makro funk

John and Brad came over to the studio last weekend and we decided that macro photography is freaky. We ended up shooting super tight portraits of out teeth and eyes, FREEEEEAAAKY.

Planet Earth!!

Thanks Julie Tallarida for your awesomeness. You are a ball of light!! It was great shooting your casting for www.planetearthagency.net

All of you real swanky funky lookin peeps out there should consider putin your mugs on the panet earth site!!

All you swanky magazines and ad agency's should consider using the swanky fun characters from Planet Earth Agency

Nicole Radja from time out started a new blog featuring Chicago photographers and their stories. Check it out!

http://instudioonlocation.blogspot.com/

We Were There!

Erika and I were in Grant Park last night to hear our new president-elect speak. What an amazing ending! Or beginning. At any rate, a friend sent me this link to this morning's Chicago Tribune:

In case they remove the link, here's pic #8:




(Erika was snapping a pic of me at the same time) And here's my shot of her with a phone:

This month's Vanity Fair

Does this mean we're famous? We should be rubbing elbows with George Clooney any day now, right? Erika's already picking out her evening wear for the galas. It's a little itty bitty feature on one of our favorite clients - Katrina Markoff from the immensely successful Vosges haut-Chocolat - but hey it's Vanity Fair. (Did we mention it's Vanity Fair? For real!)



Speaking of Vosges haut-Chocolat, Katrina brought her family's 3 mastiffs with her to her last catalog shoot. If you're not familiar, mastiffs are a cross between a dog and a water buffalo. And yes, one of them is a puppy
.

Crackberry addicts rejoice!

There's a neat little video just released promoting the new Blackberry Bold phone, featuring stills by Erika.

New pics from San Fran

We took a little decompression trip to the Bay Area recently...

Erika featured in PDN magazine

Check out this month's PDN magazine for an interview with Erika about a shoot she did for DraftFCB New York.

The assignment for Reliant Pharmaceuticals, to shoot a trade ad campaign for a drug designed to fight triglycerides, started off quickly, but it wasn't long before our pace slowed considerably. The assignment went from a shot of a runner to a person in a perfectly stationary position.

Read entire article here (subscription required).

Bar hopping through the ages

Erika and Seth, sitting pretty at Berlin night club on the set of the TimeOut Magazine story on Old-school Chicago bars.

Desperately Seeking... Someone.

The project we did for Chicago Magazine's Singles story "The Naturals" just hit the news stands, and we couldn't be happier with the results! Here's a behind the scenes video of the goings on:


Chicago magazine's Singles 2008: Behind the Scenes at the Photo Shoot from Chicago Magazine on Vimeo.

Location provided by Ranquist Development
Styling by Amy Lauhoff Obrien
Hair & Make-up by Christine Stahl
Asisstants T. Harrison Hillman, Nicole Stege, Seth Mooney

We're number 3!

Just found out that our shoot for Chicago Magazine's Aliens story on invasive species won the Bronze CRMA (City and Regional Magazine Assoc.) award for photo essay. Neat!

Herman Miller or Lord Helmet?

Joe does his best impression of one of his favorite Cinema stars, Lord Helmet from Spaceballs.

Cooler By The Lake

We pretended that it was Summer the other day and did a little cover shoot for Chicago Magazine's Lake front issue. Here's an out take featuring our favorite stand-in model Nicole, backed by our stylist Amy fishing out some Unidentified Floating Objects out of good old Lake Michigan.

Joffrey Ballet

Erika just finished an amazing shoot for the Joffrey Ballet's new American Moderns performance. The original plan was to transform the male dancer into a half man/half goat creature, but that process became just a little too complicated. Here's our trusty assistant Seth propping the goat half.


And the final piece featuring the incredible Joffrey Talent (sans goat). Lush set design by Kiyomi, making beautiful people more beautiful by Christine.

Our very own Christine was selfless enough to chase down a bus so we could snap a pic of the billboard. Here she is willing the bus to stop using her magnetic hands. Thanks Christine!

America's Previous Top Model

A couple "behind the scenes" pics of the recent shoot of America's (former) Next Top Model Jaslene for TimeOut magazine. We don't watch a whole lot of TV so our assistant Nicole had to explain how cool this was. Jaslene turned out to be a great subject to work with.

A Hectic Day of Photo Production

Erika, in an intensive retouching session with our intern, Margaret.


Minutes later our stylist Amy sent this pic depicting her busy researching with assistants Miss Inca and Maddux.

Erika's art on display tonight only

Image Chicago (www.imagechicago.com) is sponsoring an event at Landmark Grill and Lounge (1633 N Halsted St) this Thursday, March 20th from 9pm-2am with the intention of combining fashion with art and music. Erika will be one of five artists on display. Please stop by if you are in the area.

She Made an Example Out of Us

Chicago Magazine's Photography Editor Brittney Blair gave a talk at the Apple Store on Michigan Ave. last Monday, and we were honored to be featured. She used the website as a an example of how a particular image inspired a beauty shoot for the magazine. Thanks Brittney!

Sunny Day, Sunny Sounds

A little camera phone pic from our trip down to UIC's folk festival. Check out the lil' shaver with the guitar jamming out. It was freezing outside today but nice and toasty inside this beautiful interior where we heard informal banjo jam sessions and danced to a Klezmer band.

China 2006

I just realized when we went to China and its like, WOA, time just flew by, 2006! I really need to get a good scanner and and a good intern to scan all o that stuff. It was such an amazing trip for us, and I am glad to finally post some pics. our trip started in Shanghai, which seemed like Blade Runner to me, then went to Sechuan for spicy food, then moseyed over to Kunming, Dali, and finally Hong Kong. There are more photos, but at least this is something!!