.

I had a post a while back about smoke and mirrors and will probably do another soon about my lighting to mimic the sun when there isn't any.  This was another good case study for that - all of these shots, except for the car (where we finally did have some sun), were lit with stobe - including the outdoor one of the real estate agent placing the sign - it was overcast and drizzling that day - which was decidedly not what the cleint was after.  I love that I get billed as the 'beautiful natural light guy', but we work pretty hard to make that happen on queue.

Chase

Missy

Caden

Tim

Alejandro

Addie

This past year, the primary goal for the marketing team here at Fresh Produce Clothing has been to elevate and evolve brand that women have known and loved for 30 years.  Although our product characteristics of sun-kissed colors and coastal-inspired prints have always provided the brand with tremendous texture, and we have shot in some of the most beautiful coastal backdrops for our seasonal projects, our primary target audience for this imagery had been wholesale buyers, who tend to want to see more traditional product photography.  The shift now has been towards the consumer audience and creating an emotional element to our brand — a "young at heart mindset" captured along with social connections between women, not simply the functional one.  What we needed was an external catalyst to help us shape the vision and guide the execution, and Ty Milford was a perfect fit for that.

We had worked with Ty several years back on a project very similar in that it involved the introduction of a new line, so we knew he understood the art of transition for a brand.  What we underestimated was his unique ability to lead us “beyond the lens.” Although we had pre-established the shoot concept of a “Girls Weekend Getaway,” it was Ty that took our idea and mood boards to an unprecedented level of magic through his collaboration and ownership. Ty is not the guy that just takes a shot list, shows up on location, shoots the job and delivers the assets.  From talent selection to story line refinement to product styling, his ability to bring dimension, elegance and spirit to our idea was far more than I had ever experienced with any photographer.  Our agenda was his agenda; no ego, no push back.  And although we had shot at the same locations a half  dozen times before, Ty saw things that we had never seen and his perspective took us to places we had never been.  I cannot stress enough how far we were pushing ourselves into our “discomfort" zone, yet Ty enabled us to move through the project effortlessly.   And the result was one of the proudest moments our founder had enjoyed in the 30-year history of her company.

In our first meeting, Ty asked me an incredibly simple yet powerful question that proved to be the guiding force for the three-day shoot.  John, what’s your biggest fear going into this project?”   Needless to say, the answer to his question was not, nor every will be, “you”." 

See more of Ty Milford's  colorful, emotional and active lifestyle photography and video at his site www.tymilford.com.

So Delicious Dairy Free - Say Yes Anthem No1 from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

So Delicious Dairy Free - Say Yes Anthem No 2 from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

"Ty Milford loves to capture emotion. His work strives to see the brighter side of life with humor, laughter, the warmth of the sun and beautiful blue skies. Over the years, he has built a body of lifestyle work that shows his love of playfulness, spontaneity, warmth and color. He is known for capturing real-feeling-moments filled with motion and emotion. He also has developed a devoted base of clients who hire him because of these qualities and his ability to put his subjects at ease.

Recently he had the opportunity to share his fresh and whimsical approach with Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) for a project you might say was a “perfect fit” – Fruit of the Loom. The campaign, entitled “Start Happy” sought to portray subjects in and around their home environments starting out their day filled with happiness and optimism. They felt great because their most basic undergarments let them move and breathe in their active lifestyles. This was the first time Milford worked with CP+B and it involved lots of collaboration in pre-production and a team efforts all the way through to post production.

“The greatest challenge was that our days were very full in trying to accomplish a large number of setups — roughly 12 per day and more than two thirds of them were interiors that needed to be lit. We did this by having a solid plan with great locations and great crew that made it all come together, ” says Milford.

