Banana Republic store interior

For those friends that do not live near or have access to a Banana Republic store, here are some quick photographs that I took last week from the BR store near Union Square, San Francisco. I wish I had better images of the large prints in the store windows, but I was unable to make it to the store at night to grab some more images. The daytime images all have intense reflections in them, which is distracting.

 

Banana Republic sightings......

Thank you to all of my friends and family around the globe that have been emailing me photographs from various Banana Republic stores from around the world. Most of the images below have been taken with camera phones, so please excuse the quality.

Eric Cheng, master photographer of all things underwater. Photo courtesy of Eric Cheng.

Shot taken from a moving car, somewhere in the NYC area

Storefront shot of "Giraffe under an Acacia Tree"

Thank you, Art Institute of Philadelphia

 

A few weeks ago I was in Philadelphia to speak about my photography and also my safari and stock business. I had a wonderful time, and thank you to all that attended and laughed at my horrible jokes. Seriously. Here is a quick recap from their web site:

The Art Institute of Philadelphia recap

Back from San Francisco

I was out in San Francisco for a few days, and I want to thank everybody who attended the Banana Republic LUXE private shopping event on Thursday night. It was a great success, and I was amazed at how many people would stand in line for a signed poster of my 'Giraffe Under an Acacia Tree' image. It was great fun. My friends at Gap corportate tell me that there were over 750 people at the 2-hour event, and based on my sore right signing hand, all of those customers bought at least 1 item from the store to receive their free print.

It was a great time, and I will be uploading a few images in the coming days. Since I didn't have a camera with me, I am relying on a few good friends to share them with me. 

Banana Republic Announcement

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Banana Republic has licensed 13 of my black and white images from Africa for their summer 2008 campaign. You can now see some of these images in action on their home page at bananarepublic.com.

Inset that was sent out to over 700,000 BR credit card holders (Front):

 

 Inset that was sent out to over 700,000 BR credit card holders (Back):

 

The photo shoot was photographed by Tom Munro, and took place at Bayfront Park, Miami. The ad agency is AR in New York City. Barbara Berger and Noah Mills were the models. Some of my images were printed up to 15x30 feet and placed as backdrops for the shoot. The resulting photographs are central to the summer 2008 Banana Republic catalog, as well as marketing material, The Gap, Inc annual report and other internal documents.

After the photo shoot was completed, I was contacted to see if I was interested in licensing additional images for their in-store art program. You bet. I am flattered to have some of my favorite photographs placed in 450 stores around the world. The offical opening of the summer season is apparently May 22, however you might be able to see the images in the stores before the 22nd.

You can see the thirteen images here. 

I will be attenting one of the LUXE events in a few weeks for the opening of the summer 2008 season, and I plan on coming back with some photographs from the evening.

Photo of the Day

Leopard, Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa, April 2008

Canon 1DsMkIII, 400mm f/4 DO IS, 1/125  f/5.6, ISO 1000

 
We had a fabulous few hours with the Bicycle Crossing Male leopard at Mala Mala last week, and we had many opportunities to photograph him walking towards our Land Rover. Many times in nature you have your subject walking away from you, which severely limits the types of compositions you can assemble. What is nice is when you are able to position your vehicle in such a way as to photograph the essence of your subject, and this can happen when you have the intimate eye contact with your lens. On this day the light was fading, and he was walking down a dirt path. I was changing between ISO 800 and 1600, and was trying to balance enough shutter speed with a shallow depth of field. Some shots were 1/250 of a second, but at f/4.0 and ISO 1600. I knew that I wouldn't have enough of his face in sharpness, and I did want at least his nose and eyes sharp. So I moved around with my settings and settled on 1/125 and f/5.6. One doesn't always have the time or opportunity to switch around settings, but on this day we were able to photograph him coming towards the vehicle on at least 6 different occasions. When he would pass the vehicle, we would drive off road and go ahead of him enough so that we were able to setup and not be in his way, but be in position to hopefully get a glance. One must also pay attention to your shooting position, as you will ideally want to be at eye level with your subject, and in this case it meant sitting in the front seat of the vehicle, next to our excellent ranger, Matt.

Banana Republic sneak peek

"Inspired by adventurer and outdoor photographer Andy Biggs’ serene snaps of elephants on the African savannah......Banana Republic’s first-ever eco capsule collection hits stores for the spring/summer season."

-taken from this link on Elle.com's web site.

Banana Republic will be using my images in all 450 stores around the world as part of their in-store art program, as well as for backdrops for their summer catalog fashion shoot. Banana Republic has licensed thirteen (13) of my images as part of their summer 2008 campaign, and I am very excited to be a part of their summer 2008 season.

“Summer 2008 is all about city sculpture, very clean lines, and key pieces with bright, vivid colors,” said Rosemary Young, Banana Republic USA’s PR and marketing director, who flew in from New York City for the launch. “Our campaign is connected with safari photographer Andy Biggs. Banana Republic combined our passion for art with city luxury, and used his African safari images in the background.”

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