Superstorm Sandy rolled into town and promptly kicked our keisters.  Both SquareMoose West and SquareMoose East were down without power for several days.  Luckily SQM West got power back in time for the Moose to do shoots for jewelry designer Pamela Farland and fine arts collector Lance Entwistle .   The winds were so strong that they blew the Moose all the way uptown to 72^nd street and York avenue where he wound up shooting a 12 million dollar collection of important timepieces for Sotheby’s New York.

Square escaped from Manhattan on Sunday morning the 28^th and missed Sandy’s clutches with just hours to spare.  A shoot in Aspen is always a treat but even more so when you’ve got running water and electricity!  Two weeks of sunny 60 degree weather more than made up for the weekend snow storm that dumped two feet of snow that delayed Square’s departure.

Here are some images from the annual Pierre/Famille Lookbook:

And here’s the shoot playlist:

Moist Tender Cloisters   (click that link now!  It’ll take you to Spotify)

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Square just got back from a far east jaunt where he photographed 50 million dollars worth of jewels for Sotheby’s Hong Kong.  As always, the book of the auction was based around a theme, this time it was Chinese culture.  Lots of fun (and delicious!) images, incorporating everything from dim sum (yum!) to calligraphy to a feng shui compass (which Square always consults before setting up his location studio).

Quite a few 15 and 16 hour days as the theme was a bit complicated, but don’t worry, every morning Square took full advantage of the wonderful outdoor pool at the Island Shangri-la Hotel.  After swimming a few laps he would go into full meditation mode with a 15 minute back float.  The pool attendant was most impressed with Square’s ability to remain perfectly still while gently drifting across the surface of the water pushed along by the morning breezes.  When the attendant asked how he was able to pull off this feat of serene buoyancy, Square replied, “Baby, I was born to float”.

The Moose meanwhile floated between Brooklyn and SquareMoose West.  Once again he was left to take care of the needs of various clients, including Kimberly McDonald, Cartier, and Nicholas Varney.   His artistic ability runs parallel with his juggling skills.

Here are some images from the Hong Kong shoot:

here’s the playlist from the shoot, appropriately called:

Born2Float

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A great collection of bijoux that includes the Van Cleef and Arpels Lion Brooch, The David Webb Frog Bangle, and the Emerald and Diamond rings pictured below.

And of course, here’s our work playlist inspired by and named after that other New York cultural icon, Kasey O.

Spilly Hollowhistle  (click the link and it will take you to Spotify, you know you want to)

Stars – The Theory of Relativity
Loquat – We Could Be Arsonists
Hot Chip – Motion Sickness
Friends – A Thing Like This
Allo Darlin’ – Some People Say
The Lemonheads – Down About It
Tono & The Finance Company – Marion Bates Realty
dEUS – Nothings
Pugwash – Here We Go ‘Round Again
Exlovers – You Forget So Easily
Metric – The Void
Loquat – Walk Out
JJ – 10
Ashtar Command – Deadman’s Gun
Laurie Anderson – Excellent Birds – Remastered LP Version
jj – Beautiful Life
Dead Can Dance – Opium
Saint Etienne – When I Was Seventeen
The Beach Boys – Pacific Coast Highway

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Music has always been a crucial part of the creative process at SquareMoose, so last week’s CBGB’s Music Festival 2012 got us to thinking about the past adventures of Square and the Moose.  Back in the day Square spent many a night jammed into that cavernous club working hard on his hearing loss.  The opportunity to see and hear such band as Talking Heads, Blondie, and Television, to name just few, and actually photograph them at their beginnings was priceless.  Although, eating the chili cooked up somewhere in the back of the club was probably unwise (yes, CB’s used to serve “food”).  Ah, the youthful notion of indestructibility.

A few years after Square’s first foray into that wonderfully dilapidated club, the Moose would come up from the not so deep South as bass player extraordinaire with the seminal New Wave band “The Letter E”, and actually play on that historic stage.  If time and recreation haven’t dulled your memory down, you might remember them from their regional hit “Do Some Action”, featuring the artfully suggestive line, “The next action you will do might lead to science or something”.  Creative differences and the winds of fate would eventually blow members of the band to different corners of the globe, but the Moose’s four stringed funk mastery did not go unnoticed by the New York musical cognoscenti and he would soon trod the boards of CBGB’s again as a member of various and sundry underground hopefuls.

The following is just a small sampling from the SquareMoose archives of the thousands of images that were captured at CBGB’s in its prime.  Some of the featured performers are still going strong (Patti Smith, Deborah Harry) but sadly some are no longer with us (Poly Styrene, Stiv Bators).  In any case, thanks for the music.

Tom Verlaine of Television

Patti Smith

Cheetah Chrome and Stiv Bators of The Dead Boys

Talking Heads

Debbie Harry of Blondie and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex

Richard Hell and the Voidoids

Richard Lloyd of Television and Gerald Casale of Devo

Devo

The Patti Smith Group

And of course, here’s our Spotify playlist to jog your memory.  It starts with Television who opened the club in 1974 and ends with Patti Smith who closed it in 2006.  As it should.

