Process Translated

Messier. That’s what we kept telling Evan and his team of prop stylists, during the shoot. Can we make that couch messier? Can we spill more boxes everywhere? The sofa isn’t messy enough.. .can we mess up the pillows more? We wanted to show just how messy and chaotic a move can be for a family with small kids.

This project was a dream. We wanted real.  We asked the kids to jump on the sofa and mess up the pillows. We threw boxes everywhere. In the end it all came together in this Ad. When I was a new mom and making thousands of photos of my babies, our family and our new life together, the images I shot didn’t match the images I saw in advertising. I liked my photographs more. They were messy and real and beautiful and hard… the way I knew parenting to be. There seemed to be something really important missing in advertising. My personal work, as of late, has really focused on this; the messy, real, beautiful and hard reality of parenting and living as a family.

The shoot was one day here in Oakland. We shot a small library with the initial goal of one ad to run across a number of channels. We photographed several different concepts over the day.

The production team that pulled this ad together was remarkable and Olson, the creative agency, was incredible to work with.  Mike Dagdag and his team pulled together an amazing production.  Danny O'Neil made "real" wardrobe so fun. Evan Madden and his prop team made messy beautiful.  Tim O'Connell came out from NYC to assist and Ben Pegram, as always, managed the GB’s of data moving though my camera. Sherese Elsey documented it all for Social Media. Behind The Scenes photos are here.

I love shooting projects just like this one. If you find yourself in one of Commerce Bank's markets and you see this Ad out and about send a snap. 

Copyright © 2017 Leah Fasten Photography, All rights reserved.