Laurine Jue of Avista Corp asked us to get a team photograph of the many Avista people who worked on and implemented the initial Spokane (and Pullman) Smart Grid system and infrastructure as Avista learns more and gets better at what they do. While not everyone involved was free to be there, this group came along and was recognized and warmly thanked by the Avista management. A small book was published documenting the project and its progress. As for the entire utility industry, this is a beginning for a new generation of power management and delivery. Avista has always been a leader in invention, innovation and thinking hard about what they do.
The Coeur d'Alene Tribe has a great success story in the casino they built some years ago near Worley, Idaho. While they appreciate their own successes, they have a venerable creed that puts real value in the relationships they have with others and the bounty and gifts of nature. Dave Matheson, the Casino 's CEO, expressed this in remarks at the Winter Blessing event at the Casino. Very well attended, even as the gaming activity bustled in the next room, a heartfelt blessing was offered by several Tribal elders as well as Mr. Matheson. Fry bread and drinks were served to everyone's delight. There was a grand circle of friendship all the way around the very large event room, with greetings, handshakes and hugs for all. A drum circle and many beautiful dancers performed to finish the event. I was glad to have been invited.
Shabby Fabrics asked J. Craig Sweat Photography, Inc. to photograph some of their Holiday quilts. Shabby Fabrics is a global online business owned and operated out or Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. For those who don't know, J. Craig Sweat Photography has a history in quilts. Debbie Mumm was a successful quilt design and pattern company owned and operated in Spokane, Washington and still has a healthy online presence. J. Craig Sweat Photography was behind many of the images that brought Debbie her look. The Shabby Fabrics look and feel is very different- simpler and softer. We went in-studio for these "winter" projects and executed an assembled set with a wall and some props to give a warm, soft holiday feel to the quilts.
J. Craig Sweat Photography was recently contacted by Innovate Washington to photograph their new CEO, Bill Savitz. In keeping with a business casual "working" style of photography we had established some years ago for Innovate Washington, we photographed Mr. Savitz using their building amenities as a location. Makes the process fast and the results more "real" as to their context and mode. This is, in one sense, a routine staff photograph, but is interesting owing to the history (of the creative direction and the institution) and thanks to the individuals we get to meet and know a bit. Bill is a very heads-up kind of person with his own well-developed ideas as to where the Innovate Washington mission needs to go, including a soon to be announced re-branding. We are lucky to have a gent of his caliber looking out for our future here in Spokane.
GGP (General Growth Properties, Inc.) arranged with J. Craig Sweat Photography to do before and after architectural photography of their NorthTown property as they go about a major renovation update, particularly to the North quadrant of the shopping center. I've always liked NorthTown because I grew up across Franklin Park from there and, as kids, we used to walk over there and have all sorts of adventures. (Karmelcorn!) It is surely the oldest shopping center in Spokane and was already going strong in the 1960's, when we lived nearby. We have executed the "baseline" photography of the structure as it has stood. We tried to find angles that would still exist after the remodel and that demonstrated the traffic and aesthetic improvements.
We will post the finished project, with comparisons, when the build is finished. It really is a big project with major demolition and large scale reconstruction and thus won't be finished until mid-2015. The designer and management team from GGP have been superb to work with. They gave me plans and showed me the site along with discussion of the strategy and purpose of the project. All of this helps us make better decisions as we work.
Sister Madonna Buder, of Spokane, is an Ironman (World Championship) competitor who as a retired nun living in Spokane keeps a rigorous running, biking, and swimming training schedule to stay competitive. At the age of 84 she's an inspiration to all ages and isn't slowing down. She has forced several triathlon organizations to open up new age categories. J. Craig Sweat Photography has been an ally and friend in her efforts for several years including through several magazine stories, including the first for "Geezer Jock" magazine. Then a book was written about her and we photographed the cover and helped with inside photography as well. As commercial photographers this is great work for us and she has come to see us as her "photo people". She refers all photography inquiries to us, mostly because she doesn't want to take time away from her workouts. You will never meet a more kind and charming person in Sister Madonna, nor, apparently, a more motivated one.
