In this post, Leslie Smolan of the New York City–based branding and design firm Carbone Smolan Agency, explains how her company (which she cofounded with Ken Carbone) uses photography to meet the needs of its clients. Leslie was kind enough to spend an hour on the phone with me for this post. What follows is a condensed version of our conversation, along with a look at several recent Carbone Smolan projects—from websites to branding materials to ad campaigns—where great photography was key.

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Carbone Smolan's homepage.

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How the Carbone Smolan Agency uses photography.

Leslie Smolan of Carbone Smolan Agency.

At Carbone Smolan, we’ve always been very involved with photography and love it. We specialize in five different business sectors: law and financial services (Morgan Stanley has been a client for over a decade); real estate and hospitality (like the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group); photography & technology (we just developed and designed an app for Canon); art & design (we did the signage for the Musee du Louvre 30 years ago, and they still use it to this day); and food & lifestyle, which syncs up with our hospitality work (with companies like Aether Apparel). We bring an equal mix of content, strategy and art—photography!—to all of our projects.

In the food and lifestyle sector, for example, we just launched a new brand called SPE Certified, a certification program that recognizes restaurants that stand out in sourcing, preparing, and enhancing their dishes. It’s kind of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. The whole design system is based on an illustrative logo and lush, beautiful food photography—saturated, macro shots of fresh fruits and vegetables that really show the story of the brand.

In the corporate sector, we do a lot of work for law firms and financial services, and we use photography for their websites, but we stay away from typical headshots and business-suit imagery. Often, the biggest use of photography in this sector is for marketing financial services to individual investors and for recruiting. Photography is crucial for our work in hospitality. With more opportunities on the web, more customers use a hotel’s website as an editing and sorting device to choose where they want to stay, so photography is incredibly important.

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The role of stock photos.
We often use stock when the project calls for fewer images and more-diverse subject matter. For example, we recently did marketing materials for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney that targeted individual investors. We called these materials “life-cycle brochures.” They’re about managing your finances during a divorce, or how to plan your estate for your children. We very selectively purchased stock images and created composites so the photos told the right story and all showcased key design decisions we made: They needed to have a certain sky and horizon, etc. We originally tried to photograph the images we needed, but there were too many variables, so photo illustrations off of stock photography made more sense. They key to using stock photography well is that the images need to have a signature point of view—style is essential to building a brand—and that can be hard to find.

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This photo and below: Examples of the "life-cycle" brochures the agency created for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which feature photo illustrations created from stock images.

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How Carbone Smolan works with, and finds, photographers.
We hire photographers who have a signature style, so we know they’re going to deliver a certain look and feel. When it’s stock, we’re still looking for a very high level of photography—composition, color, lighting… Also, we do tend to manipulate the photos and integrate graphics on top of imagery to give the stories more meaning. We’re very strategic about art directing images, and we take great care in reproducing photography.

I’m picky—I definitely have my own sensibility and bring that to my projects. All of the designers at the agency have their own styles and sensibilities, and this comes through in how they tell our clients’ stories.

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On discovering photography.
If I see something I like, it all goes on my Pinterest page. From personal connections, many years in the business, and from designing the first five Day in the Life books, I know a lot of photographers from that world. [Note: Leslie’s husband is photographer Rodney Smith, and her brother is photographer Rick Smolan.] Ken [Carbone] and I have been together for 35 years, so we’ve worked with a whole range of photographers.

We’ve received tons of promos, and it takes a lot to excite me from those. The real talents with the high-quality work stand out. For instance, I got an email from Stockland Martel about a new food stylist, Victoria Granof. I remember the work well—it was really fantastic. Based on where Carbone Smolan is headed, we’re definitely interested in food photography.

I also love Carl Kleiner, who photographed the baking books for Ikea. Rodney does workshops, so I’ve met photographers who’ve come and studied with him. Like Heidi Lender. I love her work. It’s so creative and inventive and like nothing I’ve seen in a while.

