What do Island Cowgirl Jewelry, Related Grey, Innovative Results and Carl Warren & Co. all have in common. This cover of course! Sheesh, sometimes I just gotta spell it out for ya. Shot by the ohh-so-talented Challenge Roddie, this cover pulled 4 very different industries together in one studio to hit a home run concept. Plus, the little dog, Dexxy, didn’t poop on anything, so there’s that!

I probably should have marked this with ‘mock’ or ‘concept’ because as you may have noticed this doesn’t actually appear in the 3-2011 issue of OCMETRO. What’s that? You don’t have the March issue of OCMETRO adorning your coffee table. For shame! I digress. Sometimes the limitations of dense stock photo heavy pages is the bland, “I’ve seen this before” quality you get with the available choices. So, when a gem like the above comes along the opportunity is not to be missed… or so I thought. Silly me. Not living in the ‘I’m the king, me, me, me’ world I wish I lived in as a creative director, there’s always someone higher on the food chain that has the power to veto, and veto they did. Luckily concept can live on in blog. HUZZAH!

New design, check. Fresh event look, check. Convincing the powers that be to let me use a spot UV for the first time, check. The sales pitch was tough, because you can only show non-artistic people a sample of something and get the idea across. There’s always that need of “well, what will ours look like?”. Luckily, they left their trust (and probably some held back fears) in my hands and the final product was perfect. Smooth black matte finish topped with a nice thick coat of UV.

OCMTERO’s annual “Women in Business” cover design. In an attempt to pull off an elegant, Vanity Fair-esque look, we enlisted the help of South Coast Plaza for wardrobe, Solmas for hair & makeup and our amazing freelance photographer, Challenge Roddie, for capturing it all. This cover design was quite the departure from our standard business type covers, but with each of the women on the listing being the top of million-dollar plus companies, we had to do something special.

As the tradition continues, the Churm challenges/competitions forge ahead. As seen here [Big Bad Wolf], and here [der Rattenfänger], this piece moves into the portfolio file as a mock ad design, despite it not being submitted for consideration. I’d designed a couple of ads and had gone with a second choice for the competition, though really liking the cleanliness of this “ad”.

My first year designing the annual “40 Under 40″ for OCMETRO and Churm Media, and I wanted to make a mark. Inspired by a design I’d seen on one of my frequented design blogs, I undertook the arduous task of manually typesetting each and every name to fit the shape of the ’40′ … even despite the editorial blunders of misspelled names that I later had to reformat and fit into an already tight, finished piece. Despite the grief and “woe is me” moments, the finished piece really stood on it’s own and was a big hit at the event and with our readers.

Photography has been a growing passion of mine since I purchased my T2i almost 2 years back. Working for a media company, I’ve been given some great opportunities to hone my skills and take some photos of some OC elites. In 2010 I was hired as a freelance photographer to shoot the OCMETRO Green Team event at the Great Park in Irvine. Event photography is never really where I saw my talents being utilized, but a paying job and a passion to shoot makes any opportunity a growing experience.

April 2009′s issue of OCMETRO was it’s annual “Marketing Matermind” featuring Jon Gothold, Executive Creative Director at Santa Ana’s DGWB, an advertising agency.

In the world o’ publishing, sometimes we don’t always get the cream of the crop when it comes to image selection. For whatever the case may be, we might be given lemons. In particular, I was given this image as a high res option for our cover story layout, and ended up making due with it as a cover image. Interesting enough in it’s own right, dabble in a little bit of typography and clipping paths, BOOM! Cover!

COOKIES! Somehow, still one of the funniest parts from Van Wilder. If you don’t get the joke, don’t worry. Wonderland Bakery in Irvine made these delicious, not that I ate any *wiping crumbs out of the keyboard*, treats for this year’s OCMETRO Hot25. We sent out intern couriers to each of our honorees with these cookies and an invitation attached, because who doesn’t love getting some free sweets!

