I finally pulled the trigger on a new lens for my kit, so I decided that shooting some drinks would be the best way to test it out. I shot two drinks. The first  is my take on the Aviation called The Earhart. 2.5 oz gin 1 dash maraschino liquor .5 oz of lemon juice .25 oz framboise Pour the framboise into the bottom of the glass. Combine the rest of the ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into glass. Garnish with lemon.   The second is a turn of the century cocktail called The Blue Moon. 2 oz gin .5 oz of Violet Liquor .5 oz of lemon juice Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with a lot of ice. Shake and strain into a small cocktail glass (cordial or coupe). Garnish with lemon. Try them out! Super fun to make and even more fun to drink!

  I have been doing some gardening lately. Getting my hands dirty if you will. Spring has sprung and all that. Through my gardening endeavors I have begun to really appreciate produce. I mean, I appreciated it before, when I cooked with various vegetables and made them yummy. Yet, veggies in their pure form are gorgeous. So I started combing the produce section of Central Market for interesting examples of common veggies that I could take into the studio and do some tests with. These are a few edits of the things I've photographed thus far.          

  My good friends and office mates, Bill and Jessica gave me these super beautiful birds nests they found while out adventuring. I decided to change up the light I used on these shots to add a little more contrast and shape. I think they came out really well! Look for the horse hair woven into them!

I shot a new addition to my Squirt project! Check out all the pretty colors!

Here are a couple more nest photos that I took before the holiday. These were found on my family's land out near Burnet.

A little while ago I assisted my good buddy Jody Horton on a shoot for Swift Whiskey out in Dripping Springs. I was so impressed with the set up that the Swifts were doing that I went out and bought a bottle and shot it. I love their branding and their bottle is gorgeous! More than that, their whiskey is amazing. Please go out and support real local distilleries! Makes a wonderful stocking stuffer!

I few months ago I spent a few days building a cake out of cigerettes. Why you ask? Well for a super awesome cover for Texas Medicine Magazine!

My parents recently moved out into the country, to Burnet to be exact. Since moving, my mother has been finding all sorts of birds nests around the property. This has been handy due to my existing photo project on birds nests. This one she found abandoned after a storm with a little cracked egg still in it.

Here's a recent image that I did for a quick project for Tito's Handmade Vodka. I love their product and I'm super stoked to have been able to help them out with a bottle shot. I'm working on a couple of drink recipes using Tito's so keep an eye out for those!    

It's interesting what you can find by just looking around. My buddy (and talented writer/photographer/artist) John Walker found this as he was working in his backyard. He gave it to me to photograph. It took a couple of weeks to get around to it due to my latent A.D.D. There are so many different twigs and items that the bird used to construct this awesome display of nature. There's even a locust wing woven into the nest if you look close enough.   This image is part of a selection of works being printed in limited edition runs. My online shop will be up and running in a few weeks!

Client: Texas Monthly

 

It's summer time and that means it's time for some epic margaritas! Check out some shots I produced for Texas Monthly for their Margarita State of Mind promotion. See it on the website and in the cool fold out poster in print!

  Styling by Robin Finlay

Check out the Best Burgers Feature I shot last month for Austin Monthly. It was a tricky project that had to be shot on 9 different locations over 2 days. The magazine wanted studio shots though, so I had to develop a rig that fit in the bed of my truck, thus converting it into a little mini-studio! A big thanks goes out to Kevin  at Austin Monthly for a great layout and Cory for letting me do my thing. Congrats on a great feature! Check out more shots in the current issue!

 

History states that the ryukin goldfish originated in the 1770's in the Ryukin island chain off of Japan. It's a really pretty goldfish and has a pretty great personality, for a fish. I had had these images in my mind for a while so when my guppy Milli (Vanilli died a month ago) died during a freak tank cleaning accident, I decided it was time to pull the trigger. I found this guy at a local pet store and photographed him (or her) just before I moved him to his new tank. I may pull him again and shoot some more images but for now I'm pretty pleased. I'm also going to use some of the shots in a digital piece that I'm making as well. Stay tuned. Please contact me via my contact page if you're interested in a print!

For the "Makers Issue" of Tribeza, I was commissioned to construct a still life of a really sweet welding mask owned by Jack Sanders. I did a few options and this one was my personal favorite. It really reminded me of the old Rockateer posters from the Disney movie so I tried to shoot it in the same way (at least from what I can remember.) Check out the other shot in the new issue of Tribeza or online.  

Still life produced for Tribeza Magazine for their "Architecture Issue".  

Wow, the past few weeks have been pretty insane for me here at Sean Johnson Studio. I've just moved and am in the process of constructing a live/shoot space while keeping up with commissioned work. Then ACL hits. BOOM! Free time = gone. I've been working on this piece for a little while and it is the first in a series so I really wanted to take my time with it and explore a little bit. Paul Desmond is one of my favorite jazz musicians of all time and as a fellow alto sax man, I really respect his style and smoothness. He continues to be an inspiration to me as well as many other jazz enthusiasts. I'm pretty excited about starting on the remaining images in this series, so stay tuned.  

Man. These past few weeks have been a little bit crazy. From getting my website hacked by a guy from the middle east (yes, hacked) and having to rebuild my site, I have been a busy bee. Well, as they say after each night comes the morning. I came up with the idea for the diptic while I was hanging out with my good buddy who is a writer. He was going through a crazy bout of writers block. I thought it would make a great idea for a promo. If you're an art director or photo editor chances are you may be seeing this in your inbox pretty soon. Then it will probably find itself either marked as spam or trashed. Name of of the game right?