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The Stockland Martel eblast announcing Victoria Granof had joined the roster.

The homepage of Heidi Lender, whose work caught Leslie's eye.

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For our hospitality clients, I’m always looking for architectural photography and people who can make it feel like there’s a sense of life within them. I once hired Oberto Gili to shoot the newly renovated—this was many years ago—St. Regis Hotel on Fifth Avenue. He brought in big movie lights and made it look like there was an abundance of natural light. I loved it.

I don’t look at photo blogs. I do look at photo shows, and I love judging competitions to see what’s out there. I’ve judged PDN competitions, and last year, I judged the design awards at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

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Advice for photographers promoting to Carbone Smolan.
A lot of photographers use a scattershot approach—they buy a list of contacts and just send out their promos. Specificity and targeting are important: They would do better if they understood what we did and tailored their promos to our interests. I’m not particularly fond of flat imagery or the on-camera flash look for portraits. I’m more of a classicist. I don’t really like the reportage style of portraiture, where the subjects look like they’re suffering or unhappy, either. I like photographs to make the world look better than it does—work that enhances the world.

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CASE STUDIES

Website for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group

“The Residences at Mandarin Oriental offer the best of both worlds: the comforts of a private home combined with the unsurpassed amenities and legendary service of the Mandarin brand. The website that CSA designed for this exclusive facet of the company features the company’s signature high aesthetic quality with lavish imagery of their international properties, amenities and benefits of ownership. The site features locations from exotic Marrakech to cosmopolitan London and provide an alluring glimpse of the possibilities of living the Mandarin Lifestyle.” (More info here.)

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The Mandarin provided Carbone Smolan with imagery, including these photos used for the hotel's website.

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We were lucky with this website: the Mandarin provided us with the imagery, shot by Melbourne-based award-winning photographer George Apostolidis, and it was incredibly beautiful, high style, and right on brand. The Mandarin does it right—they work with a single photographer who does 90 percent of all of their photography. I’ve been interviewing a number of brand directors about their use of photography in hospitality. We recommend that clients build up photo libraries. Lifestyle images, photos of food, details of fixtures and furnishings, architectural photographs of rooms, bars, restaurants. These companies need to communicate the experience of their brand, and nothing does it better than an image. The Mandarin is one of the best in terms of curating fabulous image libraries.

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Brand identity, books, ad campaign, and website for Nizuc, an exclusive resort with private residences in development on the Riviera Maya

“Nizuc, located on the Riviera Maya, an exclusive resort property and series of private residences, incorporates world-class architecture and design, ecological preservation, and a level of service, hospitality and warmth that redefines luxury. A team of design and hospitality visionaries, led by developer Alan Becker, were tasked with creating Nizuc before it was even built. CSA developed and designed a luxury brand identity complete with a logo, product design, hardcover books with evocative lifestyle photography, a multi-million dollar global print and interactive ad campaign, and a website featuring a short film by the producers of 21 Grams and Babel.” (More info here.)

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Above: A look at how photography was used in branded items that the agency created for Nizuc. Below: Images from inside the book. The photos were shot by Quentin Bacon.

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We worked with photographer Quentin Bacon for Nizuc. I chose him because I loved his work—it was very naturalistic and has a beautiful palette. I found Quentin from the many food and cooking books he’s created with Ina Garten. They’re so luscious and so delicious—I could almost smell the food when I looked at those photos. I knew he was the perfect photographer to bring Nizuc to the world, even before people could experience it themselves.

We went on site to the Riviera Maya to do the shoot, and there was nothing there. It was basically dirt. We had a weeklong photo shoot where we brought in all the props, models, jewelry, clothing, food. We even brought a food stylist. The appeal of the destination has to do with the fantasy of the place: mangroves, the weather. This is an amazing piece of property that bordered an inland waterway. It was a playground for us in terms of what you would do if you were actually visiting the resort. So we created from scratch a vision of what this place would be when it’s built. It was so powerful. Our vision unified the entire team—the builders, the architects, the investors. Before, they knew the resort only as numbers: square footage, number of rooms, acres. All of a sudden, the place was real. It was really quite incredible. We created paradise. I got so many calls from people asking, “Wow, can you get me a discount?” And I would say, “Yeah, in a couple of years.”

