Twin Cities Business Magazine | March 2019

March 06, 2019 in Editorial, Portrait

The March issue of Twin Cities Business Magazine is here! This month’s cover story features Osman Mussa, a first-year industrial engineering student at Dunwoody College of Technology. I found this story incredibly interesting - it covers what modern manufacturing jobs look like and also the shortage of talent in a booming industry.

When we walked into Dunwoody, I had an idea of what I hoped this cover shot would be, but I didn’t know who our subject would exactly be or the environment we might be in. When we met Osman, he inspired our entire team with his story. His strong, yet calm, confidence in front of the camera was also exactly what I was hoping to capture. Students like Osman and those we met that day at Dunwoody are the future of manufacturing and they are seizing the opportunities in front of them! Make sure to check out the issue to read all about this great story!

BEHIND THE SCENES//

Martina x The Restaurant Project

January 31, 2019 in Commercial, Editorial, Portrait

About a year and a half ago, I had coffee with Chef Daniel del Prado. He told me about the ideas behind his first breakout restaurant, which was to be called Martina. I left that meeting feeling very inspired by the team of people he was bringing together and how their vision was lead by creativity.

This was a perfect project for our team over at The Restaurant Project and over a couple of days, we harnessed the most badass light to make some amazing images happen. It’s always so exciting for me to bring a vision to life, but when the light works out like it did these days, it truly is pure magic!

Needless to say, Martina has been a big hit and we’re so proud of seeing their hard work pay off. Below are some of my favorite images from our shoot with Martina and The Restaurant Project!

Liam //

January 07, 2019 in Portrait

I love taking a portrait of someone. It’s a moment and time in their life. I also love the challenge of making a picture that truly shows who that person is. Liam James Doyle has been an assistant on our team for a good few years now, but even more than that, he is an incredible photojournalist. Mark my words - this man is going to do incredibly big things in the world and I can’t wait to see what that is! When he asked me to photograph him to update his portrait, of course I said yes. I absolutely love the energy of how these turned out and to me, they are perfect!

LOVEe

Da Bomb Bath Fizzers

June 21, 2017 in Commercial, Portrait

You might have heard of Isabel and Caroline Bercaw - they are the 'sisterpreneurs' behind the growing brand, Da Bomb Bath Fizzers. Isabel and Caroline are now 15 and 16 years old, but they started their company at the young age of 10 and 11. Their company now employs over 150 people and their products are in over 5000 stores - quite an accomplishment!

Since launching their company, Isabel and Caroline have grown a lot - both personally and professionally. It was time to update their image, along with some product photography and I was thrilled to be on board for this project. Together with our crew (Fatima Olive on hair & makeup and Judith Marilyn styling), we created a series of fun images that the girls will be able to use for their upcoming campaigns, social media and press requests! Here are some of our favorite images from the shoot!

Some Recent Portraits //

April 18, 2017 in Portrait, Editorial

I've been pretty busy lately - and happily so. We have some really wonderful projects that are coming up. I was going through my archives the other day and I realized that there is SO much work from the last year that I would love to share.

For starters, I have really been loving many of the portraits that have been created this past year. I have the chance to photography so many truly amazing people and I wanted to take a moment to show you some of my favorite images.

LOVEe

*Alex Roberts, Lucas Rosenbrook and Mätti Sprague of Restaurant ALMA*

*Gavin Kaysen of Spoon & Stable and Bellecour*

*Adam Eaton and Laurel Elm of Saint Dinette*

*Steven Brown of Tilia and St. Genevieve*

Mpls / St. Paul Magazine // Citizen Style

December 27, 2016 in Editorial, Portrait

For the September issue of Mpls / St. Paul magazine, I was asked to photograph a set of portraits for their fall fashion story. It turns out that I had a connection to all of the people, which made photographing this all the more special.

When it comes to photographing real people in a 'fashion' sense - I love to still make it feel real. I wanted the portraits to be authentic to who our subjects were and why they had been chosen to highlight their personal style.

I wanted to share some of my favorite outtakes and behind the scenes from this shoot, because the energy with all of our subjects was absolutely amazing! A big thank you to Betsey Kershaw, Kimberly Ferguson, Linda Kaysen and Paul Buttenhoff for all the great moments! You can check out the full story here.

Behind the Scenes//

2015 Design 100 // Mpls / St. Paul Home & Design Magazine

June 14, 2016 in Editorial, Portrait

The Design 100 is one of my favorite stories to be a part of each year. It lives in the pages of Mpls / St Paul Home & Design magazine and I just always love how this turns out. The Design 100 is a story about the 100 best people, products and places that add style to home and design. This includes rad spaces, talented artists and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a lot of our favorite products. Maybe I love this story so much, because it is about the artists and where their hustle comes from.

