Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Spice up your Life!





For the November issue of Better Home & Gardens in the regular Style section of the magazine, This month featured Maya Kaimal, creator of a premium line of South India inspired sauces bearing her name, http://mayakaimal.com/index.html We wanted to create a set that did not feel heavily cliqued, a light nod you may say.


The color of the shoot was determined to be plum which was one of the colors chosen by the Better Homes & Gardens team. I am interested to show you some of the thought process's and efforts that went into the making. Assisted by my lovely team Kaitlyn Duboss and Jeanne Lurvey we created much of a set that unfortunately did not make it into the crop of the layout but is there in essence. As mentioned before, A fashion shoot of this kind is often about the subject and the clothes, What we create is an environment in which all this can live visually, thus it can take a backseat to a degree. I always love fashion editorial that weaves in still life and environment like the work of Tim Walker, http://www.timwalkerphotography.com/ who does an amazing job of fusing both environment and fashion but alas this is quite a different genre. 


We used a lot of hand dyed fabrics as I wanted the fabrics to feel soft and washed, some we had dyed professionally for the shoot but some also came from our friends at Elephant Props, http://www.elephantprops.com/ Thanks Michele & Co! We decided to use more European style furniture in neutral colors, Much of this was sourced from other various Prop Houses. I through in a few of my personal Indian trinkets, mainly picked up from the Indian district Murray Hill in Manhattan, NYC. I wanted to include rugs from Madeline Weinrib, http://www.madelineweinrib.com/ who is a favorite rug source for me but the final image unfortunately did not contain her designs. You can see from the "mood board" of props that the final product was very much derivative of this collective.  


This story was shot by David A Land, who I very much enjoyed working with once again, http://www.davidaland.com/2010/10/maya-kaimal-for-better-homes-and.html You can see a cute video of the behind the scenes, which BTW I had no idea was being filmed!! 


I also got to work with the very lovely Jessica Thomas, A very talented Iowa based Art Director, you can check her out on jessicathomasdesign.com

1 comment:

  1. My mom loves vibrant colors. And when it comes to the interior, she wants the carpet to stand out. She said most people do not see the effect of the carpet in a room, that's why she likes to use loud colored carpets on her designs. And when it comes to cleaning she only trusts Cape Coral carpet cleaning crew. She is at ease that her carpets are in great hands with them. Carpet cleaning (Fort Myers), she said should be thoroughly done to eliminate germs and dusts on the carpet.

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