matthew turley for visit california
One of the country’s largest states, California is home to colossal redwood forests, thriving metropolises, high desert super blooms, cliffside bohemian enclaves, nearly the entire entertainment industry, and some of the world’s best food and wine. With a reputation as big and storied as all it contains, California needs no help attracting tourists. But what about when it comes to accommodating business gatherings?
Photographer Matthew Turley was hired by Visit California to shoot a campaign focused on just that. “Unlike the other tourism jobs I’ve done in Maine, Utah, and New Mexico, this campaign was meant to attract companies to California for their corporate meet-up or conference,” says Turley. “It was a different spin and brought with it some interesting creative opportunities.”
The concept of the campaign is “California as the birthplace of _______,” and it unfolds in three iconic California locations: from the rooftop of the Four Seasons hotel overlooking San Francisco and its spectacular geography, on a Wild West back lot film set at Universal Studios, and in San Diego’s new Rady Shell open-air music venue—where the crew was treated to their own private concert while the San Diego Orchestra held a rehearsal.
“Each location had its own theme,” explains Turley, “San Francisco as the birthplace of modern tech, Universal Studios as the birthplace of Hollywood, San Diego as the birthplace of breakthroughs. It was important that each location we shot in was a real venue where you could actually host your business event”
“This job had a big cast and crew and required a lot of prop and wardrobe styling and lighting specialists—it was one of the larger scale productions I’ve worked on,” says Turley, who worked closely with producer Heather Smith from Smith & Union on the job. He especially liked working on the Universal Studios images that were shot on a set where so many iconic films have been made, like Quentin Tarantino’s Once a Time in Hollywood .
“I enjoyed creating this scene within a scene,” he says. “We worked with a Hollywood lighting team to get the natural lighting and the set lighting in balance, and they’re just so good at what they do.” Turley established a softly saturated color palette with pink, green, and gold notes that appear across the three images, giving that dreamy California glow.
Turley is on the road shooting with Visit California again this week. “When shooting a tourism campaign, you’ll likely be covering a lot of different elements of the state,” he says. “I like these jobs because there’s the challenge of tying a variety of things from wildly different settings together and creating cohesion.”