For this type of active lifestyle work where you set up a scenario, such as a pillow fight in a bedroom (pictured above), you need to build and prop out the scene as completely as possible, find optimal talent and then let them go with it and bring it to life. Once it does come to life, "We shoot and shoot, more or less as fast as the strobes can recycle, capturing the obvious moments as well as the real ones where talent start to let loose and be more themselves," says Milford. The more frames he captures, the more good choices he can present to his clients. He likes to shoot 35mm and in the Fruit of the Loom instance pushed that format as far as it could go with the Nikon D800's 36mp full frame sensor. “I am a Canon shooter, but we have to use the right tool for the job and given this was an 'Out of Home' end use, meaning lots of billboards including a five-story digital board in Times Square, the Nikon was currently the best option,” he explains. He also prefers to capture wirelessly to multiple iPads directly from the camera, so there are no tether cords to cramp his movement around the scenes. "With pillows being swung and thrown around so fast and furiously, I have to be able to get in close and be a part of the action without any of the technical elements getting in the way," he says.

The Fruit of the Loom work shows off Milford’s easy going style to great effect. “Ty's work is what we had in mind; warm with a new, fresh style and most important, real. When you see his work, you feel as if you were there, you are part of the situation, part of the moment, it makes you smile. His work never feels forced or unrealistic, he captures the moments and the emotions perfectly and those are crucial for this campaign.” says Art Director Eduardo Inderbitzin, CP+B.

Milford’s images are being used mainly for Out of Home, Social and Online venues. There are over 200 billboards and digital billboards in major cities showcasing the “Start Happy” campaign. Ty Milford “Starts Happy” himself and then just spreads it to his clients, crew and subjects."

Some moments were meant to last forever . . .

Here's a few shots of the home when it was completed for the Feldman family in 1956.

One day off and then we're back at it next week!

Off today and then down to LA all week for some much needed sun and blue sky.

Going into the tunnel here with a busy month coming up - looking forward to it!

Disneyland was completed on July 17, 1955 – smack dab in the height of this time period and was another love of mine since childhood.  I was infaturated with it from the beginning – the motifs, the fonts, ok, even a few of the rides, but mostly I loved everything about Tomorrowland – all of the midcentury futurism that it celebrated.  Sadly, the Monsanto House of the Future (YES PLEASE!!!), a fiberglass concept home showing visitors how we would live in the future, was well before my time and I have only gotten to experience it through photographs.

I recently had the opportunity to share it all with my four-year-old daughter for the first time and it brought all of that emotion back.  But what she gravitated to the most was of course Its’s A Small World and though not my favorite, I knew we’d be there at some point.  That said, while standing in the line and exploring the façade of the structure, now a bit more discerning of midcentury designs, I began to see a lot of similarities to designs from Charles and Rae Eames and even one of their design contemporaries, Alexander Girard.  In fact, the motifs of It’s a Small World were so similar to Girard’s 1960’s restaurant Lafonda Del Sol in the Time Life Building in New York that I began to wonder if he or even he and the Eames’ were somewhere behind the design of the ride and immediately pulled it all up on my phone (though wouldn’t I have come across that at some point?)  Well I wasn’t the first to consider this same fact and came across this great site with all of the info.  While it was actually Mary Blair who was behind the design and architecture of Small World, they were all of the same time and without doubt had some cross influencing going on.  Here are a couple of screen grabs off of Google to illustrate my point (mind you these are not curated galleries – just quick grabs – if I had curated they would be even more similar.)  Enjoy!

Mary Blair (It's A Small World)

Charles and Rae Eames (House of Cards)

Alexander Girard

I was out this summer at a Porsche user group event with my family and although I had my Canon 5DII with me, I mostly snapped pics with my iPhone 4 ('cuz it was easy and in my pocket - nice when you have a baby in one arm and a 4 year old tugging at the other).  After the event the publisher of a Porsche enthusiast magazine was interested in running a story on the event and I shared some of my pics, keeping a tight lip about their origins (and knowing that with proper treatment they would absolutely work for print purposes.)  Well, in addition to a two page spread we also got the cover - and the images look outstanding, a tribute to Apple and how great their new iPhone cameras have gotten and a testiment to the fact that the cameras that make the best images are, well, the ones that you have with you!

