Dushi Toy Company Product Shoot

This was one of several final shots for a cool product shoot for Dushi Toy Company.

Our little setup for the Dushi Toy Company shoot.

Patrick Bozeman (LeadFoot Designs) is tinkering with the product trying to figure out how we want to position it in the composite.

Yup, that's me behind the camera.

“LeadFoot Designs and Winton-Stahle Photography created two images to capture the fun and energy of characters from “Dushi Go with Flow” for their creator Anneke Groenendaal. In these images the characters “Dunk” the duck and “Rabbit” the frog are enjoying a beautiful summer day together after a long trip to the states from the Netherlands.”

If you enjoyed this image and would like to see more, please check out our commercial website!

Apparently, it appears that when the parents are away the cats will play. I'm going to give our new kitten, Simone, an "A" for effort for at least trying to learn to use the T.P..

To see more of my work visit my commercial website

A Summer Island Get-A-Way

For the past two years we've been invited by a group of close friends & colleagues to join them for a week on a very small private island near the eastern shore of Virginia. There are no roads to this island nor are there roads on it. To get there you have to take a small motor boat out to it and once you are there.... Well...you're just there to stay for a while. The only manmade structure on the island is one small beach house in which we all stay. The only sounds that can be heard are those of birds and the soft sound of the ocean. When we're there we always feel like we've traveled back in time and are seeing a small glimpse of what the world must have looked like before people came along. This is one of my favorite places to be and is a representation of absolute harmony and perfection. I hope that you enjoy the view.

To see more of my work visit my commercial website.

Charles City Library Website Goes Live!

The website promoting the Charles City Library Campaign has been officially launched! All photography featured on the site was shot on location by Winton-Stahle Photography. For those of you who haven't been following us (get the full scoop here), the Charles City Library Campaign is a community effort to provide a library for the only county in Virginia without a public library.
Please take the time to support the wonderful cause, and of course check out the delightful photographs, at www.charlescitylibrary.org

June Photography

We've been out and about this month, keeping busy behind the camera! Check out Allie: She's getting ready to head to Florida and needed new images for her portfolio. We approached her head shots with a little extra creativity. It's great as a photographer to be able work as expressively as we do here at Winton-Stahle Photography. Be sure to check back soon for more updates; there's plenty of exciting work to come!

Book Release & VPLC 30th Anniversary: "Through Different Eyes: The Faces of Poverty in Virginia"

On the evening of May 28th, The Virginia Poverty Law Center will release an anniversary publication featuring the photography of Christopher Winton-Stahle's photographic series "The Folk of the Blue Ridge" in a coffee table style book titled "Through Different Eyes: The Faces of Poverty in Virginia". The publication is a compilation of many of the pieces that were featured in the original exhibit "Through Different Eyes: The Faces of Poverty in Virginia"that has been on tour with the Virginia Museum of Fine Art since 2006 and includes the work of Christopher Winton-Stahle, Susi Lawson, Scott Neville, and Scott Elmquist..

The Virginia Poverty Law Center (VPLC), an organization based in Richmond dedicated to advocating on behalf of low-income residents of the Commonwealth, will celebrate more than 30 years of dedicated service to Virginians at a reception at 6:30 p.m. on May 28, 2009 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Governor of the Commonwealth Timothy M. Kaine will speak at the event as will First Lady of the Commonwealth, Anne Holton, who will honor Jill A. Hanken, who has been an attorney with VPLC since its creation and Jack L. Harris, VPLC's first executive director. Jeffrey W. Allison, Curator of the exhibit and the Paul Mellon Collections at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, will also speak at the event.

Here's a little bit about the "Folk of the Blue Ridge" - a series by Christopher Winton-Stahle

The American heritage of the farming community is quickly disappearing and in its wake many folks in Southwestern Virginia struggle to support their families and carry on their way of life. Commercial Photographer, Christopher Winton-Stahle was raised in Carroll County, one of the poorest counties in the southwestern region of Virginia. In 2004 he began a personal photographic documentary about his family and the people of his hometown. What began as a personal journey for him to understand his own life there has grown into a cultural documentary of this small farming community and the beauty of both its people and their culture.

"As a native of this community, I have come to know nearly all the folks there. They nurture a strong faith that God will carry them through the hard times of life and that their family will be there for them when they slip and fall. They take care of their own and have few wants and needs beyond what God, their family, and the land can provide for them. This body of work has always been about the great strength and pride of these people. They are the working class poor of rural America. Their strong devotion to family, the importance of their faith in God, tradition, interdependence, and their connection to the land is engrained into their way of life and is representative of who they are. Monetarily they do not have much however, from what I have seen having been raised there, they know of wealth that transcends that of modern ideas of what wealth actually means. They are the "Folk of the Blue Ridge" and I am proud to say that I am a part of them."

