Make it look easy.
New food photography work from your homie Justin Sullivan. Fresh macarons from the unstoppable Bottega Louie downtown Los Angeles.
BATTLE!
My good friend and fellow photographer Matthew Stacey recently challenged me to a bi-weekly photo battle. I got to pick the subject matter for the first one, and decided on dessert. Been thinking about playing with popsicles for a little while and this is what I came up with to kick it off. Let me know what you think in the comments 🙂
Outtake.
Here’s a little teaser outtake from a new project I’m working on for a client who makes some pretty top quality footwear.
The Biggest Food Fight in America
I’m on the plane flying back home to LA after an absolutely awesome weekend away. It was jam packed with things going right, tons of fun, a great show and making some beautiful memorable images.
My client, Twelve Horses North America handles all of the online marketing and branding for the Cal Neva Hotel and Casino, and I am responsible for photographic coverage of one big event every month. This gives me the opportunity to fly back and forth from Los Angeles to Reno and make a little money on top of that. It’s also nice because my fee from the event coverage allows me to cover the cost of my ticket so that I can photograph projects for other clients. This trip was no exception, and I worked with St. Pierre Creative to make some new marketing images for their design firm. It was so mch fun. I love those guys, and they were an absolute pleasure to work with.
La Tomatina en Reno was an event cooked up by the marketing pros at Twelve Horses and some of the great people from the marketing department at the Cal Neva. It was inspired by the original Tomatina festival in Valencia, Spain. In the past Cal Neva has had some Bikini Jello Wrestling events that have been wildly successful, and generated some great traffic on their blog, website and flickr account. In fact, my images (along with some great keywording from 12 Horses) drew 7,000 views in the first day they were posted! And it was a SUNDAY! To date the photographs from this event have driven (insert big number) impressions for Cal Neva. Talk about some exposure!
Cal Neva didn’t really have a brand strategy before, and they have been using traditional marketing tactics up till about 2 months ago. As a result of their collaboration with Justin Sullivan Photography and Twelve Horses they are crafting a new visual brand identity as well as seeing the realization of who they are as a brand: Celebrators of the “uncelebrated”, the locals spot where the staff knows your name and what you like, and the place where everyone can feel comfortable, whether they are the beautiful people or not.
The tomato fight was ridiculous. Hands down the craziest, most bizarre and hilarious spectacle that I have seen in years (yes that includes burning man). 50,000 pounds of tomatoes were donated by Scolaris and dumped in the plaza where the Mapes Hotel used to stand. Participants paid a $10 entrance fee, 100% of which went straight to fighting cancer. An astonishing number of people came out to support this charity and throw tomatoes at each other. Once they got the go ahead, it was pure mayhem, and it didn’t stop for over an hour. It didn’t even slow down!
Cal Neva will be hosting this event again next year, and the plan is to bring in 100,000 or 200,000 pounds of tomatoes! The New York Times and the LA Times both had articles promoting La Tomatina in Reno, and USA today has a related article as well. The event was a resounding success, and hopefully further coverage will help put Reno on the map.
I felt like doing a little self assigned work this week and put together a product shoot or two. I love making things look their best, and there’s something really satisfying about nailing the lighting and composition.
Here’s one of the new portfolio pieces.
Family Pulse Magazine
If you haven’t seen it on the news stands yet, here is the cover I shot for December 2008 issue of Family Pulse. Their circulation is about 20,000.
I also have two 1/4 page advertisements featuring my photography in this month’s issue of Clever magazine.
Model Portfolio Photos
This is Madeline Nelson. She is a professional model. If you are aspiring to be a model or need new photos for your book, I am the best thing for you. Don’t waste time on some “guy with a camera” who doesn’t have what it takes to craft technically perfect images. This is your career, and you should invest in it.
I’m booking appointments to shoot new portfolio pieces for fashion models. Contact me for details, as things are booking up for December!
Shooting Photos for TV Commercials
This is the final vesion of the television spot that I photographed the stills for. It was a solid project from start to finish, and I’m quite pleased with the results.
The commercial starts airing Tuesday on a variety of tv channels, so keep an eye out.
Reno Nazarene Church TV Spot from Justin Sullivan on Vimeo..
