Chugrad McAndrews Photography – San Francisco Food, Advertising and Catalog Photography

Remember the Ndoro CD Project I worked on last year for Mehealani Uchiyama? Well, it won the Hawaii Music People’s Choice Award for best Album Artwork! This album should be winning awards for music as well – it is very deeply moving.

Thanks again to the amazing Creative Director I collaborated with, Czelena Stovall, and to Mahealani Uchiyama for creating such a soulful sound jewel, and having us help her manifest it visually.

To hear tracks from the CD go to: http://www.mahea.com/store/cds/ndoro-dze-madzinza

To see the Hawaiian Music Awards website go to: http://www.thehawaiimusicawards.com/theHawaiiMusicAwards/2011_WINNERS_LIST.html

Do you know anyone who loves to go to work? Anyone who says, “I can’t wait to get to work”? It might sound almost oxymoronic to some, but many people in the photo production community feel this away about what we do – we get really excited when there is a new project on the horizon that involves new ways of thinking creatively and collaborating with others… we never know exactly how things will turn out, but we are all confident something exceptional will come from each day of work. It is always a special gift to be able to collaborate with other talented people.

These images are the result of the efforts of many different parties, all of whom contributed their time and effort to make these images come  to life. To start, the space. We shot in an amazingly well-designed backyard studio designed by the architect Mike Pitler. He put us in touch with the homeowners who were extremely cooperative, and even eager to see the whole process. Sometimes when shooting on location, we need to remove all the furniture from a place to then bring in all the furniture we are shooting, and it can make a homeowner feel uneasy… even though we are always very careful and everything goes back exactly like it was at the beginning of the day. Needless to say, that in itself is a lot of hard work, and it is always helpful when the homeowners are comfortable with the process.

The idea evolved as a brainstorm between myself and the Prop Stylist Jaimi Holker. She was wanting to do something with the furniture and accessories from a store called Therapy in San Francisco. She approached them about it and they eagerly agreed, even helping us prep all the stuff for shipping to the location. One of the shots we wanted to do was a bed shot in the loft space of the Studio… and anyone who has tried to work on beds for photography knows it takes an expert who specializes in beds to make it look really good… so, Jaimi brought in her friend and colleague Christina Watkinson to help us with the bed shot. The other person on our crew was Jaimi’s assistant Kelly, who was working very hard all day doing the many challenging tasks a Stylist’s Assistant is responsible for (not an easy job).

We shot all day until there was no more light (and then shot the lamps). We were all very pleased with our efforts for the day and eager to share the images with the public and others in our professional community… just like it should be.

To learn more about Mike Pitler and see more of his projects, visit:  http://www.mp-architecture.com

To see more of Jaimi’s work, visit http://www.jaimiholker.com

To see more of Christina’s work, visit http://www.christinawatkinson.com

Last semester I was contacted by a student, Gina Chang, from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco where I have been teaching part-time evening classes. I have been working with students in the Photography department, but this student was from the Graphic Design department. Her assignment was to find a professional photographer to make images of products she would then place into her designs. I thought this was an excellent idea, as I am always encouraging (and requiring) my Photography students to do collaborations with other students at the school who are studying subjects such as Graphic Design, Art Direction, Fashion Design, etc.

The products Gina chose were highly reflective and required some wrestling, but eventually I pinned them down. We were very happy with the results of our collective efforts, as were her classmates and teacher.

Gina has also collaborated with me this current semester by providing layouts for one of my classes that is shooting a mock-catalog. I worked with students on the mock-catalog idea last summer as well, but without layouts, so having the layouts this time really helps the students get a more clear idea of how things work in the real world of Catalog Photography, where there are often limitations set by crop shape, space for copy on an image, space for the “gutter” on a double-page spread, etc. Gina did an excellent job.

To view more of Gina’s work you can visit her website: http://www.ginachang.com

Safeway was in the studio for another shoot that was a little different than the regular stuff I’ve been doing with them. They were having an event and their chef made some recipes which had to be really delicious, yet simple enough to feed thousands of people.

The Shrimp Tacos and Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches were my favorite shots… Shrimp Tacos are just such a simple, tasty way to have a light meal… and I was particularly fond of our Set for this shot – I really liked the subtle tonal changes in the wood surface and how it created the perfect platform to display the teal plate with the Tacos.  Those Ice Cream Sandwiches were the perfect combination of  moist cookies, dripping chocolate sauce and cold ice cream – good thing the ice cream wasn’t chocolate or I’m sure some people would have ended up in the hospital from chocolate OD!

