Patrick Darby Photography – Phoenix and Las Vegas Photography Blog for tonic photo studios
If you recall our post from mid-July, we highlighted Photographer Patrick Darby’s trip to the Grand Canyon Railway to shoot photos for a wrap which would be installed on the Metro light rail here in the Valley. We recently received a shot of our work in action, riding the light rails over the Tempe Town Lake bridge!
Metro LRV 127 glides over Tempe Town Lake sporting the wrap we helped create.
If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you know that we have a wide range of clients here at tonic photo studios. We’ve photographed food for Flo’s, architecture in downtown Phoenix and a train for the Grand Canyon Railway. One of our longtime clients is TASER International, maker of electronic control devices used by individuals and law enforcement organizations around the world. TASER is headquartered here in Phoenix and they called up Studio Director and Photographer Patrick Darby and the tonic team to photograph Shockwave, a new perimeter control product.
TASER’s primary goal was to create updated images of Shockwave and other products for use in marketing materials. We chose to use two settings for photographing the range of images TASER needed. To capture Shockwave in a realistic setting, we coordinated a photoshoot on location at The Icehouse and followed that up with a session in our studio.
The location shoot involved several players including Patrick, TASER and a local SWAT team. The day was warm and the SWAT team spent nearly seven hours in their gear, but the shoot was successful. Take a look below at few of the images we captured. We appreciate the efforts of the SWAT team and The Icehouse in making the location shoot happen!
Shockwave on location
SWAT team on location
We also brought Shockwave and other products into the studio so we could capture precisely staged photos. Having the products in studio presented far fewer logistical challenges, as Patrick has all of his equipment available to him. You can see some highlights from the studio work below.
Shockwave set up in the studio
Shockwave with remote trigger
TASER X2
Take a look at TASER’s Shockwave page and keep an eye out for the new images to arrive there soon! Also, visit TASER’s Facebook page and have a look at the photos they posted from the The Icehouse shoot.
tonic photo studios team has been busy lately with creative projects which have been outside the usual repertoire. Shooting for the Grand Canyon Railway and Mort Fleischer was both fun and challenging and Patrick enjoyed the chance to do some projects which were a little outside the norm. But, food, product, architecture and conceptual are what the phoenix commercial photography studio is known for, so we were bound to return to those at some point. That point arrived when our partners at The Lavidge Company approached us with a food photography project for Flo’s Asian Kitchen.
Flo’s wanted to add imagery to their website which tells the story of the great cuisine, energy and experience which can be found at the restaurant. Lavidge art director Melissa McFarlin turned to us, knowing that we could deliver photos which captured everything Flo’s has to offer.
Patrick, tonic’s food stylist Cathy Marshall and valley phoenix food stylist Ellen Straine spent two days on location at Flo’s, shooting not only food, but scenes of the kitchen staff in action and portraits of Flo herself. It was a great shoot and Flo was an incredibly gracious host. We were able to enjoy several of Flo’s dishes while we were there and all were awesome! We can highly recommend Flo’s as a dining destination after our firsthand experience there.
We’re proud of how the images turned out. They highlight tonic’s ability to capture strong and diverse images which fit into a larger narrative. Once again, we want to thank The Lavidge Company for choosing to partner with us on this project. As always, Melissa and the Lavidge staff were a pleasure to work with.
We have an assortment of quick topics to mention in today’s tonic studios blog post. First, we wanted to let everyone know that we’ll be announcing the winner of the iPad 2 promotion on Tuesday, July 5th! If you’re on our mailing list, you received a mailer last month promoting our blog and new Facebook page. Anyone who updated their contact info and Liked our tonic page was automatically entered to win, so keep watching here to see who’s the lucky new iPad owner! Also, big thanks to our sister company R and R Images for creating the mailer.
Next on the list is a very exciting project which we unfortunately can’t talk about very much yet. It involved some travel up to northern Arizona, and was a very fun and challenging project which tested Patrick’s technical and creative skills. You’ll see the end result around town very soon and we’re certain that you’ll be impressed. Look for a post with behind the scenes details and images of the final product soon!
As a side note, Patrick Darby had a chance to capture some great landscape shots while he was up north and he’ll be posting them soon on the main Tonic web page. Landscape photography isn’t one of tonic studios four key areas, but Patrick has done landscape work in the past. He took the opportunity of being in the pines of northern Arizona to recall some of his dormant skills and photograph the amazing natural beauty of the Coconino forest. Look for those pictures soon!
To wrap up, we wanted to mention a few other upcoming projects. We’ll be shooting food and lifestyle images for Flo’s Asian Kitchen and doing food and product photography for Chandler’s SanTan Brewing Company. It’s great to work with fantastic local companies and we’re proud that these two have come to us for their photography needs.
Summer is often a slower time for business here in Phoenix, but we’re staying very busy so far. Keep watching this blog and our Facebook page for news and updates!
