Posts Tagged 'Tonic Photo Studios'

tonic photo studios welcomes Mitzie Rakich back to the team

Published October 19, 2011 What's New? Leave a Comment
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Once upon a time, we had a really great commercial photography rep named Mitzie Rakich. OK, maybe 2004 to 2008 isn’t exactly “once upon a time”, but Mitzie did work here and then left to pursue new opportunities. The good news is that Mitzie is returning to her tonic photography roots, better and stronger than before! In the three years since Mitzie was last with us, she’s continued to develop her marketing and business development skills. She was instrumental in helping the business to grow during her first stint here and Patrick is really looking forward to working with her to bring in new accounts and do great things once again.

Photo of Mitzie RakichSo who is this awesomeness named Mitzie? She’s a Phoenix native and ASU grad with a degree in Design Studies Management. She loves downtown Phoenix and likes to keep it local. So do we, which might be why she fits in well here at tonic. Mitzie can often be found out on the town exploring many fabulous restaurants and going to shows, or checking out a landscaping nursery for relaxation.

Mitzie has many fond memories of good times at tonic when she previously worked here and she’s looking forward to making more. She especially enjoyed the overflow food goodies after cuisine shoots and finding her face Photoshopped onto Sesame Street characters (what can we say, we think she makes a great Muppet).  Above all, she loved working with all of the cool clients and agencies who make our business thrive.

We’re sure she’s ready to make great things happen and we’re excited to have her with us once again. Welcome back, Mitzie!

tonic photography work in action!

Published September 30, 2011 Creative Projects , Featured Clients Leave a Comment
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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.

tonic on location and in the studio with TASER International

Published September 14, 2011 Creative Projects , Featured Clients Leave a Comment
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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 to shoot Betty’s Nosh: mushrooms and more

Published September 7, 2011 Featured Clients Leave a Comment
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Our work with great local restaurants rolls on! In July we showed off some of the work we did with SanTan Brewing Company and Flo’s Asian Kitchen. In late August, we added another great local restaurant to our client list: Betty’s Nosh in Glendale.

Betty’s Nosh is a new mushroom bar which opened in early May. You’re probably thinking “Mushroom bar? What’s that?” Well, the mushroom bar is just what it sounds like. Think sushi bar, but with stuffed mushrooms instead of sashimi. Guests can order customized stuffed mushrooms and watch them being prepared while sitting at the bar.

In addition to the mushroom bar, Betty’s Nosh offers up a feel similar to a laid-back wine bar. The wine and drink selections are extensive. Executive Chef Ray Romero serves great entrées and tapas, but Betty’s adds a few extra touches which most wine bars don’t. For starters, they have Pasty Chef Erica Bahnak on staff to create delicious pastries. In addition, Betty’s does mornings, not just afternoons and evenings. They have a morning coffee bar and on Sundays, Chef Romero puts together an extraordinary omelet bar.

Having established themselves over the summer, Betty’s Nosh wanted to bring their website and marketing materials up to level on par with their food. They called upon Patrick Darby at tonic photo studios to come in to the restaurant and capture a range of photos covering the food and the space itself. Food stylist Ellen Straine joined him for the one-day shoot and by then end, they left with a host of great images.

We want to show off a few samples from the shoot, so take a look at what Betty’s has to offer. Naturally, we included a mushroom shot!

Look for these images and many more to appear soon on Betty’s website and printed material, and head on up to north Glendale Arizona to see what Betty’s Nosh is cooking up.

tonic photo studios captures food photography for Flo’s

Published July 18, 2011 Creative Projects , Featured Clients Leave a Comment
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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.

A little of this, a little of that from tonic photo studios

Published June 30, 2011 Featured Clients , What's New? Leave a Comment
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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!

tonic photo studios photographs one of the largest private collections of Western memorabilia and American Impressionistic Art

Published June 20, 2011 Creative Projects Leave a Comment
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One of the great things about tonic photo studios is that boundaries here aren’t rigid. We usually keep our work within four main areas of expertise (food, architecture, people and conceptual photography), but thanks to E.B. Lane and our sister company R and R Images, we recently were presented with an opportunity to step outside of our boundaries and tackle a project which was at the same time unique, challenging and incredibly fascinating.

Local financier and rancher Mort Fleischer and his wife Donna are well-known as avid collectors. Their private collections of American Impressionist and Western memorabilia are among the finest and largest in the world. The paintings are primarily of the California Impressionism school circa 1900-1930, with the artists exhibiting strong influences from the French Impressionists. The Western memorabilia collection features items from the American West, circa 1850-1910. The collection includes saddles, spurs, chaps, rifles, pistols, military equipment and numerous other materials which were a part of life in the early days of the West. In order to document them, we were called upon to photograph each of the four galleries which comprise the Fleischer collections.

tonic studios director Patrick Darby spent a full day in the galleries, taking several images in each. The goal was to produce a comprehensive book which showcases the collection.

Of course, we have a few images from the photoshoot to show you. Images here on the blog don’t do justice to the breadth and scope of the collection, but we can’t discuss a project like this without offering a few pictures to illustrate the work we did.

Saddles and ranch gear in the Fleischer collection
Saddles and ranch gear in Gallery 1, Main Vault 4 of the Fleischer collection: tonic photo studios
Saddles in the Fleischer collection
Saddles in Gallery 2, Lower Barn 5 of the Fleischer collection: tonic photo studios
Military gear in the Fleischer collection
Military gear in Gallery 3 of the Fleischer collection: tonic photo studios

Photographing art galleries is certainly not a typical tonic studios project, but we were delighted to take on this unique and special assignment. It’s these kind of projects which keep work at tonic fresh and exciting. They keep us on our toes and refresh our creative spirits.

Later in the summer, Patrick will be called upon to photograph MorDo Ranch for the Fleischers. MorDo, a combination of Mort and Donna’s first names, is the Fleischer’s home and ranch in northeast Maricopa County and is just as unique as their collection of Western memorabilia. While commercial architectural photography is well within tonic’s usual range of work, we’re sure the MorDo Ranch shoot will be far from typical. Expect to see some great stories and fantastic photos from that shoot in a few months.

If you’d like to learn more about the Fleischers and their extensive collection, take a look at Phoenix Home & Garden’s January article on MorDo and its style.

tonic photo studios back on the road for Luxottica

Published June 2, 2011 Featured Clients Leave a Comment
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portrait of a rural road with red rock mountains in the backgroundPatrick 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!

Architecture shoots? tonic photo studios does that.

Published May 31, 2011 Creative Projects Leave a Comment
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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 CityScape tower at duskThe CityScape tower in the daytime

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.

A view into Squire Sanders' lobby from the terraceThe lobby of Squire SandersA view into the Squire Sanders conference roomA view along the length of the conference table in Squire Sanders' conference room

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.

tonic photo studios: “You don’t have to take our photography word for it”

Published May 28, 2011 What's New? Leave a Comment
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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

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Tonic Photo Studios
3620 East La Salle Street
Phoenix, AZ 85040
602.437.6030
info@TonicPhotoStudios.com
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