As far as assignments go, it’s hard to beat this one! We got an exciting behind-the-scenes look at the Shedd Aquarium while photographing seven (the tortoise didn’t make it to print) of their cutest animals. I could go on and on about how much fun it was to get to briefly hang with these critters, but I’ll spare you.
As you can see, the fun twist to this assignment was to show each animal while eating (the cute sea otters look surprisingly terrifying while downing their lunch while the friendly belugas somehow manage to look even more friendly). Each animal image was paired with a stylized overhead shot of their meal as if served in a fancy restaurant. It’s not even much of a stretch—the Shedd representative told us most of the animals’ food is sourced from places that might even be of higher quality than the food served to humans.
You can catch this spread in all its full-page glory in the November 2019 issue of Chicago Magazine.
Huge thanks to everyone at the magazine: Martha, Michael, Katherine, Tal. Special thanks to Johnny and the rest of the team at Shedd for the repeated visits. Food styling by Gabriel Miles Freeman. Prop styling and assisting by Allison Ziemba.