Chris and I headed down to the Pullman WSU Campus a little while ago, just in the nick of time for fall weather. It was a fun shoot- there had been a big game Saturday and Sunday they had apparently cleaned up because when we got there at 7:00 am it looked real good. It was a beautiful day. Clear skies and great color. Our task was to execute several exterior photos from the stadium (east) side of the new Football Center. It is a large building that houses the locker rooms and indoor training areas, as well as football administration and related activities. ALSC Architects designed the building (as well as the new box seat and announcer building above the south bleachers a few years ago) and it is substantial. It sits right between the Coug's two practice fields and Martin Stadium. The stadium was at it's best (absent a game in progress) and we escaped a big parking ticket through a bit of good luck. The Palouse drive, there and back, was just great this time of year, too.
We get asked, most years, to do "Career Day" at Glover Middle School. Yesterday was the day this year and we had a fun time engaging with photo-interested students. They were great, with good questions and what seemed like real interest. We did a few minutes of show-and-tell, with a small portfolio of images on-screen, then we moved to a demonstration. Four separate groups moved through in about three hours- pretty intense and busy, but good fun. The "demo", in order to be manageable in the time and space, was a macro image with liquid - squeezing and orange slice in extreme close up and "splash" photography, again very close-up. These kids showed great excitement as the rapid-fire images came up on-screen and the students we picked to "squeeze" got applause at the end. We used our new super high-speed ProFoto power supply with a bi-tube head to really freeze the movement and they loved it. Some wanted to phone-picture or monitor screen to post the image. We'll help with that here:
The creative director at the Coeur d'Alene Casino asked us to photograph menu items for in-house and outside promotion. They have a very good kitchen (actually several and a new Chef. We had photographed Chef Steve Walk a few weeks before, as he came on board at the Casino. We ate lunch at the Casino before the photography the way the schedule worked and myself and Chris Thompson, our studio assistant (and a ravenous sort), ate our fill. The Casino and this Chef do seem dedicated to quality ingredients, well prepared and presented. From to-go, to buffet, to breakfast short order, to decidedly fine-dining, they have it all. The food operation is substantial at this resort. On this afternoon we did four dishes in a half-day session. Shrimp appetizer, chicken, pork cutlet and a beautiful fish steak graced our set. Work fast to shoot peak freshness is the rule with food work. It is a gift to work with a great chef and he understood that plating for photography is different than plating for service. Every tiny detail counts.
We were asked by the new owner of Nicks Custom Boots to help with a new website and marketing effort. The owner is a gent who comes from a marketing and writing background and he contacted us after seeing our website including some work we have done for White's Outdoor- other boots and footwear. We did several batches of work and casual boots as product photography and then a great session at the factory. It is kind of a old-world factory, not large but very full and very busy. The craftsmen and women are really skilled and it is a wonder to watch them take the full cowhides and cut and work and sew them into the best boots you can buy. They sell to linemen (and women, I'm sure) loggers (with the spikes all over the sole), smokejumpers and other heavy-use outdoor trades. They do a ton of rebuild work too. Some of their boots have been in service for decades. When they are comfortable and right, they are worth rebuilding.
Good heavy leather, hand selected and matched, sewing intricate patterns with machines that can sew through a half-inch of leather effortlessly, other machines that sew the soles- some an inch-plus thick, old tried-and-true finishing buffers and strange devices that have more history than most people do... this is the stuff of Nicks Custom Boots. Superb craftspeople who really get it when it comes to quality. Shooting there for a day was a great pleasure and the client responded to the proof gallery with an email saying " Wow- these are a gold mine". His web designer told him that these images were "as good as he had seen". I hope it is true. At the least, it makes us feel good about what we did for them. This is the kind of business I like and admire from a lot of different perspectives. Scale, locality, artisanship, personality, quality- a business with real heart. You can view their website HERE.
Follow Nicks Custom Boots on Instagram.
Coeur d'Alene Casino came to us to get some "lifestyle" images of their top-notch casino. They asked us to find talent and make-up services and go all-out for their gaming facility. They have used them widely in print and web dispositions. This was a great shoot for us- getting these fairly dark spaces and backgrounds lit for the right mood (not too dark and mysterious) and directing the talent for excitement and energy was the goal. The art director was real happy with the production and the results.