The images below are from the 2015 Design 100 issue and I was able to photograph a few folks for this article. Big thank you to Ashley Mary Art, Keith Wyman of Concrete Pig, Erin Francois of Francois et Moi and the wonderful Lisa Balke and Susan Blankenship of Victory Vintage.

MSP Style Makers // September 2014

September 02, 2014 in Editorial, Portrait

The month of September brings a new issue of MSP Magazine to the newsstands and I have been SO excited to share this for quite some time. I was asked to photograph the cover + feature story for the magazine and this turned out to be one of my most favorite projects of the year. In the magazine world, the 'September' issue is always usually centered around fashion and style. MSP chose to highlight real people, who influence the style in Minneapolis, for their issue this year. I must say - this was one room packed with powerful, successful and very creative individuals. Minneapolis always seems to constantly provide a city full of talent and I always feel so lucky that my job allows me to cross paths with many of these people. I often leave feeling very inspired. As for my crew, we pulled together our dream-team to make this happen! Special thanks to Flashlight Photo Rental, Romeny Chan and her crew for hair & makeup, Liz Gardner of MSP for art direction, design and styling, Liz Hardt for post production and Ali Kaplan of MSP for writing the article. This issue is special, because the cover is not one - but two pages! It's a gatefold cover that highlights all of the talented people in the feature. As for the individual portraits inside the magazine, we wanted to show every person's style, so we asked them to come along with their own belongings to be styled. My job was then to capture everyone's personalities - in one frame. Below are the spreads that are published in the issue, along with some of the behind-the-scene photos from our shoot! (Special thanks to our interns, Hanna and Melissa for these!) Here's a list of our Style Makers for this article, they are people you will surely want to follow:

Lisa Castro // Director of Design for Target

Keith Dorsett // Manager at Heimie's Haberdashery

Dahlia Brue // Owner of IDUN

Devin O'Brien // Co-founder of Search and State Clothing

Courtney Vincent // Associate Creative Director at Peterson Milla Hooks

Madelynn Furlong // Blogger of Wide Eyed Legless

Charley Brackney // Creative Director and Co-Founder of HAUS Salon

Lane Weinberg // Co-Founder and Designer of Kokoon clothing

Jim Smart // Owner of Smart Associates design firm

Social Status // MSP Magazine

August 27, 2014 in Editorial, Portrait

Social Media is a part of all our daily lives right now. Chances are, you found this blog post thru a link on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter! The August issue of MSP Magazine, featured a story on 10 Minnesotans who's presence on social media is helping them grow their passions. I personally knew a few of the subjects, before they stepped into the studio to be photographed, but I also met new people who are doing such cool things! From illustrators to poets, lifestyle bloggers to foodies - and even fitness - all of the people in this article have one mission: to inspire their viewers. We photographed the portraits for this article at 514 Studios in Minneapolis and it's so fun to see how this came together! A special thank you to Liz Hardt and her post-production skills for this article and to Julie Lam for styling. (I swear, it takes a village to make images look good for the final product sometimes! There are a lot of moving pieces!) Truth be told, I am SO proud of all of the people in this article and am honored to have had the pleasure of getting to know them a bit and being able to take their portrait. They are all doing amazing things and following their dreams - and this is the greatest success of all! You can read the entire article, written by Ali Kaplan here, and also make sure to check out all of the wonderful people featured in the article:

David Schwen of Dschwen

Kate Arends Peters of Wit & Delight

Ali Holman of Core Camper

Monique Volz of Ambitious Kitchen

Elizabeth Dehn of Beauty Bets

Wing Ta of Canary Grey

Amanda Rettke of I am Baker

Abraham Piper of Twenty Two Words

Nick Massahos

The Product Poet

Red Wing Shoe Company //

June 17, 2014 in Editorial, Portrait

This past winter, I had a dream-photo-assignment come thru my inbox. The story was all about Red Wing Shoe Company and my job was to document the process. So, on one cold, polar vortex morning, I loaded up my Volvo with the rest of the crew on this project - Steve Marsh, the writer, Drew Wood, the Digital Editor from MSP Magazine, and my intern, Liam. We all trekked on the icy roads down to Red Wing, Minnesota and began the fascinating tour, guided by Japanese designer, Akinobu Iwasaki. Hell, we even brought along the Capture Film Co. dudes to create a video for this project that you should most definitely check out! I was interested in this assignment for many reasons, but being able to see the actual process of how these boots are made, blew me out of the water. From the tannery to the factory, well over 100 hands touch each boot before they are ready to be shipped. Now, I know that the Heritage brand has been pretty trendy these past few years among the hipsters, but Red Wing really is so much more than that. What I took away the most was the sense of pride that each worker has, working for the Red Wing Shoe Company. It was quite inspiring. Below are some of my favorite environmental portraits from our time at the company and you can read the full story here! As a body of work, these are images that I am really proud of, and I hope you enjoy!