Posts Tagged 'in studio photography'

Phoenix photographer Patrick Darby teams up with Riester and Talking Stick Resort and Casino

It’s not often you can say you style and shoot a unabomber, a suit, and tommy bahama for an upcoming photo-shoot.  Well, that’s just what took place inside our studio in January. Local agency, Riester came to photographer Patrick Darby and tonic with a great concept that incorporated these three poker personas for their upcoming poker tournament ad for the Talking Stick Resort and Casino. We had a long production list to produce this concept and a great time with the Riester team to put this one together. We brought in our good friend and local stylist Abby Ripes to source the needs for the “No one enters the arena without battle gear” concept. Here’s the tear sheet and a great behind the scenes shot. We can definitely say we are now experts in poker personas and sourcing lockers… anything for our clients!

patrick darby and talking stick resort and casino ad

Talking Stick Behind the Scenes

Thanks for reading… Mitzie Rakich / tonic studio rep

tonic photo studios staying local, staying loyal

Patrick is back in our Phoenix studio for a while, in between the East Coast and West Coast legs of his Luxottica road trip. While he’s in town, we wanted to change gears and spend a little time on one of tonic’s specialties: cuisine photography. In particular, we want to focus on work we have done for AJ’s Fine Foods, a longtime local client here in the Phoenix area.

Valley residents are no doubt familiar with the upscale markets which are a part of the Basha’s family of stores. They have been a fixture in Phoenix, bringing a gourmet shopping experience to food and drink lovers for over 25 years. What most people don’t realize is that tonic photo dtudios has been the primary supplier of commercial food photography for AJ’s since the early 90′s.

We’re proud not only to work with a great local client, but to have such a longstanding relationship. The team at AJ’s relies on our large repertoire of capabilities to create eye-catching images for their marketing materials, both in-store and online. They know that Patrick and the tonic photo team are able to meet any challenge, from capturing stunning pour shots to staging large, styled sets.

One part of the AJ’s relationship we’re particularly proud of is our work for their annual Summer Wines promotion. Each year, AJ’s features select wines as their flavors of the summer and to translate those flavors into imagery, they turn to Patrick’s skills. It has been a fun challenge as summer rolls around each year, and the tonic staff has relished the challenge every time.

To see more images than the few highlighted here on the blog, head over to Tonic’s cuisine portfolio. Or, you can visit AJ’s website, where nearly all of the photography was generated by tonic photo studios.

tonic photo studios road trip rolls on

As you read in our previous post, Patrick has been on the road shooting images for optical stores ILORI and Optical Shop of Aspen. He recently wrapped up the East Coast leg of his travels by visiting Optical Shop of Aspen’s East Hampton store. He’s had a fantastic trip which was complimented by great weather in New York. He nabbed some great shots of the city’s architecture, as well as completing photo shoots at the stores he visited.

The staff at Luxottica (the parent company of ILORI and Optical Shop of Aspen) has been a pleasure to work with, but the fun isn’t over yet. Patrick will be heading to the West Coast to visit more stores, so look for more photos of his adventures!

Take a look at sneak peeks of ILORI’s Soho store and Optical Shop of Aspen’s East Hampton location, and head over to our Facebook page to view more location photos, as well as those great architectural shots we mentioned.

tonic photo studios and Lavidge give Massage Envy some image therapy

Massage Envy project documentsOne of our recent clients here at Tonic Photo Studios is Massage Envy, who came to us through our longtime partner The Lavidge Company. Why did Lavidge turn to us? Because they knew we had both the skill and the space to meet Massage Envy’s photographic needs.

The Massage Envy setIn order to get the photos we wanted, we started by building a facsimile of a Massage Envy therapy room. Remember how Patrick mentioned that running Tonic involves a lot of creative problem solving? That extends to building a massage therapy room and other smaller sets inside our 8,000 square foot facility. Fortunately, Massage Envy’s corporate specifications dictated how our therapy room should look, but it was up to us to make it happen.

Once the sets were ready to go, we brought in Massage Envy staff and a large talent pool supplied by the good people at Garth Williams Casting. Talent and staff at the Tonic facilityWe had quite a few people filling up the studio, but thanks to the skill of the Tonic staff, we were able to work through numerous settings in a short amount of time. That’s another reason Lavidge Company often turns to us: we can quickly crank out high quality content.

The end result of our work: a satisfied customer and a partner who was reminded why they turn to Tonic Photo Studios when they need great results.

