Portraits of an Athlete

Portraits of Shawn Lockett, Athlete and Educator.

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Portraits

Welcome back to the blog. It’s been nearly 2 years since I made a post, but here we are! Im sure you’ve been patiently and anxiously waiting. As the year comes to an end in about 48 hours this is one of two posts I am making.

Just before Christmas I enjoyed catching up with my friend Mark. Many years ago when we first met I photographed him for his campaign. Then 18, he was running for local office. He wanted to be a part of a positive change in the community. Fast forward to the present, by passing all the office hjinks, the plenteous pizzas we had from Dominos, and the mockery of local politics, we are both in different places in life and career.

Mark has taken up photography using vintage cameras and various films as his medium of exploring the world around him. He has a keen eye for composition and enjoys making photos simply for the fun of it. The portrait of Mark I made below was shot using a Canon slr, a hand held light meter, and Portra 400.

Mark with his Mamiya. Soft focus from 1/15th exposure.

Throughout the Pandemic I didn’t have much time to create work using film. In January 2020 I purchased a very beautiful Pentax 67 that was, by all visible appearances and functionality, brand new. I had plans for that camera as the decade changed. Whatever plans I was making would soon be take away from me. Since purchasing it, it has been sitting on my shelf next to my Hasselblad patiently waiting to come out and play. Our time together was spent producing these head shots for his LinkedIn page, enjoying some food, and catching up on life and business all while making photos.

COVID-19: Social Distancing

George wearing his mask and standing at the back door, looking out into the yard.

 In the span of 5 mins I learned more about George than I expected to. At 78 years old he’s seen his share of global issues but this pandemic seems to have unnerved him the most. As a sports fan he’s disappointed that he can’t watch his favorite teams on tv. 

“You know it’s bad when you can’t catch a ball game” he said as he looked towards the flat screen. 

When I arrived he was on a cellphone discussing financial matters with a bank. After he ended the call he shared with me how much of a pain it has been to learn to use a new phone. “Im an old school kind of guy,” he said as he continue to explain it took 4 days for him to figure it out with tech support. It is evident George is deeply religious. I respect his passion. A large crucifix, visible over his exhausted Notre Dame hoodie, is draped close to his heart. In some way part of me believes he had aspirations to play for such a legendary team. He covets football the same as he does his religion.

George was saddened by the news of the Holyoke Soldiers Home. As I was leaving he mentioned how awful it was. I could sense a level of pain behind that statement. I asked him if he served his country and he shared with me his reasons, both medically and familia as to why he couldn’t enlist, even after he tried in 1964. 

George posed for two photographs. His mask hides his identity, but he revealed himself to me. We bridged our anonymity through the portraits I made of him. George was happy to share with me and only asked me a few questions that didn’t really reveal much of who I am. What George knows of me is that I am a photographer and he didn’t seem to eager or interested to know more. He was content revealing himself to me and sharing his work. 

“I am a religious man, but I am not a saint.”

People are natural story tellers. When you ask the right questions, they will reveal more of themselves than any single portrait can. George was very happy to share with me his work. Rummaging through a box he produced several albums of his music. He offered me a copy of his albums, but understood when I declined to accept the invitation. If I met George under any other time, outside of this pandemic, he’d have greeted me and parted ways with a handshake.

“I’d give you a handshake, but we can’t. Be good kid, stay safe.” 

“Thanks George. Stay safe.” Repeating to myself, “stay safe” the new adaptation for parting ways. 

I wouldn’t have made a portrait of George if we weren't living in a pandemic. He wouldn’t be wearing a mask and I surely wouldn’t have be shielding my identity in a similar fashion. The face masks, the respirators, the gloves, all the safety gear we are being coerced to wear is forcing us to restructure how we interact with the people we know or people we are meeting for the first time.

