Happy Holidays

It's December twenty-three,

there are presents under the tree.

I'm still on a decorating spree,

in hopes that Saint Nick will be seen.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Juju Is Good Luck

I have been shooting for an amazing new high end letterpress greeting card company named Juju Is Good Luck. Juliane the designer has created a line of cards devoted to movie quotes that provide a refreshing alternative to telling someone how you feel. For the holidays, Juju Is Good Luck is offering free shipping through Etsy and you can order her cards here. I'm posting my favorite images from the shoot below!

The internet is magical.

One thing that I love about stock photography is finding your images in random places at any point in time. I happened to be looking up photographic equipment on ebay and this book came up on one of my searches. Quickly scrolling down the page past non photo items this book caught my eye because it is one of my images on the cover doctored up! I sold the image last December to a book publisher in the UK and that was all of the information that I received until today when I discovered what the image was being used for! This image was used on my Christmas card last year but in black and white and is one of my favorites that doesn't really fit in with the rest of my portfolio.

I cross-processed some of my images from a recent trip to Paris and forgot how much fun experimenting can be. It turned some ordinary images into something a little out of the ordinary and remind me a little bit of the film Amelie.

Fall

Fall is here with the Santa Ana winds blowing full force in Southern California. I found some time to turn pomegranates into gold and get into the fall mood.

New Identity

I have a new identity that is branding my website, business cards, promos, letterhead, etc! The new logo is meant to capture the modern feminine look of my work. Check out the site www.clairebock.com
Next up: changing and adding new work to the site

Telluride

The Telluride farmers market is a gorgeous place to photograph food high up in the mountains surrounded by beautiful scenery. I was able to scope out all of the late summer delights while in town for the film festival. The heirloom tomatoes were in record bloom this summer. My favorite cheese monger from James Ranch was there with some great goat cheeses made by a friend of his and of course his great standby cheeses as well.

Photoshelter Collection Death

Sadly, another stock agency bites the dust. After joining up with photoshelter this month, I was a huge advocate for them and even convinced friends into signing up. I thought that it would be a great way to diversify my portfolio. I never expected to sell anything within the first year as it takes a lot of time to start seeing results with stock photography. Apparently the investors of photoshelter felt that they should start seeing profits in 10 months, obviously they weren't well versed on the photo industry as it currently stands. You have until October 11 to make a stock purchase from my photoshelter collection here.

Palm Springs

Sitting by the pool in Palm Springs...

Martin Parr interview

PDN has an interesting interview with one of my favorite photographers Martin Parr. Click here to read about his his views on modern day photojournalism and his latest projects including one titled Luxury.

M&M's

One of my images just got picked up for a national ad campaign for M&M's! It made its debut today in the latest issue of People Magazine (the one with Obama on the cover) page 101! You can also see an itty bitty image on their website at www.mymms.com/customprint

The odd couple

No text necessary for this image.

Crayola

Every American artist gets their start today with a box of Crayolas. Much to my kindergarten teacher's dismay I preferred to color outside of the lines as a 4 year old.

Southern Comfort

In honor of summer county fair season where all food is fried. Fried bologna is definitely a Southern delicacy that you have to grow up with in order to truly appreciate it.

Food Fanatics

I had the pleasure of being the guest photographer at a Food Styling Workshop in LA a couple of weekends ago. It was so exciting to hear the myths busted about what is real and what is fake on a food shoot! Turns out none of the food used in photo shoots ends up being edible but not because the food is fake. In reality the food, it all real just not usually cooked thoroughly or allowed to sit out at hot temperatures for hours at a time. I seem to excel in making a salad, while the burger and cherry pie did not come out looking so hot!



One thing that does tend to be fake, is the ice cream and we got to scoop plenty of it practicing the perfect scoop.



Another iconic food shot that we got to see in real life was the pizza pull. It turns out that the secret is string cheese! I am hoping to expand my food portfolio for stock with all of these new found tips and who knows even work on my own cookbook one day!

Is the iphone becoming the new polaroid camera? With polaroid rapidly heading towards extinction it asks the question, what in our culture will replace it? I'm starting to think that the iphone and camera phones are the closest that we will have to an instant camera. I now see iphone galleries on other photographer's websites and realize that there is a quality to the iphone's camera that is different from anything else, however it simply doesn't match up to the ephemeral quality captured on an SX-70.

Keeping Up

This is an effort to create a visual diary of work that may or may not be portfolio quality. Either way this is the work that sends me down the path of inspiration and towards the creation of new work.