Category Showcase

Showcase: Rwanda Bean Coffee Company

August 25, 2021 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, On Assignment, Showcase

Rwanda Bean Coffee

I’m happy to share an image I took for the cover of Down East Magazine‘s August 2021 Food & Drink section. This was part of a feature on Maine’s Rwanda Bean Company, which operates three locations including the newest on Portland’s Thompson’s Point.

I was envisioning rich dark coffee beans softly lit with warm early morning window light. Unfortunately, my assignment was scheduled just after noon on a gloomy, cloudy day. The only way I could get the image that I most wanted was to create an early-morning sun look, using lights placed outside the shop, shining through the windows with warming gels attached. You’d never know that it was threatening to rain outside. Sometimes as a photographer, you need a little morning to go with your coffee.

Ben and Danielle Graffius at the newly-opened Rwanda Bean Roastery and Espresso Bar at Thompson’s Point in Portland, ME. The two are business partners with founder Mike Mwendata.

Fitzgerald Photo: new look, new work

May 18, 2021 0 Comments read Blog, Showcase, Video

female lobsterman

I’m proud and excited to relaunch the Fitzgerald Photo website with a brand-new look and lots of new work, including commercial video production.

Primarily, I’m a portrait photographer who is known for producing impactful work on location. With my photojournalism background I consider more of a storyteller—whether conveyed through environmental portraiture or in the form of a multiple-image photo essay.

On the website I’m introducing video work for the first time. I decided to add motion because of the unique storytelling aspects that motion imparts to my work. The still image is incredibly powerful, but sometimes stories are best told in sequences with motion and audio. It’s yet another set of tools that can help me to tell more impactful, powerful stories for my clients.

Stay tuned for more motion projects, and new work from Fitzgerald Photo.

Not sure how to incorporate video into your content marketing? Contact Fitzgerald Photo. We can help!

Showcase: The Women of the Maine Fisheries & Wildlife

October 5, 2020 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Editorial, Mainers at Work, On Assignment, Showcase

*Michele Watkins, GIS Specialist-Cartographer. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Beginning in 2019, I worked with the great people at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife (MDIFW) to create location portraits for an ongoing recruitment campaign. These portraits were to feature the game wardens, biologists, educators, cartographers and others who together protect Maine’s wildlife, habitat and the people who enjoy them.

It’s hard to imagine it would be difficult to find people willing to sign up for a job where their office is the great outdoors, but being part of the MDIFW team also means sacrificing physical comfort—especially on winter days spent outside when the thermometer never breaks north of zero degrees. And as with any job in law enforcement, Maine game wardens must confront difficult and dangerous situations, often in remote places.

I spent some very cold days with a few of the MDIFW team members at several locations around central and southern Maine. It was a blast. My favorite kinds of portraits are those that rely on mood, connection and place to create a real moment and tell a story about a person and a place. I hope in some small way that these images successfully do just that. My hope is to capture a sense of each person’s personality while showing the variety of environments they work in—their ever-changing office—day in and day out, in every season of the year.

*Sarah Miller, Maine Game Warden. © Brian Fitzgerald*

*Sarah Spencer, wildlife biologist. ©Brian Fitzgerald*

field biologist — *Sarah Boyden, biologist. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Marine Biologist — *Liz Thorndike, fisheries biologist. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Showcase: Work Lifestyle Shoot, Dunham Group

September 14, 2020 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, On Assignment, Showcase

Tech Company — Guideline | © Brian Fitzgerald

I’m happy to be able to show some of the work I did for NAI The Dunham Group and agency East Shore Studio & Print this past year. The goal was to feature the commercial spaces of actual Dunham clients for an ongoing ad campaign. Rather than photographing static rooms devoid of people, we tried to show how the spaces enable each business to do optimal work and thrive.

When the ostensible subject of a photo shoot is an inanimate object (like a building, a space or a product), or some generic concept —technology services or real estate, for example—the best way to provide emotional connection is to show how the object, space or concept actually impacts people. People just like you and me. Every good sales professional knows: focusing on features rather than benefits leads to more sales. If you can show how something benefits people—or changes their lives, for better or worse—you create a more powerful, resonant image in people’s minds that stays with them.

These are just simple images, but the concept and the goal are the same. The following are part of the ad campaign, showing people at work in some prominent and growing Maine companies. Two of those companies (clothing maker American Roots, of Westbrook and outdoor gear manufacturer Flowfold, of Gorham), have pivoted during the pandemic to produce PPE—protective gear-—for front-line workers and individuals. The other is Guideline, a 401(k) technology solutions provider.

Clothing Manufacture — American Roots and Flowfold © Brian Fitzgerald

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Showcase: Portland Boxing Club

June 1, 2020 0 Comments read Blog, Client Work, Inspire Maine, Mainers at Work, On Assignment, Showcase, Video

I’m fortunate that I get to meet a lot of very interesting and very cool people in the course of my daily work as a commercial photographer in Maine. Every person has their own unique story and are fascinating in their own special way.

Some just happen to work in environments that take ‘interesting’ to another level. The Portland Boxing Club, a 1900s-era former wood-drying kiln set tucked behind Morrell’s Corner in Portland, is one such place. It’s there, enclosed by thick brick walls and floors of concrete, sweltering in the summer and freezing in winter, that Head Coach and owner Bob Russo has honed fighters of all ages and sexes for almost 30 years. On concrete and on the canvas, they strengthen their bodies and toughen their minds.

