Bull Terriers and Interiors

April, 2016 was a great month, no fooling! I had the pleasure of working with a new client.  Her name is Alison Kinney. Recently, with her online business doing well, she made the leap and opened her own beautiful showroom to display her great finds. Alison, the owner of AWK Design Antiques, located in Stamford, Connecticut contacted me to inquire about doing a photo shoot. The shoot was to include portraits of her two adorable bull terriers, interior photos of her showroom, as well as portraits of herself. When it came time for the photo shoot, I was incredibly excited knowing this shoot would be a lot of fun. What's better than dogs and cool furniture? (As long as the dogs are all house trained.)  By far my favorite images are the portraits of Alison. Using one Canon Speedlite and Alison's studio space where she does her own photographing of furniture to be sold online, I was able to create high low key images. With these images I broke the rules a bit doing a nontraditional lighting setup. In doing this, the result was a more visually desirable set of photos with a bit more contrast than the typical high key image. Working with Alison was such an awesome experience.  Her showroom features a wide variety of one of a kind antique pieces from designers such as Harvey Probber, Vladimir Kagan, and Ralph Lauren.  I am looking forward to working with her again on other projects in the future. 

A Cut Above The Rest

The highlight of March 2016 was getting back into the studio. I had the chance to work with Hoffman Blacksmithing, a company run by Liam Hoffman, a very talented 19 year old out of North Carolina who is changing the standard when it comes to blacksmithing. Liam's hand-forged kitchen knives have full steel blades that run the length of the handle. The steel is sandwiched between exotic, hand-carved, wood handles. The rivets that hold the handle in place are extraordinary alone; solid and flush to the wood, there is no chance this blade will ever dislodge from the handle.

Returning to the studio after being away for ten months I found it challenging to get back into my usual perfectionist attitude. After arranging my first set, that feeling slowly faded and I had tunnel vision once again; it was great to be back in the zone. I had two days to photograph three of Liam's knives (plenty of time). I used the first day in the studio as a bit of a warm up. By day two, I had the shots I wanted. All that was left to do was edit...