I had an opportunity to do something a little different with the wonderful folks at Safeway – a summer grilling guide. I shared this project with another photographer – I shot all the seafood and he shot all the meat. The guide was designed so the seafood side goes to the middle of the book, then you flip it and the meat side is upside-down on the other half. All the recipes look super delicious – I hope lots of people were able to pick up one of these brochures when they were in the stores over the summer.

For this round of Safeway In-Store Displays, we did a lot of fun shots. We worked on a few drink shots – mostly with that summertime, refreshing feeling. One idea I particularly liked was the iced coffee drink – a little along different lines than the juices. I also liked the idea of the Shrimp Cocktail, but sometimes those little guys are a bit of a challenge to configure in a way that shows their great shape as well as their tails – I think we pulled it off. The Apple Pie with ice cream on top turned out great – the right amount of chunkiness and flakiness, and melt on the ice cream –  when I saw it on the huge poster in the store, it looked quite tempting.

I was hired by the owners of a great new restaurant called Hot Spud, to make some photos of their food and restaurant.

Their concept, while popular in Europe, is not very common in the U.S. It’s a baked potato “Gourmet Fast Food” place where they start with a HUGE baked potato, cut it open and add butter and cheese to the insides, then offer specialized menu selections with special sauces over things like steak, shrimp, crab, chicken and bacon, coupled with a variety of veggies. Or, the customer can select whatever they want from the fresh and extensive salad bar and have that put on the potato… for that matter, a customer could leave out the potato altogether and just eat from the salad bar. The result is a very filling, and quite delicious full meal.

One of the things that makes Hot Spud unique is the spectacular architecture. I made a few extra shots specifically for the architects, Martinkovic Milford Architecture.

For more information about Hot Spud go to their website: http://www.hotspudsf.com

To find Martinkovic Milford Architecture, go to: http://www.martinkovicmilford.com

I had the pleasure of teaching a class this summer at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. A colleague of many years now has a position at the school and asked if I’d be interested. I saw it as a great opportunity to share some of the many years of experience I have accumulated in Photography so far.

The class was to focus on Still Life Photography. I felt it was important for the students to learn about the real world of commercial photography, in addition to the technical details of creating excellent images, so I structured the class where we did a “real life” shoot every other class for the whole class period. We were shooting a faux catalog and rotating positions each time. The positions were some typical roles played on a commercial photo shoot such as “Photographer”, “Digital Technician”, “Art Director”, “Prop Stylist”, and assistants. It proved to be a very successful way of bringing the real world of commercial shooting into the classroom. My hope was that when these students start working in the real world, they will already have some valuable tools such as terminology and set-etiquette, as well as all the technical photography skills.

I was truly impressed with some of the work produced. In addition to the faux catalog, the students had weekly homework assignments that focused on technical aspects of photography, such as Composition – looking at how objects and/or subjects play off each other within the frame; Background – paying close attention to how every detail in the background can dramatically affect the foreground; Shadow Quality – playing with different light sources at different distances from objects on a surface to see how their shadows change qualities; Color, Texture, Patterns, Elements – combining all of these things in a conscious way that works well aesthetically and doesn’t get too busy and difficult to look at; Focus Slicing and Depth of Field – how to achieve precise focal planes through an image – choosing where will be sharp focus and where will be soft focus; Combine Strobes, Candlelight, and Daylight – mixing all three light sources in a balanced blend. After following precise directions on how to do the assignments in a technical way, I asked the students to do something “creative” of their choosing that reflected an understanding of the assignment.

Teaching was a great opportunity for me to reflect on the many years I have been a student of photography as well as a working professional. I never cease to learn more and stay excited about the small details and the big possibilities.

Remember the Post I made last year about the Allergen-Free Cookbook I worked on? Well, the author has done several demos on a few TV shows including the Martha Stewart show, ABC 7 Chicago, Good Morning America Health – ABC News Now, and The View From The Bay – ABC San Francisco. They all feature a nice shot of the book cover in the beginning of each video. The book also just got to #1 on the “Best of Martha Stewart Show” Bookshelf.

The Book has been selling very well. It’s called “The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook” by Cybele Pascal and is available in stores, online, or at the author’s website http://www.cybelepascal.com.

I was contacted to shoot a very cool product for Cloud Telecomputers. This is an office phone but has similar functionality to an iPhone, iPad, or Android with touchscreen technology. It uses a similar operating system as the Android, and allows the user to track all kinds of data about their phone calls and contacts – ideal for a busy office administrator.

They wanted a very clean, modern look, so we shot it on white and kept it very minimal. We spent a bit of time precisely finessing the reflections, shadows and highlights, to give it a little drama but keep it fairly open and easy to see all the details. Some of these images are shown with various screens dropped in by the company after the shoot.

Cloud Telecomputers can be contacted at http://www.cloudtelecomputers.com