New Advertising Campaign - Behind The Scenes

We recently had the pleasure of working with new clients on an advertising campaign for a notable East Coast bank.  The days of the shoot were 72 and sunny and loaded with puppies.  It's easy to sound #sorry-but-not-sorry, but we're pretty stoked to share some behind the scenes video from the two days on set. 

Special thanks to Expressway Productions, Shophouse, and the rest of the crew. I especially want to thank Rocco Avallone for the video edit.  We've been pretty busy lately and over the next few weeks I'll be sharing a ton of new stills along with motion assignments. 

For The Love of Dog.

Man’s best friend. That’s how the saying goes. And for lots of people, smooching with their Great Dane or Dachshund is just another way of expressing that love. To them, a kiss is a carefree way to share affection with the canine who loves them unconditionally.

But to other, um, non-dog-owners, this might look like “Man’s best friend…with benefits”. They believe one’s Toy Poodle should not be their play thing. “Do you know where that mouth has been?” they silently ponder. While the human/dog chemistry is lost on this crowd, the smooching owners are actually changing their own biochemistry…for the better! Their oxytocin levels are rising; their blood pressure is slowing, all while their sense of well being crescendos. So, kiss away my friends. 

http://www.featureshoot.com/2014/04/chris-sembrot/#!EA1R1 

Bikes, Buddha, Design, and Philly

September and October were busy months for editorial projects. During that time, I shot for two new clients; Surface and Tricycle, and two returning ones;  Bicycling, and Philly magazines.  The subjects varied greatly from shooting environmental portraits, interiors, studio still lifes, to street portraits.  

Surface magazine had me shooting in the Frankford section of Philly at the industrial design company, Amuneal. They specialize in retail display solutions and industrial designed furniture. 

Bicycling Mag: Featuring my friend and avid bicyclist, Carl deBeauclair.  

Philly Mag: featuring another friend of mine Jason Ganski who's co-owner of local design shop, Sedso. 

hrisc

Karmically in Tune

The thing that inspires me most and what gets those creative juices flowing is uncertainty. There's nothing quite like being dropped into an environment and asked to make something beautiful out of any given situation - no matter what! I think that's what makes my job so damn fun. 

Finally I get to share this campaign that I shot with my good friends over at Karma Agency. These images were shot over five days and in tandem with the TV production crew (Neighborhood Film Co.) As with most jobs that have stills and TV shooting together, time with limited. At times my team and I had only a few minutes to shoot with the talent, but I think we made the best of it. 

Thanks to everyone who helped make this collaboration come to life including: Tracy Thompson, Mike Park and Ford Haegele. 

(The campaign is currently dominating Amtrak's 30th St. Station here in Philadelphia) 

Riding the Promo Wave

Once upon a time I was an art buyer. And with that title came emails and post cards - from photographers sharing new work .This part of my job was actually fun. Seeing what projects people are working on and constantly being showered visually with new and inspiring work (kind of like Instagram but not). But unlike Instagram, I had no choice who would share with me. That's when it got annoying. Photogs sharing work not relevant to the types of accounts the agency had started to become spam. That's when I took mental notes.

There were always 1 or 2 mailed promos that would stand out each year and as a young aspiring photographer, these promos blew my mind. The one I always remember was from a photographer that shot a major campaign for Frito Lay. It was so beautifully designed but it also helped that inside was a small bag of Fritos! Genius! That's the kind of impression I could only dream of with this promo for Urban Surfers. 

With the help of a couple  talent friends, (Adam Garcia and Dustin Kemper) I finally put together my promo. I designed a 26 page 7"x7" book and acting as my business card, a puck of surfboard wax with my own custom label. (Adam designed the Urban Surfers logo and Dustin designed the surfboard was label)

There are always a couple goals with these things: keep costs low, be visually interesting and make it so great that it would be difficult to throw out. 

I'll end with one email I got recently from an art buyer who was on the receiving end of this mailer: "... just got your promo (the wax will come in very handy for me!  8' longboard owner!)  

Goal achieved! 

Urban Surfers

There's nothing quite like the motivation of a beautiful woman to get you to try a sport that you've always wished you could do but never thought you could pick it up past your 10th birthday. This is the motivation that I felt three years ago when I met the woman of my dreams that would become my best friend and wife. 

I always knew some of my friends surfed but I never REALLY knew what that meant. Being from Philly I knew people surfed at the Jersey Shore, which is pretty obvious if you hit the beach each summer.  But not knowing the culture and the passion that drives some individuals to wake up at 4-5am and drive 1+ hours each way just to get a couple hours in during a swell (which the best surfing in the Northeast is from Fall - Spring), I was basically clueless what surfing really meant to them. 

This project is directly inspired by three friends of mine: Adrian Castillo, Chris "Cakes" Savaiano, and Jim "Hammer" Hammell who took me under their wings and suffered with the humiliation (that I still bring when I go out with them) of helping a newbie. Their dedication to teaching and insisting I go out with them whenever they go, helped me confidently say to that beautiful girl I met for coffee three years ago that, "I surf". 

(Stay tuned for more info regarding this project as I have big plans for next Spring/early Summer)

Metal, Tattoos and New England Fishermen.

Recently I was approached by Jamie Leary, art director extraordinaire at Decibel Magazine to shoot the band, Doomriders for a collaboration between the magazine and Converse. The idea was simple - interview the band, shoot an ad and get at least a 3 minute video of the guys - and that we did.  

Doomrider's front man, Nate Newton and his wife recently had their first child so I wanted to capture some elements of him with his family at home.  We spent a part of a Saturday shooting at his home in Ipswich, MA and the following day at Congress St. Tattoo in Portsmouth, NH where each band member decided to all get tattoos by bassist/vocals, Jebb Riley.

For this trip I decided to stay once again at a home I found on Airbnb.com. And just like my last few stays, this one was once again special. My gracious AirBnB.com host was an older ad guy who was the 9th employee at Boston's famed Mullen agency. He offered to wake up with me at 5am (with coffee already brewing) and show me spots only a local would know. Stories like this is why I just love staying with AirBnB hosts! 

Stay tuned for the final ad and video which should release by end of June.  

Farm Shoot

I'm finally able to share a short motion piece that I captured in March during an editorial still shoot. We had about two hours to shoot on a beautiful 50 degree day at the 7TH Heaven Farm  in Tabernacle, NJ. Farm owner, Carla Growney was gracious enough to allow us to shoot with full access to the farm and animals. 

Models:  Nicolette and J Lynne ( Reinhard agency)

Editing: Bruce Pinchbeck 

Music: The Bees "I Love You"  

All footage was captured with a canon 5D Mark ii and edited in FCP with Lightroom and VSCO color grading