I feel like I've been slacking a bit lately, but honestly it has been pretty non-stop for the past month.  Several new personal projects wrapping up, just back from two separate shoots in LA and headed back down to San Diego for another shortly here.  The bliss of summer and lots of new work in the works equals excitement.

And speaking of, excited to share a project that we shot last summer and which has just completed edit with the very talented (and all around great) Margaret Andres.  Enjoy!

Summer from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

Wishing all of the Moms in the world a very special day today - we love you!

I had my first experience this past week capturing wirelessly from camera to iPad and I have to say . . . it was amazing!  I shoot quickly and loosely and I can't even begin to count the number of times that I have, regardless of cautions from my team, bogged down the system while shooting teathered causing the need to reboot and ultimately kill the energy that we were working so hard to create.  Often this isn't a dealbreaker, but at times - when say a high profile subject is made to wait - it just isn't cool.  Well, no more - watching images pop up almost instantaneously on the iPad with no bogging down no matter how quickly I fired - was like watching the future taking place in the present.  I am a humble convert.

When Ty Milford was contacted by St. Louis agency Osborn & Barr to photograph a project for Anheuser Busch’s NASCAR initiatives, he was pleasantly surprised. “It seemed like a bit of an odd request at first because most of NASCAR-oriented-advertising is dark and heroic [and] my work really isn’t,” he explains. Milford gravitates towards energetic, warm, color-saturated imagery – “filled with motion and emotion,” he says. “I just want my work to point to the brighter parts of life. Defining moments.” The sunny California vibe traveled with him from Los Angeles to Portland when he relocated north and has served him well, drawing in huge names like Old Navy and Starbucks. During preproduction with the Osborn & Barr creative team, he was told that he had been awarded the project because they wanted to deviate from the heroic look of NASCAR images. The concept would tie into what they called Milford’s “optimistic” style with the subject, NASCAR racecar driver Kevin “Happy” Harvick. The driver of Budweiser sponsored car #29 would be photographed inside a bar and on the racetrack in a series of lifestyle-themed advertisements promoting Happy Hour with Happy Harvick.

Milford was thrilled to take on the project but admits he knew nothing about NASCAR prior to the shoot. “I had a lot of homework to do,” he says. He worked with Osborn & Barr Art Director Matt Maddox, a relationship that turned out to be the perfect collaboration. Maddox was already prepared with the concept and hand-sketched ideas, but presented them more as loose guidelines for Milford to work from. Milford says it was the ideal mix of organized and flexible, and he was able to work with the concept and sketches while still implementing his own vision.

The shoot took place at the end of August 2011, during NASCAR season. To accommodate Harvick’s busy schedule, Milford traveled to his hometown in North Carolina. Producer Elizabeth Nicole scouted locations in the area, selecting a bar called Sheri’s for the Happy Hour scene and a nearby drag strip for the track scene, which would later be composited onto an image of the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Milford’s plan was to shoot the bar scene in the morning and the track scene at sunset. By the time he and his team wrapped up the shoot at the bar, a drizzle had begun to fall and they had only just gotten their strobes up before the sky opened up and the equipment had to be saved. They rescheduled with Harvick for a quick shoot the following evening in his own driveway. 

Despite the last minute complications, Milford was able to keep the shoot low key and comfortable. He prefers to have a dialogue with his subjects to keep any stress at bay. “The way I like to work… is just to engage them in conversation while we are working so that, ideally, they forget they are even on a photo shoot and feel more like they are just hanging out with their friends,” he explains. Milford also encouraged a close-knit group that consisted of Harvick’s wife, friends, publicist, agent and dogs to stay near the set to help obtain a quicker level of intimacy within the time constraints.

No matter what project Milford is working on, assignment or personal, typical or atypical of his usual audience, he strives for his scenes to be uninhibited and genuine. He says, “The work that speaks to me the most - whether mine or someone else's - is that which feels like beautiful moments captured rather than images produced or forced to happen for the sake of production.”

