Still Images In Great Advertising, is a  column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.

In today’s feature, I reached out to Bryce Boyer, because the ads he shot show great lighting, clever concepts and the importance of showing your talent to an agency and creative person using a pro-bono campaign to establish a working relationship. The pay off can be huge, many times better than spending thousands on a direct mailer. Creative people look at award winning ads and find photographers to shoot their paying jobs. In the the begining of my career as an art buyer, Jim Erickson would shoot our creative work with little budgets and it was great creative work that got The Martin Agency and Jim Erickson on the map. It is best to look at some assignments based on how they can help the future of your career.

Suzanne: I would assume this ad is a pro-bono project for Burns Marketing? Is that true?
Bryce: I worked with Burns Marketing to create these images to promote entering work into The Denver Fifty (Note: The award show is tonight), a unique advertising competition sponsored by Ad Club Denver that celebrates the region’s fifty best ideas. To honor the spirit of this contest, we developed posters behind the concept “Great Ideas Can’t Hide.” In other words, if you won’t submit your ideas to this show, Ad Club Denver will find them. That’s why every poster has a creative individual who is suddenly aware that someone is stalking them to take their idea.

Through this process, I had the privilege of teaming up with Jennifer Hohn, a fantastic art director at Burns Marketing, who was in charge of developing a marketing campaign to get creatives to submit ideas. This was my first time working with this agency. It gave me an opportunity to further expose my work to them and the Denver ad community. Fortunately, the posters were scooped up in blogs nationwide. Score!

And as a bonus, I thought this was a good time to give back to this vibrant, active ad community. I believe my creative energy should sometimes do more than move products off shelves. Twenty years from now, I want to look back and see my body of work with a sense of pride. So every year, I partner with a few non-profits that I share common values with. It’s a responsibility that has returns that benefit the soul, not the checkbook.

One more quick note about pro-bono work. There is never a convenient time to do something for free. To make it work, I have to schedule it just like any other job and give myself a real deadline. It’s easy for me to do it in my head, but a deadline makes it happen in real time.

Suzanne: Tell me about the lighting on this as the drama of the image makes the viewer stop versus a great headline with supporting image.
Bryce: For years I have built a style around complex lighting that requires a sizable crew and carts of equipment. This job had no budget, so I wanted to keep it simple. Most shots had one Kino for the key light, a Lowell DP casting a shadow from a foam core cut out of the pursuing “shadow man,” and a small Lowell Omni for fill.

But this wasn’t a one-man show. Jennifer art directed all aspects of the campaign. I pulled a favor from a Denver modeling agency called Radical Talent. I wanted to use actors instead of print models. It worked out great. We also shot a video spot edited by Stephen Zinn, had special effects added by friends at Spillt, and final color was donated by Post Modern. The print retouching was also provided by XYZ Graphics. Even though we had no budget, the whole campaign felt like it was a large job because I was surrounded by such an incredibly talented team.

Suzanne: Since this ad was targeted to creative people, did you see an increase in awareness to your work? Increase in work?
Bryce: Absolutely! I didn’t follow it too close because I shot this a week right before my son Aaron was born. At this point, I unplugged and vicariously watched the rest of the team perform the final touches. I work with a lot of local agencies and I’ve seen the posters pinned to walls all over which I find extremely gratifying. Since returning to the studio, I’ve been slammed…in a good way. I have no doubt that most active creatives in Denver saw the posters and this project will lead to more work in the future.

Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.

Bryce Boyer is a commercial photographer based in Denver, Colorado who specializes in photographing dynamic images of people for ads and a few select magazines. Clients include Chaco, Olay, Miller/Coors, Johnson & Johnson, Cricket, The Brown Palace, Denver Children’s Hospital, Visit Denver, and The Sports Authority.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies.

by A Photo Editor on January 26, 2012 · 2 comments

Still Images In Great Advertising, is a new column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.

Great Advertising is not only a print ad or billboard, it can be a vehicle that is not considered conventional. Today’s example is just that, a new show on E! called Scouted, which becomes an unconventional way to show a photographers work. I’m sure many will be critical of the show itself, but this is the reality of the business:

There are many people in this industry includes photo editors, art buyers and art directors who will watch and see Danny Christensen at work photographing and directing models. What better way to advertise how you shoot on set and then the final results in printed images. I reached out to Danny after watching the show to see if he would be interested in being a part of this series.

