Here in the marketing office of Don & Sons, we are always changing, updating, designing and redesigning our current and upcoming brands. We’ve got a big web project in the works right now – more on that later! ;)

As the in-house web designer, I have been in charge of the design of the new web pages. One of the concepts I drew up included a nice large “portfolio” shot – a pretty photograph of our top brands – but we didn’t have a current one. So, we set an appointment with photographer Rick Mariani in Vallejo, and I spent the whole morning with him getting the perfect shot. Photo shoots are one of my favorite things to do – I got to direct the Mia’s Kitchen shoot last year, and helped with Flock and The Crusher – and I was very excited to get to work on a photo shoot solely for a project of my own.

Rick’s studio was much different then the one I visited before in San Francisco where we shot Mia’s Kitchen, Flock, and The Crusher. It’s an old grocery store – big windows (blocked out though of course) and flat concrete floors, a very open space. I was really impressed with (read: drooling over) his photo equipment – he was shooting with a Mamiya RZ67 hooked up to his Mac, two large softboxes, flash, and a spotlight. I had fun looking though his room of surfaces, backdrops and props and selecting the ones I thought would go best for the feel I was trying to create – welcoming, comfortable, warm tones. Here are some behind the scenes photos:

A view from behind the camera

Rick, adjusting the camera for a shot

Each shot immediately loads onto the computer screen so we can get a preview and closeup of the shot

another angle - you can see the lighting setup better.

The final product!