Barbara Ross’ designs of one-of-a-kind artisan jewelry and accessories handcrafted in the company’s Connecticut studios (www.evocateurstyle.com). Évocateur’s collection, which includes cuffs, bangles, pendants, earrings and belts can be found in premier boutiques and stores throughout the US.  Barbara Ross reached out to me to shoot some creative images for Évocateur’s promotional materials.  I shot the pieces on a granulated rough surface to emphasize the coarseness of the forged metal and set the light to be almost dusk-like to enhance the vintage appeal of the pieces.

As always, some of my most exciting and experimental work is with the fantastic designs of Fabienne Christe and Ludovic Ledein, a/k/a Symbiotique.  Creating an image that does fairness to the complex and multi-faceted jewelry of the Christe/Ledein creative team is more challenging that it may seem.  For this shoot, I played with a long-favored medium –liquids — but unlike my water-based campaign for Tiffany’s (see my Portfolio III) where the jewelry is in motion “diving” into the water, here it is the wine at the bottom of the glass that is swirling around the firmly fixed jewelry.

Using the Symbiotique jewelry for this “cocktail party” editorial was a perfect match, because for me using wine was a way to bring out the elegance and refinement of the jewelry in a way that does not leave behind those typical for Symbiotique strong undertones of unapologetic roughness, even masculinity.

I recently shot for Marisols, a campaign envisioned and executed by artist Miranda Leigh in collaboration with Donna Karan and Eve Ensler, the award winning author of the The Vagina Monologues, under the auspices of V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women (www.vday.org).

Marisols, in the artist’s own words, are “ethical umbrellas designed to protect women not only from rain and sunshine, but from violence and war.”  A percentage of the proceeds benefits the City of Joy, Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, a healing and training center sustained by V-Day ( www.marisols.org).