Every year for 21 years OCMETRO hosts it’s picks for the region’s hottest 25 people. Tonight, literally, was the first year of trying a 360° approach to the presentation with a round stage, the first year for staging with DPS and the first year for many of the companies new employees. Smooth as ever, the event went off without a hitch. Huge credits has to go out to Anna Romiti and Katie Jonegeward of RipeOrange who put the event together for Churm Media. They were also the ones who hired such fine photographers as myself and Brandon Jaime. Awards were given, drinks were had and socializing/networking was exchanged. Successful event? I say, without a doubt.

In this photo you can see the lighter natured side of Churm Media CEO, Steve Churm, with Don Craig, the founder of “Old Guys Rule”. Don was nice enough to bring this shirt for Steve to keep as a memento of the night and a thank you for recognizing him as one of the prestigious 25. I can only hope to be that cool when I’m an “old guy”

Congratulations to this year’s Hot 25 honorees.

• Camera: Canon T2i
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Shutter: 1/60
• Aperture: f/4.0
• ISO: 400

Busy taking photos the whole night, I missed my opportunity to #nom on one of these delicious looking carrot cake samplers. The buzz from the crowd was enough to make me miss the sweetness too, as I watched multiple people going back for seconds, and some, thirds. Luckily I’m not a huge desert fan (I know, who doesn’t like deserts! freak!) so I can tell myself I didn’t miss out on much. Now, chocolate chip cookies and/or brownies … that’s a different story. Not quite falling into the “desert” category I let them pass my test. They’re more of a “lifeblood” category. Nom nom nom!

• Camera: Canon T2i
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Shutter: 1/60
• Aperture: f/1.8
• ISO: 500
• Note: To get this shot i didn’t use a flash, just the natural light from a nearby window. Without a nice lighting setup, finding ways to use natural light will produce a more “realistic” looking image, since it’s what the viewers eye would be normally seeing.
• Tip: Use a large aperture (smaller number) so that you can get a nice depth of field to the images, focusing on one singular item.

This year’s OCMETRO “Green” issue was accompanied by the first-ever Green Team Event. When searching for awards the OCMETRO team wanted to find something environmentally friendly, but still unique. They found these recycled glass awards made from melted down glass and formed into these etch-able pyramids. I’m not sure if there’s an added dye or if it was the process itself, but the blue hue of the glass was a perfect offset to the etch marks made into the face.

• Camera: Canon T2i
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Shutter: 1/60
• Aperture: f/1.4
• ISO: 100
• Tip: Use a large aperture (smaller number) so that you can get a nice depth of field to the images, focusing on one singular item.

No badgers here, just a delicious looking mushroom salsa of sorts. I personally don’t eat mushrooms because it’s hard for me to get past that whole “grows directly in poo” things, but I can appreciate a fine looking platter just the same. Maybe someday I’ll change my ways, but until that day I’ll keep my mushroom hating ways. This spread was part of OCMETRO’s first-ever Green Team event held at the Great Park or Irvine.

• Camera: Canon T2i
• Focal Length: 50mm
• Shutter: 1/60
• Aperture: f/1.4
• ISO: 100
• Tip: “Food shots” are a different breed of photography, and not being a professional myself, my amateur tip is to use a large aperture (smaller number) so that you can get a nice depth of field to the images, focusing on one singular item.

The smell of fresh ink on damp pages. The whipping sounds of paper flying between junctions. Quite the sight to behold. Running a press check for OCMETRO’s 20th anniversary cover gave me a great opportunity to take some shots around the facility. Luckily the guys on the floor gave me free reign of the area to express my creativity. This shot in particular was the cover passing by the registration check right before entering the heaters to dry the ink. The little box attached to what looks like a bike chain is actually a small camera that slides left and right taking images of the registration marks and sending the information to the press check station so they can make any necessary adjustments. Pretty rad to see the process if you’re a geek like me. From my brain, through the interwebs, burned into a plate and finally filled with ink and set to stock.

• Focal Length: 50mm
• Shutter: 1/60
• Aperture: f/1.4
• ISO: 100
• Notes: Wanting to keep some visual of motion I used a medium shutter speed for the situation. Normally a 1/60 shot would “freeze” the frame, but since these presses were running by at such a high speed a setting of 1/300 would have been more likely to completely stop the presses.
• Tip: Simple adjustments to shutter speed can have some drastic effects on your shots, depending on what you’re shooting.