Gutter Patrol wanted a postcard mailer to help promote their window cleaning services. Since this is GoodEye Photography + Design, I put on both my photographer and design hats to come up with a concept that would attract attention and communicate the message. It took me a while to sell the husband & wife team on the idea of a really dirty window, but my years in advertising experience have proven that sometimes you have to go extreme to get noticed. I was pretty sure no other window-washing companies were doing anything like this, so I felt good that the idea was new, if not unusual.

Eric Branecki, the owner, spent the day before packing the window with dirt and pebbles. When I got there, he asked me what I thought – it basically looked too dang neat, like it was a perfect wall of dirt. I needed it to be a little more organic and chaotic. It’s tough because it’s obvious that someone’s house windows would never ever get this dirty to begin with (unless you were in a hurricane), but it had to look a little more realistic.

I had Eric hose down the window some until it looked more “realistic.” I knew I wanted to put the main tagline on the clean section of the window, but I was able to do some nifty Photoshoppin’ to make it look like the “Dirty Windows?” is just inside the house with the mud and streaks casting a shadow onto it. The result is a highly textured, graphical image that definitely stands out of the crowd.

The rear design was inspired by the previous designer’s work (CJ Design), but completely recreated from scratch and branded with the window cleaning message. It’s a little on the busy side, but there’s a lot of info to communicate. By the way, how are your windows and gutters? Give Eric & Amanda a call to schedule an appointment, or visit their website.

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So as the cow plainly says, I took the above photo while walking along the Stanford Dish trail (I dramatized the lost part, but it could’ve happened!). I was thinking of green cover ideas, and since we’d just had all that rain, I was envisioning those hills off 280 where that big satellite dish is, but I wasn’t sure where I could get a good vantage point for them. A lot of the best places are private property, and I was afraid I’d have to go trespassing.

I pulled off at Alpine Rd. and parked at Webb Ranch, mostly because I’d done some photography with the owner Gary Webb a while back, and didn’t think he’d mind. I walked across the street and found myself on a bike trail that eventually led to a road that led to the entrance to the Stanford Dish Trail. There were big signs saying it isn’t a public park and to stay on the trail, etc. etc. – I saw some other people walking on it so figured as long as I didn’t feed the squirrels and chase the cows I wouldn’t have any guards tackling me.

I was walking in wool pants and long-sleeved shirt, donning my Nikon D3 with 70-200/2.8 lens on my Spider Holster (see my review here), and my Nikon D700 with 17-35/2.8 lens on my BlackRapid RS-5 strap over my shoulder, and did I mention that it’s all uphill to the dish? And that it was hot? And that I brought no water? I took it easy, and shot whatever looked interesting along the way. The weather was gorgeous, the clouds were all poofy and dramatically set in the cerulean blue sky, the fields were expansive and greeeen, and the cows, well… the cows were all laying around chewing cud, as cows will do. The money shot (above) was captured about halfway to the top with my D3/70-200 combo, and I was pretty sure it was gonna be a winner when I saw the composition. But I hiked all the way up to the dish because I’m not as lazy as I’d like to think, and I have to say it’s quite a nice little trail. I’ll have to go back again (with shorts) and do the whole loop.

There’s not much else to say, the photo was strong and I wanted to keep the cover clean and un-cluttered. My solution to avoiding a big Reader’s Choice Ballot snipe was to simply have another talking cow bubble. It was really the only design solution to be had, if you think about it.

Check out this issue of The Wave Magazine – it’s on the streets now, or you can view the interactive Flash version here.

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

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Thanks to John and Nhu Price for letting me use photos from their wedding!

I deal in the advertising business every day. I know it can work, and that sometimes it doesn’t. I think one of the toughest decisions for any business is not whether to advertise or not – you really have to – it’s where to spend those advertising dollars. Then you have to figure out how to track that investment, to try and assess its worth. It’s probably a lot like keeping track of stocks and bonds, knowing when and where to invest, when to liquidate your assets or go all in. Okay, so it’s kinda like Wall Street and poker, but I digress. It’s a necessary evil.

In 2010, your advertising dollar is going to go a lot further than it did four or five years ago. When the economy turned sour, one of the first things businesses cut down on was their advertising budgets. It makes sense from an emotional standpoint – you have to pay your bills and employees first – but from a business standpoint it’s the worst idea ever. For one thing, when the economy goes downhill, people are still picking up papers, looking at ads – maybe even more often than before. People are looking for discounts or deals, and if your business has effectively pulled out, those impressions are going to your competitor instead – the guy that somehow managed to cut back elsewhere but still retain an advertising budget.