Pulled this one out of the vault recently - seems like another life when I shot this - probably was about 10 years ago.  Definitely a few years before digital . . . or before I had one anyway.  I believe this was on 35mm Provia.  I had a job that landed me in Antarctica for 6 or so months of the year (for about 6 years) and I spent a lot of nights in a tent like this.  Made some great friends and saw some incredible sights.  I miss it - miss the overwhelming quiet, the stillness, the 'not a care in the world' feeling that seems incomprehensible to me now.  I am thankful that my passion for photography really grew out of experiences in amazing places like this.

We had an absolute blast working on this project last August in North Carolina - meeting Kevin Harvick - and working with the team at at Richard Childress Racing.  I wanted to once again give a big shout out to Matt, Tammy, Steve and Fred at Osborn & Barr and Chris at Anheusier Busch for extending this wonderful opportunity; to Elizabeth, Bo, Antonio and Paul who worked as an awesome team even when the sky cut loose and we had a generator and a crap load of strobes sitting on the asphalt getting drenched.  What more can I say than 'Thanks Ya'll!".  Here are a few of the finished pieces - but anywhere you see Kevin and Budweiser this next year you'll be seeing our work.

The Ridge Motorsports Park and Porsche Bullet Racing Team from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

Still playing catch up - here is the full catch of selects from the Oregon Home Magazine cover story that we did on the swank pad of Fritz Junker here in Portland.  Enjoy!

Finally getting around during this Holiday break to posting a small selection of the work from the image library that we created for Bridgeport Village - a premier shopping destination outside of Portland, Oregon.  We did all of the lifestyle as well as architectural images for this project and had a great couple of days on location back in August I think it was.  Images are already running on their web site and as ads in Portland Monthly Magazine.

Wishing you the Happiest of Holidays and a superb 2012!!!

Moving Comfort Fall 2012 from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

We shot and directed this brand video short for Moving Comfort this fall in San Francisco, CA along with the stills, which were already posted about here, for their Fall 2012 campaign.  You can also check out a couple of the product collection specific shorts for SPORTS BRAS and URBAN GYM on our Vimeo page.

A big thanks to Moving Comfort for the continued opportunty to work with their brand, Liz Petrella for art direction, Elizabeth Nicole for her production expertese, Kiley Hertel at Hmngbrd for his super solid design contributions, Margaret Andres for her editing talents, Bo Baumgartner for keeping me sane (mostly) and Antonio Fernando for is local SF knowledge and 'ever ready attitude.'

Back at it today and headed for the third straight week on location - this time in sunny Santa Barbara.

I wanted to give a shout out to our friends at Photo District News' Photoserve for featuring us as one of their top 10 portfolios of the month - I appreciate it!

It was a super fun afternoon sharing a bag of Cheetos and talking about our favorite trails to run in Forest Park.  Thanks Kara for rocking it, Amy Gillespie for Hair and Makeup, Bo for pixel snagging and Melissa, Jessie and Dawna at Women's Running for the opportunity.

I love cars - maybe it is a midlife crisis budding - not sure, but I am crazy about them right now.  Particularly older ones from the 50s and 60s (but then I love most everything from that era). European.  German specifically.  As my Father's Day gift my wife secretly got us tickets to the now running exhibit at the  Portland Art Museum called Allure of the Automobile.  It is a spectacular display of 16 of the world's most rare and luxurious automobiles and is well worth checking out.

The new web site for Parklane Mattresses that we shot both video and stills for was featured as today's web pick at Communication Arts!  A few other recent posts about our work with Parklane can be seen here and here.  Thanks again to Lindsay from Parklane and Mark from Live Area Labs for the opportunity.

Moving Comfort Spring 2012 from Ty Milford on Vimeo.

We shot this in conjunction with the stills for Moving Comfort while on location in Miami this spring.  Together they are a really great example of how we can coordinate both efforts and come away with deliverables that are of the same point of view and have a cohesive brand message.

