The Adventures of Mike's Camera- the blog of Michael Hudson Photography
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commercial photography
Recently a new client asked me to photograph one of the electrical buildings they had constructed alongside a runway at O’Hare Airport. They sent me a picture that one of their electricians had shot, showing the sun rising in the distant sky, and a 747 jumbo taxiing by on the runway. The brief was to photograph the same scene so they could enlarge it to 20 feet wide...
I’ve just returned from my annual summer shoot with Landcrafters of Milwaukee, a landscape architecture firm that does beautiful work. We always plan ahead to shoot on a clear sunny day, starting very early in the morning to showcase the lighting effects they install. The weather this year was perfect, though I’m always surprised how quickly the blue hour passes into normal daylight.
The beauty of my job lies in the variety of work I do. One day I might be shooting videos for a healthcare client, and the next shooting college sports, and on another day teaching landscape photography. I thrive on that variety.
Last weekend, I was hired to shoot Winter Beauty at the nationally recognized Morton Arboretum. I spent four hours walking, hiking and driving in the 15 degree temperatures, but never really got cold… the adrenaline from a shoot usually warms me up. Apart from shooting many images on the ground level, I also brought along my drone to get some new and interesting angles.
Although I’ve been flying since 2017, I never tire of the unique perspective from a few hundred feet in the air. It was cool to see the bare trees deep in the woods, covered in snow but showing their stark bare branches. And my favorite shot… the small patch of trees in the middle of a field of snow. Can’t wait to do it again soon.
This summer has been packed with various assignments, and I’ve done a fair bit of traveling for work, both in and around Illinois, as well as in Michigan, Indiana, and Minnesota. But in June, the third largest grocery store chain in the country, ALDI, contacted me to talk about shooting some video for their website. And it turns out the site they chose to do all the shooting at was my local ALDI, just five minutes up the road.
The job called for shooting several scenarios throughout the store, highlighting different aspects that make ALDI unique: their 25¢ grocery cart deposit, some of their special product lines, and several of their money saving programs that keep their prices lower than the competition, like having shoppers pack their own bags.
My assistant, Tim, doing his duty…
We squeezed a lot into the five hour shoot, starting at 6:30am when there were no customers around, using models as shoppers. Later, it was a challenge to not have recognizable “real” shoppers in the shot, though they pasted signs all over to let them know it was a possibility. We shot in 4K resolution, to output later to 1080p, and the clips will be used on an updated version of their website in the near future.
My wife Wendy is a good baker. A very good baker. For years, she's baked shortbread, toffee and peppermint bark for Christmas presents. Recently she started selling her treats and the response has been tremendous. The "bakery" is in full swing right now. On Monday she took the day off her day job to work on two very big orders, baking over thirty dozen shortbread cookies by mid-afternoon. And yours truly was there to document the big day.
I was contacted by a writer out of Los Angeles a couple months ago to be featured in their digital magazine, Voyage Chicago. This week, the article came out. Read it here.
