Soon after receiving a very long shot list including a seemingly endless series of floor plans, Alistair and his assistant hit the road for a mid-west adventure. According to Alistair the shoot days were “very long, and very repetitive…” He explains,

Ultimately it was like Groundhog Day. Every day we rose at 6 am, went to the location at 7 am to start shooting and then left around 2 pm to drive to the next location. Once we got to the hotel the retoucher went to work until bed-time and then back up at 6 am the following day. We literally were shooting right up until the final day to ensure they had the maximum number of stores to use in their design competition.

To help counter each day’s repetitiveness, Alistair’s studio manager, Kate Crockett, gave them a side assignment of her own: take a unique/funny outtake at every location (with at least one featuring a feminine hygiene product). According to Alistair, “It defiantly added a fun note to every day.” Kate them took these goofy shots and share them through social media and on their blog as a “picture of the day” that viewers couldn’t resist commenting on.

In the end, Alistair and his assistant traveled 2,000 miles and photographed all fourteen locations. They met a lot of fun people along the way and even learned some new tricks. “In Valliant, OK the manager was convinced I was prince Harry—it’s the accent (and dashing good looks). In Odessa, TX I had to learn ‘I’m taking a photo, can you hide please’ in Spanish for the Mexican grocery store—there’s an app for that.”

AWG loved the images and immediately entered them in Progressive Grocer’s annual award competition and will be featuring them prominently in their Annual Report.

View more of Alistair’s work on his website, alistairtutton.com.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

The first makings of the book began while Thomas was working for Montana Quarterly,

Montana Quarterly is a news magazine that covers real stories and issues in Montana, avoiding the many stereotypes and clichés perpetuated by other publications. We explored Montana’s small towns, its industries, its history, its individuals and individuality. I worked with Montana’s finest writers for the better part of a decade, including co-author Alan Kesselheim. Montana: Real Place, Real People is a compilation of favorite stories from our travels through the state, looking for characteristics and characters that define what Montana really is.

The book is full of interesting stories and photographs of Montanans like the woman who’s delivered mail for 28 years in a county where antelope outnumber people; the convicted murdered who vanished for 40 years, and after being tracked down, is now back in Montana State prison at 80 years old; the communist centenarian who made J. Edgar Hoover’s list of most dangerous people; the gay artist living amid roughnecks; and many, many more.

The book took more than six years to complete. The process taught Thomas a lot along the way. He explains,

The biggest thing I learned was that I’ve been doing decent work for a healthy length of time. It was very gratifying to look through a body of work from six years and still like it. I’m usually very self-critical and it’s nice to look at this book and be proud of it.

So far the response to the book has been great with a good number of copies already sold. Thomas hopes that the book will give readers “a real understanding and respect for the extraordinary qualities of the ordinary people and places in Montana. I want people who read this book to open their eyes and their minds. And I want them to realize that character can be found all around them, all of the time, anywhere on earth.”

Montana: Real Place, Real People is available for purchase here. You can also view more of Thomas’ work on his website, thomasleephoto.com.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Aww, cheer up folks! photo by Jon Roemer/Philadelphia

Instagraming in North Korea.

Are Google glasses the next camera?

House on fire.

Road on fire. photo by Ethan Welty/Denver

70 ways to start page 1.

John Waters, filmmaker, actor, artist and… hitch hiker?

Real juice boxes.

Who wouldn’t want vodka jelly in a caulk tube?

Vodka jelly = Great on pancakes! photo by Mark Weinberg/New York

25 years of Eddie Adams Workshops.

Liz Lemon’s hair.

Photographers Update:

• Adam Voorhes‘ work chosen for American Photography 28.
• Chad Hurst shoots some coal miners.
• Douglas Sonders is showcased by Photoshop.
• Jay Goodrich interviewed by Nik Software.
• Joel Lassiter‘s photo in Charlotte Magazine.
• Inti St Clair interviewed by Evolve Images.
• Evan Joseph‘s cameo on Million Dollar Listing.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Cade Martin

Cade Martin / Washington DC
Contest Cover Image & Advertising

Saverio Truglia / Chicago
Advertising

Alistair Tutton / Kansas City
Advertising

Landon Nordeman / New York
Magazine/Editorial

Martin Westlake / Indonesia
Photo Books

Winnie Au / New York
Corporate Design/Photo Products

Tim Kemple / Salt Lake City
Corporate Design/Photo Products

Jonathan Chapman / Minneapolis
Corporate Design/Photo Products

Thomas Barwick / Seattle
Stock Photography

Dan Bannister / Canada
Stock Photography

Stewart Cohen / Dallas
Stock photography

Diana Mulvihill / San Francisco
Stock Photography

Jordan Hollender / New York
Websites

Ciril Jazbec / United Kingdom
Student Work

Toni Greaves / Portland OR
Photojournalism/Sports/Documentary

Congratulations to all the winners!

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

After two years of selecting and cropping images for the Wonderful Machine website, I’ve grown quite accustomed to (and fond of) working within the space of the square. So when photographer Peter Baker approached me about editing his square-heavy repertoire, I was ecstatic.