Anthony Bourdain: An Homage

There will never be an opportunity to have a conversation with Anthony Bourdain while sitting in a small plastic chair hunched over a bowl of pho on a street in Vietnam. The whizzing screams of hundreds of motor bikes passing by will not drowned out the sound of chopsticks and slurping on soft beef and noodles. I will never hear candid tales of globetrotting adventures Tony had in search of food and stories of cultural importance. There will never be an opportunity to pose Tony, asking him to turn his chin to the right a bit more, lower, and bring your eyes towards the lens. The sound of the shutter clapping, opening and closing at 125th of a second or slower, documenting his travels is something I will never hear, moments of exhilaration that I will never feel. I will never get the chance to thank Anthony Bourdain for his influence, how he helped shape my life as a creator, and for his unrelenting passion to seek, eat, drink, and tell stories from various places around the world that I never would have thought to travel to. Undoubtedly Tony influenced a lot of people and his reach was far and wide. Shit, if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have the desire to wander around Laos.

I did not learn to cook from watching Tony beat competitors out on Chopped. I did however watch him through the lens. He entertained millions through the screen, telling stories charged with politics, cultural significance, and of course food. While his shows changed networks, what did not change was that he used the camera and screen as an instrument to educate those willing to learn. I found inspiration in his travels. It left me with a desire to travel, more than I thought I would want to. Tony was a brilliant creator, gifted with the ability to tell a story. The stories he shared influenced me early on and quickly I set a goal, I wanted to photograph Anthony Bourdain.

Back in January I sat across from my friend Jason and his wife as we sipped on locally crafted beers, freshly poured from a tap at a brewery in SoCal. I am not sure how the conversation turned to the topic of Tony, but I told Jason that I had missed out on seeing Tony when he was in the area a few years back. Jason lit up and with bravado exclaimed that he did in fact go to that show and it was great, but he also bragged about having a polaroid photo with him. My heart sank and we both became a little bit sad as we took another sip. I did not immortalize or heroicize Tony, rather I looked up to him with much respect and regard as an artist, a photographer, an author and of course, most importantly a Chef. 

Anyone who knows me, all my friends on Facebook who are status blasted with my food porn, know that I love to cook. I have never worked in a restaurant and chances are I won’t unless I am making photos or producing a film. I don’t want to be a Chef because Tony was some hero to Chefs around the world. I cook, eat, and enjoy food because I learned from him that there is more to life than standing in a line to order a pile shit by numbers. There is an entire world out there full of ingredients that I either can’t pronounce yet or do not even know exist. Somewhere right now there is food being passed around a table made by someone who learned it through a generational practice of incorporating ingredients in a way that defines their family, their culture, their people. That’s why I cook. That’s why I want to travel the world. Thats why I am still saddened by his passing. Primarily the sadness exists because I will never have the ability to share with him, to create with him, to eat and drink with him. One day, thats what I keep telling myself. One day. I said that to myself for years. One day I will make some images and those images will land me the dream job, meeting Tony, photographing him, talking about how as a child I would spend summers on Cape Cod and how Provincetown is as much a part of me as it was the beginning of his career as a chef. That day will never come.

Recently I asked Chef Andrew Brow to come into the studio to be a part of a portrait project that I am working. This series is due to be release around the start of summer. He eagerly agreed to be a part of the project. Once he was back from a trip to wine country in Cali, he would come to the studio. I had an idea. After seeing a portrait of Spike Lee that Art Striber made at the historic Beverly Hills Hotel hours after the Oscars,  an homage to Terry O’Neil’s iconic post-oscar shot of Faye Dunaway in 1977, a photo that Art has wanted to recreate for a long time, I took inspiration and asked Chef if he would like to recreate the cover of Tony’s book, “Medium Raw.” I made a screen shot of the cover and sent it over. “Hell yea” was all I needed to hear. We set a date and time and my excitement peaked. I immediately fired off an email to my assistant and told her what we were doing, when we were doing it, how we were going to do it. I shared the cover image of the book with her and said, THIS. 

I knew it was going to be impossible to reproduce the background of the image that Tony posed for. That was one aspect of the image I wouldn’t be able to recreate, nor did I want to. As an homage to Tony, an homage to his work, it was important that we nail the look as best as we could, as best as I could recreate. I racked my brain as to what I could do for a background. I wasn’t even going to attempt to research the location, knowing it was probably to far out of reach. I decided I would try and get the look as close as I can with props and the table, leaving the background to be “similar.” I searched google for a distressed table, made a screen shot, posted on Facebook with an ask if anyone had something similar. Someone I know must have a distressed table, something, anything. Perhaps a table sitting in the back of a garage or barn somewhere. Almost immediately my friend John Grossman, Chef/owner of Holyoke Hummus, left a comment, “I have what you need.” He did indeed. He sent me a few images of the table and I was shocked at how similar it was. John is the kind of friend who would dismantle his dinning room table and lend it out for a photoshoot. He is the kind of entrepreneur that supports other creatives, so it was no surprise he let me rob him and his family of the table for two days. 

