Saturday, June 28, 2008

palantir.net's Awesome New Office Space!

Recently, one of my favorite clients, palantir.net (they've been mentioned before, like in my previous post), moved into a new office space in Chicago.  They had been previously located in Evanston, and things have been kicking into high gear lately, so they outgrew their previous space, and headed into the big city!

Last Friday, they had me over to shoot some shots of the new space, do some casual, but professional looking headshots of their staff, and capture the excitement of their grand opening party.

The new office is totally awesome.  The furniture and everything are all green and environmentally friendly.  Some of the plastic bits are even made from recycled buttons. And the break room has a plasma with a Wii, so it's just a cool place to work regardless.

Below are a few pix from the day. 

Enjoy!

-Sam

Thursday, June 19, 2008

First Bank... Again!

A few months back, I wrote about a shoot that I did for First Bank and Trust back in suburban Chicago.  We did a fine job (I think) of capturing the fall experience, and they decided that it would be swell to have some summery imagery to add to their library, so I had the great pleasure of returning to Chicago to work with my friend Tif from palantir.net, their web designer, and Jill from the bank.  These two put up with me for twelve hours, and were real troopers.

One of the things that amazes me about this sort of shoot is that since we're trying to capture the real flavor of the neighborhoods and the bank's customers, we basically just approached people and asked them to do their thing, I'd take their picture, and they'd sign a release.  It really surprises me how random strangers agree to participate.  It really shows how important this bank is to it's customers, and how kind people can be.

Enjoy!

-Sam

Our first stop was the Wilmette Harbor, with the Bahai Temple peaking out in the background.

Boats are cool!

Aren't these two duckies cute?

So, our first friendly subjects were the Coast Guard, who happened to be playing volleyball in the park.  They thought that being referred to as "models" in the model releases was absolutely hysterical.  Every errant ball was "a threat to their money maker!" as they shielded their faces.  I guess you had to be there...

I've never photographed volleyball before, so it was a little bit hit or miss...

But I got better over time.

Next we made it into one of the branches, and alas found more friendly folks willing to have their banking transactions documented.  And surprisingly, most of them have great nervous smiles.

And how perfect is this?  Smiling with a checkbook with the logo on it!

And the bankers were also very helpful and friendly while posing.

The tellers at my bank don't smile like this.

To get some shots of the new Main St. branch, Tif and I climbed on the roof of the building across the street (who's a client of the bank).  Here's Tif hanging out on a ledge in case I needed help getting over it with my camera.

This is the shot I got.  Neat, but...

The shot at street level worked a lot better.  Oh well...

How cool is this?  A mom and her kids doing junior banking.  Well, they sort of were passing through, and they agreed to pretend to sign up for junior banking (because they already had), and goof off for the camera before they went back to the ice cream place across the street.  We totally lucked out with this one.

Counting money is fun!

The Church Street branch during a strangely quiet rush hour.

Fountain Square in Evanston.

Mazel Tov to Louis!

I love it when families call me back to work with them again.  I photographed Louis' sisters a couple of years ago, and I was so excited to join his family again for his Bar-Mitzvah, because they rock.  I often work with really, really nice families, but Louis' family combines that with a sense of humor and a love of family that just blows me away.  This kid.... excuse me... "young man" is an absolute hoot who is non-stop hysterical, yet is so tender and loving towards his sisters, cousins, and everyone.  And his mom's side of the family passes along this genetic capability to do this really weird thing with their mouths, so they make this crazy face all the time.  I've been trying now for almost three years to replicate it, but I can't for the life of me do it.

Special thanks to the ever awesome Dan Kullman of Bitter Jester Creative for backing me up!

Mazel Tov Louis!

-Sam

Louis, proud and tall.

Man this look is just so cool!

Louis looking all rabbinical.

Teaching his younger cousins how to read the Torah.  Isn't this what being a Jewish adult is all about?  This is a kid who gets it.

Here's that family face I was talking about.

The awesome room.

Spinning round and round in the hora!

More spinning...

And up in the air for takeoff!

Louis' Grandpa with an ear to ear grin.

One of Louis' buddies doing that dance... with the legs kicking out... one of these days I need to learn it's names, but it's really cool.

Rabbi Taylor and his wife very happy to be a part of Louis' big day.

Louis and his aunt.  What else can I say?

Louis' Mom and Dad having a dance.

Rocking out on the band's drums!