The driving forces of The Straz’s in-
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Marketing Summer Bohnenkamp, Senior
Director of Communications Paul Bilyeu
and Creative Director Mei Crain. Prior
to each season, they brainstorm with
individual marketers to determine the
creative “look” of opera, Broadway, Club
Jaeb … everything. Last spring, Paul
showed the photo of Whoopi for his
pitch for the concept of a woman’s face
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called longtime freelance photographer
and friend Rob Bovarnick of Rob-Harris
Productions, explained the idea and Rob
began to visualize the shot.
“We determined early on we wanted
to use real beads, not photoshop them
in after the fact,” Rob explains. “We
carefully discussed the size of the pearls
because we wanted it to look correct,
scale-wise. We always need enough
room for all types of marketing uses.
Whether it be on billboard, which is
usually a longer horizontal format, or
on a vertical brochure. So, we brought
multiple sizes of cardboard boxes to
the shoot. We found the right shape and
height for the model’s head. Since we
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we used a plastic bag to seal the box
which made a pillow for her head to
sit in. We made sure she didn’t have
any strain on her neck; then, once we
got that adjusted, we could start adding
the pearls.”
The model, Mischa Temaul, had to keep her
head perfectly still while Rob took the
photos, otherwise the shifting pearls would
ruin the picture. “It was like going to get
a CAT scan. You have to hold extremely
still, but she did great. We found that
the overhead view was more dramatic
and more universal for a multi-use in
advertising. You have to think about
leaving enough space for copy.”
Rob should know. He’s been creating
most of the Opera Tampa promotional
photos since 2006, when he landed
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for the company (see photo, next
page). “We love working with The
Straz. We appreciate when there’s
something different, and we have to
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been working with Summer, Paul and
Mei and the rest of the staff for so
many years, about 13 years. There’s a
comfort level with having us just run
with their ideas.
And it’s great for us, we love the
problem-solving
challenge of trying
to create something
really unique.”
Many people think
Rob Harris is one person
when, in fact, it’s two. Here’s the story:
“I started my business in 1987 with
my former University of Tampa college
photography professor, Lew Harris. When
we were coming up with ideas for company
names, we both felt that Rob Harris had a
better “ring” to it than Harris Bovarnick.
Shortly after naming our company, we
went to a local bank to open a business
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teller asked us was “which one of you is
Rob Harris?” That’s when we decided to put
the slash in between Rob and Harris: Rob/
Harris. Since the beginning of the digital age,
we have had to change the slash to a dash
and add Photography and Video in addition
to Productions for better search engine
optimization.”
– Rob Bovarnick
Rob-Harris
Name
Explained
Photo by Eric Swanson
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/www.operatampa.org
