Klyment.com - Journal

I first shot 310-DUMP over five years ago making the company my first commercial client. Before that I had only shot weddings and model and actor portfolio work. I met Greg Kirkwood, founder, president, and CEO, at The Standard when I was shooting an event at the night club. All I am going to say about that meeting was that it was an interesting and late night. Shortly after, Greg gave me a call as he had some freshly-painted trucks that he needed shot and so began our working relationship.

Fast-forward to 2009, 310-DUMP has been thriving for fourteen years and is primed to franchise. They select Nabeal Mansour's Media-Masters Creative Communications Inc. as the agency to develop a new website and a franchise package. 310-DUMP recommended me to their ad agency. The budget for the project was limited, Media-Masters is still considered a relatively small ad agency, we were shooting fairly late in the season to shoot non-seasonal-looking content, and the expectations were high but we prevailed as a team. I felt that we were often arguing but perhaps it is through strife that we realize our greatest work and I doubt that we could have produced a much better marketing materials for a service as base as waste management. Over a hundred person-hours went into model casting and planning even before any photos were taken and I can't even imagine many hours Matthew Fagnan - the designer behind the website and print elements of the project - spent to plan the visual elements and to work on the final assembly. While the product may seem simple, it represents the culmination of weeks of work by some of the most capable people in their fields with whom I have had the honour to work.

Concepts co-developed by Elizabeth Szabo and Nabeal Mansour with some input from Greg Kirkwood, Sam Soliman, and myself. Hair, makeup, and styling by Nikolas for the first day of shooting and we worked without aesthetics support for the remaining shoot days. Shoot assistant was Ethan Oblak for the entire project. The model list is huge and I don't have everyone's full name but if any of our models see this entry accept my sincerest thanks.

All delivered photos shot with the Nikon D3 and either the Nikon 24-70mm F/2.8, the 135mm F/2 Defocus Control Nikkor, or the 70-200mm F/2.8 VR Nikkor version 1. Shoot candids taken by Ethan with a Zeiss Ikon, Zeiss Biogon 35mm F/2 on Kodak Ektar.

Matthew's concept drawing of the interior of the franchise package folder. The booklet pulls out and reveals an unobstructed view of the house in the background. Everything is drawn to scale in relation to how it should look in the actual folder. The concept drawing made the end goal easy to understand but finding a house that was tall enough with enough lawn in front to allow for the proper placement of the elements required to print over the folder was nearly impossible. On top of all of this, because of the amount of space and the shooting angle required, ideally you'd want a south-facing house on a slightly overcast day but with blue sky behind the building. We settled for a nice house that was close enough and Matthew "grew" a fence and lawn and composited the family onto the lawn.

Matthew's concept drawing of the outside of the folder.

And a sample page of the interior of the drop-in booklet.

The photo concepts were meant to appeal to specific customer types who would be likely to use 310-DUMP's services. In this photo, Mike Isaak and Brandy act as the happy couple working on home renovations. Interestingly, 310-DUMP doesn't haul paint or any hazardous wastes but Elizabeth's idea to have the couple covered in paint and Nikolas' careful application of the found acrylic paint helped polish up the look of the shot. The photos were shot to allow as wide an aspect ratio as possible to minimize the amount of height consumed on the web pages they would be used on.

A franchise owner pepping his workers at the beginning of a new day.

An engineer and construction workers in front of a construction site.

Christine Hopaluk and another Matt (I hope that's his name) pose as customer and 310-DUMP employee finishing some paperwork.

Mother and daughter (who aren't actually mother and daughter) spending time together after booking full service waste pickup with 310-DUMP.

Most of 310-DUMP's full service residential bookings are made by women so most of the full-service oriented imagery feature women as the customers.

It's a lot of work getting back up after having settled into the ground for the right angle for a shot so Nabeal got down to have a peek. Of course Ethan had to choose the worst possible moment to snap a photo of us discussing composition.

The shot of the young couple renovating was made from a slightly higher angle. An adjacent home's white wall provided the necessary fill for this shot.

Sometimes we find the best camera positions in some of the most unlikely places. Ideally I wanted the shade of a tree right where our models would be but Garth did a great job standing in for one with the Scrim Jim and a blocking screen.