Still Life ABCs

Thursday January 26th, 2012

When the CEO of Seattle-based gift company Compendium booked his trip to Italy, he had no idea he would return with the idea for their latest children’s book, ABC Menagerie.

While in Italy, Compendium’s CEO stumbled upon artist Elena Targioni. Taken with her beautiful, soft and whimsical sculptures, he bought one and brought it back to Seattle for inspiration. According to the Compendium team, the sculptures, “awakened a child’s sense of wonder and delight” and they knew they had to find some way to use them. So, some brainstorming later, Compendium had their latest book idea down—an ABC children’s book based around Elena’s sculptures. Once the stories were down and the animals created, there was just one thing left to do: find the right photographer to bring these creatures to life.

Right away, the Compendium team hit the internet and scoured websites for the perfect still life photographer. Eventually, they came across Hank Drew, a talented Seattle-based product shooter. After contacting him about the project, Hank was happy to jump on board and soon began the four day stuffed animal shoot.

This was the first book Hank had ever been involved shooting, but the shots themselves were fairly typical for him, “as far as making something look beautiful on white.” However, the subject matter was unique for Hank, as he usually photographs cosmetics, jewelry, food or shoes.

To get the look, Hank and his team put together a simple table top set and began shooting,

It started off pretty loose. They knew they wanted it to be really clean and simple to let the sculptures speak for themselves. I worked with the designer, Heidi Rodriguez, on how we were going to shoot them. We decided all white was the best approach. I did some testing with different types of white backgrounds and came up with this soft frosted plexi. I had lots of creative freedom and it was very much a collaborative effort.

The challenge was in styling the animals. They were very organic and needed some extra help bringing their “personality” out. There was a fair amount of rigging involved with each animal.

Behind the scenes photos by Heidi Rodriguez

The shoot atmosphere was fun and laid back. According to Hank, the crew made sure to read the “back stories” on each animal before photographing them: “we all had fun referring to them by name and not just this one or that one.”

Compendium was “super happy” with the final photos; as is Hank. The result of everyone’s hard work is a beautiful children’s book that can be enjoyed for years to come. But the best part for Hank is that he gets to share his photography with his 2-year-old. “Whenever she sees it, she says, ‘That’s Daddy’s book.’ ”

View more of Hank’s work on his website, hankdrew.com. ABC Menagerie is available here.

- Maria Luci