Homestead Creatives is a premier artist agency and production company based in Austin, Texas, founded by Shannon McMillan and Maddie Hamilton. Homestead unites and showcases independent local photographers, designers and advertising creatives on a national level, and one day will be worldwide.
Marcus Smith, born and raised in Chicago, is an emerging force to be reckoned with.
Recently, we have been using our Instagram to take a step back and look at the industries that drive our creative
community.
In January, we looked at the travel industry and how the image makers are visually maneuvering through it. Game changers such as Tiny Atlas Quarterly and Ford, are using travel photographers to give their consumers a sense of experience. After all, it’s really all about how the consumer is made to feel!
Now, in February, we are stepping into the Fashion world. We are prepping with questions like: Where is this going to take us and which industry leaders are making waves?
So, go ahead and give us a follow! See who and what we will be featuring each month. In March we will dive head first into Sports!
After seeing the stellar images on Joanne Hus’ FoundFolios portfolio, the managing editor of SportsBusiness Journal, Ross Nethery, knew that she was the illustrator he was looking for to create the cover of his magazine’s twentieth anniversary issue. A quick phone call later and Joanne happily accepted the job.
Joanne briefly discussed with Ross what the cover image should convey, and then got to work sketching up a concept. Her initial thought was to use sports stadiums shaped as the number “20” as the centerpiece of the illustration. After sending a draft back to Ross, they both agreed that there should be a more modern twist on the piece to convey the passing and changing of time from when the magazine first launched in 1994 to present day. This gave her the idea of using a smartphone in the image because “streaming video on a device would not have been possible even just a few years ago.”
Needless to say, Ross loved the smartphone concept. A few drafts later, Joanne turned in the final product. Her finished illustration was the perfect complement to the magazine and truly conveyed the celebratory mood that SportsBusiness Journal wanted.
A big part of the success can be attributed to the great relationship between the client and the illustrator.
“Ross is the type of client that I love working with,” recalled Joanne. “Even though he never worked with an illustrator before, he didn’t micromanage, and basically gave me carte blanche to come up with a concept.” This freedom ended up paying off big time.
Joanne Hus creates playful illustrations that appeal to kids and the grown-ups who buy for them. To read more about the process, head to Joanne’s illustration blog.
As a sports fan Matt Hawthorne’s been lucky enough to become a photographer, a job at the intersection of his interests and his talents.
His work is replete with athletes of all stripes running, swimming and pedaling through various physical pursuits. Matt’s found his share of commercial success with his signature fashion and portraiture work, but recent spreads in Men’s Fitness and ESPN magazines as well as his trips to Florida to shoot a Gatorade campaign, and recently Chicago for a LifeTime Fitness shoot, many of his website’s “On Set Videos” all impressively showcase the photographer’s eye for athletics.
So you can imagine the Dallas-based artist’s excitement when a recent Forbes magazine assignment led—albeit a bit circuitously—to Cowboys Stadium and a sideline pass for a game against the team’s archrival New York Giants.
“I shot [Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones for Forbes,” Matt recalls. “He really loved all the shots, so he hired me to shoot his daughter, Charlotte Anderson, for press and publicity stuff.”
Between the “Jerry shoot” and the Anderson assignment (she’s also involved with Cowboys franchise management), Matt started making connections among the team’s management and was soon able to arrange a sideline pass for the big game. The idea was to pad his personal portfolio, and Matt had some clear thoughts on how he wanted to do it: by capturing “details from moments that weren’t the focus.”
“I told them I wanted to shoot the game from a little different viewpoint, obviously getting action but also emotions from the players,” he says. “I definitely didn’t want to leave with only action shots.”
Matt closely watched the interaction of players and fans, noticed how intimidating the armored athletes could be up close, and tried hard to “capture the frustration and celebration between the players.” The veteran of the cheap seats completely enjoyed the “cool experience and huge challenge” of an NFL sideline … and he “only almost got tackled by an out-of-bounds pass once!”
Click here to see more of Matt’s football fantasy (and the rest of his awesome work).
Last fall, photographer Rafael Astorga spent more than a week inside a moving-van-turned-mobile-studio-turned-refrigerated-truck (long story) on the streets of Brooklyn, NY. Armed with a skeleton crew, some studio gear, and a rack of Brooklyn Nets apparel, he photographed more than 200 Brooklynites who were happy to mug for the camera as they welcomed the basketball team to their new hometown.
Tapped for the project by Adidas Global Creative Director Eric Vellozzi, Rafael shot hipsters, wiseguys, journos, poets, cooks, co-eds, ballers, rappers, DJs, and grannies to create the ultimate snapshot of Brooklyn’s famous swagger. Casting took place in real time at some of the borough’s most iconic locations, including Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Bowery.
Speed was the name of the game: the shoot flew from the get-go. Casting, photography, processing, and publishing all happened out of the truck, all on the same day. Adidas NBA Marketing Director Mitty Arnold was even on site to instantly approve images for the company’s official social media venues, while participants blasted their portraits all over social networking sites.
In the weeks that followed, portraits were displayed on JumboTrons in Times Square and both within and on the exterior of Barclays Center, the home of the Nets. Adidas also released select portraits in a series of regional print and digital advertisements as part of their “All In” campaign.
Check out Rafael’s website and FoundFolios portfolio for additional images and more information on this awesome shoot.
When he was a child, Zach Ancell was no Ansel Adams. He wasn’t given a camera as a life-changing gift. No older relative inspired him to the visual arts. He didn’t know early on that photography was his gift or his professional destiny.
In fact, he was “halfway through” college, he says, before he recognized photography as something he loved and could excel at professionally. While attending the University of Oregon on a track scholarship, he picked up a camera and started shooting portraits of his teammates. Soon he was shooting athletes on other Ducks teams, and then things came into sharper focus.
“I realized it was something that I’d love to do with my life,” Zach says.
As his portraits made the rounds, Zach took on a project chronicling the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which Oregon was hosting. After “some time, a few emails and some marketing on my end,” the university recognized his talent and hired him to shoot other Ducks teams and athletes for marketing materials and other purposes.
A few short years later, Zach is enjoying life as a commercial sports photographer. He’s completing work on several promotional images for the U of O’s 2012-2013 teams and already planning new campaigns for the 2013-2014 seasons.
And he serves as a strong reminder that you never know what life has in store – and that sometimes, the best artists aren’t born, but created.
“Growing up, I was the athlete, not the artist,” Zach says. “So it should come as no surprise that when I finally discovered my passion for photography, I naturally coupled it with my passion for athletics.”
Click here to see more of Zach’s sports-themed art.