A Project of Furry Proportions

Hooray!  I’ve been waiting quite a while to share this one with you guys, but I had to iron out the finer details first.

Way back in the spring, I began doing video work for The Michigan Animal Rescue League.  The promo spot caught the attention of one of their TheUrbanDogD56aR07aP01ZLsponsors, The Urban Dog, an all-natural dog food and supply store out of Rochester Michigan.

After a fairly lengthy amount of planning and conceptualizing, we settled on an advertising project that would include a promo video, a series of ad posters, and a collection of interviews about the store.

Then the fun started.

Probably a good 80% of the dog owners I know graciously allowed me access to their furry family members.  After a couple months of video, photography, editing, audio selecting, and post processing – the project is locked, loaded, and ready for you, the loving audience.

Also, be sure to swing by TheUrbanDogStore.com to see what they’re all about.  I learned a lot on this project I wish I had known years ago about maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle for your dog.

And I’d also like to mention how massively thankful I am to everyone who helped my out and let me borrow your dogs for the afternoon.

Check it!

Jon

And now for something slightly different.

Boy howdy!  Do I love me some minimalist posters.

We have a photography club at my school.  I’m the president.  As such, I spend some time promoting it and designing attention-grabbing visual aids.

I’ve been wanting to do some stuff like this for a while and figured it would be a good excuse.

– Jon

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Shooting ad photos. It’s theraputic.

I always like building little sets.  I did one with a drawing figurine (that’s for a later post).

It’s fun because of the details.  OK it’s also a nightmare because of the details; but when you get to the end and can say that you hand crafted every single insignificant piece of the image, it’s just a good feeling.

I wanted to shoot an ad.  Lucky for me, the alcohol industry puts out a new flavor of something or other every 12 hours or so (that may be an exaggeration, but not by much).  Anywho, it afforded me the opportunity to come up with a project for myself that hadn’t been done before.  … Now, before I continue, I must say – when it comes to liquor, I’m a purist.  If it’s already good, don’t mess with it.

This is the exception.

Bacardi pulled off something special here.  If you’re a spiced rum kind of person, you should go try it…. actually you should try it while you finish this post.  It would really enhance the experience…. but I digress.

I wanted to make an ad and to do so, I tore through an ENTIRE bag of charcoal to find/make just the right pieces.  Those chunks of wood – scavenged from a tree that was recently “chipped.”  Spent an hour getting the blackening “right.”  ARTS AND CRAFTS, PEOPLE.

So take a gander and see what you think.  I like the top one, everyone else likes the “smokey” shot.  Comments always welcome.

– Jon