Once you’ve found the media outlets you feel will most effectively reach your target audience and demographic, make sure you hire a competent designer and photographer to ensure your ad campaign is unique, eye-catching, useful to the consumer, and just overall kick-ass. (Insert GoodEye Photography +Design services here) Don’t be afraid to negotiate with the paper / magazine / radio station / tv station for better rates, partial bartering of services, whatever. 2010 is all about negotiation in a way that benefits everyone.

“So what about GoodEye?” you ask. While I’ve relied heavily on word-of-mouth as it has pretty much kept me fully occupied, I recognize the fact that I need to get my name out there as much as possible. I am easily found on google (search “good eye” and I’m right under Bruce Springsting’s YouTube video haha), have some great Yelp reviews, have a strong Facebook presence, and even a twitter account, which was last updated in September 2009 so don’t bother following me… I belong to quite a few online photography/wedding communities and lead generation services, but man there’s just so much out there that I’d rather just hit the street and meet people.

That being said, I did recently barter my services for a few print ads in Made in Palo Alto Magazine. I tried to make them “sassy yet classy,” comment if you think they’re working (or not). Check ‘em out in this post, and pick up the mag when you see it in Palo Alto!

Thanks to the Kaama Lounge in San Jose, you guys rock!

Thanks to the Conrad family for letting me use their photos for my self-promotion!

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What to do when the Sea Otter Classic people don’t have any good press images to use on the cover of your magazine? You look for other sources, of course! My fellow photographer/buddy Sam Fontejon is an avid sports enthusiast, and actually participates in the Sea Otter Classic every year, so I figured using some of his original artwork to depict the upcoming event was more than relevant. Not only does Sam excel at hurtling down mountains at breakneck speeds with astonished, goofy-faced expressions (amazed you made this jump, Sam?), but he’s a fantastic photographer in his own right, and often accompanies me on important shoots.

For this shot, Sam (the subject) set up two off-camera Nikon-SB-900 speedlights, one with a red gel. He used a Nikon D700 with a 50mm/1.4 lens. Sam set up the shot, then sped down the hill for his friend Raymond T. Mah to actually pull the trigger.

Thanks for the shot Sam, it made for a great cover!

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That being said, I shot this beautifully-prepared scallop dish by Shokolaat almost six months ago for an advertising campaign. At the time I didn’t know I’d be using the image for The Wave’s Spring Dining issue cover, but here we are, using it this very day!

So what’s the take-home lesson for today? Shoot everything like it’s going to end up on a magazine cover! Well, not really – but it doesn’t hurt to think this way, you never know how your images will be used in the future.

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When I wear my photographer hat, my natural inclination is to get nice, tight shots of a subject – to save myself from having to crop later. However, when the art director receives these files, he or she is left with little room to work with, potentially having to either force a re-shoot or simply end with a less-than-ideal cover. Here’s the limiting factors or barriers that can arise between the photographer and the AD:

1. Camera vs. Magazine Proportions
2. In-Camera Cropping vs. Magazine Bleed Requirements
3. Including Negative Space
4. Variety / Options

In this article, I’ll discuss these potential barriers and how they can be avoided in the photographer –> art director workflow.

Camera vs. Magazine Proportions

Most photos produced by digital SLRs have a length to width ratio of approximately 2:3 – or 4×6, like the common print size.  Although magazines vary widely in dimension, they tend to be closer to square than this wide rectangle proportion. If you’re into TV, allow me this analogy – cameras create a “widescreen HD” image but magazines tend to be more “standard def.” But instead of the infamous black bars, photos going on magazine covers are going to be seriously cropped!

What’s this mean to the photographer? You have to zoom out, my friends. Imagine the top and bottom of the image in your frame getting completely lopped off, so all your relevant content needs to be within that inner 4:5 ratio area. It feels really unnatural and uncreative from the photography standpoint, but trust me you’ll stay on the AD’s Christmas Card list if you follow these simple tips!

Not only do you need to consider the top and bottom areas being cropped off, but you need to allow even MORE space for the magazine trim (bleed area) and coverlines, which I’ll get to next.

In-Camera Cropping vs. Magazine Bleed Requirements

As you can see on the image to the right, pasting the original photo into the layout reveals how much is getting cut off on the top/bottom once the image is scaled to match the width of the cover.

The black bar shows the magazine’s “bleed” area – the part that will get trimmed off by the printer. Any photo/graphics that extend to the trim edge need to actually extend past this edge to avoid blank white paper showing along the edges in the final product. The bleed area on this particular magazine is pretty big (3/8″), but it’s typically about 1/8″ for most print media.

