Thanks for reading… Mitzie Rakich / tonic studio rep

In late 2012, one of our industrial clients needed an updated architectural beauty shot of their facility. One chilly Casa Grande night in mid December we used the build up, one light method, which yielded a final image consisting of about 30 separate layers. It’s the most effective way to fully light and approach a large architectural structure. The behind the scenes shot shows our van location “studio” and a two camera set-up (one for backup).

Another fun project we took on recently was one from a local agency for an Idaho Spuds truck wrap. I really enjoyed this project particularly due to its both creative and somewhat technically challenging nature. The concept dictated that we produce an image that presented the product featured in front of a field of potatoes with a landscape contextual potato field background. The final execution consisted of real packaging, potatoes and a printed background that we had R and R Images large format department output for the shoot. Another interesting element of this project is that the printer was asking for a ton of resolution. This of course, was perfect for us as we have an 80mp system at our disposal. The final print files where created by stitching two individual images resulting in a massive un-interpolated file. It was a perfect project for us taking advantage of both our strong technical and creative capabilities. Also, who doesn’t like potatoes?!…

We’ve been working with Peter Piper Pizza for a few years now and always have a blast collaborating with their creative marketing team.   In January they produced a TV spot at their Carefree Store and tonic was commissioned to capture lifestyle stills mirroring the motion footage. During this 3-day production and working along side the film crew, we were able to provide PPP with a great series of stills to update their lifestyle image library.

Downtown Phoenix has realized some very exciting growth in the restaurant industry over the past couple of years and one of our clients, NYPD Pizza, recently commissioned us to photograph one of their new beers, Uptown Ale. This was an on-site project and accordingly, we had an opportunity to see the new NYPD downtown location. The space has a great open and contemporary feel to it with lots of exposed brick and warm natural wood surfaces. Check out the behind the scenes shot and the screen capture from the site showing one of the images in context.  We’re also very proud to say we’ve produced pretty much all of the food imagery on this great site.

And of course how fitting that we shoot a lot of cocktails here at tonic. Get it, tonic = cocktails… (insert laughter!). Anyway, it’s definitely one of our favorite things to work on. Here’s a couple of behind the scenes and finals pulled from a few recent shoots. Enjoy and cheers!

To learn more about tonic’s image capture systems, visit:

http://www.phaseone.com/en/Camera-Systems.aspx

-Patrick Darby, tonic Founder and Photographer

One of the characteristics at tonic that allows us to stand out as a unique Commercial Photography studio in Phoenix is our ability to accommodate a broad range of work for our clientele at a very high level of creativity and efficiency. Case in point is our recent work with Kona Grill. We’ve been working with Kona for some time in studio for their food photography and recently, we had an opportunity to shoot interiors of their newly remodeled Chandler Fashion Mall location. This remodeled location has a clean, warm and contemporary new look and Kona needed imagery to represent this for both marketing and internal uses.

Tonic has a deep history of both architecture and food work and it is this experience and hospitality background that allows us to partner so effectively with clients such as Kona Grill.

We’re all about making the client experience as simple, efficient and positive as possible and providing our partners with the ability to accommodate a broad range of work which prevents them from having to seek out other resources that they may have not already had exposure to.

We approach our architecture work in the same manner as that of our food projects. Each of these architecture shots below were highly pre-visualized. Clients are presented with compositional representations for each image concept prior to the project. In this manner, our clients are able to anticipate the exact content for each final image before the big shoot.

Our goal in a nutshell, is to provide architectural photography with the highest sensitivity to detail and strong compositional sense and most importantly, that possess an accurate atmospheric representation of the experience of being present within the space.

Our Kona Grill architecture project had us on location from about midnight to early AM and during this time we produced six final images. Here’s the recent session and a few of our favorite Kona food shots too.

The police officer shoots included some really cool conceptual work that incorporated Oakley sunglasses paired with their new state of the art evidence monitor system that clips right to the sunglass frame. Our goal for this shoot was to produce epic like images that fit the clients creative direction and blended seamlessly into the supplied background imagery to portray a movie poster appearance. Some elements were shot in studio and some were produced on location (ie police car). In all cases our goal was to match the lighting and overall perspective to create the cohesive blend into the existing backgrounds.