Peter was gearing up for a complete reboot of his photographic identity and was looking for a bit of help. After some preliminary correspondence, we agreed to create a fresh edit for his new website and then follow that up with a portfolio book. I’d taken an instant liking to Peter’s style upon going through his work when he first joined Wonderful Machine, but diving into a folder full of several hundred of his images was truly rewarding. Peter takes refreshingly genuine portraits and some of the most laid back and authentic lifestyle photography I’ve come across. He excels at capturing ethereal landscapes—both in the wilderness and urban jungles. He’s also quite adept at utilizing his photography to share his reflections on our humble earth with a meditative and visually poetic delivery. Peter’s central motivation for pursuing editing consultation was to take this contemplative body of work to the next level—to obtain “a fresh eye looking from a commercial standpoint.” Well, helping talented artists advance their creativity towards commercial relevance is what we do best here; so I got straight to work on formulating a presentation of his photography that would resonate well with his expanding audience.

I should mention at this point that Peter is also an accomplished graphic designer with an impressive track record of websites delivered through his company, Elevated Works. So while I was working away at developing Portrait, Lifestyle, Corporate and Landscape galleries of his photography, he was busy taking a very hands-on approach to setting up a great new home for these galleries. Working in tandem like this enabled a collaborative mood and a fruitful exchange of ideas about aesthetics, editing, logos, stamping embossers, and the wonders of side scrolling galleries.

While we were getting his website ready to launch, we were also thinking ahead to the print portfolio. I was pleased when he agreed to one of Adorama’s seamless binding treats, and thrilled when he signed on for a book in the form of my dearest shape (aside from curvy hips): the square. Concepts about how to best utilize 50 surfaces of 12×12 quadrilateral goodness began to bubble up, as well as how to encompass these squares within an inviting cover design.

I know we’re all told not to judge a book by its cover, but the reality is that a portfolio can score or lose points with its audience before a single photograph hits their eyeballs. How you choose to present your work is an important aspect of who you are as a photographer. For the cover design, Peter and I were on the same page: minimal yet intriguing. We’d been corresponding about his new logo while he was developing it, and when it was finalized he sent me an Adobe Illustrator file to experiment with for the book cover.

My favorite aspect of vector files is the ability to expand their scale endlessly without loss of quality. So, immediately upon receiving Peter’s logo file, I instinctively began blowing it up until his “P” and “B” began transforming into abstract forms with residual hints of their former lives as letters. I honed in on a nice crop of the transformation that could wrap around the 12×12’s cover, added some mockup text, and sent it over to Peter to see what he thought. Now I’ve been working with the visual arts since I was just a tyke sporting a tiny beret, but nonetheless, there’s still something a bit intimidating about sending designs to designers. Fortunately, Peter was stoked about what I’d come  up with and used his years of expertise to really make it sing. I couldn’t be happier with the final result, and I’m elated to share it with art directors, photo editors, even strangers I pass in the street. And of course, with you. Enjoy!

And be sure to check out Peter’s new site, peterbaker.net.

If you’re looking for help with your portfolio, design, copy, marketing or to just want to learn more about our services, please visit the consulting section of the Cog.

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Snow White's Lair

The Clash!

The concept of “The Clash!” series is a little tricky to explain as it’s intrinsically tied up with the story of how the project came to be. Bear with me, this is a tad convoluted…

About three and a half years ago I met artist, illustrator and fashion designer Lang Leav (aka Akina), known for her quirky and slightly sinister style of depicting fairy tale characters. Both being fans of storybook imagery, we immediately clicked creatively and wanted to collaborate. However, a year went by and nothing happened—we were both busy, caught up with our freelance careers. Eventually, Lang collaborated with one of her friends, milliner Sivear Ung, to produce these amazing little head pieces based on her character Liliput.

When I found out about the head pieces, I flipped out. I got back in contact with Lang and the 3 of us – Lang, Siv and myself – decided to meet up in person to plan something out. We started talking about Lang’s other characters and how we could build a story around them, eventually settling on the good Liliput and the evil Snow White (who also had a nifty head piece designed and made by Siv). But at that meeting, something unexpected happened – I got this vision of an almighty clash between Liliput and Snow White stuck in my head. I never could shake that – it set tone for the entire project, became the crux point of the story and was eventually realized in the image the series is named for—the Clash!

At that point we discovered hopelessly ourselves outclassed and needed a production designer to take our scattered thoughts and translate them to a physical reality. So I got into contact with my friend Pia Leong, a wonderful production designer who I’d worked with before. Over the next few weeks, the four of us bounced ideas around as we built a story that would culminate in this titanic clash…

And then Pia started sketching.

Snow White's Lair Concept Sketch by Pia Leong

Pia’s sketches were…galvanizing. Seeing those, we were all suddenly inspired, and fearful, for the project had grown a whole lot larger. Yet we stuck with it, determined not to compromise and realize our total vision, in the process becoming by far the biggest photographic project I’d ever helmed. The total weight of everyone’s expectations was on my shoulders, a burden tricky to bear. However, I also had sheer bloodymindedness on my side, so I just buried my self doubt and got on with it.

