This past winter, we had a great opportunity to shoot for the Pennsylvania Ballet for their production of The Nutcracker at The Academy of Music. With a limited time and turn around, we were fortunate to have a prep/test day to sort out the lighting and details with the art direction of Maria DeFazio of Paragraph, Inc. It turned out to be vital as we only had a few hours to shoot eight looks on the follow day.
Here was the precursor to the group shot from our test day. What do you do when you only have two assistants and an art director on set and need to pose for 8 people?
Test mockup that ended up being a precursor to our final group shot.
We had a lot of fun working on this shoot and most importantly, the client loved how the images turned out. See below for the final results. Which one is your favorite?
Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker; Marie – Claire Smith, Nephew – Aiden Duffy, Fritz – Rowan Duffy, Drosslemeyer – James Ihde, Mouse King – Durante Verzola, Sugar Plum Fairy – Lauren Fadeley, Snowflake – Maggie Feiring, Hostess – Kelsey Hellebuyck
Marie – Claire Smith, Fritz – Rowan Duffy, Hostess – Kelsey Hellebuyck; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
Marie – Claire Smith, Nephew – Aiden Duffy, Fritz – Rowan Duffy; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
Drosslemeyer – James Ihde, Mouse King – Durante Verzola, Sugar Plum Fairy – Lauren Fadeley; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
Mouse King – Durante Verzola; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
Drosslemeyer – James Ihde; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
Sugar Plum Fairy – Lauren Fadeley; Pennsylvania Ballet – The Nutcracker
The advertising was seen all over the city, on billboards, buses, trains, bus stops, alongside the highway, and more. Here a few of the ads that were seen around town (images courtesy of Paragraph, Inc). The images were a resounding success and the production broke sales records for the ballet!
Nutcracker advertising around Greater Philadelphia
Client: Pennsylvania Ballet
Art Director: Maria DeFazio | Paragraph, Inc.
Assistants: Justin Chiu, Matt Romano
Retouchers: Justin Chiu, Brittany Broyles
[…] may remember our images of The Nutcracker and Don Quixote that we shot for Pennsylvania Ballet‘s 2015-2016 season. We also shot images […]
This is wonderful!
Thanks Gloria Sams
#2 then #5
2’s the winner! I really enjoyed photographing the Rat King, as the dancers called him. That is one terrifying head when you get up close. He has little mouse heads for hair complete with whiskers.