The consumer (C2 Product) shoot highlighted the personal protection and piece of mind security aspects of the brand through three scenarios that included a nurse, real estate agent, and graduating high school senior. This project included casting just the right talent and scouting for the perfect locations.  The nurse scenario (featured below) utilized both the actual existing and composited backgrounds.

We were thrilled with all the final shots and have a few of them hanging on our studio walls. We’re looking forward to the next round of shoots with the Taser team!

Mitzie Rakich / Studio Rep / tonic photo studios

Cheer and thanks~

Patrick Darby / Founder and Photographer

Mitzie Rakich / Studio Rep

tonic photo studios

tonic Founder and Photographer Patrick Darby not only brings talent, experience and technology onto the set, but runs a studio aligned with a team equipped to take on almost any shoot. tonic is comprised of 5,000 square feet of usable shooting space, rafters of props and backgrounds, a full kitchen with cold storage, client wifi lounge and work area.

Some of our larger production and project stories include:

• A semi-truck being backed into the studio to unload 50 large amplifiers for a product catalog shoot.

• 5 straight days of shooting food to include a production team of: 3 corporate chefs, an entire corporate/ client marketing team, a food stylist, prop stylist and tables upon tables of props for the shoot to be capture on two lit sets shot by Patrick and his tech assistant.

• 3 fully constructed and propped room sets to depict: a living room, kitchen and bedroom to shoot various home scenes showcasing close to a dozen cast talent interacting within each room.

• A vehicle shot in the studio to capture various interior product components set within the car interior.

• 8 large luxury pool tables built and shot in the studio.

The list goes on and on… but as we all know- a picture is worth a thousand words!

Here’s a handful of our favorite behind the scenes shots from our projects this summer in studio:

Many thanks ~  Mitzie Rakich

Studio Rep/ tonic photo studios

tonic photo studios recently had an opportunity to work with the Mesa Arts Center in contributing some new imagery to their architectural image library. The MAC campus is an architectural photographer’s dream that presents a plethora of compositional opportunities and we were pleased to have been chosen to partner with the marketing and PR team on this project. The 65 million dollar center was built in 2005 by BOORA Architects out of Portland in collaboration with DWL Architects and Planners of Phoenix.  Boora refers to the center as a “grand public landscape” with its main public area appropriately named The Shadow Walk as a result of the palms and other plant life breaking up the hard sunlight and casting shadows through the center. It has also been mentioned that the center’s overall architectural presentation was inspired by a Geode which is a geological term for a spherical mass of mineral matter. The center is rich in natural texture from stone, metal and glass and contains a 300 foot long water feature called the Arroyo. It’s a great inspiring public art space, museum, event and concert venue and we highly recommend checking it out if you have not already done so. We’ll be revisiting the site to produce some additional imagery of visitors interacting within the spaces. We’re looking forward to phase two of the project so check back with us soon for updates!

Patrick Darby

Founder, Senior Photographer

tonic photo studios

A new national food concept that pulls inspiration from 5 Asian Countries, yum and sign us up! Well, that’s just what Pei Wei Asian Market did when needing a photography partner and studio to shoot their entire new menu for their recently launched Asian Market concept:  http://www.peiwei.com/market/.

We were thrilled to shoot 60 plus menu items and four conceptual billboards for this international client.  Back in January we talked about our massive project with their parent company, PF Changs. This new Pei Wei Asian Market project took on a very similar and extensive prop sourcing and styling needs approach. With having to create individual stories with rich and rustic backgrounds, our creative team consisting of Ellen Strain (Food Stylist) and Abby Ripes (Prop Stylist) with Patrick Darby (tonic Founder and Photographer) leading the way to execute this rich and tactile photo project.  The end result, some of the best food photography tonic photo studios has put out to-date!

The billboard imagery will be released shortly and will be on the blog.  Below is a great cross-section of work from this massive project. We are excited to see this market fare concept grow and hit major US cities this summer!

Keep checking back with us for more samples of work!

Cheers!

Mitzie Rakich  / tonic Studio Rep

tonic photo studios

It was about time for a little cosmetic changeover on our website, we finally made ourselves our own client and this month was the launch of the new tonic website! We couldn’t be happier with the final design and navigation. Historically it has been a challenge to make sure we are clearly representing all four divisions of our photography capabilities. This new design is right on target with presenting our portfolios in the categories of: Spaces & Places, Objects & People, Industrial Technology and Food Photography!