This casino has come a long way and is a very nice facility with several restaurants (good food- we've tried three of them), great hotel rooms, spa services, a beautiful golf course, meeting facilities, and just about anything else you might want at a resort property. It's remarkable how successful they are even as far out in the beautiful Palouse country as they are. It is the high quality amenities that bring folks here. The distance may even help: it feel like a real break from the everyday. I always look forward to our jaunts to the Casino. The drive is beautiful and the client is superb- appreciative and helpful.
Bouten Construction remodeled their offices with the help of the design agency helveticka. We photographed the result for helveticka's and Bouten's uses. It was a good exercise in interior photography- smaller spaces with mixed lighting (window, direct sun, fluorescent, tungsten, and some track fixtures). This is a common problem to solve with interior photography and there are several tools we use. Planning counts as some sources need to be isolated as we shoot, other balancing methods are done in post-production (editing). As a working office, we had to be a little careful with clutter and noise but the Bouten folks were great to work with, even helpful. Main lobby, entry hall, small and large conference rooms and a few details were done in less than a day. Bouten's projects are many and of usually of large scale. You can't live in Spokane without seeing and using Bouten constructed buildings. They are exceedingly good at heavy construction and have a reputation for careful, nicely finished work.
CK Anderson of helveticka came to us to photograph the various interiors at Rockwood Lane Retirement to help build their occupancy. These are all lived-in homes and their owners were good to us as we tried to represent what seems a very agreeable lifestyle. This is a well-maintained facility with everything from free-standing homes to small apartments available with a range of dining, support and nursing services on call. The folks I met seem real happy living there and the food looked great.
The challenge for us was the tight quarters in the smaller apartments with the dense furnishing that happens when a person, or couple, tries to narrow down a lifelong collection of nice things to fit a smaller space. In one case, there was absolutely nowhere to put a light , so we lit first for the right half, then, being very careful around the camera, we re-lit for the left half, combining the halves later, with little problem, as we edited. Good lighting for each half with just a little added editing time. We spent a full day on the interiors and then a couple of hours on a sunnier day for some exterior views.
Follow this to the Google Virtual Tour click "Tour the Studio".
My good friend, photographer Roger Myers, set us up to do a Google Virtual Tour of the Studio. This is where, from Google Maps, Google Earth, or various other portals, a viewer can take a tour through our studio interior in some detail through navigable photographs. Roger has aligned himself with Google as a Google Certified photographer. He's the guy for this area. Roger does great work and knows how to do these "spins", as he calls them, expertly as well as entry to publish them on the Google system. From any of the camera positions you can turn 360º around and up and down as well. Any public business should have this done. In a year or two it will be standard for any public business.
Roger's phone # is 509-703-2672. Website: Ailana360.com
helveticka, a top Spokane design agency, brought us in to photograph a new look and feel for the new HollisterStier Allergy division website. Owned by Jubilant, this company is a great Spokane success story started by Drs. Hollister and Stier almost a hundred years ago. They have an international reach and uncommon expertise with allergy treatments. It is a deep site- lots of pages and a fair amount of technical information. It is designed for both physician and patient use. For us several location sessions were involved including real allergy specialists at their practices, nurses, practice managers, (and we hired two models for patients). This authenticity resonates well with the sophisticated audience who are this company's clients. A studio session for the "product" header image was part of the package. Photography of the R&D staff, the phone support group, as well as the entire national sales team rounded out the project. The challenge in a project like this is scale- the number of components in the site and the number of people who have input, normally a good part of the management team. Clear and concise communications are essential and the execution has to be flawless. helveticka proved up to the task and I hope we helped to make them and Jubilant HollisterStier look good and improve their services to the doctors and patients who they are here to help.