*Christopher Winton-Stahle

Campaign "A New Library for Charles City County."

One of the greatest joys that I have as a photographer is to be a part of a project such as this that truly does make a difference in people's lives in the end. This is an ongoing campaign done for Charles City County for the purpose of raising the necessary funds needed to build a library for its residents. From the books and furniture to the residents eager to learn, Charles City County has everything that it needs for a fully functioning library except for a building to call home. It's up to us all to help them to make that happen.

We arrived at the location at around 6:30am and by 7 the sun was coming up. Despite our first scheduled photo I felt that the light was just too perfect to pass up the opportunity to get our hero shot that was actually scheduled for the end of the day instead of the beginning. Turns out it was a good call. This was our cover shot for the campaign's book.


The idea was to present a visual representation, with a somewhat surreal and playful twist, of what the Charles City County Library would look like without a building to house it.


We wanted to create real scenarios with spontaneity that could easily take place in this proposed library and show our viewers what that might look like without the necessary monetary contributions.


Every great library has storytime for the kids. This one was no exception. In all honesty, the more I look at this shot the more I wish I could have experienced storytime in the middle of a field in kindergarden.

We did eight portraits such as this one of different residents of the area that would be directly impacted by a library. They were all asked to write down a couple of sentences about "what a library in Charles City County" would mean to them.



Here are a few "behind the scenes" shots of our production for the Charles City County Library Campaign.

This Campaign was conceived and art directed by Morgan Porter
www.morganporter.com

Product Catalog for a National Polymer Company

Since the opening of our studio in 2007 we have been shooting much more catalog photography for companies directly and/or through advertising agencies or design firms. In September we had a great project shooting very large chemical storage tanks and product accessory for a 2009-10 company catalog. These tanks were between 15 and 30 feet tall and were quite tricky to photograph. In addition to there size the tanks had many surface imperfections that could be clearly seen in a photograph that made them very tricky to photograph. To efficiently create images worthy of a catalog it required a combination of shooting multiple images and merging them together and then using some pretty heavy graphic design techniques to graphically recreate many features of these products. Here are a few samples of the final images as well as a few production stills from our location shoot at the factory.

September 2008: Housetrends Cover and Feature

In September 2008 we photographed the cover and feature for Housetrends Magazine. This was an article about "Green Living" at Rocket's Landing which is one of Richmond, Virginia's newest luxury communities. This home was entirely propped by Crate & Barrel and we worked with a wonderful interior designer that really came through for us in putting the right furniture and props together.

August 2008: Feature for Housetrends Magazine

In August 2008 we had a nice 3 page article published in Housetrends Magazine that featured a very talented artist named Wayne Cain that specializes in stain glass design for upscale homes and businesses. Wayne had the greatest little studio nestled in the country about an hour outside of Richmond, Virginia that he and his assistant, Nancy, work from making stain glass windows using 19th and early 20th century processes. We were very grateful for their hospitality and enjoyed spending the our day with them shooting this article.

The Beauty of Simplicity

I grew up in a modest little farming town in South Western, Virginia on the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is and has always been a place that I feel I will always hold close and dear to my heart. This past weekend I visited with my mother whom still lives there and was able to take this opportunity to get out and take a few pictures for myself for a change. Something that I have always loved doing when I am there is getting up around 5am and walking along the old country dirt roads that border the parkway and finding people and scenes that inspire me. This particular house with its majestic view and quaint little cat curled up on the front porch reminded me of how important it is to take the time once in awhile to step back and evaluate what is truly important in life as well as the importance of stopping sometimes to just enjoy the beauty of simplicity.

"CHINA NOW" A Traveling Exhibition with the V.M.F.A.

In 2006, Richmond photographer Christopher Winton-Stahle was part of a bilateral exchange program co-sponsored by the Rose Group for Cross-Cultural Understanding and the China Association for International Friendly Contact. The program's aim is to increase American understanding of China and its history, core values, traditions and philosophy. Winton-Stahle returned with more than 3,000 color photographs focusing on the people, the landscape, daily life, and evidence of China's explosive economic growth.

China's emerging status on the world stage and its relationship with the United States are increasingly the subjects of discussion in the 21st century. Traditions are evolving and, in some cases, being consumed by technology, development and the drive for newer, bigger, better. Transforming the mid-20th-century Mao-era architecture into state-of-the-art facilities for a younger, global, tech-savvy generation has become commonplace in most cities in China. Preparations for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing have led to vast municipal projects intended to put China's best foot forward. The result is the replacement of older structures with new "green" buildings that incorporate the latest in ecologically-minded systems.

