combophoto's

arms + chopsticks
the ol’ chopsticks for arms gag. such a classic. this is the last #combophoto I created in partnership with @sopexa_agency. thank you again for the opportunity to combine things that have no business being combined with each other.

hand + legs
#tbt to that time I got all Dr. Frankenstein with my wife’s hands and legs. As I’ve said before, I get a ton of help on a lot of my hair brained ideas and @lmcm2 is no exception. No matter the creative endeavor, she’s always had my back and she’s always willing to pitch in to lend a hand, or fingers, or feet, or legs. Her contribution is obviously much greater than the lending of appendages to my lens. It’s easy to stand frozen while you legs cramp up and your body starts trembling from holding in one place for what must feel like an eternity. What’s not easy is making sacrifices in your daily life just to enable someone you love to chase the thing that makes them happy. If you’re still reading this and you’re not my wife… buzz off. But Lisa, if you’re still reading this (and you better be)… thank you for everything you do. I love you. Also, I just picked Isla up from gymnastics. Heading home. #combophoto

Statue of Liberty + stop sign
Another image from the #combophoto series created for the @wsj. The campaign focuses on Washington D.C. and its unique relationship with business. In this case, D.C. and immigration. (at Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island)

flower + umbrella
WARNING: buckle up, there’s a lot of words below.
It’s April showers season, so here’s a spring inspired #combophoto, which my daughter’s were gracious enough to pitch in and help on. I’m sure I’ve subjected them to worse modeling scenarios, but the little one definitely stepped up and made it happen… and the older one got behind the camera so I didn’t have to act like a contortionist for once. asking either of my kids to stand frozen for longer than a second is no easy task (especially right before bed), but my youngest was hell bent on making sure we got the shot… and I love that. this started with a handful of test shots a few weeks ago (which I’ll put up on @combophotofail (and a hand holding the flower version which lost in a vote)), but we took our sweet ass time tweaking it until we finally landed here. The combined images were taken at dusk on blue sky days, but with the help of a garden hose and some heavy shade we were able to transform it into a rainy day. isla’s outfit is courtesy of @target, but Target isn’t involved in this post so when I say “courtesy”, I mean they were courteous enough to stock those items so I could purchase them. a few other notes… I went through 128 individual flowers to land on the one you see above. It turns out flowers are far less symmetrical that I ever could’ve imagined. And in the spirit of bringing our seemingly divided world a little closer together, the bottom image was taken on my Sony A7r ii and the top image was taken on a Canon 5D mark III (thank you @joshdweiss). Sony + Canon… World peace doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s a step in the right direction. @lmcm2, enjoy your 128 pink and purple flowers ❤️.

hands + deer
For quite a while now I’ve been trying to find the glass slipper of deer heads to make this shot work (deer body optional). Often times it came down to the perkiness of the ears, coupled with the wrong camera angle that kept this one just beyond my reach. That was until a recent trip to the Elks Lodge 725 in Kalispell, Montana, where they had a smorgasbord of antlered creatures to chose from (and a chair for me to stand on). Maybe I’ve seen some others that could’ve worked, or maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, or… OR maybe when you end up in an Elks Lodge in northwestern Montana, you have no choice but to make it work. But it only worked with an extra set of hands, so major thanks to @bretlama for his exceptional contortionists hand modeling skills. I had fun bringing you in on this one. #combophoto #🦌 (at Kalispell Elks Lodge 725)

cauliflower + poodle
Throwing this Thursday back to many Thursday’s ago during my last pass through San Francisco. Being back here immediately triggered all the feels that makes this particular #combophoto one of the more memorable ones for me. Everything about it reminds me of why I enjoy making these things. The spontaneity in which it happened, the rapidly changing lighting conditions, the running around the hilly streets of Pacific Heights looking for cauliflower, the dead camera battery and lastly the post hill-climb asthma attack. There’s nothing like creating a photo that gets your blood pumping. #tbt (at Pacific Heights, San Francisco)

goldfish + goldfish®
My daughter and I shot this over the weekend and unfortunately only one of the props survived the rigors of a food based photo shoot. RIP cheese cracker. the lone survivor moved in with us. Steve the goldfish. Unfortunately, our cat (Samuel L. Catson) murdered Steve after only two days in his new bowl/home. So let’s all take a moment to double down on that RIP sentiment. Aaaaaaand, I realize I’m repeating myself with this #combophoto, but when I originally shot this I was relying solely on my cellular mobile telephone camera, so I felt like it not only needed a reshoot, but the overall execution needed a refresh as well. Slide to the right to see the original. mad props to my daughter @mcmennamyAB for her modeling skills as well as her love of all living things (and non-living crackers shaped like living things).

hammock + banana
From its inception as a crude “banana hammock” sketch to becoming a real live #combophoto, this one only took me about a year to finalize. the banana portion of this whole thing was relatively easy. the biggest thorn in my side was finding a suitable background (with proper tree spacing and what not). Once got that nailed down it ended up becoming a race between the 10 second timer on my camera and getting my butt up a hill (and in the hammock)… oh and looking relaxed. I only fell out of the twice. I think I’m all tapped out on banana combos, but who knows. 🍌’s

paintbrush + spaghetti
This definitely wasn’t my favorite #combophoto of 2016, but it was definitely the most interesting as far as social experiments go. I put it to a vote with another similar execution. This one was the overwhelming favorite, which I never would’ve guessed. Just proof that I’m bad at judging my own work. Also, I did this on an absolute whim. I literally threw it together before work one morning. I do love how utterly random these things can come together sometimes. On some re-posts there was a lot of positive sentiments coupled with a lot of scrutiny over my bad photoshop skills. All that said, it was the most entertaining from #2016. Thanks for all the support last year, you guys made it great. (at Happy New Year)

tree trunk + elephant trunk
I’ve been wanting to do something with an elephant for a while now, but two things happened with that, I never felt like I had a super solid idea and I don’t have access to elephants. Like ever. Cut to me in the Bahamas over thanksgiving and I couldn’t help but notice how a lot of the palm trees grew low out the ground and every one of them looked like an elephant head… to me anyway. So that’s what rattled around in my head and it quickly led to me obsessing over how to find a way to combine the two. And though I prefer to shoot these #combophotos myself, I also knew my elephant access was super limited. So rather than booking a flight to Africa I went online trying to find the perfect elephant. Which I did and what I found just so happened to work perfectly. This beautiful elephant image was captured behind the lens of Jez Bennett, a phenomenal nature photographer based in Zimbabwe. Huge thanks to Jez and please check out more of his work at… jezbennett.com
And a final thanks to the world wide web for being so world wide.