Music Therapy at Amazing Place.
I recently worked on a great project that lifted my soul.
I got a call from Karen Holland, a creative director at Richards/Carlberg (Chuck Carlberg's venerable Houston advertising agency, Rives Carlberg, recently merged and became the Houston arm of The Richards Group). Karen was spearheading a project to rebrand an Alzheimer's care facility known as The Senior's Place into a new entity called Amazing Place. The new Amazing Place is a non-profit memory-care center providing therapeutic programs for adults with mild to moderate memory loss. The center is funded by donations and local churches.
The visual challenge in photographing the Amazing Place, was the fact that they were about to move to a new building at a new location. Karen had specific ideas about the look she wanted for the photographs…..high-key, hopeful, positive, and (whenever possible) with very little or no background detail that might identify the old building.
We found the solution in using very limited depth of field, and tilt-shift lenses to achieve very limited and selective focus on the subjects. We used minimal lighting, mostly a Profoto 7b and some Canon speedlights to supplement the window light in the building, and to provide a very natural look. It was a tight space to work in, but we managed to make some nice images.
I was able to shoot in a virtual documentary style throughout the project, and it was incredibly rewarding to work with the clients, families and staff at Amazing Place. It was especially rewarding and meaningful for me since I've had experience with two close family members with dementia and/or Alzheimer's.
Although the printed materials haven't been finished yet, here's a look at the newly redesigned website, featuring a great new logo and color scheme also designed by Karen Holland.
