Selected: ADC Young Guns 9

“Jesse captures our ever-familiar daily life from subtle yet surprising angles. They are stories waiting to be told.” – Qian Qian, YG7

I am extremely excited and honored to announce that I am part of this year’s class of ADC Young Guns 9. ADC Young Guns® is the only international, cross-disciplinary, portfolio-based awards competition that identifies today’s vanguard of young creative professionals age 30 or younger.  Judged on a body of both professional and personal work by a jury of past YG winners, this year’s class represents an impressive global roster of young talent in the fields of graphic design, illustration, advertising and art direction, photography, environmental design, film, animation & video, interactive design, sound design, product design and typography.  If you are in the New York area on October 13 check out the party.  The gallery show of this year’s winners work will be shown at the ADC Gallery from October 13- November 3, 2011.  Go here to see the winner profiles and for more information check out the official press release.

New Advertising Work: Charmin Perfect Ending, “The Illiad”

The Illiad is the first image in my latest advertising project, Perfect Ending for Procter & Gamble’s Charmin division. The French held and New York managed, Publicis USA was the agency behind the concept and who commissioned me for the campaign. To illustrate the Charmin slogan, “The Perfect Ending To Every Story,” the agency came up with the clever idea of contextually transposing the subject into the historical setting where our classic novels took place. Showing that the age-old practice of reading on the toilet is best accompanied by Charmin, the campaign is direct, funny, simple, and smart.


To go one step further in tying this all together, it wasn’t till the 1880’s in which proper toilet paper replaced the commonly used pages of magazines, newspapers, books and catalogues. At the turn of the century, the Sears catalogue was commonly referred to as “Rears and Sorebutt.” No joke.


To execute and successfully complete our project I again worked closely with my Frankfurt based digital team, Mainworks. Stay tuned in the coming months for additional concepts transporting our reader to the place of their favorite literary masterpiece.

New Advertising Work: Cox Business Solutions

I am excited to share a sample of my latest advertising assignment for the Las Vegas based agency,  RR Partners. RR was the creative force behind the widely recognizable and memorable campaign, What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. For their Cox Communications client, the campaign is to promote their business solutions product by showcasing current clients ranging from large to small, medical to factory. The project has grown to around 30 images and has been a blast. The architectural and abstract nature of the job is a nice change of pace and has been extremely wonderful to have a trusting client whose direction per location is “do your thing.”

The goal of the campaign is to showcase the photography with little copy on top of the image. Aside from the aforementioned direction, below is a sample of the job description provided by the advertising agency.

The images themselves will showcase the business but in an abstract way. None of the shots will be straight on. Angles, colors, patterns and anything that allows the image to be questioned to catch a reader’s eye should be considered.

New Advertising Work: New Mexico State Tourism

I was recently commissioned by M&C Saatchi to work on the latest campaign for New Mexico State Tourism. As the copy suggests, the theme is to showcase the modern art and the natural beauty the state has to offer. The agency chose Georgia Okeeffe’s 1935 painting, Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, to symbolize modernity and the natural beauty of Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM. The colorful terrain of Ghost Ranch inspired some of the painter’s most famous landscapes and once wrote: “[the] cliffs over there are almost painted for you — you think — until you try to paint them.” Abiquiu is located 63 miles northwest of Santa Fe and served as Okeeffe’s residence from her first visit in 1934 till her death in 1986.

The goal was to create a scene from the perspective of O’keefe as she faced her finished work and the surrounding landscape, bringing our two themes together. The challenge was, although O’keeffe drew much inspiration from actual physical locations, she worked within the themes of modernism, loosely interpreting with abstraction. With the help of my Frankfurt based digital team, Mainworks, the art department headed by David Baca, and a fortuitous scout day, the concept came together nicely.

Production stills after the jump.

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Wonderful Machine Promos

Last month the folks at Wonderful Machine featured me in their monthly print mailer as well as their email, Photographer Spotlight. The email promo went out to 42,191 art buyers at ad agencies, magazines, and corporations in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Oceania.  The 6″x11″ postcard went out to an additional 2,000 recipients.  There are over 450 photographers in 50 countries listed on Wonderful Machine, and to have a print promo and an email in the same month was a nice surprise.  Wonderful Machine is a unique web portal featuring, promoting, and representing photographers all over the world.  Bellow is the blog entry by WM.

May has come and gone, and another great promo has been mailed to clients. Now that summer is upon us, we felt it appropriate to pay homage to the youthful spirit of adolescence and the adventure seeking mindset—however misguided—that accompanies summer break. Printed by Modern Postcard, our latest promo showcases the work of Los Angeles-Based photographer Jesse Rieser and his young daredevil bike jumper. I had Jesse give me some background on his work:

The image was created for Santy Advertising Agency and their client, Phoenix Children Hospital. The shot was a concept that came from Chris Cavaleri, the art director (who is now at David and Goliath in Los Angeles). The image was part of a campaign of two images selected for a PDN photo annual for best advertising of the year. The campaign depicts common, dangerous, yet humorously familiar children’s activities.

I can attest to the fact that children engage in dangerous activities. I spent the majority of my summers days outside, attempting various foolhardy stunts with friends—some more successful than others. Childhood memories like those are what makes Jesse’s image so relatable, not just for me, but for people across the world. We’ve all done dumb yet memorable things in our lives, and that’s why his photo makes us look twice, and smile.

Here are a couple behind-the-scenes photos showing the two parts of the picture that were later stitched together for the final composite.

Email promo after the jump.

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Mobile Portfolio

Today I am launching a mobile version of my online portfolio. Now you can access all the same content seen on my website from your smart phone and tablet. To check out the mobile site click here.

New Advertising Work: Blue Man Group

Recent advertising work commissioned by Cramer-Krasselt for their Las Vegas client, The Blue Man Group. The ads where run at the beginning of 2011 to ring in the New Year. The props made for an interesting nye. Alternate versions and the final ad after the jump.

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New Portfolios

I am posting to share my newly redesigned portfolio set. In the initial stages my goal was to produce something unique. An object that was easily recognizable and remembered by reflecting my online presence and strengthening my branding across both platforms. Like the site, green indicates the best of my assignment work and the blue showcasing my narrative personal series.

Upon completion the iPad was released. Like many visual artists, I was drawn to the easily customized platform that didn’t require hours of proofing, printing, and the cost of materials. But at the same time, I like the idea of showing nicely printed and sequenced photographs. And, I didn’t see any options to truly customize my presentation and was concerned my branding and identity could get lost in the mix. So I decided to have both and marry the old with the new. Integrate the iPad’s multimedia capabilities with classic book design having hand printed matte pages, half linen construction and a cradle for the iPad. The new presentation has been very well received and excited to share.

The above video was produced as a book preview on my contact page seen here. More photos and construction images after the jump.
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New Work: The Getty Museum for M&C Saatchi

The print campaign “The bugs are here” we shot last month for the John Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles just went into print.

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New Work: Drew Brees NFL Advertisement

Last month we flew to New Orleans to photograph New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.  The NFL campaign is aimed to promote health and wellness to youth.