Take a look at a few more behind-the-scenes photos to get a feel for how we made the Massage Envy photos happen!

Talent and Massage Envy staff on setThe therapy room set in use

Patrick shooting on setThe Tonic team

Mayor of Phoenix Photo Session at tonic photo studios

Tonic Photo Studios was recently chosen by Mayor Phil Gordon, of the city of Phoenix, to help him with his image. And we were only too happy to oblige!

In lieu of his upcoming State of the City Address, we set up a session in our photo studio and worked with the Mayor to create a series of images that showcase his leadership qualities.


Mayor's State of the City Announcement

An announcement of the mayor's State of the City address, featuring photography by Tonic Photo Studios

Above is one of our final shots, in context of an email release regarding the upcoming event.

We feel like the project was an overwhelming success, helping this public figure create the perfect imagery and style.

Here at Tonic Photo Studios, we love to help individuals and company’s make the best impression with their photography. If you’re in need of a creative solution for your image, please don’t hesitate to contact us. You can see our portfolio of work as well as our contact information on our website at www.tonicphotostudios.com.

tonic photo studios work in context

I thought it might be of interest to publish links that present some of our work in context as it can be an entirely different experience seeing imagery in the context it was intended for.  It’s also rather interesting to see the broad range of clientele we accommodate at the studio.

TASER (product and studio model shots)

NYPD Pizza (food and lifestyle shots)

Fox Restaurant Concepts (most food and architecture imagery)

Arrowhead Grill (all content)

OmniMount (many studio product shots)

Arizona Tile (various product and architectural images)

i/o Data (data center imagery)

Kyocera Solar (product and location work)

Genz Benz (product shots)

Cafe Valley Bakery (most product shots)

Titus Cycles (product shots)

ACO Polymer Products, Inc (many product shots)

These are just a few I can think of  off the top of my head. I’ll post more later…

Fun & challenge with Harkins Theater photo shoot at tonic photo studios

The only thing missing was a movie!!

How do you keep an ICEE from melting?

Recently, we undertook a fairly large-scale project for Scottsdale-based Agency MMA and Harkins Theaters. We were tasked with photographing pretty much every single menu item Harkins sells in their snack concessions. Quite an undertaking indeed! For three days the studio was packed with popcorn, hotdogs and nachos. Not the most challenging work environment for sure, however, one of the most interesting aspects of the production was Ellen Straine’s (project food stylist) ability to produce an indestructible, long-lasting ICEE! It took some experimentation but she pulled it off and was able to create an ICEE suitable for still production.

Ellen really showed off her true skills on this one and helped produced another successful food shoot at Tonic.

tonic photo studios client Peter Piper Pizza brings a dual video/still shoot to the table

Great synergy with Peter Piper Pizza

Recently, Tonic produced a shoot for Peter Piper Pizza, Inc. Peter Piper has been a fantastic client for us over the past year or so and we always enjoy the great energy associated with the projects.

The most recent shoot was particularly interesting, as we set up a video production with real HD pictures simultaneous to the still production.

Tonic has over 8,000 square feet of available shooting space so it’s always great to utilize as much of it as possible.

The client was thrilled with the high level of efficiency achieved with the dual production,  which essentially minimized their time away from the office.

This was not the first video production we’ve hosted and will most certainly not be the last, as we’re always striving to provide a diverse, efficient and highly creative experience for our clientele.

Check out the posted images to get a behind the scenes view into the overall production.

tonic photo studios technology: making photography better

Huge building, two guys and one light…

ACO Building

This exterior for Aco Polymer was produced using one light source blended through several exposures to create a seamless reproduction.

It always makes me a bit nostalgic to think about how I would have shot this building 10 years ago. Back then, it would have taken 20 lights, several generators and many assistants. Not now.

Today, it took just two guys, one light and some serious Photoshop time. With fewer people and equipment, the end result is stronger due to the control we have today.

Gotta love technology.

The interior below sheds some additional light on the process. Interesting to see what the canvas looks like when the one lighting the image is left in…

With Perry

Anatomy of a product photo shoot via tonic photo studios

A look at the process

Tasked with shooting the ZO for imagery to populate the client’s web site, advertising and collateral, Tonic produced a wide spectrum of shots that tell the story of its functionality and attributes. These images document the behind the scenes preparation for the shoot and one image of the ZO. 

Check out digizoid.com to see all of the imagery tonic produced for the ZO in context.

ZO with laptop

ZO in car

The ZO...small but mighty!



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