Clicke here to see the website: www.hsallergy.com
ALSC Architects asked us to photograph the new snyamncut Residence Hall at Eastern Washington University. It's a beautiful facility and the students who live there are lucky. Given a difficult to pronounce native (Salish?) name, I am curious what it might be nicknamed by now. Said phonetically, the "c" is pronounced like an "s". It was just opened and populated this last fall (2013). We hoped to get the exterior but the landscaping wasn't in place yet- too limiting. We covered the interior thoroughly with images of the great ground floor common areas, the entry, and upper floor study and kitchen areas. The client was happy with the result and we licensed them to Leone and Keeble Construction, as the contractor, as well.
Spokane design firm "helveticka" came to us on behalf of Avista Corp. to produce a print ad to express Avista's support and interest in the University District along the river in downtown Spokane. Avista Corp. has been instrumental, in fact a founding partner, in the development of the campus locus. Adjacent to the Gonzaga University Campus with elements of Eastern Washington University, Washington State University and other educational entities as partners in the location, it is already a beautiful and well used campus setting with a great future. Avista is rightly proud of their investment and the team's vision, which now lives in this superb addition to Spokane's culture. This was a way for them to express it. Happily, we had a beautiful summer evening to execute this image along with the cooperation of a group of our and helveticka's friends to populate the image. We needed to add just a touch of light to an otherwise natural scene and it all went according to plan. A very pleasant evening and we got home before dark. You should go down and walk the campus sometime- it is beautiful and has a great feel about it.
Read about Spokane's University District here: http://www.spokaneuniversitydistrict.com/avista.php
The lid is off, now we can say it: Clancy (Clarise) Pool has won the "Paralibrarian of the Year" award from Library Journal Magazine . This trade magazine has a circulation of over a hundred-thousand which is very respectable in the world of publishing and makes sense when you consider the number of people with library careers countrywide. This is a national competition and Ms. Pool, of St John, Washington, was judged to be the most stellar performer in the world of libraries as a paralibrarian. She has done some great things for the Whitman County Library system. She shepherded funding and support for the building of a new facility in St. John and has worked at and improved a number of the small rural libraries in their system. We were sworn to secrecy in this work, even as we went to St. John to produce the images. We dissembled when asked what we were doing there and stayed obscure in our explanations.
Clancy was a great sport as we put her through a lengthy session for a cover image and then photographed her entertaining and reading to kids, out on the main street of St. John (in bitter cold), and collaborating with other library folks. I'm guessing she slept very well that night. Commonly, one person runs this library- it's a small operation and she is often it, but it is more successful and of a much higher profile and much more used by the locals with her effort to build it up. The magazine has been released, so we can talk openly about her recognition- pretty good for a small-town lady of great charm. Read the article here: Library Journal Magazine
Integrus Architecture hired us to photograph the Architecture of Wellpinit School for which they designed and oversaw a very major rehab project. The High School/ Middle School combo is source of pride for the people who spend their days there. A lot of nice big windows and pleasant common spaces make school good for all of them. The school features some cool ideas such as drinking fountains that allow for quick-filing of your water bottle, so students can stay hydrated throughout the day, and automatic energy saving lighting. Congratulations to the Wellpinit School District on their new Facility!
Wellpinit High School-Middle School.
Road King magazine cover art
"RoadKing", a magazine for professional truckers, came to us through Michael Nott at Parthenon Publishing in Nashville Tennessee, to photograph a cover for the January/February 2014 issue. The story covers how trucker Jason Baker won a contest for losing weight and got himself in much better shape. Whatever the prize, the improvement in his health and attitude was worth more. Driving his truck to northern Canada and back routinely was not a recipe for good health. We (Chase Warnick assisting) took Jason and his beautiful truck, thanks to his company "System Transport", and prettier wife out on old Highway 2 not far from Rearden. She came to keep him company and we got pictures of them both with the tractor, just for fun. They got published in the cover story inside the magazine too. Jayson is a great fellow with a real positive disposition which made the whole process in the cold and wind, even into the dark of evening, good fun. The designer was real happy with the result and we sent a handful of prints to Jayson. He thanked us heartily. Thanks again RoadKing, and congratulations Jayson.
I love editorial work- its always a challenge to come up with something good no matter what the circumstances. No excuses.
You can view the story here: http://roadking.com
Road King Magazine: Jayson Baker