Winter 2015

Poppy
Creative
Agency

Other Works

Creative Magazine Winter 15







A Note From The Editor

I found love late in life. I always loved When I decided to focus this season’s
my good friends and my career, and I magazine on love, I assumed my team
spent my 20s and 30s focused on those would think it was too hokey. Instead,
things instead of trying to find my soul they chose to give me some of their most
mate. I put all the passion I had for a honest, beautiful, and intimate work - it
partner into my career and nourished it was the pleasantest of surprises. That is
as if it were a relationship. That’s where what I love most about the group I work
all my enthusiasm for life went until my with: they continually surprise me with
career reached a pinnacle and then came the depth of their passion for their work
crashing down. It was time to search and they remind me daily why I chose to
for what I truly wanted to do. What was create this agency – to introduce their
going to make me happy again? talent to the world and to help them
share their passion with as many people
It took some scary times to get me to as possible.
finally build the Poppy Creative Agency.
It also took meeting the love of my These stories are close to their hearts and
life to help me realize I could do and I hope you will feel the love they have for
be anything I wanted, and that I’d be their craft as much as I do.
successful in whatever I chose. After
all, I had finally found love and our love
was worth all the time we had spent
searching for each other. Finding love
in the most dire of times made me
happy and creative again, a part of me I
thought might have been gone for good.
I developed the courage I needed to
remind myself what I really love to do:
work with other artistic people to create
images that enchant, captivate, and
inspire others.

Love fuels everything I do now. It gives
me the confidence and courage to take
risks and follow my heart. It helps me
curate an amazing group of artists who
want to show the world how beautiful the
simplest of things can be. Love also fuels
the creativity of these artists; when you
work with them, you feel the love they
each have for their jobs (and it makes you
want to work with them again and again).



Contributors

Caren Alpert Paul Raeside

Caren brings to Poppy Creative a new Our northern European photographer,
way of looking at food through both an based in New York City, rounds out our
artistic and analytical eye. Her passion for love for interiors and architectural details.
cooking is obvious from her keen sense Paul has the most romantic sense of light
of design, presentation, and beautiful and his hauntingly beautiful photography
images. Her experience as a photo editor makes me smile every time he sends
gives her the ability to think about the his latest shots. His love for beautiful
whole picture. She also teaches others things comes through in every image. His
how to turn a passion into a career – and passions include the love of his girlfriend
who doesn’t want to learn how to do Jenny and his furry friend Molly.
that? Caren tops all of this off with a
beaming smile and a bright laugh. Shaun Sullivan

Joy Coakley Shaun is Poppy’s veteran photographer
with 20+ years experience in shooting
Poppy’s super soft goods stylist also beautifully elegant images for a wide
gets behind the camera in her free time. variety of clients. He has a reputation
Joy is a tea drinker, magazine addict, for being the most amazingly calm guy
and mother of two beautiful little girls, on any crazy set and always gives the art
Phoebe and Sybil. director and client something more than
was expected.
Sean Dagen
Eric Zepeda
With a keen eye for capturing the mood
of any everyday object through his A budding food photographer with
camera, Sean is always creating stunning an amazing way of making even the
still photography. He is the least likely vegetarian’s mouth water at the sight
guy to enjoy hunting, but does, and he of his grilled ribs, Eric enjoys everything
also loves his son Cypress more than outdoors. When not shooting for a client,
any father I’ve ever known. Sean has an he’s at home, test shooting his latest
amazingly talented wife as well. edible creation.

Magazine Design: David Valentine
Copy Editor: Lindsay Pietroluongo



Perfect Pairs

There are just some things in life that
are made for one another. When it
comes to love, togetherness and simple
pleasures in life, let us not forget how
many matches made in heaven are
actually made on the table (or in the
kitchen, rather).
food styling by Heidi Gintner
photography by Caren Alpert

bacon & eggs

(and hot sauce)



bloody mary & celery



crispy fries &
ketchup

spaghetti &
meatballs



candy & apples



Simply Love

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of we can’t live without...true love. I have
the world, I think about the arrivals gate to admit that psychology was actually
at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s my first academic path. Specifically,
starting to make out that we live in a behavioral science is what I thought, for
world of hatred and greed, but I don’t a moment, I would focus on, and it’s just
see that. It seems to me that love is one more piece of my many interests that
everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly has led me to this point of successfully
dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always making a business of capturing some
there - fathers and sons, mothers of life’s greatest human exchanges and
and daughters, husbands and wives, milestones. To be let in to someone’s
boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When personal space, often pushing them
the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as out of their comfort zone, to observe
I know, none of the phone calls from the and capture such intimate moments, is
people on board were messages of hate so extremely rewarding to me. It’s my
or revenge - they were all messages of own fun way to study people, the way
love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky people love, and with whom or what they
feeling you’ll find that love actually is all exchange that love. Whether it’s a mother
around.” holding a newborn, a father giving
his daughter away at her wedding, an
- Love Actually elderly couple still madly in love, a newly
engaged couple, a human and animal
Not only am I a lover of the beautiful friendship, or, my personal favorite after
things in life, but I am also obsessed with having our second child, a young sibling
the human condition that is ultimately camaraderie, it blows my mind each time.
best presented through the acts and Love. It’s so simple.
relationships of love. It’s obvious us
humans (well, hopefully at least most
of us) are constantly looking for ways
to give and receive love. This notion is
involuntary for the most part, I believe,
as this is one of the most basic human
needs: to feel wanted. To feel appreciated,
respected, important. To feel a part of
something like a religious community,
bowling league, a loving marriage, or
even a great work environment. That
feeling that you get when you know you
have put your genuine best self into
something or someone and you see the
amazing effect it has on others, that
feeling creates the very one thing that

photography by Joy Coakley



















Sonnet XVII

by Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose,
topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom
and carries
hidden within itself the light of those
flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the
earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when,
or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or
pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know
any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is
my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your
eyes that close.

photography by Sean Dagen







Love is...

I think I remember that my first exposure
to love outside the family was through
the Kim Casali cartoons of the 70s. It
seemed uncomplicated and different from
the love I had experienced with my family.
I don’t think I knew that friends could
love each other then. Of course, now
that those years are behind me, I can see
that this is not true. In fact, I find love all
around me: at home, with my friends and
my dogs, and very much so in my work.

Today, as I travel a lot, love has become
the grounding force in my life and
something wonderful to come home to.
I share my life with love and feel that my
friends share it too. When I come home,
there is often something on my love wall,
which I am happy to share with you.

photography by Paul Raeside















What is Love...

My mother made an interesting I have included here a love letter. It’s very
comment about love the other day. She personal, intimate, and between two
said she hated it when people said that people. Words and love were made for
they “love” a movie or a certain food or each other. Right in line with my mother’s
a place they visited. She feels, “Love is thinking,
something personal and to be shared
between people, something intimate; I have also included some pictures of
not a word to be tossed around lightly.” my children in various stages of their
lives. I love my kids more than anything;
I defended the people who are reckless they taught me a whole different level
with such a strong word, saying that of loving. Right in line with my mother’s
I too am guilty of saying, I love this thinking.
thing and that thing. I understand what
she was saying, but I do feel that it is I have also included something that I
possible to love something other than have to say I love. Something delicious,
another human being. We never settled something I crave from time to time.
the discussion, but it did bring to light
that love is very complicated and that Sorry Mom,
it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly but I do LOVE a good hot dog!
what love is.
photography by Shaun Sullivan
For me, love is foremost a feeling.
You can feel it. You can’t describe it in
one word and everyone has their own
feelings about it.