Two versions of the current issue of Women's Running Magazine featuring celeb Maria Menounos that we shot in LA a few months back.  She was a kick to shoot with - at one point clarifying that she didn't want me to 'like' what we were getting -she wanted me to LOVE it.  I am fortunate in that most of the talent I work with operate this way and it was just another great day at the office.  Thanks Dawna, Jessica and Melissa for the continued opportunities and Christina for your assistance and good company while in LA.

Today is the big Three-Niner and as I recall, like many birthdays past, I am again on a shoot somewhere fun.  Today we are in sunny Santa Barbara under clear blue skies and with all of the beauty that the 'American Riviera' has to offer.  It has been a great year with so many things to be thankful for - a great new agent, new work space, some really awesome new clients, and many inspiring new relationships.  With all of the nights in hotels and time away from family, in addition to the creative challenges - it is the relationships that keeps this job fun and fresh.  Thank you to everyone who supports me though this process of getting to do something that I love every day.  Looking forward to another one!

In this second post about our work with the Portland, Oregon based Parklane Mattresses brand we spent a few minutes with Lindsay Woodward discussing her process for developing their brand image and message.

What is your job title?

Director of Brand Strategy

Brand Strategy eh?  What does the word brand mean to you?

Experience.  A brand is not the logo, the typeface, or even the color – it is the EXPERIENCE.  All the touch points that a consumer has with a brand create the experience.   If you neglect any part of the experience – web site, advertising, customer service, in store, delivery, follow up, etc. —then you are putting your brand at risk.  Every touch-point with a customer must be on-brand, on-message and aligned with the promised brand experience.

Have long have you been at Parklane?

14 months

Tell me in three words or less what your thoughts are about marketing and advertising in the mattress industry in general? 

Used-car-sales-like.  Very neglected.  Kind of sleazy.

How do you feel Parklane is different?

We exist to simply help people sleep better.  Sure, one of our differentiators is that our products are superior, but we go much deeper.  The paradigm has been that what you sleep on doesn’t really matter so the mattress shopping experience has been diluted down something that we ‘have to do’ vs. ‘want to do’.  So at Parklane we decided to launch a new brand experience that is more pleasant and expresses the reasons why what you sleep on and how your quality of sleep is directly correlated to your positive life experiences.  Further, we want to do business in a different way where the focus is on the quality of the product and the satisfaction of the customer and not deals and haggling that are typical.   We have sought to create an experience in store and online that is about the customer and deciding what is best for them vs. us telling them ‘this is what you should get’ because it is on sale, discontinued, a second, etc.  There is no pressure and we encourage the customer to take time to make this decision, which in the scheme of things is a relatively large life decision.  We want to make sure that they get the right fit.  We’re not here just to sell mattresses we’re here to help improve your quality of life.

So you exist to do more than just sell?  I’m a long time Seinfeld fan and I often relate the episode where George and Jerry are trying to sell the NBC execs on their pilot for a show about ‘nothing.’  Towards the end of the meeting one exec asks George why people would choose to watch a show about ‘nothing’ and  George responds, ‘because it’s on TV’.  I find a lot of brands treat their strategy this way – people will buy it because it is ‘there’ rather than spending the time and effort to understand their consumer and then trying to fill a void in their life.  You have clearly done this and understand what separates you from the pack, which is admirable.  How have you gone about trying to communicate this brand message to your target consumer so that THEY understand how you are different?

Well it isn’t going to happen overnight, but it starts with understanding your target audience.  We have invested a significant amount of time developing an understanding of who our market is and then understanding how to communicate with them.  For us it is women 25-55 who are caretakers of their families and who are often professionals – they are very busy and don’t have a lot of time to invest in figuring out what they need.  They need a resource that will allow them to efficiently make an informed decision while at the same time having an inviting experience.  We want to make their life easier.  After developing this foundation we have then sought to create a brand personality or an expectation for an experience we want to layout for our consumer.  We’re still in the infancy state, but we believe that as long as we keep the target consumer in mind we will be moving in the right direction.