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Global ad campaign for Morgan Stanley
“Morgan Stanley was once seen as a premier firm for individuals seeking a career in financial services. Over time, however, standard recruitment efforts had grown less effective, and the company needed a global message that would restore the ‘wow’ factor back to the brand and spark the interest of top talent from around the world.”

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Seth Smoot's portraits, as commissioned by Carbone Smolan for a recruiting campaign for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

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We hired Seth Smoot to shoot portraits representing a cross-section of the best and brightest college students who might be interested in joining Morgan Stanley—the talented, smart future leaders who want to go to Google, Microsoft, Facebook. Casting was a major part of this assignment. Having people identify with the campaign was key to its success, so the model selection was crucial. Their nationalities ranged from Indian, Chinese, Latin American, and Filipino to Caucasian.

Seth is a young photographer who is close in age to the recruits. He had worked for my husband, which is how I first met him and started working with him. Every year, he sends me a Christmas card of his family—a beautiful black & white portrait. That’s the reason I knew he’d be right for this project. His work has a human quality but also a nice sense of design. We shot at Princeton because we wanted to include small visual cues that said “college campus,” like stone arches, labs, blackboards. He did a beautiful job, though we ended up cropping the images pretty closely for our design. The campaign is doing incredibly well and is featured across college campuses nationwide.

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Thank you, Leslie!

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Top row, from left: Patti Hansen, Nancy Donahue, Carol Alt, Kim Alexis, Kelly Emberg, Lisa Taylor, Esme Marshall, and Cheryl Tiegs. Middle row, from left: Karen Bjornson, Christie Brinkley, and Beverly Johnson. Bottom: Dayle Haddon. Photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. Styling by Jade Hobson.

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For the April issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Derek Blasberg talked with Timothy Greenfield-Sanders about the photographer-director’s new documentary, About Face: The Supermodels, Then and Now. The film, which features interviews with a who’s who of the most photographed women from the past five decades, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will make its broadcast debut this summer on HBO.

“These women are complex creatures; they’re smart women who survived in a tough business,” Timothy tells Harper’s Bazaar. “In front of the camera they come alive. But more important, they’re beautiful on the inside and out.”

Read “Ageless Beauty” at harpersbazaar.com.

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Click to read A Photo Editor's interview with Michael Muller.

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Heidi: How much testing did you do to develop the system?

Once we got the prototype working light made, they happened to be delivered the day before I embarked to the Galapagos Islands to shoot the Aqua Timer campaign for IWC Watches. They arrived at my house at about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, as we were packing all our gear for a 3-week expedition. The trip was also in conjunction with the Charles Darwin Foundation and UNESCO, so there was a huge amount of pressure to deliver striking images. I had promised the president of IWC that I would create images like no one had seen before, without having the lights in hand.

The weeks leading up to the departure were probably some of the most stress-filled days of my career for making these promises and going on faith that the guys would get it and make them in time. When they did arrive that afternoon, I was beyond overjoyed yet still stressed that they would, in fact, work. Being so late in the day with an early-AM flight the following day, I put my trunks on and had the guys hook up the lights and jumped in the pool. I was thrilled when the lights fired. And that was the extent of testing.

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Tell me more about the lights.
The lights were first tested in open ocean in the Galapagos and then further used many days in the pool with Michael Phelps and all the other Olympic swimmers for the Speedo campaigns I shot. I have also used the lights for a multitude of other underwater shoots I have done. There isn’t a whole lot of testing that needs to be done since the lights are just a basic strobe head that happens to be waterproof. The main testing is what the light does underwater and how to control it with use of reflectors, grids, etc. Light reacts differently underwater than it does on land. It bounces and spreads out everywhere, so it has taken many hours and days underwater with my team to get just where we are today, and we still have so much to learn.