Suzanne: How did you get the opportunity to be the photographer of record for this program? I am sure they considered hundred’s of fashion photographers and you got the job, that is a great testament to your talent.
Danny: The executive producer and creator of the show, Michael Flutie, contacted my agent, Lorenzo at L&A Artists, and asked if I would be interested and requested a meeting. That was on a Tuesday, 7 days before the planned start of the filming the NYC part of the show. Originally, there was supposed to be 8 different photographers on the show, one for each episode of the first season. A few hours after the meeting they contacted my agent and requested a 2nd meeting the next day, where I was to meet the entire team of producers, including the guys from 51 Minds who produced the show and the Executive Producers from E!

The meeting went really well and Thursday morning they contacted us and asked if I was interested and able to do all 8 episodes – with pre-production meeting the following Monday! I guess I fit the bill of who they were looking for and I think a big part of it was my non-traditional look and feel to my work and my experience with motion, that Michael Flutie was keen on integrating in the shoots.

Suzanne: I have several clients who have been the photographers on Americas Next Top Model and it has been great for their careers. How have you seen changes in your business?
Danny: The response has been amazing. Especially the first couple of weeks here in 2012, where Season 1 episodes are coming to an end. I think everyone was waiting to see how the show developed and that the quality of my work, both the pictures and the videos was consistent.

I shot everything on the RED EPIC camera, so everything was shot in motion and we pulled still photos from the motion film with amazing results. It’s a quite new way to approach fashion and beauty photography. Additionally we cut together a fashion film clip that was shown to Scott from One Models the day after the filming, and Scott based his decision to sign the girls, both on the video and the stills. So, a lot of the response has been from clients who are interested in doing just that, filming a commercial/video component and shooting the stills.

Suzanne: Most the time you are working with young talent who have never been professionally photographed and to make it even more difficult, photographed for the first time on television. How do you work with them to get them to feel comfortable with the whole process? Is there a lot of unseen footage where you are coaching them? inspiring them? talking to them about the process?
Danny: It was very challenging for sure. I’ve worked with brand new talent many times before but as you mention, there is a crew of 30-40 people and 3-4 cameras on set for these shoots so most girls just froze like a deer in headlights when they came on set. I had to talk to the crew and we found a solution where only the people who had to be on set was there. That also included asking the girls parents and the scouts to wait off set, the girls simply couldn’t relax and I didn’t get a connection with them before the people they knew left the set. Then the girls were more relaxed and they connected with me and the camera.

When ever I could, I would go and say hi to them and introduce myself when they were in hair and make-up and I would explain a little about what we were going to do, but it was primarily to just break the ice before they came on set. I feel some times with brand new girls, it’s better to simply direct them on set rather than trying to explain them something before hand, that they don’t understand anyway. That normally only results in a girl trying to “model” as they might have seen online or on a tv show and that’s NOT going to work, especially in a video/motion piece.

In most cases, due to the production and time challenges, I didn’t even meet the girl beforehand and she would walk on set with the tv cameras rolling. That was really challenging ,but most of the girls warmed up after the first shot and we got beautiful pictures and videos.

What You don’t get a feel of on the show, because of the editing of the tv footage, is that I only had max 45 min filming time with each girl where we did 2-3 different looks. I have never done that before. Additionally, we had around 14 hours turn around time for final images plus edited and produced videos. It challenged me as a director and photographer and I feel I learned a lot from it. It forced me to practice and plan how I approached each girl, based on concept/look and a little profile video clip of each girl that the scouts provided me with – that was really exciting!

Danish-born Danny Christensen discovered his love for the visual arts working in advertising and PR in Copenhagen and New York. This passion for advertising led him to transition into fashion, portraiture, and fine-art photography during the following years. In 2006, Danny attended photography school in Denmark. He continued his creative journey in Paris where he assisted various fashion and portrait photographers It was also in Paris where Danny started started his career as a working photographer shooting, editorials, small commercial jobs, and film. Danny splits his time between New York and Copenhagen, Paris & Milan.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies.

by Suzanne Sease on January 18, 2012 · 8 comments