This was a cover shoot I did for Gainesville Today Magazine. Cover shoots are really stylized portraits when you really consider it. The issue came about as it was the beginning of gala season in Gainesville. So, there was a lot of fantastic black tie and charity-driven events. This issue was to serve as a guide to the Gala Season! I was the photo editor and chief photographer for the magazine at the time of this shoot and I often got a chance to go to these events and take a lot of portraits of people. The creative director and I came up with the concept to have a male model represent this issue for this season. We always aimed to make the magazine the fashion magazine in Gainesville. Every cover was fashion-driven. A lot of thought and planning went into these stylized portrait shoots(Cover Shoots). From the theme of the magazine that month, to the model, to the clothing, the makeup,the setting and design. We used to have great creative collisions within the creative team, and sometimes we’d add unique elements. We were able to have our model suited by The Mens Wearhouse. of Course that promotion was good for them as well as they would have many guys in town renting tuxes from them for all of these gala events.
There was cool added element to this shoot, as I brought in my friends at Gainesville Lighting. They were able to add another dimension to our lighting set up for it. I knew I wanted to have a night time or a party/festive feel to this particular shoot. They were able to add a little blue and red that i used as gels for this portrait.
The one way to get people to pick up the magazine is to have dynamic images. Dynamic images intrigue people. If people are intrigued then there’s a good chance they’ll stop to take a look and even pick the magazine up and take it with them.
From Cover shoots, to stylized portraits, I can help to conceptualize a dynamic shoot that’ll produce dynamic images.
