Month: May 2012

The Trip You Want on Your List of Experiences

May 26, 2012
ItalyJill BucknerJill Buckner PhotographyMoroccoNew Booknew projectsRichard MackRichard Mack PhotographyRichard Mack's BlogtravelWorking with another photographer

Today we are leaving on one of those trips that are on your life list probably, at least for us it is. Really more like two trips in one. We fly to Florence, Italy and shoot for a week in Tuscany. The client is a tour company so we need scenes of the area along with people shots and we get to join the tour and shoot what they are doing as well. Then we spend two days on our own in Tuscany, yes probably shooting some more for ourselves plus relaxing in a Villa near San Gimignano. Then on Monday we fly to Casablanca, Morocco and will also visit Marrakech. This is for a possible book we are working on with a working title of Treasures of Morocco: A Sensual Feast of Color. This book looks at Morocco from the aspect of its bright colors, sensual food, and the combination they bring to the country.

The book is intended to bring people together from both countries as awe work on the book and the accompanying video and music for the eBook side. Jill has been to Morocco, albeit in College, so it will be interesting to see how much has changed since she has been there. I have not been to Italy or Morocco so I am especially looking forward to the experiences of both places.

We then return to Florence and spend three days exploring there before taking a train up to Venice and spending time photographing that famous city. We hope to have images to add to all of your homes after a gallery show sometime this fall!

We are both so excited about this trip and what it will bring to us – it is a trip of a lifetime. Keep watching this space for updates from overseas! We’ll upload a few images along the way as well.

Ciao,

Jill Buckner & Richard Mack

 

Teaming up with Another Photographer on a project

May 2, 2012
Architectural PhotographyJill Buckner PhotographyRichard Mack PhotographyWorking with another photographer

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Two weeks ago I teamed up with photographer Jill Buckner to shoot both exteriors and interiors for Muffy McAuley and John Leinweber of their Excel Lofts, part of Renew Managements stable of properties here in Evanston, Illinois. They are wonderful lofts which even though it was empty had plenty of angles and opportunities to make great images. John was the architect of the properties and has a sense for the angles and features which make live/work lofts such a great place. Now I must confess I leased a loft from them for a little over 5 years at the Peacock Lofts so I might be a bit prejudice on how nice they are.

Our mission was to make 5-8 images of the building which they could use for various marketing programs. This was the first project Jill and I had teamed up on and it was very interesting to work with another photographer. We both have a background in architectural work so we split up who would do what and then began to work together leaving behind the original plan. We realized early on we both had a different style of looking at the space. Jill could see very interesting artistic angles while I saw more commercial views. We never stepped on each other’s toes, or invaded the others viewfinder as the case may be, and both of us thought the other one had made better images. We acted as assistants to each other when one of us was doing a shot and needed something moved or added to the image. The respect we had for each other and our way of working was perfectly in tune. It helped us make some great images in a short time and have a lot of fun in the process. while we were not in a competition the fact we were working with another very creative person raised our levels of inspiration and creativity as well. We made images we might not have had we done this project on our own.

In the end we brought in some props for the kitchen area, came back another day for dusk shots, and shot both exteriors (Richard) at dusk while Jill shot the interiors at dusk. So with one call Muffy and John received two photographers on the job who could produce more work in the time allotted than just one could. Makes great business sense.

If you have a project you’d like to talk about you can call either one of us! Check our websites for contact information and to see additional work. You can see more work from Excel Lofts using this link: http://www.mackphoto.com/ClientArea/Renew/Excel/

It is always great to work with someone whose work you admire so much. We are now working on several projects together so stay tuned for more news…

Enjoy!

Richard