Patrick Darby is heading back out on the road again, this time headed to Southern California and Las Vegas to shoot more stores for ILORI and Optical Shops of Aspen. Stay tuned for some sneak peeks and maybe a few photos from the road! We love road trips!
tonic photo studios focuses on four main areas: food, product, architectural and conceptual photography. We’ve touched on food and product photography recently, but we haven’t highlighted our architectural work very much. It’s time to change that.
The architectural photography which Patrick Darby and the tonic studios team have done is both subtle and grandiose. We have a long history in architectural imaging, photographing everything from offices and skyscrapers to luxury homes. Primarily, we’ve worked with architects, home builders and interior designers who appreciate our ability to best represent the spaces they have designed. Depending on a client’s needs, we are able to adjust our approach from a natural and open feel to dramatic scenes which require significant lighting and styling work. We’ve recently had a chance to work with a few clients who called on us to photograph a local high-rise project, as well as office space within the building.
The first project we’d like to showcase is Hunt Construction Group, a nationwide builder based here in the Phoenix area. Hunt Construction Group is the builder responsible for CityScape, a multi-phase development in the heart of downtown Phoenix which includes 27 floors class “A” office space and street-level retail. tonic studios was asked to photograph the building when it was completed in late 2010, and we were excited to be involved in a project which was responsible for redefining the future of downtown Phoenix.
The second project we would like to highlight is Alliance Architecture, a global architecture firm. They were the architects responsible for creating the Phoenix offices of Squire Sanders, an international law firm with offices in 16 countries. Squire Sanders’ Phoenix location is on the 27th floor of the CityScape building, so we were happy to work with another client involved in the CityScape project. The challenges of meeting the expectations of Alliance Architecture and Squire Sanders were quite different from the work we did for Hunt Construction Group. For this particular shoot, we needed to highlight not only the design of the office space, but we also needed to showcase the location high in the CityScape building.
Working with Hunt Construction Group, Alliance Architecture and Squire Sanders provided diverse experiences for the tonic photo team and we were very pleased to be a part of the projects. But, our work with these three clients was just the latest in a long series of architecture projects which we’ve done. To see more of the work Patrick and the tonic photo staff have been involved with, take a look at the architecture portfolio on the tonic photo studios website.
We’re also pleased that Patrick is one of only eight photographers featured on architecturalinteriorphotography.com, a site dedicating to highlighting the best of Arizona’s architectural photographers. Click here to see a selection of his finest work featuring both office and living spaces.
We’ve been talking about many of the great projects we’ve worked on and the amazing clients we’ve worked for. We love to showcase our work, but we want to let the words of others do the talking today. You don’t have to just take our word for it. Read what other people have had to say about their experience with Patrick and the tonic photo studios team.
For client and photographer to get on the same page quickly is essential to both minimize cost and maximize studio utilization. This has been our experience. In the 10 years I have run this company our experience with tonic photo studios has been the best of the 5 studios we have used.
Derek Humphries
ACO Polymer Products
Working with Patrick Darby and the tonic staff of tonic photo studios was pure joy. Highly energetic, intensely creative and environmentally relaxed, we consider our three day photo shoot with tonic a great success.
Patrick’s incredible focus and attention to detail resulted in a wide selection of beautiful photographs that Massage Envy will be proud to use in many of our marketing campaigns. We truly appreciated the passion and talent of Patrick and his team.
CG Funk
Vice President, Industry Relations & Product Development
Massage Envy Franchising
If you are looking for a photography team and studio that can get it done and get it done right, then you need to talk to Patrick Darby at tonic photo studios. We have been working with Patrick and his team for the past few years and are continually impressed with the dedication they bring to each shoot, professional approach, post-production work and general follow-through. They are not only committed to getting the work done, they are committed to getting it done right.
Jason Ferrara
Vice President of Marketing
i/o Data Centers
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.
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.
Patrick is hitting the road this month! No, he’s not hitching a ride to find adventure on the highways or backpacking across Europe on $2 a day. Instead, this trip is much more luxurious. Throughout May, Patrick will be shooting images for high-end optical retailers ILORI and Optical Shop of Aspen, which are part of Luxottica Group’s global retail presence. The entire Tonic staff is thrilled to be a part of this project and working with Luxottica has been a pleasure for everyone.
Patrick has already traveled to ILORI’s store in Soho and during the remainder of the month, he will be visiting stores in East Hampton, Las Vegas, Rodeo Drive and Newport Beach to capture images which highlight each store’s exterior architecture and interior design. It’s an excellent opportunity for Tonic to demonstrate its chops in creating beautiful photos of beautiful locations.
An icon of New York City
The Soho photo shoot just wrapped up and Patrick is working on editing the images now. We’ll be bringing you highlights from each leg of the road trip, but just to whet your appetite we’ve included one quintessentially New York image Patrick grabbed while he was in the city. Granted, it’s not a part of the ILORI store shoot, but Patrick’s an architecture photographer. Did you really think he wasn’t going to get a few images of New York’s grandeur while he was there?
Keep watching the blog for stories of Patrick’s travels!
