Bret Grafton Creative

visual branding
Commercial

Celebrity Portraits: Mondo Guerra

Mondo Guerra was the runner-up on the 2010 season of Project Runway and his creativity is really astounding.  Working with him was a complete blast.  And I was really inspired by our collaboration to do some design work on his portrait.  To see photos of his fashions from our shoot click here.

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Editorial Photography featuring Mondo Guerra and his fashions

My shoot with Mondo Guerra was my last shoot with MintMale, and it was incredibly involved.  We were at Maxine’s Salon in downtown Chicago.  The actual location was a loft type living space on the roof of the salon, and the stylists were wonderful.  Mondo was going for this”Blade Runner” meets meets slick mannequin look, and I had the models do a lot of stylized poses while leaping in the air.  The eye-visors  Mondo also designed, and the white wigs were shaped by the people at the salon.  A film crew was following me as I was working. Forward Motion Media was creating a mini documentary as a commercial for the salon, and we did testimonials as well on the collaboration with MintMale, Mondo, me and the salon.  To see my Celebrity Portraits of Mondo himself click here. And check out MintMale for additional photos and the upcoming video.

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Fashion Photography: Kirk James Collections at Dana Hotel Chicago

I loved shooting at the Dana Hotel, the space is this incredible marriage of texture and impeccable design.  The fashions were the perfect counterpoint to the space.

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Fine Art Photography: Gothic Carnival

I’m incredibly proud of this series.  I art directed the concept and handmade most of the props and sets.  Heather Bear was a wonderful asset as my make-up artist.

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Fashion Photography featuring suits from Zeglio and Hart Schnaffner Marx

This was one of my favorite fashion shoots for Mint Male, the suits were flown in from New York with the shoes.  I was really going for this 50’s election party scandal thing, and it came together in a great way.  I also like the subtle Chopin vodka branding.

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Celebrity Portraits: Hannah Aitchison

Hannah was a cast member for three seasons on “LA Ink“, and she’s an incredible artist.  She also does all my ink personally- we were really going for some classic pin-up inspired photographs.  I built the heart in my studio and screen-printed the flowers onto it, and the lights are just old christmas lights.

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Product Photography: Bombay Sapphire concept branding

As a collaboration with Matthew Harvat and E Melone Floral, I shot a series of Bombay Sapphire marketing ads as a part of a promotional pitch to the company.

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Fashion Photography featuring the 2009 Kirk James Collection

This shoot had one of the biggest crews I’ve ever managed, but I think the styling turned out amazing.  Kirk James is one of my long term clients, I love their clothes because the models are always very happy.  The taxidermy animals were just a bit fun.

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Fashion Photography featuring the 2011 Kirk James spring collection

I’ve been shooting collections for Kirk James for a few years now, and we recently have moved to working with a model in the garments at my studio for their lookbook.  I really like the diptychs as a design element, it’s sort of a mini fashion story.

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Small Business Photography: His Stuff

His Stuff is a high-end men’s clothing store with very current fashions, for their branding I like the idea of select close-ups of their merchandise and some portraits of the owners.

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Small Business Photography: Scout

For Scout, I wanted to do a mini editorial story, featuring the furniture and the owner, who has amazing taste.

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Small Business Photography: Matthew’s Fan Company

For the Matthew’s Fan Company, I shot a series of “hero” images that mixed product and architectural photography.  His fans are like polished metal art.

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Fitness Photography: John Cotter fitness

John Cotter fitness

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Product Photography: E Melone Floral and Home branding

Photography and design work for E Melone.

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Celebrity Portraits: Ronnie Kroell

Ronnie was a contestant on a Bravo show called “I want to be a supermodel”.  The feature we did on him was inspired by the movie “A Single Man” and I was really going for this underlying tension between the models.  There’s never a moment when they’re looking face to face.  The fashions were provided by Cram and Goorin Brothers.

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Celebrity Portraits: Scott Herman

Scott is starting his own fitness empire.  His fitness videos are crazy popular on youtube, and he was a cast-mate on the Real World: Brooklyn.  These photos were originally shot for the November 2010 Mini Mint and I was going for a retro underwear ad look.  I’m especially happy about the shot with the Calvin Klein underwear.

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