Archive for January, 2012

Guest Blogger :: There’s Nothing Better Than Discovering What You’re Meant To Do

Posted January 31st, 2012 in Guest Blogger | 6 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from blogger, friend, and amazing photographer Bruce Plotkin. For those of you who saw our 2011 Elements Holiday Card – Bruce was our fantastic photographer for the day that trekked through the woods with us to capture just the right shot. As you’ll see below – Bruce’s beautiful photography spans from weddings to children, bat mitzvahs to lumbers! But we’ll let Bruce tell you a bit more about that…take it away Bruce!

One of my current favorite quotes was something that famed director Mike Nichols said in a piece for Vanity Fair a few years back. In talking about the making of the movie “The Graduate” he said, “There’s nothing better than discovering, to your own astonishment, what you’re meant to do. It’s like falling in love”. Indeed, this sentiment couldn’t ring more true than for my own life and career.

For forty years my dad was a wedding and portrait photographer in the town I grew up in, Worcester, Mass. Through his own love for photography and his home-based business, from an early age I was immersed in the medium, dabbling in the darkroom, often with my own twins lens reflex around my neck. But the last thing I ever thought I’d do for a living was photograph weddings. Perhaps it was partly not thinking you wanted to do what your dad did, and partly that wedding photography as it existed back in the age of medium format coverage neither seemed glamorous nor creative, and certainly not for me.

After graduating from LA’s Art Center College of Design I headed to New York, where I had the unique opportunity to work as a photographer’s assistant for numerous fashion and advertising photographers, including the soon be renowned Bruce Weber and Albert Watson. Within a few years of arriving in the City, I acquired a studio space, started shooting my own assignments and managed to gain a following and build a career photographing people (lots of kids, actually) for ads, editorial and catalogs.

Now to the crux of my story. Throughout my two decades of working in the commercial world I was periodically asked by friends if I would photograph their weddings, and while I might have initially said yes a bit reluctantly, I quickly discovered that given the freedom to shoot with a 35mm, and with lots of black and white, and allowed to simply capture the day as I saw fit, it was not only exciting, but enabled me to provide my friends with a gift of lasting memories that was way beyond anything that I could have bought them. And when the time came, about a dozen years ago, when my commercial assignments seemed less and less interesting to me (and the commute in from suburbia less appealing), I started more seriously dabbling in photographing weddings. It took me virtually no time to realize that the brides and grooms I was meeting with were indeed looking for that same sort of creative, documentary “personal” style that I’d been using to photograph my friends weddings, this several years before I started even hearing the term “wedding photojournalism”.

The rest is history. My event business took off, and continues to flourish to this day. As digital has evolved and the low light level capabilities of the cameras have gotten better and better, it’s enabled my more candid and “natural” approach to documentary photography to improve exponentially. What’s been most exciting for me has been the ability to develop a relationship-based business, much like my dad always had (even without his having the advantage of blogging and Facebook). A very high percentage of my work comes from referrals from my happy brides and grooms, their family and their friends. I love all the friends that I’ve made and I now routinely have the opportunity to photograph the babies of my brides and grooms, which really gives you that sense of continuity and life’s full circle.

And while the main focus of my career continues to be my event photography, I equally love the diversity of some of the non-wedding related magazine assignments that continue to come my way, from stories about local artists, chefs and teachers, and any all shoots involving kids. What I’ve come to realize after more than three decades of taking pictures professionally is that not only do I love the art and craft of photography and the ability to capture emotion, time and place, but that I love people. I love their stories, I love being part of their lives and recording their history. I truly feel blessed to have been given this talent and this opportunity. Thanks to my dad for showing me the way, even if it took me awhile to get there.

Elements 2011 Holiday Card

{all images ©Bruce Plotkin}


~Allyson

Here’s A Thought :: Creating & Capturing a Concept

Posted January 30th, 2012 in Here's a Thought | 1 Comment

This week on our blog, we have some wonderfully talented friends who have agreed to be special guest bloggers. They will be sharing with us their expert tips and thoughts on the topic of images.

Images are a vital part of a blog post for several good reasons – adding interest, driving traffic via image search engines and connecting quickly with your reader.

But I also have a special place in my heart for photography – having started my career as a photojournalist. I love great images. And I especially love dreaming of a concept and executing that vision through its many steps – from location scouting, to wardrobe, hair and makeup, props and working collaboratively with the best of the best to form my ‘team’ for the shoot. And believe me, it takes a team!

It also takes a fair amount of planning, but in the end, when you capture just what you want, it is so rewarding and worth it. I can look back at the images I’ve helped to create and enjoy how we just captured magically moment – one that I’ll have forever.

Here are some outtakes leading up to the final version of my family holiday card from 2011 showing you some of the process along the way:

First, I needed to scout out a location – this stage at our church was perfect and luckily, free to use. Next came props. My husband is a rock star by night and plays in not one – but two – local bands. He brought all the props and set them up.

Props

 

Onto wardrobe – which I had been gathering, purchasing and digging out of the back of our closets for weeks prior to the shoot. That leather jacket you see my husband wearing? Yeah, that’s the 80′s. We lived them.

