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[douglaslevy]

Out today - new work for the December issue of Northshore Magazine. This was my first trip inside a restaurant since February (at least, maybe longer). I was a little nervous going in, but it was mostly empty (I think there were three diners) and both Chef Justin and Chef Michelle couldn’t have been more accomodating or professional - if everyone behaved like these two, we’d all be a lot safer! This was for the magazine’s annual December holiday-themed issue, and we spent a few hours photographing some of the items they have planned to offer as part of a gorgeous holiday takeout menue. Special thanks on this one to prop stylist Suzanne Lee for digging up all the holiday trinkets in early November. 

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In the nearly 7-years I’ve been photographing New England Craftsmen for my series, I’m not sure I’ve met someone to whom the word is more aptly applied than Nick Benson. Nick is the mastermind behind Newport’s The John Steven’s Shop, a stone craving business that was founded in 1705.

A third-generation stone carver, Nick works in genre’s ranging from hand-carved gravestones to some of the country’s most hallowed monuments, including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C.

It was facstinating hear Nick talk about his different commissions and some of the intricate differences in working with different types of stone and tools, this was certainly an afternoon not soon forgotten. 

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I’ve got not 1, but 2 shoots to share today, one recent, one pre-plague. First up is a story for the November issue of Northshore magazine featuring local chefs who have succeeded on cooking-based tv shows like Chopped & Hell’s Kitchen. The feature image above is chef Graeme Gilchrist of Gloucester, who won an episode of Chopped in the fall of 2019. 

The below images are from a whirlwind shoot day back in Feburary for the launch of Workhuman executives Eric Mosley and Derek Irvine’s book, “Making Work Human” which launched a few weeks back. When we shot these images the launch was originally scheduled for May, but...2020. 

It’s been a busy few weeks, and I’ll have lots more to share in this space soon. 

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New work for the October issue of Northshore Magazine - developer Joe Faro, photographed at Tuscan Market in Salem, New Hampshire. This has been an interesting year, and with the lack of childcare most days, I’m bringing my 2-year-old Dylan with me to shorter shoots like this one. He did tell me that the light should be “higher” - and I guess he was right, the resuilts speak for themselves. 

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One of the things that this year has largely put on pause is one of my favorite things - personal work, and with that my New England Craftsmen series. I’ve been doing a half dozen or so of these shoots every year, for almost a decade, so when I had the opportunity to spend a recent morning Neon Williams I couldn’t have been more excited. Thank you to Dave, Lynn and the entire team at Neon Williams for inviting me into your world for a morning and gifting me with a little sense of 2019. 

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Back at the end of July, I headed up to Walpole, New Hampshire to photograph legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, and his daughter Sarah at Ken’s home and office for “Produced By” magazine. Because of COVID, we obviously didn’t get to see inside his workspaces, but we did get to see the gorgeous farm orchard property that he lives on (and he planted the orchard himself!)

Ken couldn’t have been more accomodating, and we spent a little less than an hour with him and Sarah, chatting about his work and working during the pandemic. 

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New work! From...2019? You got it. Back before the pandemic, I spent a few days with the team at Beam Theraputics in Cambridge, photographing their workspaces, employees and environment to help with recruiting as the company continues to grow at astounding speeds. We mixed in traditional portraits with action shots in their labs and common spaces, teaming with the folks at Ph.Creative to really highlight the type of company and atmosphere that working at Beam provides.  Since our visit, I’m sure much of what you see has evolved, though I’m also sure that Beam is still one of Boston’s best employers and a company that is more than capable of evolving with the times. I actually think many of these biotech companies were well-suited to institute COVID-19 protocols, as they were already familiar with what was required to create safe clean workspaces. 

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Last week I received an email from my friends at Harvared Business School asking if I was available to photograph their new Live Online Classroom. 

Now, I’m always excited to work with the team at Harvard (and not just because the knowledge from eavesdropping on classes makes me smarter), but because they’re always innovating with ideas like this. I spent a little less than an hour in their new classroom space (which can be described as essentially a tv studio for online learning), and once again left uber impressed. Sadly the teaching was staged for the shoot, so I didn’t pickup any business gems this time, but I am incredibly grateful for clients who are pushing the boundaries of innovation during this stressful mess.

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I’m back! Sorta. As Massachusetts has started to slowly emerge from quarantine, I’ve managed to do 3-shoots in the past few weeks. Two of them are out and able to be shared - plus one more from last summer finally made an appearance. 

First up was a day spent with uber-chef Ming Tsai, and his team from MingsBings to create a library of images for the launch of their new Bing. Wait, what’s a Bing? It’s a dumpling/patty/flatbread hybrid that pairs with...well most things. Which is how we photographed it, solo, and paired with some of Mings favorite dishes. 

Before my day with Ming though, I spent a morning with fisherman BG Brown in Gloucester, for Northshore magazine. Fishing during a pandemic is...different, and the magazine wanted to dig into what that looks like for BG and his business. 

Finally, last up is a shoot from last summer from a day spent at Maitland Mountain Farm with Holly & Andy (and a few dozen chickens) at their Salem farm. Salem isn’t historically filled with farmland, making what Holly and Andy are able to accomplish in what is essentially a large backyard even more impressive. 

Hopefully these new shoots are a sign of things to come, and I’ll have more regular updates to this page all summer. 