How does all of the homework that you have done on  your target consumer translate into your visual brand image?  For instance, your site contains a lot of imagery that doesn’t contain mattresses or the cliché images of people sleeping with looks of bliss on their faces – what’s the deal?

You have to have the product shots – and we do – but you also have to  transcend the product – whatever it is - and evolve into a lifestyle, a culture, and in our case a style of space.  You have to give your consumer an opportunity to relate the benefits of a product to the quality of their lifestyle.  And we do – better sleep translates into a better day because you are more alert, more rested, more energized.  All of our lifestyle imagery portrays people in positive light – outside, active, enjoying life.  Its all about being happy and living in the moment because you are getting good sleep.  It’s all about the customer seeing us as more than just a product, but something that is going to actively make their life better.  People desire to fit into whatever their personal style and culture is and so they want to align with certain brands that are consistent with who they believe they are.  You have to give someone something to connect to and a deeper reason to care.

I love that last statement that you described Lindsay of “giving someone something to connect to and a deeper reason to care” – marketplaces are VERY crowded these days and at some point a healthy, growing brand has to put a flag in the sand and say “this is who we are (provide something to connect to) and this is why we are different (give a deeper reason to care.)”  As George and Jerry found out when their pilot got cancelled, simply because a show is on TV doesn’t mean that anyone will want to watch it – meaning simply because a brand exists doesn’t meant that people will care about it.

Yes.

I describe it as the ‘if you build it they will come’ mentality’ – where if you can express a particular type of lifestyle that fits for the demographic you are trying to attract and you can get them more excited about the type of lifestyle that they already want, then they will need the products to achieve that lifestyle.

Exactly.

I see your brand as being bright & fresh – it just feels good - like a summer breeze.  From a visual standpoint tell me how the design fits in with the experience you are trying to convey.  Was all of that conscious – font colors, image selection, design, etc.? 

Yes, it absolutely was conscious.  The brown because of the earthy connection – it is a stable color and the blue is calming.  I wanted to create an identity with a sense of timelessness, but which would still feel fun.  Our typeface, DIN, is a sans-serif font that has character and is fun, fresh and light.  The images we have chosen help to define the ideal consumer lifestyle that we are trying to align ourselves with.  We balanced the brighter and airy feeling images of beds and home environments with the outdoor northwest imagery (which grounds us the locally based brand that we are) that still has the clean, fresh, green feeling.   The brand is about better sleep for all people for all time – we are not trying to be trendy. Your imagery Ty meshes well with this because you have a style about your work that is unique, but isn’t so over the top.  It is real and genuine and so it was a perfect fit.  We need to feel real and not staged and that is where the lifestyle direction went along with the colors, white space, light and bright and typeface.  But keeping the overall look and feel light and airy allows a viewer to just breathe – there is already too much in the world that shouts at us and so we wanted to come across more subtly and allow people to breathe and interact with us.

You have just launched a new site, new in store materials, etc. – how has the response been? 

Really positive.  We are averaging between 400-500 unique hits on our site per day.  So far everything that has been released has been working to shape the experience.

Last fall we were brought in on an exciting and innovative project for Parklane Mattresses by the Seattle creative firm Live Area Labs (LAL).  So, you're probably asking yourself "did he just use the words mattress and exciting in the same sentence?"  I admit, I did the same when I was approached by LAL, but it quickly became apparent that this was taking the online shopping paradigm and pushing it to the next level.   Anyway, Parklane's new site with the "Mattress Finder" function has just recently gone live and so I wanted to post about it again here.

The goal of the project was to develop a web based tool to assist Parklane's customer in finding their best mattress fit by asking a series of questions that would lead them toward their ideal mattress.   But rather than just utilizing the standard fare of copy and photos, LAL wanted to shoot a series of interactive videos whereby each time a customer answered a question - such as whether they were a stomach, side or back sleeper - a particular way the subjects on screen would interact in the same manner - in effect saying "we are you and this is your life."  Very cool.

