art direction

For a story about what kind
of milk to pair with cookies for Santa, I didn’t want to show
the boring chocolate chip variety.
I also wanted it to give it a Christmas holiday feel, so I came up with the ideas of shooting a stack of sugar cookies with their sides decorated with green, red and white colored sugar.

MPortfolio_ArtDirection_Fancy-Ketchup201

To accompany a roundup of fancy ketchups, I decided to shoot the bottles on a silver platter being held by a butler’s white bloved hand. It was a bit of a nod to those old Grey Poupon commercials in the 1980s.

To illustrate an item about wine makers using specific types of dirt
to infuse their grapes with different flavors, I came up with the idea to shoot a wine glass filled with dirt with a radish “garnish”.

MPortfolio_ArtDirection_Popsicles2018.jp

I have art directed hundreds of photo shoots

and have it down to a science. The most important

component is to start out with a creative and visually

interesting images to compliment the editorial item.

The rest depends on prep and experience.

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custom props

I designed and produced
pizza boxes as an opener for
a yearly feature on best of dishes like pizza from all fifty states. Later, the advertisement department used the boxes to send issues and information to advertisers and potential clients.

MPortfolio_Props_IceCreamPolitics2018.jp

I designed and created these
ice cream cone holders as props
to illustrate an item about a
poll which revealed that the Republicans named chocolate
as their favorite ice cream flavor while Democrats chose vanilla.

For a story about how
to infuse vodka with candy

for Halloween, I made
swizzle sticks/garnishes
made from the candy used
to infuse the cocktail.

MPortfolio_Props_ThanksgivingBeer2018.jp

I drew these Thanksgiving
turkeys and printed them
on transperancies to make
beer glasses for props to
illustrate an item about how
beer is high on the grocery
list for Thanksgiving dinner.

I created vinyl stickers to
make a sad face out of a clear pumpkin-shaped candy bowl filled with candy corn to illustrate an item about a poll which revealed that candy corn is the least-liked Halloween candy flavor.

art direction

custom props

I also created custom props like ice cream cone wrappers, pizza boxes, illustration on glasses and an unhappy face on a candy bowl jack-o-lantern

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