American Worker Project features in the Press…

So our American Worker Project has been enjoying some very nice Press lately.     With articles being posted online on APhotoEditor,   The Huffington Post,   Creative BoomAmerican Photography,  Popular Photography and The Phoblographer as well as the many news feeds that feed off of each of those publications,  it has been garnering lots of attention.    Click each of the links above to see the individual articles.

PressThe exposure and response from these articles has been fantastic.     More and more people are starting to follow along on Instagram  (you can follow here)  and the analytics show that traffic on my website and blog have exploded with about 15 times more hits than the normal average.    Plus, we have had several requests for the portfolio and a bunch of recent bid requests for a really nice job for a national campaign for a multinational Electronics and Appliance manufacturer and also a campaign for a large investment firm to shoot in California next month.    Fingers crossed on these!!  🙂   Thanks to everyone for following along and stay tuned as we have lots more great imagery planned in the months coming…

*Update:    We have also just booked great job for a global campaign for a large Pharmaceutical company based on our efforts!  Shooting early next month.   🙂   🙂   🙂

Beginning The American Worker Project.

HammondFinal11

Well at long last after hunkering down over the holidays we are able to post the first of many shoots to come for my new ongoing project called “The American Worker Project”. As we are traveling around the country we are getting the opportunity to meet and shoot all sorts of new people and things.     The American Worker Project is a way to visually feature and document (both on video and stills) some of the wonderful people we are meeting along our journey.   So far we have had the great pleasure to shoot in a lumber yard in Maine,  lobster fishermen on a lobster boat,    a man who hand makes wooden boats and also carves wooden boat models,  an old friend and metal roof man,  the owner of the oldest surf shop in New England,   Amish dairy farmers,  a train engineer and much more.   Here are a few images of the first of many to come.   Stay tuned….

UPDATE:   Added more shots from new shoots,  see below…

HammondFinal05 HammondFinal12HammondFinal01HammondFinal14HammondFinal25 HammondFinal15Lobster Fishermen from Maine

Lobstah10 Lobstah13 Lobstah12

Doing What It Takes: Pete Barrett – A Sporting Life Article

The website “A Sporting Life”  just ran a feature article on me.   See the link http://www.asportinglife.com/doing-what-it-takes-pete-barrett/  or read below:

Pete Barrett is an advertising photographer who shoots lifestyle and sports photography for a virtual who’s who of clients ranging from AT&T, Pfizer, Ford Motors, Cannondale Bikes, New Balance, McDonalds and Anheuser Busch. Most of Pete’s shoots involve large productions with teams of producers, stylists,  hair & makeup, location scouts, digital techs and many photo assistants. “I work with a terrific team of people.  Every job is a collaboration where the whole team is working toward a common goal of creating amazing images.”

Pete Barrett

Whether the task at hand is a big budget multishot campaign shot in studio with LeBron James or a recent Sports Illustrated assignment with tennis pro Jack Sock where he shot solo,  Pete puts the same attention to detail and creativity towards the job.

A lot goes in to putting together a shoot in advertising and even some editorial jobs.  There are seemingly a million things that need to be considered and arranged.   Dealing with professional athletes brings with it special considerations, like do they have special needs or requirements?   It is not uncommon to get a list of requirements such as transportation to and from the shoot,  specific menu or chef for catering,  studio or dressing room requirements,  type of music preferred etc. Couple this with the common shoot logistics of finding locations, acquiring wardrobe, special lighting, arranging RV’s  and it’s enough to keep a team of producers and PA’s busy.

This series of images came from a project for Remicade which is pharmaceutical product of Janssen Biotech. The athlete we were to shoot was the Edmonton Oilers right winger, Fernando Pisani.

Pete Barrett

Every job comes with its own unique set of challenges and this job was no exception. Being a pharmaceutical client they come with a laundry list of do’s and don’ts from their legal department.   On this particular shoot we were tasked with putting Fernando in wardrobe that had to be generic and non specific.    No logos are allowed.   No Nike logos,   no Oilers logos,  no team colors,  nothing…  Not as easy as it sounds.   It couldn’t even be a blank jersey from a team as the design of the shirt is patented.   This requires the stylist to have a generic jersey custom made in solid grey to have only his number on it.   This way no other companies can get ruffled by the use that they themselves are not promoting.

Pete Barrett

One has to be ready for anything and be able to solve problems quickly. We had one such problem almost derail the shoot entirely. Fernando broke his ankle 3 days before the shoot and his ankle was now in a cast.   Since two of the shots had him skating and 4 others were to be full figure portraits in gear this put an obvious damper on the plans. Pete quickly solved the problem and the shoot went on as scheduled. “I called my producer and had him source a body double.    We then shot every shot twice,   once with Fernando and again with a body double dressed the same way with full gear and skates on in the same position. I then removed Fernando’s legs and broken foot and replaced it with that of the body double in post. This was easier said than done as you need to also retouch in shadows and reflections. The biggest challenge was getting the action shots of him skating and showing speed. We built a platform rig that he could stand on which consisted of several sheets of thick plywood with hockey pucks screwed to the bottom of it so it would slide easily on the ice. Two photo assistants towed Fernando across the ice on this thing while a third pushed me alongside sitting on a folding chair while I shot.  It worked great! Fernando just stood hunched in a prone position swinging his arms and I did a little flash and drag where the flash freezes him and the shutter stays open a bit longer to show the motion.  In the end it worked out great. Happy clients, happy athlete, happy photographer!