Even though I shot this photo, I didn’t allow myself enough headroom (literally!) for all the shots – it’s very challenging to envision the final product, especially when you’re crunched on time (I only had 20 minutes with the players for this shoot!). So as a photographer, you have this crazy pressure to be creative, get the lighting perfect, interact with your subject(s) to get them to relax, AND think about how the stupid AD is going to lay out the final magazine cover… it can be challenging to say the least!

To make this particular shot work as a cover mockup I (with my AD hat on) had to scale the image UP and crop the foreground player (Jason Hernandez) off at the knees. Sorry Jason, my bad. The photographer might get ticked that their “art” was cropped by the “designer,” but that’s the risk you run when not taking all the magazine factors to heart. Here’s the “fixed” layout below.

Including Negative Space

In a perfect world, your photos are SO good they grace the covers of national magazines without a single coverline covering them up. But let’s be realistic people – even National Geographic has to cover up their photos a little bit. A creative workaround is to include negative space in your compositions – areas for your eyes to rest (for photos), OR areas for type-crazy AD’s to fill up with copy (text). When I was shooting the shot in the mockup above, I was thinking about negative space, but not the overall cropping – so that nice open space I left on the green grass for coverlines was lost when I had to scale the image to fit the players correctly. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right? Wrong.

Luckily I had another shot of a single player, Andre Luiz, kicking the ball towards me (I had protection). I left lots of open room around the edges of the frame (for cropping), and was able to include some decent amount of negative space (for coverlines). Plus, it had action, which is always a nice dynamic addition to grab potential readers’ attention.

The background has some distracting elements in it, but this was the best option I had at Stanton Field, and I didn’t want the sun (camera right) to be in Andre’s eyes. You can see on the final cover that the photo cropped really well; I was able to keep Andre’s whole body on the page, and doing some selective cutouts added some nice depth/3-dimensionality to the overall design. The aforementioned distracting background elements were easily masked out. Because Andre takes up a relatively small area on the cover, I was able to put the main coverline behind him, but make it very large. The ball, the V of the logo, and Andre’s body/leg position form a nice triangle to lead the eye and keep your attention on the page. And lastly, I was able to keep some of that nice negative space, even after adding the coverlines, which eases the eye and immediately draws your attention to that floating soccer ball.

Variety / Options

Whenever you are shooting for a magazine cover, you need to consider the ratio and bleed of the magazine when choosing your photographic compositions. You need to include negative space around your subject for coverlines. Lastly you need to offer a variety of concepts for the AD to choose from. If you have 20 minutes to shoot (see the 38 photos from my shoot with the San Jose Earthquakes here), make sure you’ve already set up your lighting for the first concept before anyone arrives – use an assistant or innocent bystander as a temporary subject to dial in all your settings. This will maximize the time you have with your subject as well as communicate to everyone involved that you’re on top of things and are a true professional.

Force yourself to change the shoot before you run out of time – to try another idea. If you work smart and are prepared, use any extra time to do something off-the-wall or unexpected. Getting the main concepts out of the way will not only boost your confidence, but it gives you the opportunity to really flex your creative muscle, without the stress that forces you into cookie-cutter, tried-and-true (see: boring) solutions. You never know, something crazy from the very end of your shoot may actually work and end up on the cover – you never know.

Regardless, giving your AD options, and a variety of compositions, angles, etc. will make their job easier, and make it more likely you’ll be called back for future work, which is kinda the point of all this, right? Right. Thanks for reading.

Special thanks to Earthquakes PR people Niki Shinn and Jordan Stepp for setting up the shoot. Thanks to players Andre Ruiz, Chris Leitch and Jason Hernandez for taking the time to show up and do whatever I said. Muchos gracias to Dean Davidson for being my lighting assistant. Thanks to The Wave Magazine for employing me, check out the final online-version of the magazine here.

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Here’s a nice little co-branded design I came up with to promote both The Wave Magazine and its partnership with Live Nation’s concert giveaways. Is it simple enough? Probably not – but as designers we have to simply do our best.

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Check out George and Claire’s 40 page wedding album proof below – they are such a fun couple and I hope the photos I chose for the layouts illustrate this. The venue is Larkspur’s Toll House Hotel in Los Gatos – the reception was in the middle courtyard, and with weather like we had, it’s a fantastic location! Enjoy the wedding album slideshow below, and click it for a full-screen presentation! Oh, and all of George & Claire’s wedding photos are here.

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