Photoshop
Concepted, designed and art directed at The Beat magazine for a cover story entitled “Sono Manifesto.” Shot at Heintz-Wasson Studios, we created a tongue in cheek depiction of a group of prominent restaurateurs as an Illuminati-like cabal, secretly working together and pulling the strings behind the scenes to make their city run. Poses were composited from several different shots, the map was overlaid and wrapped on the table cloth post production, the red rotary “hotline” phone was recolored from it’s original yellow, a wisp of smoke was added to the cigar in the hand of the man in top left, the night time street scene was placed in the background, and an overhead lamp and smoky haze were created separately, and the font chosen was a nod to The Godfather films. Finally, a mini mock-up of the completed magazine cover was placed on the front edge of the table (over an fpo magazine) to create a Droste Effect, the illusion of an image within itself. Or did they actually have access to a time machine?
“Comfort Foods” themed cover that I designed and art directed for The Beat magazine. Shot at Heintz-Wasson studios, ten separate dishes plus the wine bottle were each individually lit and photographed from the exact same angle on white seamless. Each dish was retouched as needed and assembled into this realistic setting. Shadows and highlights were added where needed to ground everything, and the stock image of the fireplace was dropped into the background to tie it all together.
The assignment was to create a series of nine faux travel posters, pairing the professional tennis series’ host cities with a top ranked tour player who would be competing there. Once the background photos were all selected, a similar posterizing effect was applied to each to create a similar tone, and the action photos of each player was silo’d and retouched as needed. Finally, typography was added to each poster and the finalized pieces were arranged for the final cover layout.
Montage created from two photos for the opening page of a feature article in The Beat exploring a new distillery creating hemp-based whiskey, gin, and vodka.
For a cover story in The Beat magazine titled “Food As Art,” we asked four of our favorite chefs to use whatever ingredients and creative tools were at their disposal to create their own representation of modern art on a plate. In the last paragraph of her intro at the beginning of the article our editor asked the question, “At the end of the day, though, our food needs to taste good. We’re supposed to eat this stuff, not hang it on our walls. Or are we?” To take this question to it’s literal conclusion, we shot each of the completed dishes from straight overhead on white plates, then I placed each image onto a canvas background texture, faded the edges, and added brush strokes and various painterly effects along with an appropriate color palette that complemented each dish. For the cover of this issue, all four dishes were combined onto one large rectangular faux canvas, placed on a white “wall” and displayed behind a red velvet rope.
Two of a series of illustrations created for The Beat magazine combining found art and my original photos to accompany a serialized dystopian sci-fi short story, “Battle for Bridgeport.”
A nightmarish illustration for the title page of a humorous article in The Beat magazine chronicling one fearless restaurant owner’s endless struggles against the evil voices of social media, and the terrifying mouth of hell they all seemingly emerge from.
Retouching assignment for a line of high-end baby strollers (original photo on left); Changes included swapping the models head with an angle from a different photo in the series, removing the overhead lights, white debris and a parked car on the left, blurring the buildings on both sides to simulate depth of field as well as minimizing the graffiti, softening the wrinkles on the front of the stroller, changing the color of the models shoes from gold to a matte silver, retouching her left leg, and adding in the overhead bird from a different photo.
Retouching assignment for a line of high-end baby strollers (original photo on top); Changes included lightening the sky to look less menacing, removing greenish moss and seagull debris from posts and handrails, retouch the newer replacement plank at the very bottom of the shot to match the wood tone on the rest of the pier, retouch the skin tones on both faces and the woman’s right leg, lighten the man’s clothing and increase their contrast, soften the wrinkles on the stroller, remove the red reflection from the right side of the stroller frame, add the faux illumination from the LED headlights and finally, apply a dark vignette from the sides and bottom of the image.