Amidst this blossoming growth, hazed by a level of pollution that has been referred to as "significantly worse than Los Angeles," more than 1.3 billion Chinese citizens do what their ancestors have done for centuries - endure.

Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China (1996, Cambridge University Press) states that "In every epoch Chinese have made use of the resources they inherited – material, intellectual and institutional – to set goals, respond to new challenges, protect themselves, and advance their interests. Because their actions have a cumulative impact on the resources the next generation inherits, change is inevitable but so are links to the past. This I believe is as true today as ever."

It is within this complex cultural experience that photographer Christopher Winton-Stahle spent five frenetic days of exploration and education. Snippets of his vision make up the exhibition and lead viewers to ponder change, patterns, people and the global interplay of cultures.

"China Now" will be available at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art from September 4th to October 28th, 2007 before it begins a three year tour with the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's partnering museums.

Introducing Our New Studio...

As of June 1st, 2007 we have officially finished the renovation of our new studio on the West End of Richmond in the Commerce Center Business Park. This space started as a bare shell of a warehouse that we acquired last January after we determined that our need for a studio had reached a critical level. We have spent the last six months renovating the space and preparing to make it our new home. Though we were hosting our shoots there with existing clients that needed a studio space we have been reluctant to make the official announcement until now.

So, here’s a little bit of information about the space and what we have to offer.

• 2500 sq. ft. of total space
• 2 shooting sets
• 20’ x 20’ circular cyc wall
• 10’ x 20’ reception area & lounge
• 12’ x 12’ private make up and wardrobe room
• 10’ x 10’ wood working shop with miter saw and drill press
• 20’ ceiling in studio
• 10’ x 10’ mobile floor section on casters
• 10’ x 8’ mobile wall section on casters
• state of the art apple G5’s on mobile carts
• Wi-Fi/Airport and Network
• 2 restrooms (1 with splash sink and a shower…just in case…)
• Studio access through loading dock with 10’ x 15’ garage door

We will be hosting June’s Richmond Ad Club monthly "Happy Hour" Social and open house at the studio on June 28th from 5:30 to 7:30. The happy hour will be followed by the continuation of our open house until 10pm. We will continue to enjoy food, drink, music, and putt putt golf. Please feel free to join us! RSVP us at info@winton-stahle.com to request directions to the studio and to let us know that you’re coming.

Recent Projects

January turned out to be a really productive month despite the usual trend of having a totally dead month. It started off with a great shoot with Chad Hugo for Scratch Magazine. Chad was such a nice guy. Our shoot with him was a complete success and we were finished with enough time to just hang out with the folks there at Chad's studio and have a few shots of tequila to finish off the night. Check out the new issue of Scratch Magazine to see this feature article!

The next week we were out in the country in a large cornfield, which had been mowed down for the winter, photographing a man to look like a farmer to be place on a billboard for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. This was, of course, one of those shoots that you get the model through make up and wardrobe, our crew gets the shot set up and ready to go, and then everyone has to wait in the freezing cold for that perfect moment to present itself when the sun is at just the right point and the sky looks just right. Of course, what always happens in these situations is that the moment presents itself and everyone runs like crazy, working to get through the shots before the sun sets and we lose our sweet light for the day. It's Always a little stressful and quite the rush but these are the kind of shoots that make this really fun and interesting. God, I love this job!

We worked with Frankl Creative in shooting an ad campaign for the Better Business Bureau of Virginia, which also turned out to be a really fun two days of production and photography. I always say that any shoot that involves a smoke machine is going to be a fun one! On this particular job I was able to use the smoke machine on two of our three sets so I was really quite happy about that! We had a great crew and a wonderful cast of talent. I'd like to thank the three little kids that stood in the background for our broken down car photo. These kids were such troopers! It was so cold that evening and we just kept shooting because we were losing our light. Finally when they were about to cry because they were so cold we really started to get some great shots. I'm sorry guys that I kept you out there for so long but It was all for the sake of the art. Besides, no one lost any fingers due to frost bite so it was a good day! What an awesome crew we had for the Better Business Bureau campaign!

We also started on a new year of photographing products to be placed on packaging for Rubbermaid Commercial Products. So, you'll be happy to know that you can find samples of our beautiful photography on most any mop, broom, sponge, or household cleaner package at any Wal-Mart or Lowes in America! We love these guys because they really take care of us and I'd, personal, like to give a big shout out to our agency on this account, "you know who you are" for being such a great client and helping to take care of us in 2006.

Ad campaign photographs for the B.B.B. (Designs by Frankl Creative)