Hillshire Brands Corporate Offices

Due to a busy work schedule and a multitude of projects, blogging has taken a hiatus; however, I wanted to share a shoot from a few months ago. The project was based at the Hillshire Brands Corporate Headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. I was surprised to find how huge the Hillshire Brands umbrella actually is, stretching from Jimmy Dean and Ballpark to Tyson Foods and Sara Lee.

This office is huge at 230,000 square feet, so choosing 3 images to show you on my blog was quite difficult.  The office won the award for best corporate office over 10,000 square feet in 2013 from the The American Society of Interior Designers.  It was a lithography and printing plant before Hillshrire Brands and Perkins + Will got their hands on it.  The project took 11 1/2 months to design and construct.

The busyness and productivity of a large corporate office never fails to create an exciting shoot with unique problems to solve. Coordinating people and setting up a space can be disruptive to the office environment, so I needed to be efficient and exact. To add to the challenges, I didn’t have an assistant to help due to overlapping shoots. However, over the years, I’ve found that challenging projects can yield really great results considering all the problem-solving behind them!

Overall, I really enjoyed the energy behind this project and the opportunity to shoot for a brand as large as Hillshire.

Brookstone - O'Hare Airport - Chicago, IL

Early this summer, I was contacted to photograph three Brookstone stores located in the Chicago O’Hare Airport. Over the years I’ve photographed my share of retail shoots, but never stores located in one of the busiest airports in the States; needless to say, I was intimidated. Questions looped through my brain: Will TSA have to search my gear? Will all the people walking by ruin shots? Will people know to stay clear of my lighting equipment?

Thankfully, all my equipment passed through TSA without being flagged and most people were too busy trying to make connecting flights to bother with the random photographer taking pictures at Brookstone. After only fifteen minutes at the first store, I felt confident and at ease. My concern about the amount of people ended up being the most interesting part of the shoot; I had an unlimited resource of people to choose from and include in my shots!

These three images reveal the Brookstone pop-up store in Terminal 1.

Moody Bible Institute - Chicago, IL - AJ Brown Imaging

Recently, we had the opportunity to shoot at the Moody Bible Institute downtown Chicago. After completing the remodel of Culbertson Hall, they asked us to come photograph their newly-renovated space.

Moody Bible Institute

In today’s architectural photography world, most professionals generally agree that shooting a space without people is less than satisfactory. Because spaces are designed specifically for people, documenting without them turns the images bare and lifeless. Adding people into photographs also helps the viewer’s understanding of scale and helps them imagine the functionality of the space. 

However, adding people to architectural photographs turns the project into a completely different process. Instead of only focusing on lighting the space, we have to light the people within the space in a complimentary way, which creates a whole set of challenges with positioning and power of lighting.

Because we were scheduled to shoot the week before students arrived, finding people to include in the shots proved difficult. Luckily, we ended up using a couple random students who were on campus early, a few young-looking staff members, and my own assistant, Peyton who “still looks 19” (his words, not mine) in several shots

Desperate times call for desperate measures and the image above reveals the rare occasion where I’m in front of the camera instead of behind it!