As we head into the heady summer months, it helps to keep a little spring in your step. Dean Davis, a Spokane, Wash.-based commercial photographer, has taken such advice to extremes in this colorful image.
"Spring Man" was originally created as part of a series to illustrate a capabilities brochure for Spokane-based ICM Asset Management. Davis was hired to work with West Public Relations and a local design firm, Klundt-Hosmer Design, to provide a visual representation of a phrase used in the company's brochure: "The battle may go to the strong, and the race to the swift."
To complete the image the team envisioned, Davis set off on the literal route to find industrial-strength springs, eventually finding two specimens from Pohl Spring Works in Spokane. After consulting with a cobbler at a real bootmaking facility, Davis created a reasonable facsimile of his winged wing-tips and found just the right jaunty angle with which to photograph their flight.
"I like to shoot at odd angles whenever I can," Davis says. "It helps add a little energy and motion to the shot."
Davis has been working in commercial photography field for about five years. He took some classes at Spokane Falls Community College after a seven-year stint in the military got him interested in photography. After spending another seven years owning part of a nightclub, he came back to photography in 1996. His studio caters mostly to ad agencies, design firms, architecture firms and manufacturers.
Since running in the ICM brochure, the photo series that included "Spring Man" has won six advertising awards for Davis, including the prestigious Citation of Excellence from the American Advertising Federation.
Dean Davis, however, is not the only Davis to get credit for the success of the photo. The head designer for Klundt-Hosmer, Judy Heggem-Davis, played a major role and also happens to be Dean's wife. "We work together about four or five times a year," he says. "She's probably the most demanding designer I work with."To see more of Davis's commerical images, visit his web site, deandavis.com.
