When I first moved to Chicago I would see this dude fly through downtown traffic on a skateboard being propelled by crutches. Then occasionally I'd see him on the street gliding, almost like he was floating or skating on ice, with the help of his crutches.
He blew me away. Unfortunatley I never met him because he was faster than me or too far away.
Then later I saw Cirque du Soleil's Varekai...there were performers floating and moving like the guy I saw years earlier...I was still mesmorized.
A year after that I saw a making of Varekai...I learned that the guy I saw was the one who taught the Cirque perfomers how to move. That guy who floated and moved like no one I had ever seen before is named Bill Shannon.
He has a degenerative condition in his legs that make it hard for him to walk, so he's learned to adapt and get around on his modified crutches and skateboard. But even more impressive is that he used his love of dance to create a whole new style of movement.
Check out some of his videos below and check his site out too.
A short documentary
And while I searched him on youtube I found that Visa used him in a spot. Here is the making of.
The previous post included work from the 2008 diversity campaign worked on while at Target.
Here are some of the photos I took while on set for the still shots.
After a successful 2007 Dream in Color campaign Target decided to keep with the theme. However we wanted to evolve the concept a bit.
We brought Black Design in to help with the campaign and we continued to work with Kwaku Alston as the campaign photographer.
The multi-channel campaign included Broadcast, web, print, educational promotions and more.
We got to work with some amazing people including John Legend, Iman, Debbie Allen, Holly Robinson-Peete and more.
Behind the scenes shots live here.
In honor of Shaun winning gold in the Olympics and having an amazing victory lap I thought I'd upload a portrait I shot on the top of the Roosevelt Hotel at the 2007 Summer X Games.
I'll post more shots from the shoot sometime during Summer X this year.
A little video from USA Today in which Jake talks about his company, the Olympics uniform, the recession and the progression of new equipment.
The video is short but the accompanying article goes a bit more in depth.
Working with my copywriter, Steve Chirhart, we came up with the idea to feature storytellers. We also wanted to extend Dream in Color into a holistic diversity program encompassing Black History Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and Hispanic Heritage Month.
For Black History Month our idea was to showcase slam poets. Then we found we had a connection to Maya Angelou.
Since she's one of the greatest storytellers we jumped on the chance to work with her and tweaked the concept a bit.
The campaign included photography for print and promotions as well as video for broadcast. We also had Dr. Angelou write out a poem that we reprinted as a gift for VIP friends of Target.
The photo shoot was amazing. It took place in her house. Our photographer was Kwaku Alston. His name came to mind because he was a college friend of a friend of mine in Chicago. I always kept his name in mind in case I had a project that was right for him.
The night before the shoot we took a look at location shots of Dr. Angelou's house. One of those shots was of her piano...on that piano was a photo that Kwaku took of Dr. Angelou a few years back for an Oprah Legends photo shoot.
When we arrived at Dr. Angelou's house her niece invited us in. We set up while Dr. Angelou got ready. When she came out I was surprised, she is a tall woman. For some reason I was expecting someone shorter.
In the first 5 minutes of chatting with her I was blown away...everything she says is poetry. During the actual shoot she was a riot...she even told me she like my hair (a guess you'd call it a messy faux-hawk.)
After the shoot we ate with her and got to chat more. She recounted stories of her life. I had read some years ago but I had forgotten. To hear them from her was amazing.
The black and white image above is one of my most cherished photos. To capture her in a great moment being photographed by an amazing photographer was so cool for me.
The printed piece is a spread from a booklet that was in Esquire magazine and in a educational piece mailed to schools. Little & Company helped with the layout for that piece.
Posts
