We were in Westport CT a few weeks back shooting a fun assignment for Forbes Magazine to photograph Anne and Tony Greenberg and their modern art.  Among their collection are colorful children-sized plastic sculptures by the former graffiti artist KAWS and a beautiful anime-style painting by the Thai painter Sung.  Loved their fun-loving nature as well as their Asian-inspired home.  Here’s the online article which also appeared in the Dec. 5th print version.

This is the third shoot in my personal project “Reinvention”, highlighting women who reinvent themselves.  Meet Sharon…former CPA and now one of the top interior designers in New England and owner of Sharon McCormick Design.  In 2002 Sharon left accountancy to attend Paier College of Art where she won the Outstanding Achievement in Design Award.  She’s also been voted “Best of Hartford” for interior designer.  And I was thrilled to learn after we met that she created my favorite room in the latest Junior League of Hartford show house!

According to Sharon, “When we moved to Connecticut, we bought a 1730’s house in Durham’s historic district. Every room needed to be totally redecorated. Every night I would take magazines into the bath tub with me and dream about what I could do with my house. Eventually it became an obsession. One day a BIG lightbulb went off! I could actually make a living doing what I loved! I went back to college for design because I had high aspirations, and felt that I needed a formal education so that I would be able to communicate with architects and builders. There were many challenges along the way, but I stuck it out and am so happy I did!”

When I read Sharon’s story, I knew I wanted to incorporate the bathtub into the images.  A big thank you to Sharon for being open to getting naked in her bathtub with those magazines one more time!  Also, a big thank you to Sharon’s client who allowed us to use her beautiful home for the blue dining room shoot…one of Sharon’s favorite rooms she designed.

Excited to see our Maya Moore image in the August issue of O, The Oprah Magazine.  We shot Maya last summer at UConn before she became the #1 WNBA draft pick and is now a forward for the Minnesota Lynx…go Maya!

Some commercial news from earlier this year…we were thrilled when the London office of our client Swarovski called asking to publish our photos of Cascade–a striking multi-story Swarovski crystal chandelier hanging in the stairway of a Gramercy Park NYC residence–in their Swarovski Crystal Palace book.  A true coffee table book–this is a huge and very cool book.  Here are a few images of the book…

Happy Opening Day!  Wonderful to be working with the New York Mets again for the third year…and this time in color!  The images are shot early morning on Photo Day during Spring Training in Port St. Lucie.  We’re the last stop on the players’ photo tour of all the media outlets and have a studio set up in the visiting team’s locker room.  The players are warm, friendly, and fun to shoot!  It’s a fast shoot with 1-2 minutes per player.  The first shot was at 7:45 am and the last at 9:30, so an hour and 15 minutes to shoot 60 players…definitely an adrenaline rush!  This year we went for a more serious set of photos but I can’t help snapping when the players crack a smile!  SportsNet NY integrates these images into their television video clips among other uses by them and the Mets.

Thanks again to Julie, the SNY producer, who’s been a great on- and off-set partner in creating these images and took a chance on us three years ago as non-sports photographers!

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I love mixing photojournalism with a studio set-up so shooting Hannah Fluet and Alejandro Bobadilla, two of the Hartford City Ballet dancers, in action was a real treat.

Given this winter it was especially nice to be back in Port St. Lucie, Florida last week for our 3rd annual photo shoot with the New York Mets at Spring Training for our client SNY (SportsNet NY), the “Online Home of All Things NY Sports.� It’s a really enjoyable assignment and we thought we’d give some insight into how we shoot it.

These aren’t sports shots or even outdoor photos; instead, what we’re going for is intimate studio photos of the players, some straight on and others with pitching or batting action.  Last Wednesday we set up a studio in the visitor’s locker room at Digital Domain Park using our Profoto lights with a softbox and umbrella and a pop-up black background.   Mike and I flew with all the equipment…I have a big suitcase I check for stands and non-breakable gear, the two Profoto monolight heads go in a Tenba backpack, and we couldn’t live with out our Thinktank Airport International roller bag for bringing all our cameras on the plane.  The bags always get hand-checked, but I’ve never had a problem.  After the set-up and lighting tests, we met with SNY’s Supervising Producer to strategize the shoot and then had our own meeting by the pool : }.

On Thursday–aka Photo Day, we arrive onsite about 6:30am.  After the baseball card shots and other promo shots are taken upstairs on the field, the Mets players make the rounds into our locker room “studio� starting at 730am…we’re the last stop on the photo circuit.  We shot the 54 players with the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens.  It’s a very fast shoot, 1-3 minutes with each player and the shoot was over by 9:30am  The Mets players are great to work with–loose and natural in front of the camera.

We can’t post the 2011 photos until Opening Day in April, but here shots of David Wright and Angel Pagan from our shoot in 2010.  Check back on our blog and Facebook page on April 1 for the 2011 photos of the Mets.  We’ll also send out announcements on Twitter.

It was a pleasure meeting Ernie and Christian Trefz last month for a Connecticut Magazine photoshoot on their living the American Dream.  The Trefzes own more than 25 McDonalds stores in Connecticut, having gotten into the business back in the 60s (they worked closely with Ray Kroc).

A great entreprenurial story…and it was fun sharing a McRib and shake after the shoot to hear firsthand about their successful business!

As promised…here are some more photos of UConn’s superstar Maya Moore from this past summer.   I love to shoot a portrait but just as much I love to shoot what happens before and after in a photojournalistic way.  This make-up shot is probably my favorite from the shoot for that reason.

Maya Moore this past Sunday became the highest scoring women’s basketball player in UConn history–congrats Maya..and go Huskies!!  Coinciding with this…our photoshoot of Maya for December’s Connecticut Magazine hit the news stands as well.  We visited Storrs last summer for the shoot where NYC photographer Brian Finke also photographed Maya for Glamour Magazine’s Top 10 College Women of 2010.   Here’s the article…we’ll post more pics from the shoot soon.