SKAGGS

It took almost 2 months of planning, 1 trip from El Paso to Dallas and back, 1,000 - 5 gallon water bottles, 3 trucks, 2 tractors, 1 buggy and a whole lot of man (and woman) power to show that TOTO’s High Efficiency toilets are all about saving water—lots of water. It’s proven that TOTO’s HET’s can save up to 24,655 gallons of water, in just 1 year. A fantastic amount, but just how much is that visually? That was the first question we asked ourselves and one that drove the concept behind the photoshoot.

We needed a large expanse, preferably one with a mountainous backdrop. The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah are flooded every year, unbeknown to us. The next best thing?…The Salt Flat just outside the Guadalupe Mountain National Park. The national park described the location as “An alligator sat on a sand castle.” due to the contrast of the mountain backdrop on the Salt Flat. We knew then, this would be the perfect location to shoot our 1,000 water bottles.

Bradley and Sam headed out to El Paso, TX with a stellar crew to shoot what was set to be one of the most memorable on location shoots SKAGGS has partaken in.

In case you’re wondering what happened to the bottles and water? The water was non-potable and was given to the rancher for his cattle and all of the bottles were recycled in El Paso, TX.

For a behind the scenes visual diary go here and here.

We’d like to thank the following for helping to make this shoot rock!

• Tait Simpson and Annie Powers (Tait Simpson Photography)
• Manuel Norena (manuelnorenastudio.com)
• Kevin Haverty
• Michael Charske (Highway Man)
• Jacob Cena (Classic Auto Finder)
• Eric, Robert and Nico
• Manuel Ramos (Continental Batteries, El Paso TX)
• The Salt Flat Cafe

From designer divas and celebrity stylists to snooty editors and glamazon models, fashion photography in New York City is a notoriously cut-throat business. So what sorts the men from the boys? We straightened our shoulders, sucked in our paunch, and struck our best pose to ask RICK HAYLOR about life in the fashion fast lane, what it’s like backstage at Mercedes-Benz NYC Fashion Week, and how to pull off the perfect pout.

Rick Haylor… the man, the myth, the legend – tell us about yourself!
Well you can start by calling me Grant. Unbeknownst to many that’s my real name…Grant Ricky Haylor but everyone calls me Rick… even my parents! (eds note: Noway!) Seriously! It’s on my passport and birth certificate. I was born in Kent, lived in London and I’ve lived in Soho, NYC for the last 10 years.

How did it all begin?
Well I was born first of all, yes my mother gave birth to me. Just kidding…
The honest truth is that I was very close to becoming a pro golfer. From a young age I loved sports and started playing golf with my Dad (also an avid golfer). I actually ended up doing very well on the junior circuit but broke my wrist playing football (soccer) and had to pack it in. At the same time it was getting very close to Christmas and I needed extra cash to buy gifts. A friend said I could earn money working at a hair salon, sweeping the floor and helping out. Can you imagine?! I went from being sports mad and getting up at the crack of dawn to play football with the lads, to fashion, hair and beauty, it was a whole new world. The Christmas job worked out great and they offered me a position full time.
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Ok, I promise that is my last Kate Moss post of 2007. The SHOWstudio website and blog always have amazing fashion footage and I think their whole concept of “fashion live” is fantastic.

Their latest project was Flowers For Kate, a (literally) fresh perspective on fashion.
In a nutshell, Kate Moss was due to be shot for a story in V Magazine, SHOWstudio offered a unique chance to be part of the shoot - by sending flowers and floral greetings to Kate. (Some of the deliveries and messages were recorded and documented here) The flowers were then used to create a three-dimensional photo sculpture around which Mossy posed.
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I’ve found a new home at Barnes and Noble TriBeCa. Ahhhhhhhh books, books and books galore!!! I honestly can’t remember the last time I was so excited about books!! I’ve been there at least 4 times in the past week and it was on my last visit that I discovered that the “Creature” book by Andrew Zuckerman was finally out. I came across his brilliant website about 2 months ago, where he has a video documenting the book making process and if you go to the production section of his site documentation of the actual photoshoot (again brilliant).

The book is a definite must have but unfortunately most of the Barnes and Nobles in New York City have sold out. It’s on back order at Amazon too
For now though you can get your fix here . Enjoy!

I stopped by my favorite cafe on this cold, cold New York morning to get a cup of tea and warm up. Doug, the owner of Le Colombe, served me and told me he had something to show me. He pulled out a book of his photography, which included a series of photos of birds in flight, sitting on power lines and perched on window ledges. The several shots he had in his book were beautiful and mysterious. He told me he wanted to show this to me because of the building artwork we had done on the front wall of our office. He also told me about a photographer named Masahisa Fukase who had inspired him.
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Dazed and Confused rekindled my childhood memories with their remake shoot of The Never Ending Story for their October Issue.(Hurrah for Falcor!)
Shot by Daniel Sannwald, you can see more about the Dazed + Confused shoot here and even watch a short film produced during the shoot. Rumor has it - they bumped this cover for an amazing Bjork shoot (it’s brilliant). I think it’s absolutely fantastic that people still remember and love this film! I loved it as a child (cried at the end) and still do…there’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned magical adventures and mystery.

There’s been quite a lot of media coverage over the last few weeks on retouching and just how far editors, and advertisers go to ensure that the photographed subjects look absolutely perfect. We recently wrapped on a fashion shoot for Lovenia (more news on that to come!) and whilst the model was absolutely breathtaking in person and on her original pictures, the retouched images show her looking simply divine ‚Äî no bags under the eyes, no pimples etc etc.

I completely understand and appreciate body/skin retouching and have realized that almost everything needs some retouching of sorts, even our last TOTO USA project did.
What bothers me is when it’s almost too far…take for example the Faith Hill RedBook cover that Jezebel kindly drew our attention to (scroll down for cleverly animated gif). What a dramatic change!!

V Magazine, did an excellent take on Before and After for their most recent issue - it’s not so much retouching, but it’s pretty cool all the same

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Deleted Images is an art collective that exhibits unsharp, blurry and unfocused photographs which would ordinarily be destined for deletion. They accept submissions from around the world, and the result is an engaging, rotating gallery of unintentional art (this is my entry).

On Flickrvision you see new posted Flickr images popping up every second.