By Peter Clark
For the month of September we ran a slew of interesting ads across the Behance Network. Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for sometime, here’s a little about the Behance site in their own words,
Behance Network, the world’s leading platform for creative professionals across all industries. Members create multi-media portfolios that showcase their work within the Network. Millions of visitors — including top creative companies, recruiters, editors, and more — come to the Network to see the incredible work and find talent to hire.
The Behance team also featured our ads on their Served sites, which are considered to be the “best of the best” from Behance. They have ten Served sites ranging from photography to typography. I got in touch with all the photographers we featured to get a little background behind their unique images.
Jose Mandojana / Seattle
“The photo was part of a personal project where I was incorporating sports into LA’s landscape. I found the location while riding my bike through downtown LA and knew I needed to shoot there. I set up the shoot for a Sunday morning so there would be minimal road traffic. The model and I went to the Nike store the day before the shoot to pick out wardrobe.”
Bruce Peterson / Boston
“When I’m not working on commercial assignments, I shoot found objects that speak to me. I sort of view it as they find me as I’m not necessarily looking for anything in particular. The soldier was a local flea market find. When I made that picture, I had just bought a new camera – a Sinarback 23, which at the time marked quite an improvement in what I was capable of shooting. My initial test of that system, strangely coincided with the day, we, The US under the Bush Administration, invaded Iraq. With this image I remember being horrified at the prospect that we as a nation were about to kill a lot of people, and hoping that our leadership had made the correct decision that kind of brutality would eventually make the world a better place. (My view at the time was skeptical, still is, but I’m really not that well informed on geo-politics and still hope that over time history judges it to be beneficial use of force). When I shoot my found objects, I shoot them as they find me, I don’t clean them. That soldier’s face is about 1/2 – 3/4 of inch in height, the print I have of him here at my studio is 24 x 38 inches – and it’s quite striking at that size – he’s beautiful, if not a bit creepy.”
“I was traveling from Tennessee to the west coast, and eventually Alaska, on a huge solo road trip and had stopped to see friends in El Paso. We went close to the border out in the desert to drink beer and shoot guns and there was this fellow out there ‘guarding’ the border and looking for illegal immigrants crossing into the states. He didn’t say much and I figured that further prodding a visually upset and unbalanced human with a rifle was a bad idea so, I shot a few frames and got the hell out of there.”
Van Ditthavong / Los Angeles
“Joe, the subject, is a furniture maker. His store was next to my studio. From time to time he would to ride his bike by our front window. On this particular day, I loved the colors he was wearing and stopped him to see if he wouldn’t mind if I took his portrait. He graciously agreed. At that moment I happened to be holding a kitchen mitt and since I knew he worked with his hands quite often, I asked if he wouldn’t mind wearing it. Ever the trooper, Joe agreed. He also agreed to hug the tree. Somehow it just felt right. The shoot lasted no more than five minutes.”
Eric Kiel / Boise
“The image was part of an assignment for Men’s Journal. I was shooting Hawaiian waterman Brian Keaulana, who’s in photograph, in the Maldives. I was using Aquatech underwater housing with my Canon 5D.”
Michael Clinard / Seattle
“I grew up in the South (Alabama to be exact) and have been loosely working on a longtime personal project documenting all the quirky characters in my hometown of Athens. Whenever I’m home, I usually end up in a stranger’s home querying them about the things that rev them up. Most of the folks don’t think they have a story to tell, but I can usually find that one jewel which I use as the backdrop for one of my scenarios. Such was the case with this image of Laura since we’d originally set our sights on doing an image of her in front of this amazing owl shrine of drawings and photos in her home. But when she came to the door that evening, she was dressed in her pajamas–unabashedly eating this cheese dip stuff. It was so incredibly honest and “her,” that I immediately saw this image of a night eater camped out in front of the fridge.”
CJ Benninger / Detroit“The photo is of a Detroit based band Fireworks. This was a promo that I shot for them. The concept came from a song lyric of theirs which is “bikes ride faster at 3 am.” We were shooting the photos in an alley behind where I used to live and a father and daughter from up the street rode by and stopped to watch. One of the band members asked if the little girl wanted to be in the photo and she said yes (her father agreed). I told her to look scared like the boys were chasing her and this was the result.”
Cameron Davidson / Washington DC“The image was a personal shot I did as I was finishing up an assignment for a client. I was photographing the Chesapeake Bay bridge tunnel that connects the eastern shore of Virginia with Virginia Beach. There was this amazing half-light with haze while this ship was entering the Chesapeake Bay at dusk. The pilot and I slipped behind the ship and I shot about five or six frames fairly close the the stern with a wide-angle lens. I then went off to finish my client shoot. This image is in the Corbis collection but, more importantly, it’s the closing image for my brand new just published book, Chesapeake: The Aerial Photography of Cameron Davidson. The book is the result of a twenty-year labor of love of photographing the complete Chesapeake Bay watershed from helicopters and airplanes. As you may know, the watershed starts near Cooperstown, NY and extends from central West VA and Western PA into DE and the Capes of VA.”