Progress with Progressive

These recent ads for Progressive represent a shift for me. For a long time there has been humor in my photography, especially in my commercial shoots, but this takes it a step further.

One of my favorite parts of creating a conceptual photograph is organizing and mapping out the various elements that will tell the story. We had several stories to tell, and each of them needed to be grounded in reality but flirting with absurdity.

For the bear story, I shot the motorcycle rider on location, and we sourced a live trained bear and photographed him in a studio. This allowed us to capture a variety of positions and gave the client the ability to utilize multiple bears in the final ad. I had worked with a trained brown bear a few years prior in Los Angeles, and it was a relatively straightforward and fruitful day of shoots (so long as you didn’t look him in the eye).

For the sunburnt rider shot, we knew that getting the burn tone and texture right would be key. The rest came down to the comic performance I directed from the talent. We slightly amped up the lighting, color, and general mise en scène to lend the images an alluring magical quality. Magical, but not artificial.

Thanks to Arnold and art directors Wesley Dorsainvil and Thomas Hair for having me along for the ride! And to Sugar Digital for the outstanding post work.

All behind the scenes photos by Michelle Watt.