Joplin restaurants (CVB part 2)

  In the midst of my usual work w/ families & brides, I’ve had my fair share of commercial work as of late, the top gig being a re-branding project for the Joplin CVB (convention & visitors’ bureau). I’ve meant to share more work from this ongoing series & am finally getting around to it.

     The project has covered a variety of subjects that make our fair town so unique… but this post is dedicated specifically to the restaurants I’ve shot so far. Because food is always close to my heart…

ENJOY!

this first shot is a ‘behind the scenes’… the lovely ladies of the CVB helping me prep a shot at the Eagle Drive In.

CRABBY’S:: 

One of Joplin’s finest eateries… seafood specialties that will make your mouth water.

manager Damien hard at work…

   

don’t you just want to pluck it straight off of the screen?

fancy!

CALDONES::

a wonderful Italian eatery in the heart of downtown.

fine dining with small town charm…

GRANNY SHAFFERS::

outstanding pie, delicious breakfast… good ol’ fashioned americana in edible form.

MYTHOS::

one of Joplin’s favorites… greek cuisine done right. Cheese served on fire? Yes please.

Owner George was quite the willing model in his kitchen. A truly nice guy and a great cook.

EAGLE DRIVE IN::

One of my own personal favorites. Founded by culinary genius Jason Miller- who also runs ‘Instant Karma’ across the street from my studio. Justin will make a burger out of just about anything (my favorite experiment was his scallop burger). The menu includes burgers made from leg-of-lamb & elk, and the ahi tuna steak is out of this world.

The house ‘Eagle burger’ pictured below is topped with a quail egg. Yep. a quail egg.

The Eagle features a cozy little bar as well. Got some candids of a lunch among friends…

some of my shots ended up a little more (or less?) candid than I predicted, thanks to Doug, our fella on the end…

I was blessed with a nice blue sky the day of the shoot. I love a great blue sky.

more later…. this weekend is booked with more shoots w/ the CVB for an upcoming ad campaign. So excited to be involved!

JOPLIN CVB :: part 1

    In the last year, I’ve begun to delve a bit more into the commercial side of photography. It’s a whole different animal than the portraiture that generally serves as my artistic (and literal) bread and butter, but a really fun and exciting animal. Like a panther. Or a falcon. 

    This post is to reveal a few shots from one of the biggest projects I’ve ever been a part of… capturing the spirit and attractions of Joplin, Missouri for the Joplin convention and visitors bureau. I’ve joked around for awhile now about how I’m ‘making Joplin look cool’  (please remember I say joked, I’m not that cool) , but right now, that really is my job, and I’m loving it. 

    18 locations and counting so far- everything from hotels to restaurants to retail locations & attractions. Couldn’t have done it w/out Alicia, the art director who came down from Kansas City to help out. It was an intense 5 days, and she was there for every bit of it.

    Here’s batch #1 of what I have so far… so hard to narrow down which pictures go in this post, but it’s a start!

A couple of my favorites to begin… George from Mythos on left, Damion from Crabby’s on the right. These guys were absolutely awesome about letting me hang out in the kitchen and get some shots of them working their master-chef magic. I would say that my main goal was to take great pictures, but honestly it was to not catch on fire.

the falls

the candy house (cutting toffee- can’t wait to show more ‘behind-the-scenes’ from here!)

Harley Davidson

every time I look at this, I’m suddenly starving. It’s a painful shoot to edit sometimes.

breakfast at granny shaffers! (an exclamation point because I get pretty excited about breakfast).

sandstone gardens

miniature circus at the museum complex

spiva gallery’s gift shop (w/ a little downtown peeking in from behind)

‘The bridge’. Definitely one of my favorites… shooting skaters & trick bikers flipping all around me…

Alicia (the terrified girl pictured below) was not so excited about guys on stunt bikes flipping over her head…

Lance & Tara

Lance and Tara will be husband and wife come February. And I’ll be there with a camera. We did engagement shots yesterday, and the couple had plenty great ideas to match mine. We started things at Crabby’s on 7th street here in Joplin (thanks to the gracious staff there for letting us do a shoot in the middle of a restaurant!), then did a few shots outside and move into a gorgeous downtown building overlooking main street. Lance gave me the challenge of taking a long exposure shot of them that would capture all 3 colors of the traffic light outside the window; I happily complied, resulting in the shot at the bottom of this post.

Thanks so much to Lance and Tara for their patience (sitting motionless in the dark for long periods, etc!) and for pushing me to be as creative as possible on this one. A photographer needs subjects like these to stay sharp!