same way, and no other area of photography elicits the same response from the viewer. It’s challenging, and incredibly rewarding when it comes together well.
This gallery contains images I created during my tenure as Photography Manager for Torque Creative, a division of Techtronic Industries, or TTI. TTI is the manufacturer of Ryobi, Ridgid, and Hart tools, and the images contained here were specifically for those brands.
TTI afforded me the opportunity to work in a wide variety of locations, and I was able to flex a bit every now and then - that beautiful morning light filling the workshop to the left of this paragraph is all strobe. We constructed the set in a windowless warehouse, and my challenge was to create a feeling of natural light.
The sheer breadth of line at Ryobi and Ridgid is amazing - there are hundreds of tools across multiple categories in the product line. It's an incredible testimony to the creativity and innovation found in modern American industry.
Some of these are of a mountain, some are on a mountain, and some are on the way to a mountain. I’m usually somewhere along that spectrum. There is, in the mountains, a perpetually refreshing landscape - the horizon is constantly shifting, and there is no loss of color in the winter; even in the darkest days of winter there’s a rich palette to enjoy. I love the density of trees, and the color of the mosses and lichens, the ochre yellow grasses and the mineral colors of the rocks.
I’m always looking up at the horizon, and I’m not sure why. My son said to me once, “My whole life, you’ve been stopping to look at sunsets.” And he’s right - I’m always looking up and out, towards the horizon. I love space, and the sense of soaring openness, freedom, you feel when standing at the edge.
Most of my work is fairly large, but this collection of painting represents smaller work. Most are 12” x 16” or smaller, on paper or panel. Some are oils, and some incorporate the cold wax medium.