So, after all that, what was the concept?

Well, the story posits the existence of two powerful, but opposing characters. Snow White is a twisted version of her traditional self—an evil witch with echoes of Mrs. Havisham who broods in her lair and reflects on her days of glory. Liliput, on the other hand, is a traveling mage—an archetypal good witch who wanders the woodlands with her animal companions. Liliput passes the lair, and Snow White, being greedy, decides to abduct one of her animal companions to lock on display in a cage. Liliput discovers this treachery and enacts marvelous revenge, imprisoning Snow White in that same cage to meditate on her failure.

The Abduction

All in all, it took nearly three months full time preproduction to make it happen. We built two huge sets and shot over two very long days. And the initial post production with retoucher Abbie Muntz took nearly nine months—as by necessity we had to work on this in our off time.

Photo by Nelson Lai

About ten months later, Frances Keevil Gallery offered me an exhibition in association with Head On Photo Festival (the largest photographic festival in Australia). However, the six original images delivered by Abbie simply weren’t enough. So I revisited the entire shoot with Frances Keevil and together we pulled out another four images from the production. With Abbie unavailable, I asked my friend Samantha Hawken to retouch the final four, something she did a magnificent job on.

The normal response I get to the images is “Wow. You’re mad.” Which is quite true. But I’m also proud of the fact that before they say that, the images tend to stop people in their tracks… Unlike the rest of my personal work, there was never any attempt to embed deeper themes within the series, nor try and illuminate any aspect of humanity. This was pure fantasy—a whimsical flight into the imagination, subtly ridiculous and ideally something that would engage with the 5 year old in all of us, gazing upwards with pure wonder in our eyes… I hope that is the result.

The Moth Prances

“The Clash!” opens today at the Frances Keevil Galley. The show runs May 15-27. Be sure to check it out along with Alex’s website, alexweltlinger.com.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Each year The One Club—an organization that “seeks to celebrate the legacy of creative advertising”—produces the prestigious international advertising competition, The One Show. For this year’s competition, The One Club came to Design Army to promote their call for entries to ad creatives across the globe.

For the campaign, Design Army knew they needed stand out imagery to catch the eye of fellow creatives, so they called up Cade to help bring their “ONEderful” theme to life. The “ONEderful” world consisted of adorable furry creatures, smiling flowers, fluffy clouds and one man with flaming red hair. Cade spent weeks furiously planning the production, making sure every little detail was in place before their Saturday and Sunday shoot dates. This included numerous visits to taxidermy shops to collect the menagerie needed. It finally seemed as if everything was in place but the universe had other plans; just days before the shoot an earthquake hit the east coast, followed right up by a hurricane.

The earthquake took out Cade’s location. Then, the night before the shoot, the hurricane took their talent. Their model—the one who they’d specifically had wardrobe and a wig fitted for—couldn’t make it to DC. He refused to travel by train during a hurricane. So, Cade and his team scrambled. They found a new location and ended up using Seth Callaway, aOne Show producer, as their model—mostly because he was the only one who fit in the clothing. However, according to Cade, this turn of events actually worked out quite well,

Seth was amazing. He has a great face and so much energy. He’s so expressive. I don’t think the model could have taken it in the direction he took it.

But the universe wasn’t done yet, the hurricane ended up also taking out the studio’s power and Cade’s massive movie studio lights were in need of some serious juice. Fortunately, Cade had a generator and they were able to keep going, overcoming each problem as they arose. “Every single aspect of this shoot was adapt and overcome,” says Cade, “you gotta kind of roll with the punches.”

The final photographs—all composed in camera—were shared by The One Show through posters sent out to 35,000 creatives in over 60 countries. They were also used in banners on sites like Creativity, Campaign and Design Taxi, and in magazine ads. The images are truly ONEderful; which is maybe what the universe intended all along.

Vew more of Cade’s work on his website, cademartin.com.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com

In Case of Emergency: eat this book.

We strongly recommend hitting up that emergency ration cookie jar first. photo by Mark Weinberg/New York

Beautiful photographs of decaying and repurposed movie palaces.

Supermoon!

Don’t stop til you get enough.

What if you could Photoshop real life?

Whoa, easy with the clone tool there fellah! photo by Thomas Broening/San Francisco

Hipster Ipsum.

The Museum of Obsolete Objects.

2020: iPhones? Noooooo!!! photo by David Arky/New York

A wordless web.

Photographers update:

• Dan Bannister wins an Applied Arts Corporate Photography Award.
• Edgar Artiga wins an Applied Arts Sports Photography Award.
• Tania Quintanilla nominated for four NAHA awards.
• Drew Reynolds‘ Time Out Chicago cover is a cover of the year.
• Bruce Eisenberg featured on TWit Photo.
• Ayush Ranka shoots Koovagam for The New York Times.
• Matthew D White shoots the New Orleans Jazz Festival.
• Brad Feinknopf interviewed on Archinect.
• John Fulton interviewed on Feature Shoot.

- Maria Luci

Wonderful Machine Photography Blog | Permalink | 610.260.0200 | Wonderfulmachine.com