Posted at 12:00h in
Shoots 
Rewind about two months ago, I was in the middle of photographing the 2012 Smokin' Hot Espresso calendar. Before you roll your eyes, "oh boy, another bikini barista calendar, how lame," you might wanna look into this one. I'd agree with you about nine times out of ten that the "normal" creation for such ideas (skimpily-clad women calendars) are poorly conceived, produced, and constructed, however... that's not how the folks at Smokin' Hot Espresso do business. Fortunately, they are the one out of the ten that want to do things right, and not produce something that was all shot in one day, and in a studio no-less. For some reason, the pattern of recent years has gone something like this with these kind of productions - take girl, prop said girl with minimal clothing, toss her on some random/boring background, run her through the same standard poses we've seen since the beginning of time, and photoshop the crap out of the photos in post production. Rinse and repeat. After all, it's ALL about the girl, and production value doesn't REALLY mean anything... right? A picture of a girl is a picture of a girl... Um, no. 12 months, of girls, in boring, unimaginative poses and situations, in a studio... yuck. Who would want to buy that? Luckily, Smokin' Hot and myself are on the same page. It's beyond making a buck. It's about making something that is fresh, fun, and a treat for your customers. Our calendar is more of a end-of-the-year thank-you gift to the customers for their business. ROI (return on investment) wasn't the driving factor, not one bit, and that's why I really like working on this project. This calendar is full of the same baristas who have made the customers coffee every day. How cool would it be to hand those same customers a calendar with the baristas in fun outfits and situations? We wanted to produce something on a level that would leave us knowing that no other similar business in the area would come close to matching.