One of our best clients is the crew up at Portage Health. We’ve worked with them for a long time now, providing content for a wide variety of uses – web to print. A yearly highlight project is their annual report. This is a high-gloss, beautiful piece, full of stories, facts, outreach, and all with good reliance on photography. Jessie (longterm Brockit model, friend, client, etc) takes the reigns on the project and totally rocks it out. I love working this with her as we get such an unusual tour inside the lives of patients. The intimacy of the project matches my shooting style. I try to be approachable, discrete, and artistically capture content in the format Jessie is looking for to fit her design. This year’s report is a especially unique as it features shots I was able to capture at a few hundred feet off the ground whilst hanging out the open door of a tiny helicopter. Kudos to our friends for believing in the aerial effort! The remainder of the shots were captured on-site using a combination of natural and strobe lighting, though if you are following the posts, you know that I love my new SB900 but love high ISO and natural light better…

I’ve been accused of exploiting Kora in a lot of work we do, but she is not only photogenic, but she is free – well, until she figures it out. She is a regular in media projects and is comfortable & adaptable in most situations. She is a great helper too and excited to participate in studio and location work which is great for us as we often need her for commercial work as well as making clients smile in the studio for family shots. Victor at Portage Health recently did an awesome job using a photo I shot in a clinic. The final product is actually a large, backlit ad in the airport. Anyone who is running their checked baggage through ‘security’ will see this one. Nice job, Victor, and way to go Kora.

Kora modeling nicely - Dr. too!

I used to attend the local bridal show, but most of my clients are just not from the area, so I’ve resisted the temptation to setup a booth and spend a Sunday afternoon with my fellow, local wedding service providers, and opted for inserts into the bags instead and spend my time on the ski trail. This is where our crew comes in handy. Jenny (we call her #3) whipped out a nice design that follows her theme with the modern Brockit look. Make your own judgment, but I think it is clean, effective, classy, and to the point. Nice job, #3. Sorry AI kept on crashing on you – the Facebook app for my iPhone does the same thing…

Our new intern, Rebecca Forsell, and I were driving back from a shoot for the school district the other day and we were talking about the passion of working vs. the obligation of working. She is reading Life without Principle and reminded me about this quote:

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

I need to incorporate the quote somehow into Brockit’s presence because this really summarizes why we do what we do – we LOVE what we do.

Thanks, Rebecca. The whole exerpt below.

“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get ‘a good job,’ but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”

“The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain. but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.”

Alright! After some frustration, I’ve updated the blog software and have to just fill in a bunch of holes in the timeline. Stay tuned to see what we’ve been up to for the last few months. We’ve been busy!

Hey – we’re all about the hardcore UP bikers, and the labor day weekend was no exception for photogenic opportunities in the remote bliss of Copper Harbor. While I was touring the wonderful wineries of the Leelanau Peninsula with my family (Black Star, Mawby, Shady Lane, Willow, Forty-Five North: you guys rock! Leelanau Cellars, you guys do NOT rock…) Emily rocked it out in the Harbor shooting 400 shots in conjunction with Brockit’s new friend, Greg Maino of www.juskuz.com – a budding, race oriented, one-man operation with a good eye and Nikon gear (ah, Paul Simon…)  There is no better time to be had in the tip of the Upper Peninnsula – bikes, good beer, and my old buddies Mojo and certainly Joe & Andy Wilson of ‘steppin’ in it‘. Sorry I missed you guys, but so nice to see you at the Porcupine Music Festival – Joe, thanks for the new CD!

Racers, you know the drill: browse, review, and order digital downloads and / or physical prints from the gallery. Nice job bikers!