My assistant Dave and I just dropped my latest mailer into the USPS’s hands. The 17 x 22 inch poster, printed on newsprint, features some of the beefcakes that I photographed for Philadelphia Magazine back in 2010. The images ran in the 2011 Best of the Shore issue in a photo essay about New Jersey Shore lifeguards. And, hey, who doesn’t mind looking at 22-inches of ab-tastic men and imagining you were on the beach.

Credit where credit is due: printing on newsprint was really Dave’s idea. Awhile back, Dave was telling me about experimenting with sending different media through his inkjet, including newsprint, and I immediately thought it would be the perfect timeless medium for the timeless image of a shore lifeguard. Nevermind that sending it through the inkjet might ruin my $1200 printer. Sometimes you just have to say “Fuck it.”

Because each of these is a hand fed print, we only sent out about 50 posters. If you’d like to see a copy, feel free to touch base and we’ll try to get you a copy and maybe put you on the list for next time.

Walking the labyrinthine back hallways in order to scout was a way cool endeavor in of itself. We even stumbled into the room where they preserve specimens (see right). They had monkeys in jars! We saw books dating back to the 1500s and stuffed Andean condors that are the size of a man. BTW, stuffed animals that have been sitting around since the 1800s have a pretty…interesting, yes, interesting smell.

Anyway, the scientists and curators couldn’t have been cooler. I recommend you read the article  because it really is a fascinating place filled with fascinating people.  Below, you’ll find some more images of the printed magazine and some of my favorite outtakes.

Thanks again for the great assignment, Tim!

Last November my assistant John and I traveled to Boston to photograph Whoopie Pies, oh, and a couple people, for Money Magazine. Julie and Alan run Chococoa Baking and specialize in some great little pies. (I was always under the impression that these things were endemic to Lancaster County, Pa., but I’ve since learned they’re also claimed by Mainers.)

Thanks to Julie & Alan for being patient and accommodating subjects and to the rest of the team: John, Lynne Avallone on make-up/hair and Callista Wilson on wardrobe. And, as always, Shayla Hunter for all the support back at the Money Mag home office.

Check out a few other outtakes below:

I hope everyone had a great holiday and New Year. Rest was had around these parts and I’m looking forward to 2012.

We ended 2011 with a great project with recently anointed Philadelphia Magazine Design Director Jesse Southerland and company. It’s our first cover together and I couldn’t have been more excited that to be photographing a giant piece of meat. It’s a beautiful cover concept and a novel way to approach a “Best Of” restaurant list, i.e., covering the best Philadelphia neighborhoods for dining instead of individual restaurants.

Below are some shots of the images in print, with outtakes to follow. And keep an eye out for a new Food portfolio coming to Ryan Donnell dot Com sometime in the near future.

As a photographer, it’s a dream job: soda jerks in crisp linens, penny-tile and marble everywhere, a lot of awesome mustaches and the most beautifully colored soda syrups one could ask for. Thanks to Art Director Maggie Gardner for the great design.

And please enjoy the outtakes below.

McCormick & Company did it again this month: another great cover (and issue) of Philadelphia Magazine. Creative Director Michael McCormick and I collaborated to create a super simple and elegant cover photo of a slice of pepperoni pizza.  It’s from the great Philly pizzeria Rustica in Northern Liberties and is almost actual size!

My assistant and I hit something like 16 different pizzerias in less then a week and tried to try at least a bite from each place, and I’m gonna get for real with you dedicated readers…it IS possible to get sick of pizza. I had 6 pizzas in my fridge on any given night of the shoot. That said, we’re now experts in all things crust and sauce.

Thanks to Photo Director Zoey Sless-Kitain for her superb organizational aid.

Enjoy a few clips below and a little slideshow of outtakes.

Got my copy of the May issue of Philadelphia magazine a few days ago. I completed a feature for the annual Top Docs story last month, in which we profiled six great nurses in the Philadelphia area. It was a departure from the normal Top Docs issue in a couple ways. One, they featured nurses (unsung heroes in so many ways) instead of doctors this year; and two, we did very candid, journalistic portraits. I was able to arrange time to simply hang out with the nurses and complete a day-in-the-life portrait. I hope the images convey some of the compassion that these people bring to their patients and their jobs. You’d be lucky to end up in the care of any of these professionals.

As always thanks to the crew at Philly Mag: Art Director Jesse Southerland for the great design and guidance; and Creative Director Michael McCormick and Photo Director Zoey Sless-Kitain for the support and trust.

Here are some more outtakes from the shoot, some published, some not:

I was tapped by the good people at Philly Mag to produce a set of portraits of people who will help shape various facets of Philadelphia life in the near future. As always, I want to thank every one of the subjects for their patience and help in making these images that I am proud to show. And thanks to Design Director Michael McCormick for the great typography and design surrounding and supporting the images. Here’s how they ran in the magazine:

And here’s a little slideshow of my favorites and outtakes:

It’s always fun to get out of your usual box and try something new. For this feature in the Wharton Magazine, the editor and art director had told me they wanted vibrant, punchy colors because we going to be photographing the students against colorful flags. So I turned to one of color photography’s best friends…the ring flash. I can’t say that I’m going to make the ring flash a regular lighting tool on my sets (it seems to make the photo less about your subject and more about your ability to buy, or rent, a very expensive piece of equipment), but it certainly does make photos look cool.

The Wharton Mag was recently redesigned by Aldrich Design and, I have to say, they have done a fantastic job. It’s hard to tell in the images above, but the paper stock is a beautiful matte paper. Thanks to Emily Aldrich and editor Tim Hyland for showcasing the images really, really well. And good luck to the students who were profiled in the piece.

It’s always fun to make pictures in a building as beautiful and historic as The Academy of Music. For a photographer used to making pictures of “real people,” as we call them in the news biz, having the opportunity to photograph a beautiful and professional ballerina in a 153-year-old opera house is like shooting fish in a barrel. Abigail Mentzer, a principal dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet was lovely to work with as was her artistic director, Roy Kaiser. Together, they gave me some wonderful poses and stayed patient as we tried to time Abigail’s jumps with my shutter release.

If you’re in the market for dance wear, check out Abigail’s designs.

And as always, thanks to Jess Hawkes, at Philly Mag, for all her help. Here’s the online version of the story.

And just for fun, who remembers that The Acedemy of Music was featured as a stand-in for a vintage New York opera house, in the opening sequences in Scorcese’s Age of Innocence.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Abigail (and a some other members of the PA Ballet) were recently featured in the Darren Aronofsky film, Black Swan. Pretty cool, huh?