I'd like to say that video is the future of the web, but in effect it is really already the present.  While the nature of print is static (and thus requires stills), web is dynamic and any image that can be viewed as a still can reasonably easily be swapped out for a video clip - just adding that much more LIFE to the visual.  We are starting to see a number of brands grasp onto this concept - Parklane being a part of this innovation - where an image that at first glance may seem a still suddenly comes to life.  Check out the Mattress Finder function and the video work that we did for it HERE as great example - and let me know if you were surprised when the feet dangling off the bed suddenly come to life.

We'll be following up this post with an interview with the Brand Strategy guru at Parklane - Lindsay Woodward.  Stand by. . .

Sunday: Pre-dawn wake up for Kelly, Malia and I to head to the airport -> PDX to SFO to Ontario to Palm Springs -> Staying at the ACE Hotel (wicked cool!) -> Dodging T-Rex's -> Ran into a handful of other families from Portland down to the desert to escape the rain (which was harder to escape than you might imagine).

Monday: Hanging out around the pool -> Exploring Palm Springs and the Living Desert Museum -> Taking in our fill of cool MCM architecture including the Kaufman House.

Tuesday: Up at 4:00am -> Palm Spring to SFO -> Build the set and prelight the shoot for Old Navy at Left Space (sweet studio in the Mission) -> Drinks at Swig -> Crash out at The Clift Hotel (been wanting to stay here for a while - a virtual chair museum with an Arne Jacobsen Egg Chair right in the lobby) - thanks Ari for the great digs!

Wednesday/Thursday: Shoot a super fun summer campaign for Old Navy -> Dinner at Slow Club before heading to SFO to Palm Springs -> Arrive 1:00am.  Can't share images yet, but will be excited to do so once they are released!

Friday: Coffee and fruit poolside at the Ace with Kelly and Malia and then back to the airport in Ontario to SFO to PDX.  Second time hanging at SFO in less than 24 hours - yehaw!

Will put up another bit on the Old Navy shoot when I can, but for now thanks to Ari, Natasha and Heike for the exceptionally fun opportunity to work with their crew and the Gap team, Left Space for producing pretty much any and every piece of equipment I could come up with on short notice, Bo for keeping the pixels in order as always and Antonio and Allen for making the light.  Glad to be home, but it was a great week and one I won't soon forget.

What is your favorite word?
        AMELIORATE, BUT I USE THE WORD AWESOME THE MOST
What is your least favorite word?
        I AM A WORD FREAK, SO THERE IS NO WORD I DON'T LIKE
What turns you on?
       LIGHT/BOOKS/CATS/GORGEOUS FAST CARS
What turns you off?
       WHENEVER MY HAPPY, FREE SPIRIT GETS UNNECESSARILY DAMPENED BY OTHERS
What sound or noise do you love?
       MEOW
What sound or noise do you hate?
       THE CLASSIC:  FINGERNAILS ON A CHALKBOARD
What is your favorite curse word?
        THE FOUR LETTER F WORD!
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
        PROFESSIONAL CHEF
What profession would you not like to do?
       ANY PROFESSION WHERE, ON A DAILY BASIS, THE CUSTOMERS YOU ENGAGE WITH ARE GUARANTEED TO BE PISSED OFF
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
      THAT REMINDS ME OF THE ONLY JOKE I KNOW AND TELL.....

Stayed at the Standard on Sunset - super fun digs -

And shot an editorial with the super fun Maria Menounos who kept us cracking up the entire time - a personality every bit as large and bright as you would expect.  This is all I can share for now, but will post the tears when the mag hits news stands this spring -

Did you catch the premier of Portlandia last night on IFC? Ok, if you don't live in Portland you're probably not going to appreciate the excessive focus on 'how local the chicken on the menu is' or 'actually how many acres did he have the run of,' but it's funny because it is true - right?. I dunno - maybe the "dream of the 90's is alive" here and Portland really is "a place where young people go to retire!" Check the premis for the show staring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein here: