CREDITS

Art buyer: Lisha Odney
Art directors: Alyson Frahm and Graham Hall
Fashion stylist: Sue Tsai at Celestine
Hair: David Cox at Celestine
Makeup: Annie Ing at Celestine
Prop stylist: Christina Wressel @ Utopia
Producer: David Roascio
All shot on location in Los Angeles.

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Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

Photo by Melanie Acevedo for Target Club Wedd.

One of Melanie's images, as featured at Target.com.

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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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For a closer look at the images, along with captions, click on the “read more” link below…

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“I don’t set these pictures up at all,” says Melanie, who last year moved with her husband, Richard, and their kids from Brooklyn to the beach town of Sea Cliff, New York. (They share their home with their two adorable dogs, Mr. Magoo and Squirrel.) “I keep two cameras around the house all the time, one always upstairs, one down. Sometimes, when the kids are doing something I want to capture, I will ask them to wait for me if I have to run and get a camera, but otherwise, that’s pretty much it. If I shoot a lot of pictures, sometimes they will act and pose for me, and then we play with the shots a bit more, trying different stuff. But sometimes, they won’t let me shoot them at all, and just run or cover their faces. They are kids, after all!”

I asked Mel to pick some of her favorites from “52 Weeks,” which she publishes as a tumblr, and for a little commentary on why she chose them. Here’s what she sent:

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Week 8, 2012: Rocky in the backseat, New York City. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“Rocky got this superhero costume we ordered for him the night before. He was so excited! He put on his Robin costume when he got up and didn’t want to take it off. We were headed into Manhattan for the day to see friends, and he wanted to wear it, and, well, why not? Halfway into the city, I turned around to look at him, and he had passed out cold in the backseat of the car. I guess being a superhero is exhausting!”

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Week 6, 2012: Rocky and Squirrel, Sea Cliff, New York. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“The kids had just gotten out of their bath and were getting ready ready for bed. Rocky wanted to wear his bathrobe from the Four Seasons that we brought back from L.A. a few weeks before, so he could lounge around in it. Ever since we got Squirrel, he and the dog just love to run around and chase each other all over the house. I caught them just staring at each other upstairs before they took off again.”

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Week 5, 2012: Rocky turns 5, Sea Cliff. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“Rocky’s birthday dinner. He’s waiting for Richard to bring in the cake. This is so Rocky! The face!”

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Week 49, 2011: Violet in tree, Ewing Township, New Jersey. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“We were visiting my mother and aunt in New Jersey. When I was a little girl, my family planted all these little hemlock trees. Now they are HUMONGOUS!!!! You can play underneath them, and it feels like a magical secret world. Violet loves to run and climb and be free—this is so her—way up in the sky. A wild thing!”

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Week 44, 2011: Rocky, Alethea, and Violet, Battery Park City. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“We had a goodbye dinner with our babysitter Alethea the day before we left to move to Sea Cliff. We all love her so much.The bond she has with my children is so strong, especially with Rockwell, who she treats like her own little baby.”

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Week 35, 2011: Santa Monica Pier, Los Angeles. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“I am out in Los Angeles quite often for work, and my family comes out with me as often as possible. Since we have so many friends out there, it feels like a second home. The Santa Monica Pier is always on our list of things to do. This was Rocky’s first time on the bungee-jumping ride.”

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Week 30, 2011: Violet at Barnegat Lighthouse and bay beach, Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“We have been going here every summer for the last few years. We love it—it’s so much fun, beautiful beaches, no pretense. We ride bikes, swim, eat lots of ice cream. Violet’s favorite from the ice cream man who comes to the beach every day is the double screwball.”

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Week 29, 2011: Long Beach Island. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“My brother brought his family down to spend a few days with us. My niece Sara and Rockwell are infatuated with each other. She couldn’t say a word at the time, but he understood everything she was saying!”

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Week 25, 2011: Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. Photo by Melanie Acevedo.

“This was the morning after Violet’s last day of 3rd grade. We had a little pool party the day before, and her friends Nova and Willa slept over. I woke up the next morning around 6:30, and I could hear their voices outside my window. They had gotten up and gone out front to play, and had created this amazing little tableau on the sidewalk.”

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See more “52 Weeks.”

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Melanie Acevedo.

We’re thrilled to announce that Stockland Martel now represents photographer Melanie Acevedo. Melanie has worked all over the globe for a wide variety of advertising and editorial clients, including Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Anthropologie, J. Crew, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, InStyle, Vogue Bambini, and Condé Nast Traveler. Her specialties are lifestyle, food, kids, and interiors, and—like Melanie herself—her photos are distinctively positive and warm while always being winningly stylish. “Beautiful and real” is how Liz Elert, VP of Creative at Target, once described her work. “You want to inhabit the worlds that Melanie creates,” says Maureen Martel. “They are bright, fresh, and fun. This optimism is a total reflection of Melanie’s personality, and it is what the world needs right now.”

You can tell that Melanie connects with her subjects: People always look relaxed and comfortable in her photos, whether it’s Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler at their Shelter Island, New York, home or a perfectly cast model in an ad campaign. Also apparent is her keen eye for beauty and design. (She won a D&D Star of Design award in 2010.) “My work is approachable and aspirational,” notes Melanie.

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Photos by Melanie Acevedo.

Photos by Melanie Acevedo.

Photos by Melanie Acevedo.

Photos by Melanie Acevedo.

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Melanie discovered photography while taking an illustration class at Parsons School of Design in Paris. Photography was a required course, and she says it was love at first sight. She has been taking pictures ever since. She lives in the beach town of Sea Cliff, New York, with her family: husband Richard, daughter Violet, son Rockwell, and their two dogs, Mr. Magoo and Squirrel.

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The shoot took nearly two weeks and involved sourcing more than 140 “models” to represent ethnic backgrounds ranging from Nigerian to Saudi, according to a blog post by Planet PrePro, the production company on the project. “We reached out to Suzanne Stack from RedPenny and she nailed it,” they said. (Read more, and see some production stills, here.)

Scroll to the end of the post to see Doug’s naturalistic work for three other major advertising campaigns: Citibank, Emirates airlines, and GE. All three make use of his lifestyle-photography skills, but the latter two campaigns also call on his talents as a travel photographer, including a nighttime photo of Brazil, with a palette that’s all purple-y and gold, and a shot of the windswept Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve.

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Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Chevron and mcgarrybowen.

Photo by Doug Menuez for GE.

Photo by Doug Menuez for GE.

Photo by Doug Menuez for GE.

Photo by Doug Menuez for GE.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Citibank.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Citibank.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Emirates airlines.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Emirates airlines.

Photo by Doug Menuez for Emirates airlines.

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Photo by Luca Zordan.

Photo by Lauren Greenfield.

Photo by Michael Muller.

Photo by Kwaku Alston.

Photo by Doug Menuez.

Photo by Art Streiber.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photo by Uwe Duettmann.

Named after Steven’s young son, Ryder, the brand made its debut in Japan earlier this year, where it won raves and promptly sold out. Last week, Steven went to Japan to meet with retailers for next season’s collection. (While he was there, three Japanese magazines—Safari, Surf Trip Journal, and Blue—interviewed Steven at the Ron Herman store for a feature in an upcoming issue.) Using his iPhone and his Canon EOS 1Ds, he casually took photos throughout his trip for a mini-travelogue for this blog. Here’s a look. And to see ryders in action, scroll to the bottom for a short video featuring Steven and some of his pals.

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Day 1: I landed in Japan at 4 PM, checked in to my hotel, and met with some of the boys for a beer. Second from right is my partner in ryders, Kiyofumi Imaizumi.

Photo at left by Steven Lippman.

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Day 2: Today, buyers from all over Tokyo came to this little hip cafe in Aoyama to check out the line and place orders for spring/summer.

Photos by Steven Lippman.

Images from ryders' autumn/winter 2011 lookbook. The photos on seamless are by Steven Lippman.

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A few shots of the city.

Photos by Steven Lippman.

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The view from my room.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Day 3.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Day 4.

Photos by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

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Day 5.

Photos by Steven Lippman.

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Day 6. Hitoshi Mizushima of Donna, Inc.—my agent in Japan—making things happen.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

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People lined up for the grand opening of the Ron Herman store. The night before, there was a party at the store, and a few designers showed their collections. Ryders was one of the featured brands.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

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Here I am with some of the guys from Surf Trip Journal, who interviewed me at Ron Herman.

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My business partner Kiyofumi.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

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And some more photos from around the city.

Photos by Steven Lippman.

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Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Photo by Steven Lippman.

Liz Von Hoene. Photo by Meghan McNeer.

Liz Von Hoene is a fashion, beauty, and lifestyle photographer known for creating stylish images that are both sophisticated and accessible. Her work is inspired by everything from her personal sense of fun, whimsy, and happiness to her love of vintage style magazines and classic films.

Liz shoots for luxury brands like Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman, Neiman Marcus, and Ligne Roset, as well as for companies that have mass appeal but are distinctly style-driven: Target, Revlon, Kohler, Macy’s, and others. To the luxury brands, she brings a touch of playfulness, resulting in images that are elegant and warm. To the mass-appeal brands, she delivers a level of polish that elevates them above the fray. She also works in video, most recently for clients such as Neiman Marcus and Kate Spade. (View her reel at Chelsea Pictures.)

Liz’s work has appeared on billboards in Times Square and in magazines such as Marie Claire, W, and New York, and she has photographed many notable Hollywood beauties—including Beyoncé, Freida Pinto, Eva Longoria, and Kerry Washington—for national ad campaigns that strike just the right balance between aspirational and achievable. The atmosphere at Liz’s shoots is open and relaxed—there’s always a lot of laughter and a great playlist to set the mood. Her energy is contagious, and she is inspiring to be around.

Here’s a look at Liz’s work. To see more, visit stocklandmartel.com/talent/liz-von-hoene/photography.

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Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene for Trident.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photos by Liz Von Hoene for Waterworks.

Photos by Liz Von Hoene for Neiman Marcus.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photos by Liz Von Hoene for Matrix. Click to enlarge.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photos by Liz Von Hoene for Velux. Click to enlarge.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

Photos by Liz Von Hoene. Click to enlarge.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene, from her personal series "Le Blanc Noir."

Photos by Liz Von Hoene for Crystal Light.

Photo by Liz Von Hoene.

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