Two months later and I just realized that we had not shared ANY of the imagery we did for UnitedHealthcare this summer. One my favorite shots is the one below. This is an image built from four separate shots:

1. The Hillside
2. The Shrubs
3. The Signage
4. The Sky

We got up in a helicopter on a very hazy morning, (the schedule did not permit us to wait for a gorgeous day) and shot a series of hillside shots. I had passed this spot many time in my life and always wanted to use it for some kind of shot. This image finally gave me the chance. We scouted the hillside about a week earlier from the air to make sure it would work. Of course the day we scouted was much nicer than the day we actually shot. You might ask why we didn’t just use the scout shots, well there were several reasons. We were scouting from a fixed wing aircraft, not a helicopter and we also were not using a gyroscope on the scout which helps to steady the camera. The helicopter gave us much more flexibility in moving around the hills and in getting different angles. We were also able to get in much closer for some, and having the door on the helicopter open made it much easier to shoot.

The shrubs were also from this series of shots and made a nice addition to the bare hillside.

The following week we were in studio for the majority of the shots (we had done exclusively location work the first week). On one of those days we shot the signage. The signage was a scale model we had built and stood about 18″ tall and stretched about 8′-9′ wide.

Once we were done with all of the main shooting, we moved into the post-production phase and this was one of the first shots we started on, although it was probably one of the last ones we finished. It was during this stage that we added the nice sky and built the shadows and composited it all together.

I am hoping to get more of these kinds of projects, I love shooting from the air and it is great fun to pull an image together out of many elements….and have it work!

Last year I did a post on Staying Inspired, in which I shared a photo I had taken of my favorite instructor during my time at Art Center, Archie Ferrante or more accurately;Arcangelo Dante Ferrante. I took the photo about 10 years after graduating from Art Center during a class I was taking to re-inspire myself.

Yesterday a colleague who is on the Photo Department Faculty at the Academy of Art in San Francisco contacted me and indicated they were naming the Digital Lab up there after Archie. Very Cool!! I was very honored though when he requested my photo of Archie, to be used for the plaque.

Archie is an amazing photographer and an even more amazing human being. He is warm, intelligent, loving, talented, full of life, and hilarious! He is always the first person I think of, when thinking of my time at Art Center.

Archie is no longer at Art Center, he left there some years back after not being treated so well by the powers that be at the time. But karma being what it is, those who treated him poorly have all been unceremoniously booted out! Yea!

I am so happy that Archie is getting this small token of appreciation for who and what he is. This marvelous man has touched many lives, brightened many days, and has brought craft and integrity to our profession.

Thank You Archie! We Love You! ……………Okaaayyyy Liiiiiights!!!!!