That is what I love about “light” and photography, I have been doing it for 27 years almost daily and could do it until the day I die and still know just a fraction of what there is to know about light and the use of it, and how to control it. The minute you think you have got this thing called photography “down” is the day you should maybe put the camera down because you’re being very ignorant. Light is something the greatest minds that have ever lived find mysterious and fascinating. Always be an explorer and try to learn something new with each shoot. Never rest on your laurels, thinking you’ve got it down!

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“There’s a lot of correspondence and communication between two human beings that goes on without one’s mouth moving,” he says in explaining his process. “And that’s in body language and just in brainwaves. I think we do really connect. And it’s often quite a heightened moment for the sitter because they have someone quite near them with a camera pointing at them. And I think in those heightened moments, you communicate even better. And I think something like that goes on, and I really trust it. That’s what I trust. And I think that’s the moment that a picture becomes a portrait.”

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The interview is part of the National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 Olympics-themed project, for which the gallery commissioned Nadav to shoot a series of portraits of Britain’s rising athletes. The first is of Jodie Williams. Here’s a screenshot of that photo as seen at the BBC‘s website, which is featuring all of the portraits in the Olympics project:

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Click to view Nadav Kander's portrait of Jodie Williams, part of the National Portrait Gallery's Olympics-themed commissions, at the BBC's website.

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To read more about Jodie and to see behind-the-scenes photos of the shoot, click here or on the image below.

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Click to view Anne Braybon's photos of Nadav's portrait session with Jodie Williams.

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From the fashion story "Memory." Photo by John Midgley.

Can you talk to us a little about the concept behind the fashion editorial ‘Memory’?
‘Memory’ is a series that was born out of this idea that the person you see as you mother now was this young attractive woman when you were a child, but in your memory this person doesn’t age. They just exist. You don’t question how they look. In fact all your emotional memories of your mother have no physical person attached. I just found that interesting. I guess it’s pretty fundamental to me and goes back to the Louvre in an abstract way. My parents separated when I was 6 and we had just moved to Paris. So a lot was going on emotionally and paintings were thrown in the mix…. So the series is about my mother and renaissance paintings.

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Johnny Depp. Photo by John Midgley.

Famke Janssen. Photo by John Midgley.

Valentino. Photo by John Midgley.

Michael Douglas. Photo by John Midgley.

You’ve photographed some pretty legendary people, which ones have you really enjoyed and who would you like to get in front of the camera?
I have enjoyed almost all of them. Johnny Depp was so kind, warm and funny yet extremely professional. He had this magnetic charisma… You immediately understood why he was a star actor. Oliver sacks was the most fascinating and love-able oddball. I would like to have president Obama and the Cohen brothers in front of my camera. Possibly at the same time!

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From a 2011 campaign for CyberSentinel, created by AMV BBDO in London and photographed by John MIdgley.

You made some quite powerful images for the ‘cyber centinel’ what was it like working on that shoot?
That was a lot of fun but I was a little worried about the consequences of the imagery. Of the images being taken out of context. The children were my own children and a very good friends daughter. The porn couple were a real couple that I have worked with on other nude projects and are so cool with their nudity and sexuality. They have a lot of fun with it. I was kind of envious of them but at the same time doubtful I could ever be that free. I’m pretty uptight about my own nudity.

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Read the full NOMIO interview, “John Midgley and His Photographic World,” here. And to see more of John’s work, go here.

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From the new ad campaign for British Telecom, photographed by Jim Fiscus for Abbott Meade Vickers/bbdo.

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For roughly five years now, two fictional characters by the name of Adam and Jane have been at the heart of an immensely popular story-driven ad campaign promoting British Telecom. The pair are so beloved in Britain, in fact, that they have one of the fastest-growing Facebook groups. Recently, Abbott Meade Vickers/bbdo, the London-based agency of record, commissioned Jim Fiscus to shoot the next installment of the couple’s “story,” this time focusing on their son and his friends, and the ads are now all over the U.K. I wrote David White, the copywriter on the campaign, and Richard Connor, the art director, for some insight into how it all came together…

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Photo courtesy of Mark George.