 

For make-up we enlisted my dear friend, the very talented and sweet Jennie of Jennie Fresa – who will be guest blogging later this week. She’s the only one I ever want to do my make-up. She is a genius and I trust her to just do her thing. I needed only to tell her the theme, and she showed up with the goods – even quick drying black nail polish. She’s the rock star of make-up – we couldn’t be in better hands. She immediately set about transforming my family into the rock stars we perceived ourselves to be …

 

Special attention in hair and make-up was paid to our lead singer, my little three year old, who fell in love with Jennie and now wants to be her. {Can you blame her}?

And now, on with the show!

 

The extremely talented Anna Sawin captured all the images you see in this post – and too many more to share here. {And she will also be guest blogging later this week, too!}. She completely understood what I was looking for and got it perfectly! It was what I had envisioned, only better. The mark of a truly great photographer. This was the image we used for our “Rockin’ New Year’s” card last year and it was a huge hit with our family and friends – who all commented that for a minute, they didn’t realize it was us. Bravo, team!

~Amy

{images ©Anna Sawin}

T A C K W A L L :: Fun with Fabrics

Posted January 27th, 2012 in Tackwall | No Comments

We’ve been talking about color all week on our blog and to wrap up the week – we’re featuring one of our clients that’s starting up a new sportswear company. Below are a sampling of the bold and bright colored fabrics that will be turned into fashionable men’s polos. Stay tuned for the final products!

Giveaway Thursday! :: Pantone Chips Journal & Prisma Penc Set

Posted January 26th, 2012 in Giveaway Thursday! | 6 Comments

In the spirit of color week, we’re giving away this bright and bold Pantone journal. Covered with a variety of different colored Pantone chips – this journal is perfect for taking notes, sketching, or writing down your colorful thoughts on the interior pages equally cool graph paper pages. All of us at Elements have, use – and love – these colorful journals (thanks Amy!). We’re also giving away and set of amazing Prisma Penc Verithin Set (donated generously by Hull’s Art Supply & Framing).

Do you want to win this journal and these pencils? Of course you do! Here’s how to enter ::

First: “Like” Hull’s Art Supply & Framing on Facebook

Then leave a comment on this blog post letting us know that you’ve done one of the following ::

  • “Like” Elements on Facebook
  • If you already follow us on Facebook – comment on our wall about this giveaway (hit the “share” button and tell your friends!)
  • Follow @ElementsDesign on Twitter
  • Tweet about this contest by copying and pasting this tweet :: I just entered @ElementsDesign “Giveaway Thursday” contest. You can enter today too! :: http://elementsdesign.com/blog
  • Bonus: We’ll enter your name in twice if you follow us on Linkedin!

The winner will be chosen tomorrow and announced on our blog, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin pages. Check back to see if you’re the winner. Thanks for playing, sharing with your friends and good luck!

~Allyson

 

 

Noted :: Color Quiz!

Posted January 25th, 2012 in Noted | 6 Comments

As we’ve discussed this week – color plays an integral roll in design and in everyday day life. But we can often take color for granted – especially with images we see everyday.

Today we’ve posted a few very recognizable logos in black and white. Your task (without cheating – aka: help from Goggle!) is to list all the colors associated with each logo.

Are you up for this colorful challenge? Yes? Then start listing them in a comment on this blog post. If you are the first one to have all the correct answers in your comment, you will win one of our special – and colorful! – surprises to be posted on our “Giveaway Thursday” blog tomorrow. Good Luck!

1. Pampers :: For the past few years, this logo and I were together. A lot. If you’re a parent, remembering Pampers colors should be an easy (side velcro) snap.

2. UPS :: We’re starting you off slowly here – this one should also be a quick recall. Their brand color was also part of a advertising campaign – that is, until it started appearing out of context on t-shirts and slang expressions. They’ve since pulled the campaign, but the signature colors remain.


UPS

3. NFL :: Superbowl Sunday is a mere two weekends away. Most of the nation will be watching the big game. But can you name the colors in the official NFL logo?


4. Aetna :: Okay, now we’re getting a bit trickier. Were you aware that Aetna recently redesigned their logo? And {hint} the color is new, too. Can you guess what it is?

5. Jenny Craig :: Jenny Craig’s new logo – just shortened to “jenni” lower case with an “i” at the end.

6. Ivory :: One of Proctor & Gamble’s oldest brands, Ivory was first sold in 1879 – and has undergone many logo evolutions since and today, looks like this:

7. Cigna :: Yet another Connecticut-based healthcare provider who has recently rebranded. The Cigna logo used to be all one color – but now it has three (that’s a hint!).

8. Toronto Blue Jays :: Okay sports fans, do you recall the past Blue Jays logo? Well, they’ve gone a bit retro – and I like it! The old logo was a bit more ‘slick’. Here’s a hint – this new logo has two of the same colors, eliminates one of the colors and replaces it with a completely new third color (the leaf and the baseball are in the new color). Can you guess all three?

9. Heineken :: Sometimes a brand as common as that on a beer can elude us when we stop and try to recall … Can you?

10. House Beautiful :: Similar to the beer label, this is a magazine on every newsstand starring us in the face. But what is the color of the logo? Or, do you only pay attention to the gorgeous image of the beach house in Malibu on the cover? (Guilty!)

Now do you believe us that color is vitally important in design? Okay, okay. Well, again, good luck and try not to cheat! Winner to be announced tomorrow. Happy guessing!

~Amy