Science or Something     (click the link and it will take you to Spotify)

Televison – Venus

Blondie – X Offender -

Talking Heads – Artists Only

Ramones – I Wanna Be Sedated

Richard Hell & The Voidoids – The Kid With The Replaceable Head

Patti Smith Group – Frederick

Mink DeVille – Spanish Stroll

The B-52′s – Roam

Devo – [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction

Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods

John Cale – Heartbreak Hotel

The Cramps – Goo Goo Muck

Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer

The Dictators – Baby Let’s Twist

Suicide – Diamonds, Fur coat, Champagne

The Only Ones – Another Girl Another Planet

Penetration – Come Into The Open

Wire – Outdoor Miner

The Replacements – Within Your Reach

Patti Smith – Paths That Cross

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The brief was for warm and summery, and that’s just what we gave them. We moved away from the monochromatic high drama of their annual winter book into a more vivacious color palette featuring golden ambers and sultry crimsons. Dappled plays of light and long shadows suggesting the warmth of a July afternoon or a glowing August sunset give just the right aura of “An Aspen Summer”.

Here are some highlights from the 40 page book. Careful, they’re hot!

SquareMoose has a strict  “no music, no work” policy.  Here’s one of the playlists that inspired us during the shoot.

Dappled Aura

Click on the link and it will take you to Spotify.

And here is a list of the tunes:

Allo Darlin’ – Tallulah   (ukulele and a shout to the Go-betweens, good way to start)

Sun Kil Moon – Among the Leaves

The Submarines – The Sun Shines at Night

Beach House – Lazuli

Father John Misty – Nancy From Now On  (punch me in the face and call me Nancy!)

Saint Etienne – Over The Border

Gaz Coombes Presents… – Bombs

dEUS – Crazy About You

Rumer – A Man Needs A Maid  (nice Neil Young cover)

Iggy Pop – I’m Going Away Smiling  (Iggy in crooner mode)

Bobby Womack – Dayglo Reflection (feat. Lana del Rey)

Allo, Darlin’ – Let’s Go Swimming

Pugwash – Fall Down (sounding more like xtc than xtc)

Guided By Voices – Class Clown Spots a UFO (Robert Pollard just wrote another 10 songs while you were reading this blog post)

Guillemots – Fleet

Richard Hawley – Don’t Stare At The Sun

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The Moose and Square just finished up an all day shoot at a client ‘s gorgeous apartment on Park avenue. Seven model shots, seven different clothing changes, seven different suites of jewels, in seven different parts of the apartment. Everything looked great, so I guess seven really is a lucky number.

Of course, no SquareMoose is an island, and the job couldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did without the help of a great support team. Starting with Marlene, who produced the shoot, dear Marlene did everything from client hand holding to figuring out a workable budget to making Square a piping hot cuppa at traditional tea time. Marlene is the best!

Sarah, stylist extraordinaire, did a fantastic job picking out just the right clothing for our model, Abigail ( more about the gorgeous Abigail later). The call was for “casual elegant” and “sophisticated evening wear”, and Sarah completely nailed it. Sarah also happens to be a mind reader, every time Square saw something through the camera that needed adjusting, he would turn around to ask Sarah to go in and make the fix, but he wouldn’t be able to find her in the cast of characters behind him. That’s because in the time it took Square to turn his head, Sarah had already stealthily zoomed on to the set to make those very same adjustments! Excellent use of the ESP Sarah!

Photo assistant Jessie and stylist assistant Aaron also deserve mention. Aaron was the king of the steamers and Jessie was always there to lift that soft box and tote that Speedotron. And Jessie’s bread board under the seat cushion of the Louis the XVI chair trick was a shoot saver!

Make-up and hair guru Vassilis did a fantastic job achieving just the right looks called for, he truly is an artist with brush and comb. Those Greeks really have an eye for beauty. Guess it’s in the genes!

And finally to the fantastic Abigail F, beauty, personality, and patience, what more could you ask for. The client was looking for Grace Kelly crossed with Laura Petrie (you know, Rob’s wife, lives in Westchester, afraid of walnuts), Abigail fit the bill perfectly. With her translucent skin that the painters love, combined with her ravishing head of long dark hair, the camera just loved her. Ten hours and seven different looks really put Abigail through her paces, but she was cheerful, passionate, and professional from start to finish. She truly was grace (Kelly) under pressure!

SquareMoose with like to thank everyone involved for making the day such a success!

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Front Cover Assael Christmas Catalogue

Back Cover Assael Christmas Catalogue

Sat down with our client November 19th, they wanted a small catalogue out in time for a Christmas mailing.

Designed, shot, edited, type set, and liaised with our printer tout suite.  The Client had a beautiful high gloss catalogue, with 12 fully laminated interior pages and a blind embossed cover,  on their doorstep by December 7th.

Santa and SquareMoose, we both deliver!

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Square even succeeded in making a iTunes playlist called “Where O? Shapiro”, named after a surprise call from SquareMoose’s high powered accountant and enforcer, Hellen Shapiro (turns out Hellen’s in New Mexico).  Square can’t work without listening to music, here’s a small sample of said playlist:

Feist – Bittersweet Memories

Real Estate – Easy

Tracey Thorn – Night Time (xx cover)

Joe Henry – Eyes Out For You

The Twilight Sad – Sick

Karen O – Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys (Wille Nelson cover)

Tin Machine – You Belong in Rock and Roll

College – A Real Hero

…and about 15 other tunes.

The Moose listened to crying toddlers (Lena’s got Scarlet Fever, oh no!) and demanding clients!

The Little Nell

The freshly powdered doughnut

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