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Stockland Martel Blog: What was the premise of BT’s previous campaign?

David White and Richard Connor: The premise of the old campaign was the relationship between two main characters and their existing family. It was about how BT helped their relationship to thrive, echoing real-life family scenarios playing out all over the U.K. After 5 years, the campaign saw Adam and Jane marry.

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SMB: How did this new campaign originate?

DW and RC: People have an existing warmth towards Adam and Jane. It’s why they have the fastest growing Facebook Group. The new campaign is very much an evolution of the original campaign. Joe, Jane’s son who is known from the original campaign, has grown up from a young teenager into a young man. He’s moving out into the big wide world to fend for himself. In the student flat he moves into, BT with its Infinity broadband, phone and TV is set to play a central role in his life, along with two other characters, Simon and Anna.

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SMB: Who is the target audience, and what is the message?

DW and RC: A younger, more digitally savvy audience. For the poster, the message was very simple—launch to the public the new characters who will feature in the next part of the BT campaign.

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SMB: What did you need from the photography/photographer, and how did you come to choose Jim?

DW and RC: We chose Jim as his work beautifully captures the essence of his subjects, and as these BT characters were effectively new, we wanted to show a hint of the chemistry that will play out as the campaign rolls out.

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SMB: Any interesting production details?

DW and RC: Each character was individually shot, and Jim ensured they were in character. As we suspected, Jim’s not just a photographer, he’s also a director, really interrogating and finding out the back-story of each character.

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SMB: Where the ad is running—outdoor and…?

DW and RC: Outdoor, all over the U.K. and heavily all over London. The poster broke the week before the campaign started on TV to whet the appetite of the Great British public.

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SMB: What’s next for this campaign?

DW and RC: The continuing saga of flat 6, where the 3 characters live, and how BT is improving their lives.

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To promote the series, the network commissioned Craig Cutler to shoot key art—in which a giant gnome features prominently—and Meghan Kirsch, senior director of brand creative for A&E, was kind enough to give us the backstory on how it came together:

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Photo by Craig Cutler for A&E.

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“We wanted to develop an unexpected visual for the show that would stop people in their tracks,” Kirsch explains. “Shipping Wars has a fun, quirky sensibility, so we decided that a giant gnome would work well to sell the show concept and get people talking. We commissioned a props company to build a 20-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide gnome sculpture.  

In terms of the photographer, we wanted someone who has experience shooting large-scale objects in environment and who also has a whimsical style. When we saw Craig’s portfolio, we knew he was a perfect fit. He has tons of experience shooting random large objects—including a giant dinosaur and fake cheetah—and he has a playful, kitschy approach to his work.  

Transporting a 20-foot gnome certainly had its challenges. Shifting his position from vertical to horizontal took a small village, and when the weather didn’t hold up, we had to quickly cover him with a tarp and get him under an overpass to stay dry. Despite the hiccups, this was a once-in-a-lifetime shoot, and everyone had a great time. Every car that passed us during the shoot slowed to a crawl and couldn’t stop rubbernecking.”

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Photo by Craig Cutler for A&E.

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“Arcadia is one of those small towns that exist on a map, that you always seem to come across en route to somewhere else,” he explains. “I was driving through Arcadia on my way to Orlando with my family this summer. I drove past some really strange dwellings which appealed to my sense of the slightly odd. I returned a week later and spent a couple of days wandering around photographing.

“Some of them were just rundown and in disrepair—glorious dilapidation,” he continues. “But others seemed genuinely strange such as the triangular-shaped blue house nestled in some handy shade…”

Here’s a look:

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Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

Photo by John Offenbach.

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Related: John Offenbach’s South Florida

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