I’m excited to release this short video profile of Coach Russo. This was originally done as part of a larger piece on the gym for Inspire Maine several years ago but edited recently. Enjoy!

Showcase: Dove Tail Bats

May 4, 2020 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Case Studies, Client Work, Inspirational, Mainers at Work, Showcase, Video

_{Dove Tail Bats by Fitzgerald Photo}

During the past two months I’ve been busy with ongoing projects, especially with video production of work I started before the stay-at-home orders shut things down.

I love the impact of the still image and it’s my primary way of telling stories visually. Often, a crafted campaign built on remarkable still imagery is the most effective and impactful way to tell a story. Other times, a single still image alone isn’t sufficient and that’s when I turn, increasingly, to video storytelling.

I’m excited to release a new video showing Dove Tail Bats founder Paul Lancisi in his manufacturing facility in Shirley Mills, ME. This was part of a photo assignment for Down East Magazine. While I love the portraits I produced for the magazine, I decided to incorporate video as well because it better conveyed the processes that make Dove Tail Bats so special.

I love how Lancisi pivoted from a woodworking business to one that embraces his lifelong passion for baseball. What he and his wife Theresa have created is amazing: a Maine company that crafts beautiful, one-of-a-kind baseball bats sought after by major league hitters and top college athletes. The bats might look great hung on a wall above the fireplace, but—just like Dove Tail Bats—are destined for greater things.

It’s inspiring to be able to show Maine companies doing such remarkable work and and achieving great success far outside of our state.

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Ready to level up your storytelling content with photography, videography and multimedia? Contact Fitzgerald Photo to see if we’re a good fit for your brand or project.

Client Work: ReEnergy Holdings

February 17, 2020 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, Industrial, On Assignment, Showcase

With the latest boom in commercial and residential construction, have you ever wondered what happens to all of the tons of used (or unused), broken or left-over materials used in the building industry? Some of it ends up in landfills, but much of it—wiring, piping, metals, wood—can be recycled, resold and reused.

I recently finished a project for ReEnergy Holdings, photographing their recycling operations throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. These facilities process tons of construction material and repurpose what they can. It’s often a dirty, dusty, mucky job but one I’m glad they are there to do.

Location work like this is challenging because it requires creating great images no matter the situational challenges that arise. At busy industrial facilities like these, the machinery can’t just stop while I set up lights and get everything just right. It’s more of a run-and-gun situation, photographing people and processes as they happen and making lemonade out of lemons (I’m into recycling, too). The primary challenge is to take advantage of the visual opportunities that are there—even when they don’t easily present themselves—and stay on the move….all while dodging moving trucks, loaders, and spinning machinery.

The shoots were done indoors and outdoors, in dry, extremly dusty conditions and on days that it was pouring rain and the mud was several inches thick. I’ve found that extreme situations such as these, though unforgiving on cameras and lenses, offer plenty of visual gold. Enjoy!

Annual Report Imagery: Maine Technology Institute

January 28, 2019 0 Comments read Annual Report, Assignments, Client Work, Mainers at Work, Showcase

Annual reports are a comprehensive report on a company’s activities over the past year. As such, they can be dry and tedious to read. The right imagery and a talented team of graphic designers, therefore, are critical to making an annual report something special: at once a showcase and a way to powerfully communicate the company’s core mission and impact.

I’m excited to be able to share the results of a collaboration with Portland-based branding firm Visible Logic last year: annual report images for the Maine Technology Institute (MTI).

MTI offers funding (primarily loans and grants, but also investments) to innovative Maine companies for research and innovation projects. To date, they have funded more than 2,000 projects across the state and invested close to $230 million.

Showcase: Tyler Technologies

August 1, 2018 0 Comments read architecture, Blog, On Assignment, On Location, Showcase

Happy to be able to show some of the work I’ve been doing for Freeport-based Zachau Construction. They recently had me photograph the recently-completed $24 million expansion of Tyler Technologies’ Yarmouth, ME campus, looking to capture the unique feel and design both inside and out.

Architecture seems like a departure from my portrait work, but I think it’s not as different as it seems. Location and context have always been key components of my work, whether featuring people or spaces (sometimes with people in them). Creative use of light is always an important element as well, as is the combining of existing, ambient lighting with flash in an artful, storytelling way.

Buildings and spaces tell stories about the people who design them, live in them and and work in them. The process of architecture work is a bit different, and often more technical, than portrait photography but the goalto convey a mood and a feeling, and to capture a moment.

Client Work: Bangor Savings Bank

January 17, 2018 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Showcase

Bangor Savings Bank

Over the past year I’ve been lucky to work with Bangor Savings Bank on a variety of shoots showcasing their small business customers from around Maine.

If you’ve ever been into a Bangor branch in Maine, you’ll have seen images of their business clients prominently displayed. When I first moved to Maine I remember loving their campaign because it showed real Maine people in authentic, real ways. In truth, that campaign is the reason I choose to step through their doors and opened my first business checking account, way back when.

I’d guess the campaign still inspires people to sign up for accounts, just it did for me.

I’m excited to be able to show off the first of the images—taken of Ryan and Richard Carey, owners of Portland’s Noble BBQ last summer—featured on the Bangor website this week. The brothers were fun to work with and their barbecue sandwiches, incredible.