My family is Italian (my father’s parents were born in Italy), but my mom’s parents grew up in New York City. In fact, my maternal grandparents worked in Harlem and lived in the Bronx, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. As a kid, Yankee Stadium was impressive. Of course, whenever you are small things always look bigger. Grandpa Jack loved to take me to Yankees games as a child; he exposed me to baseball for the first time. It definitely seemed like a strange and complicated sport to a 6 year old, but I loved going with him and both of us keeping the score card. I saw many greats of the game, including Whitey Ford, Joe Pepitone and Mickey Mantle.

Last month, it was a great pleasure to be asked to photograph Yankees Manager Joe Torre for a campaign for consulting and accountancy firm, Cohen Reznick. It was a crazy shoot – we had to find an available stadium in the middle of spring training, and make a training stadium look like the “real thing”. I love a challenge! Not only did we get to transform some of the spaces, but I also got to direct a spot for the client with Joe.

The spot and the images are below; please let me know what you think, and give us a call if you have a hybrid still/motion project for me and my team. – Michael