Shooting the Pro’s
Just before Christmas we loaded up the carry on’s and caught a flight to
the Nemo Design headquarters in Portland, OR, to shoot imagery for our upcoming
season of bike related advertising.
Tom Danielson (Road) and
Cameron McCaul (Freeride) had no idea what they were in for as we stepped into
the Nemo warehouse in Portland’s Belmont district. Since the building was
under renovation, we all got to experience some firsts-like relieving ourselves
in a port-o-let housed inside of a building and yelling at guys with skill saws
buzzing that their plywood delivery was at our door.
Anachronistic to the most state of the art digital studio
photo equipment known to man, was our studio, a concrete floored, temporarily
walled off corner of the building with the kind of sliding steel doors you find
in a meatlocker. While Tommy D hosed down the shoot, flashing vogue poses like
a pro, he was slathered with glycerin, sprayed with fake sweat, and cajoled into
looking really mean. He endured hours of bright lights, people heckling him from
behind the blinding flashes and what I would have to consider his first encounter
with a 19 year old who should be on Ritalin, Cameron McCaul. About the only thing
Burrito was spared was having his chest shaved and oiled up. |
|
As Tom put the finishing
touches on his shoot, McCaul had found a bike stashed in a corner, removed the
duct tape muzzle he fashioned for himself (this kid does not need RedBull), and
began rallying around the entire building creating a course which looped around
the ping pong table and ended with a mandatory bunny hope over a cardboard box
filled with packing corn, taking care to come up short on occasion for the fireworks.
When it finally came Cameron’s
time to get in front of the lens he was pleasantly surprised to meet his prop
and soon to be new friend, a goat named Bert. Why a goat? Why not! Every good
ad should have a petting zoo-caliber animal somewhere on the page and Bert was
on point. Cam showed that Steve Irwin has nothing on him. He put some sort of
Dr. Doolittle trance on the little fella and the two of them were inseparable
the rest of the day.
We filled the nights with Portland’s great food
and curious nightlife, being guided around the town by Mark, co-owner of River
City Cycles. Despite the typical open throttle pace of our three days in Stumptown,
we had a blast and the results are some eye-catching ads which will be breaking
in VeloNews and BIKE magazines in the coming days. Keep your peepers open for
page stopping imagery from the Smith team. |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
