One of the best scenarios in a service based business such as photography or web design is when the client shares your vision and supports your creative approach to solving a design problem (or better yet, gives you some great ideas to work with). I recently got some really nice feedback from Rammed Earth Works, who definitely fell into this category. In this case the end result not only looked great (IMHO), but has helped to bring inquiries and new clients. I’ll let the founder speak for himself:
We had a sense our website wasnʼt targeting our audience. Rammed Earth Works is
a company of innovators and artisan builders. We wanted a website that was old
world and cutting edge at the same time, as creative as we are. We interviewed
several web designers before finding Eli Woolery. We are thoroughly impressed with
the quality of his work. The entry page has clean lines that showcase our unique
materials and do not distract new visitors with clutter. The site is easy to navigate
and the text and visuals are well-placed to attract new clients. The site also directs
clients who are already familiar with Rammed Earth Works to visually appealing
examples of our work to inspire their own choices of material and design. Eliʼs
product design background and skills as a fine art photographer are exactly what we
needed. He is conscientious and easy to work with. Since the redesign of our
website we have experienced a notable increase in inquiries and new clients. We
enthusiastically recommend his work to professionals in need of artistic,
A project I’m working on with chef extraordinaire Jeremy Fox recently got some press in the San Francisco Chronicle and Grub Street SF (New York Magazine).
We are working on a cookbook, website, and more, and to launch the site preview I created a stop motion animation which you can check out below:
I’ve been doing a bit of work with LA-based fashion magazine Genlux; this sequence is from a rooftop shoot in San Francisco, shot by my friend and office-mate Gundolf Pfotenhauer. I shot time-lapse B-roll footage, and cut the content together into this short film.
I spent a few days last week in LA shooting more of this type of content, so stay tuned!
Inspired by Dentsu London’s highly creative self-promo, I put together the mini-short below using the iPad app iBanner HD and some help from my family (be warned this has nowhere near the technical sophistication of the Dentsu piece, but it’s still kind of fun for something hacked together in a few hours). Music by Air King Sound. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Vintner’s Collective, a fantastic “multi-winery tasting room that is home to twenty of the most experienced and talented winemakers in the Valley,” hired me to put together a stop-motion video of their annual Harvest Party. It was a heck of a lot of fun, as I hope the video conveys:
At the end of August I shot a short film highlighting Ubuntu’s Concierge Dinner; this was composed entirely of stills shot on a Nikon D700 camera, with ambient lighting.
Chef Aaron London worked furiously on an array of delicious looking dishes; I didn’t get to sample anything that night, but came back a few nights later to try some of the things I saw being prepared and was not disappointed by my anticipation…it was fantastic!
Yesterday I had the pleasure of doing another shoot at one of my favorite Sausalito restaurants, DiVino (aka Caffe DiVino and DiVino Osteria). The Tuscan-born chef Elena Fabbri creates beautifully simple and authentic dishes using the best in local produce, meats, and sustainable seafood. Both the chef, and owner Elizabeth Nebot, are wonderful people who do a lot to bring a lively atmosphere to the “local’s downtown” portion of Sausalito on Caledonia Street; in addition to the great food, live music with artists from around the Bay Area is featured on a near-nightly basis.
House made ravioli with sage brown-butter
Sepia ink pasta with vongole
These shots and more will be up soon on their new website. If you find yourself in Sausalito with an appetite, I highly reccomend DiVino!
I’ve been working with a startup in Sausalito that is creating a new iPad based POS system for restaurants. Here are a couple of in-progress images from our most recent shoot.
Andrey Melnichenko's 394 foot Mega-Yacht "A," with the moon and Jupiter.
For those of you who have cruised into Sausalito lately, the sight of a 400-foot boat straight out of a Bond flick has greeted you coming down Alexander Avenue into town. Some may call it conspicuous consumption (or even perhaps an “Ode to Mammon”), but hey who doesn’t want 3 swimming pools, $40,000-a-piece bath knobs, and a “2,583-square-foot master suite wrapped in bomb-proof, 44-milimeter glass”?
It almost makes one want to produce a yacht-based music video, something like:
A close up of the "A"
While I was taking pictures of the mega-beast last night, a friendly police officer called me over. At first I worried he might be in the pocket of the boat-owner, Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, and my camera equipment would end up with cement shoes at the bottom of Alexander Bay. Luckily, he just wanted to buy some of the images. Well, now you can too, here. All proceeds will go to a fund for Melnichenko’s upgraded boat, 600 feet long and crewed by a group of genetically engineered bonobos. Should be interesting.
I returned last week from a fantastic Wetpixel trip to Isla Mujeres (a small island near Cancun), where we had the chance to be in the ocean with over 100 whale sharks at a time!
Close brush with a big tiburon ballena
Evelyn Conley and Marty Silveira with the friendly shark.
Lachlan Bursle gazing up at a smaller (juvenile) shark.
In addition to stills, I shot a fair amount of footage with the video option on the Nikon D300s. I put together a little montage of the trip (make sure to stick around for the rare rabid remora footage at after the credits at the end).
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