The Pirates of Prestwick House!

Samantha C, Warehouse Manager. Insistent on not being portrayed as a helpless wench. Arming her to the teeth–literally–and giving her a minor flesh wound makes her pretty bad ass in my book...

Prestwick House publishers started a fun tradition of few years ago when after an impromptu gathering it was decided to take a quick group photo to mark the occasion. Not content with having everyone standing in a warehouse surrounding by boxes of books, I opted to Photoshop in a background (the iconic Sgt. Pepper's album cover with all of us taking the place of the crowd behind the Fab Four). Strictly for in-house use–it quickly became a fun activity for all involved to look forward to every year. The entire staff has been portrayed as senior citizens (from the 1930's), a 1950's 5th grade class, and included in a ficticious WWII recruitment poster.

The challenge has been to find a group theme to base the photo on. This year, on a suggestion from CEO, Jason Scott, it was decided, after setting up an in-house tropical island set to shoot the Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island book cover, to portray everyone as pirates!

Gathering as many props as possible we photographed 30 employees over the course of a few weeks in all sorts of poses from the serious– to the macabre–even the hilarious –whatever they wanted (within reason), was at least attempted, including our Senior Editor wanting to be "hanged" as pirate who's past had finally caught up to him–and yes, we pulled it off!) Everyone bought into the spirit of the shoot and we had a great time coming up with the different scenarios and photographing them. Of course we knew a lot of the magic was going to take place in our imaginations and eventually realized in Photoshop.

Again, these are for in-house use, only with no absolute deadline (in-between revenue producing projects). In the last 2 months we've begun to enhance each of the portraits with no rules, except one– to have fun! The portal was created by fellow in-house designer, Jen Mendoza.

Once all the portraits have been completed the plan is to assemble them over a nautical background with headline text proclaiming the arrival of "The Pirates of Prestwick!"

I'll be posting more as I finish them along with the final image–hopefully sometime in the fall of 2010.

Dan R, Staff Writer, was an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Specialist for the U.S. Air Force before joining the equally dangerous field of writing for the high school English Grammar and Literature markets.

Chrissy M, Customer Service Manager, runs a tight ship but I've never, ever seen her look this bad ass (she is always upbeat and positive–quick with a laugh) so I thought the Golden Mask was fitting...(oh god, not another pun!)


Jason S., It was Jason's idea for the Pirate theme for this year's "Class Picture"
He loves french cuisine and Froot Loops...

Mandee W, Warehouse Specialist, looking waaay too comfortable holding onto her pirate arsenal...and two Sugar Gliders thrown in for good measure.