New Images for Minnesota Opera Season 2010/11

MN Opera added Wuthering Heights to their season. Once again, I was guided by designer Amy Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick Design.

Fun Food shoot

Great day yesterday with JT Mega and Schwan Food's. AD was Patrick Dupont and Food Stylist was Cynthia Waltho.

Mn Opera 2010/11 Season images

This season, Amy Kirkpatrick of Kirkpatrick Design of St Paul designed the seasons images with collages as an approach to solve the many challenges for the season. The challenges included: budget, not having access to the performers (except with David Daniels) and creating images that speak to the stories but not literally. We created these collages as if the elements were paper dolls, layering them and re-photographing the elements with drop shadows. We used miniature wall set, gold lockets to stock images of flower paints and leaves. We tried to maintain some of the white edge of the cut out elements to make them feel like cut outs and not just bad photoshop.

New graphic fitness images

I've got to say that the inspiration for this new series has been the the snowy season we've had in Minneapolis. There's so much contrast between the colors and the snow.

New Images....

Anger issue....

Dustin Gray, model in Minneapolis, has a wonderful personality and has created a work of art on his body.

New Ad Agency model, sign me up....

I’ve followed a blog of the much-respected photography marketing consultant, Carolyn Potts, for years. I recently read one of her posts that touches on what I have for years thought was missing in the present Ad Agency business model.

For past few years, ad agencies have been relying on Stock agency’s, Flickr, and Royalty Free images for their source of images and creative conception of ads. The idea of working with a professional image creator was considered too expensive and sending a stock shot as layout or concept became the norm.

She commented on recent articles posted on both The New York Times and ADWEEK sites about a couple of ad agencies that are turning to "crowd sourcing" for campaign strategies. By adding photographers into the Crowd, along with art directors, copywriters and creative directors, she suggested this could be a business model capable of generating a creative synergy– a synergy that actually that was quite common in the ad business in the 1960s and early-70s; with the right mix of creative participants, it could indeed become the next big idea in the agency world.

I’ve already had a bit of experience in this realm as I've been working with MN Opera on next year's marketing material since October; I was invited in to help with creating the feel and approach to this year's work. I’ve loved the process and I’ll be able to show the results next month when we finish producing the campaign.

I’d love to see if there are any agency guys out there that also might want add a photographer with 20-years of production experience, (and art and photography degrees), to their table during the conceptual phase of creating ads. If you want to read her blog post about this model, I'd love to know what you think. You can call/text me at 612-275-3186 or email me at steve@mchugh.com.