Huge thanks to Jason Newmark for doing a fantastic job putting together the photos and motion graphics. Thanks to Sterling Doak for great creative direction and production. It was a pleasure.
So you don’t need a retoucher…
As an advertising photographer, I have a responsibility to my clients to make sure the images are perfect. Of course great care is taken to get the highest quality image possible in camera. But as anyone worth his salt can tell you, sometimes that’s only the beginning. Lens choice, lighting, styling, interaction with the model or models, scene selection are all key elements. However, post-production is critical to making a solid image into a brilliant one. In some cases it can be just that “something” that solidifies the photo in the viewer’s memory instead of just another passing glance.
Fashion and beauty photographers rely heavily on retouchers to make flawless skin, and perfect hair. Architectural photography, table top product photography, food photography and catalog photography all use post-production work to make sure that the subject looks better than real life. In today’s market, this applies to nearly ever application of image-making. A healthy dose of pixel-pushing makes all the difference. This can take a simple shot of some make-up and turn it into a magazine ad like magic.
I’ve been photographing new portfolio pieces for a lot of models lately, and retouching is absolutely crucial to making their photos stand out and give them an edge. Good isn’t good enough anymore. Photographs today have to be better than good. If your model is having a bad day with her skin, it’s absolutely necessary to make her look her finest despite it all.
For high level retouching, one should expect about two hours of post production per image. For rates, and more information, contact me at justinsullivan@gmail.com
Please click any images to view larger. Detail!
I love my life
Wow, the last couple weeks have blown by! I’ve been photographing every day and it keeps getting better and better. I have the best job in the world.
Photographed a great group of people for the new Reno Nazarene Church ad campaign. My man Sterling Doak at Media Directions has crafted such a great package for these guys. We rented the new studio that just opened on East 4th here in Reno. They have a huge cyc wall and were very very accommodating with our shoot schedule. I highly recommend that anyone in need of shooting space for a job check it out. If you’re into church, they have a very informal, non-traditional Sunday meeting that you might enjoy.
Here are a few photos from that shoot. We are using motion graphics to combine these portraits with other visual elements for a TV spot. I can’t wait to see it finished!
Dr. Slackstoomuch! or “how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog”
After an incredibly lengthy and unacceptable haitus from posting, I’ve finally bit the bullet and decided to write again. Justin Sullivan Photography blog go!
So many things have been happening, I’d love to start at the beginning. I fear, however, that I will undoubtedly forget something or leave out a legitimate event that I’d feel bad about later. As such I’m going to just pop a few things in at random.
I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time in Seattle, and I’m thinking quite seriously about moving up at the end of December. Got to spend a little bit of time with family and friends, but mostly working.
Got to see Stan Hainsworth and his new space, Tether. You can check it out at http://tetherinc.com Wish I could have made it up there last weekend for the tether grand opening party. But I will have to be satisfied with this snap of Leilani, Stan and I from this summer vintage shopping.
Shooting a bit of stock here and there this fall, trying to catch some good moments.
Things are starting to cool down now. Looking at the snow in the mountains is getting me excited about doing some skiing.
Had a great photo shoot with Michelle DePaoli, owner of Swoon: A Bridal Salon, a few weeks back. We spent the day making some beautiful photographs of her space, bridal gowns, bridesmaid dresses, flowers, shoes and all sorts of bride-y stuff! It was great to help another start-up business craft their brand. Custom photography is such a crucial part of advertising yourself, whether you’re an established law firm, or brand new boutique. Using a professional, advertising-specific commercial photographer can elevate the value of your brand to a completely new level by conveying exactly the feelings you want to evoke in your potential customers and clients.
Went to a very nice opening party at the Nevada Museum of Art recently, to see Kit Hinrichs’ (of Pentagram) collection of American flags, and memorabilia. I was surprised what a wide variety of different star-spangled items he had. Pretty impressive.
So far this month, I have a shoot lined up with Sterling Doak’s ad firm, photographing a whole bunch of folks for a motion graphics TV spot. I’m collaborating with Jason Newmark, formerly of Cartel Collective. Should be a really good time, I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Going to try to be a little bit more consistent with my updating here, so comment and get my attention if I start slipping!
Justin Sullivan Photography Blog 