Here are more of my photos:

Pete Barrett

This shot is from a Cannondale Bike shoot we did up at Mount Tam outside of San Francisco. To get a consistent low angle on the cyclist as he rode through the hilly landscape, my crew built me a shoot platform that extended out the side of a minivan about 6 feet.  We paid for several off duty police officers to stop traffic for about a mile and spent the morning chasing this guy up and down Mount Tam while I knuckle dragged it hanging off the gang plank.

Pete Barrett

This shot was done for self promotion and for stock. For this we shot at night. We hung a huge sheet of black duvateen fabric across the back of the pool on highboy stands and speed rail. Lighting was from 4 Dynalite heads,  two on grids back lighting the water and two from the sides to flank the swimmer.    Power on the strobes was dialed way down to keep the flash duration short to freeze the action.

Pete Barrett

This was shot for self promotion and for stock. We did a whole story of this guy starting from pulling his board out of the car and followed him through his morning,  down the path, up the beach, watching waves crash and then paddling out.  We are shooting a motion version of this as well that will be cut together to make a spec commercial that will target the financial markets.

The Last Word

I had the privilege of working with Chris Toth from Tothwork.com on a pro bono campaign for a great cause the other day.     It’s a PSA to get people to stop texting while they drive.

Imagine you are trading texts with someone special…  your wife, your son or daughter,  your dad….  and you get a text from them saying something trite & trivial like “LOL” or “CU L8R”  only instead of being cute,  it ends up being the most tragic thing you could ever imagine…    Because you see,  in this scenerio,  that was the last thing your special someone ever said.      Boom!   Lights out.  They are gone.

All because they were texting when they should have been paying attention to the road.   What’s worse, they were texting to you.    It’s a hard pill to swallow and the photos strike right at the heart of that message showing you the pain and anguish that these people are feeling.

Special thanks to Chris Toth for coming up with some great creative ideas and to all the talent and crew who generously donated their time for such a worthy endevour.    If we keep just one person from making this tragic mistake it is worthwhile…  hopefully we stop many more.

Don’t Text while driving,  the life you save could be your own.

Lenovo- For those who Do.

Here are the ads we did recently with Saatchi & Saatchi for Lenovo.   It was a really great shoot complete with a guy flying in a water propelled jet pack.    Who doesn’t love jet packs!   We shot 2 days alongside the TV production and 1 day specifically for stills. Special thanks to Hillary & Billy for hiring us and also to my great crew who worked long hours alongside the TV crew for 2 days in the heat!

 

Nostalgia from FoundXposed.

I seem to be on a roll lately.   The folks at Foundfolios just featured some of my personal work from this summer in their email promo today.

It’s always nice when people take notice of your work want to show it.   While our advertising venues are paid to promote us as photographers,  it is especially nice when they go the extra step and show your work in their own promotions which are over and above the ad space that we pay for.    Much like the AtEdge email ad from my last post,   these dual purpose campaigns do a lot to promote the brand of the sourcebook as well as push the individual photographers in a value added service that they provide their photographers.      Thanks guys!

AtEdge Shoutout!

The folks at AtEdge gave us a shoutout recently by featuring me in their email mailer.     The exposure was great!  We saw a marked increase in web hits as people clicked through to my website and even got a few calls for potential work.   Thanks to Glen Serbin and the folks at AtEdge!

Pete’s Portfolio Featured on Found Folios this week.

The folks at Found Folios have featured Pete’s portfolio this week.  Check it out!

Pete’s Work Climbing the Ranks at OneEyeland

My work has been climbing the ranks on OneEyeland’s ranking system for most accepted and best images.   Currently I am sitting at #3 of all their photographers Worldwide for this month!   I am honored that my work has been so well received amongst such a talented group of image creators.

For those who are not familiar with OneEyeland… It is very different kind of web portal featuring the works of some of the worlds very best photographers.

Images must pass a rigorous editing process and only the best are excepted after being judged by a Jury of 5 members who evaluate images on 5 parameters.

1. CONCEPT –  Is it more than a pretty picture? Is there an idea behind the image?
2. POINT OF VIEW – How fresh is the point of view?
3. CRAFT – What is the level of finish of the image in terms of execution?
4. EVOCATIVENESS – Does the image evoke many stories? Or is it linear?
5. MEMORABILITY – Does the image stick in the head even after you see several other images?
All the parameters are judged on a 1-10 scale by the members.
Then the score for the image is tabulated.
If the score is above 30, an image is shortlisted for consideration.
Then all 5 members take a vote on whether the image is worthy of being inducted into One Eyeland.
If 3 or more than 3 say YES, then the image is selected.
Sometimes, some images lose out after being shortlisted.
It is highly possible, that some of your images, may have been shortlisted, but didn’t make the final cut.
The jury at One Eyeland, try their best to be objective.
You can link directly to my images on OneEyeland by clicking here.

Chumley makes the big time in National Geographic Magazine!

Ok, so his name is not Chumley…  it is actually Uquq… but I like the name Chumley…

Once again,  ‘ol Chumley is getting some serious press.    Just this month,  I had the honor of placing my photo of Uquq  in the March 2011 issue of  National Geographic Magazine in the Visions of Earth section!

Little Debbie!

Little DebbieWe just landed a job for Little Debbie Snacks with our friends over at Luckie. Very excited to be working with them again. Not just because they are great to work with but who doesn’t love those Little Debbie Snacks? I used to live on them as a kid. My son who is 4 and usually can’t be torn away from his playing to come see me work has been begging me all day to come on our shoot so he can eat the goodies! Will post the work as soon as it hits the streets.