Posts Tagged 'Tonic Photo Studios'



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 takes to the photography road

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.

Statue of Atlas supporting the heavens at Rockefeller Center

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!

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

Patrick Darby, tonic photo studios creative problem solver

Headshot of Patrick DarbyMy name is Patrick Darby and I run Tonic Photo Studios. You’re going to be hearing more from me over the coming months here on our blog and on our Facebook page. We’re going to be ramping up our online presence and personality, and providing you with a better look into the activities of Tonic. A lot’s been going on around here and there are some exciting things on the horizon. Looking ahead, I’ll be regularly updating this blog and our Facebook page with these and other points of interest. My goal is to generate a greater sense of Tonic’s capabilities and overall personality, and to hopefully provide you with some compelling and interesting material on a regular basis.

Running Tonic requires a little bit of everything, but ultimately it all comes down to creative problem solving. I spend my days (and sometimes evenings) dedicated to that task. How can I make that pizza shot look as fresh and compelling as possible? How can I light that 50,000 square foot exterior in two hours before dawn? How can I get a shot of the light rail from the perspective of the tracks without getting run over (or arrested)?

Running Tonic is not just a job; it’s a way of thinking and a crazy, never boring way of life. I embrace each project and give each client the attention and dedication they deserve. What’s important to you is important to me. I make your project and creative challenges my own. I get the picture. Get yours at Tonic Photo Studios and discover the cure for the common image.

Stay connected for more Tonic updates and info!

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.

From sketch to photographic reality: McDonald’s and the Lavidge Company shoot smoothie outdoor boards at tonic photo studios

 

Concept

In conjunction with McDonald’s launch of their new smoothies in mid July, we were presented with two concepts to carry through to visual reality. This project was a good example of Tonic’s creative problem solving abilities. In specific reference to the most challenging aspect, I played around with several potential methods before I determined that shooting the banana peel upside down was the best direction to take. I rigged it up like a little puppet with fishing hooks and clear line and shot numerous versions with the peel elements in different positions and at different perspectives. From that point, it was just a matter of flipping the elements and clipping them out to build the final composite(s). It was also a bit of a challenge figuring out how to keep the peel fresh through the duration of the shoot. Citric acid alone was not enough. The secret was to select very fresh bananas that had just turned from green to yellow. Any riper and citric acid or not, they were browning in no time.

 

Behind the Scenes

It was a great shoot with a great team which included (among several others) a technical advisor from McDonald’s corporate. Thanks to McDonald’s and Lavidge for the creative opportunity and the sugar high we all had throughout the day!

McDonald's Outdoor Boards

Bring us your ideas!

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…

tonic photo studios participates in revolutionizing the desktop prototyping market

While Tonic provides a great commercial photography solution for a diverse range of clientele, product photography is one of our specialties of which I am currently witnessing a great deal of activity in these days. We recently produced a shoot for Solido, a North American AZ Crown venture. This was a fantastic opportunity for the studio, the product has been out in other markets, it’s new in North America and photographic representation has been minimal up to this point in time.

Through the course of the day in the studio,  we produced a full range of imagery to represent the product, what it’s capable of producing, and how it’s used.

We truly believe this product will revolutionize the desktop prototyping market and were pleased to have been chosen to participate in its advertising and marketing initiatives.

Creating a prototype

Behind the scenes

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.

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