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Out today - some of my last new work from BC (before Covid) - in the April 2020 issue of Northshore magazine. For this issue I photographed 3 stories, ghostwriter Kevin Anderson of Kevin Anderson & Associates, Jon Gray, CEO of J Barrett & Company LLC, and the director of the Northeast Massachusetts Chapter of the Red Cross, Kyle McWilliam-Lopez. 

These jobs were juuuust before things really got crazy, and I remember meeting Kyle in the Red Cross parking lot and being unwilling to shake his hand, getting a weird look and then him understanding. I feel like his life has probably become much crazier since we met, but we spent most of our shoot talking about our small children. 

With Jon, we spent the entire shoot talking about dogs. He has a new puppy, and had his older dog with him (who unfortunately declined to partake in our shoot). I’ve shot so much around the area he sells real estate in, it was fun comparing notes on some of the amazing properties I’ve seen that have flowed through his business. 

Kevin - this was an intersting one. Kevin runs Kevin Anderson & Associates, a national ghost writing company, which means he can’t talk about most of his projects, but that conversation spanned both business and the creative process, and what it’s like for him managing a team of celebrity clients, talented writers and editors. 

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Continuing on yesterday’s post, today I’m excited to share the second of two shoot days with Vistaprint. Back in February, we spent a day in Somerville at The Barber’s Den with founder Evan Georgopoulos. One of my favorite things with what I do is when my personal work naturally transitions into commercial work. Evan is as much a craftsmen as any of the fine artists and craftsfolk I’ve photographed over the years, and listening to him speak about how he’s grown his business was fascinating. See more and view the short film the Vistaprint team made here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjT07NoSH9c

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Back in early February, I headed to Newburyport to spend a day with Khaki Paquette, owner and founder of Face/Food for Vistaprint. Together with Vistaprint’s outstanding production and filmmaking team, I photographed Khaki in both her store and production space. It’s always enjoyable to hear about other small business success stories (and to eavesdrop on their secrets!), but to see what people like Khaki are able to do with their sheer force of will, ingenuity and creativity is incredibly inspiring. Read more and see the short film here.

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As part of my ongoing series of portraits of New England Craftsmen, a couple weeks back I ventured to the middle of Massachusetts to spend a morning with the team at Mole Hollow Candles. I know I’ve said this before, but without a doubt the best part of my job is the ability to say, “I wonder how...” and then with a few emails you’re on your way to answering those questions. 

Owners David and Beth Dunn and their team (pictured above), couldn’t have been kinder or more generous (and I took home some pretty fantastic candles on top of it!)

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New work for the new issue of Northshore magazine, from the last shoots of 2019. First up is my monthly backpage feature with Janelle Monteiro, photographed at her gym in Middleton. We spent most of that shoot chatting about chasing small children around and the perks of owning small businesses. We dropped this one her fairly last minute (two days before Christmas!), but Janelle couldn’t have been more accomodating. 

Next up, perhaps the opposite of a morning spent at a gym, was an afternoon at the newly open Great Marsh Brewing in Essex. It might be funny to say both of these shoots were right up my alley, but I’m both a gym junkie and beer lover, so both of these assignments were right in my wheelhouse. I will say though, the highlight from this one wasn’t the beer, but the everything bagel pretzel, and all the vintage video game memorabilia that adorns the brewery. 

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Kicking off the first day of the new year with new work! Last summer our friends at Boston University commissioned a 4-day shoot to refresh the imagery for their summer programs. Those photos are now live, and I’m exicted to share a few of my favorites here and on the newly updated EDU gallery on my site.

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As 2019 draws to a close I wanted to take a moment to look back to some of my favorite shoots and images from the year. If the above looks like I was all over the place that’s because I was, both geographically and subject-matter wise. From an afternoon with a prominent author to long days in science labs, 2019 once again proved why I have the world’s best job. 

Much of the year however was spent either in Cambridge, or in traffic on the way to Cambridge as both the higher education and biotech sides of my business continuted to grow. It’s not a joke to say I have an ever-growing collection of my own safety glasses and could probably recite lab safety protocols with my eyes closed. On the EDU side, I spent many days at MIT, BU and Harvard Business School, trying to constantly remember I was there to photograph, not eavesdrop on their world-class professors. 

This is all in addition to my regular editorial contributions to publications like Northshore Magazine, The Observer, The Financial Times and Forbes and several person work series’. 

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Bulk blogging! Yes, it’s a thing. It’s been a busy fall, and I wanted to share tons of new work that’s rolled out during the past few weeks. First up is a shoot from August for Boston University. We spent an afternoon with the new dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Stan Sclaroff, roaming campus and creating an image library for BU to share news of the once interim dean’s promotion.  Next up was an assignment from just after Labor Day, where we spent a morning with Csoft CEO Shunee Yee for Forbes Asia. In the face of an ongoing trade war, Shunee has persisted and driven her company to successful heights, navigating internationl business and a quickly evolving marketplace seamlessly. I always love chatting with entrepreneur/founders, and our time with Shunee was no exception to that. 

Last up is perhaps the most fun - because who doesn’t love Star Wars? Just in time for the holidays, my friends at Yogibo rolled out a collaboration with LucasFilm for Star Wars multiverse branded products. We spent an entire day shooting our talent with both the good (and dark) side of the Force and those products are now live on their site.