Once in the studio and set up, the table was the prime focal point to build the image around. I just needed Chef, his knives, a small cup of wine, and the background. The day before the shoot I procured the background you see from a Home Depot. I managed to fit a 4x8’ panel into my wife Subaru. Sorry honey I made it fit. The light source would be dialed in once my assistant was in studio the next day. Once Chef arrived we dressed the set with his knives and he cracked a bottle of wine, which we would toast and share throughout the shoot. The results of the shoot were a direct result of both of us channeling the energy and spirit of Tony.

Chef Andrew Brow, Homage to Anthony Bourdain

Once we nailed the look, leaving a few details to be a mismatch, a juxtaposition of sorts, our take on the image, we moved on to some images that I dubbed “influenced by the cover.” We had a little bit of fun with the set up that we built and totally played off of it. We used this as a Segway to lead into the portrait project, the very reason I asked Chef to come in. Those images will be released soon, expect to see them.

I said to Chef, who can out a “who can out a knife in your face and get away with it, a chef and a photographer, thats who.”

My wonderful assistant was able to capture some behind the scenes of the set up and of me photographing Chef Brow.

Starbucks Reserve: New York City

I made these photographs back in December. They have been sitting on the sd thats has been comfortably tucked away in my Fuji X-Pro 2. I just uploaded them and processed them this evening. The Starbucks Reserve Store that opened in December is an overwhelming playground for the ultimate consumer. I looks like a lab built for an alchemist. If you can’t appreciate good food or good coffee and your like your coffee served in white foam cups by a place that just dropped the word “donuts” from their longstanding name, then don’t bother going to a Starbucks Reserve, you generally won’t appreciate it. More so, the people who will be taking your orders will not appreciate you trying to order a large hot coffee with double extra extra and a side of insulin to go with your diabetic coma infused foam cup of burnt disappointment. Do yourself the favor and save the $18.52 you’d spend on the warm fresh pastry or slice of fresh semi authentic Italian pizza and the one of many amazing coffee beverages they have, as that $18.52 will be your entire months budget for burnt coffee you so longingly desire.

Discount the fact that the Starbucks Reserve feels like an animatronic display, it is a restaurant that has more options for coffee than you could imagine. It reminded of one of those Irish bars that has 100+ beers on tap that are constantly rotating. There were 3 sections of the new build that one could order drinks from, including a full bar. We walked around and looked at both the areas you could hand pick an item of carbo goodness. I was and am still on a moderately lower carb diet, which meant I wasn’t going to eat any of the pizza and forget about the pastry. I enjoy looking at both, but wasn’t about to eat them. Ive been pizza free for 1 year and 6 months. A personal choice and proud of that. While all the food did look more flavorful and moderately more healthy and fresh than ordering a Big Mac, I still chose not to eat it.

I walked around for nearly 15 minutes looking at the decor, the well timed orchestra of hipster baristas, and the very interesting display of coffee beans arriving in a bag to be sorted or whatever they were doing. Quite the interesting process. I asked my wife, “do you think this shit is real or for show?” She said show, but who knows. I was entertained by it. Hell, it made for good photos.

If you’re a fan of bean juice, as I am, I highly recommend a visit in.

Oh, and I am pleased, rather happy to provide some good news. The photos below are made with my Fuji X-Pro 2. If you follow along and remember me saying a while back that I busted my 35mm lens when I was ejected from my bike, well I fixed it. Yes, I, by myself fixed it. I was walking through lower Manhattan and fumbling around with it. I looked closely at how it was tilted and made a bold move. I gave it a wiggle and then a push popping it right back into its sweet spot. I was so excited I pulled it up to my eye and looked through the viewfinder. Clarity. No miss focus. Nothing. All images were sharp. I saved myself almost $400 on a replacement lens. Score.

Portraits

As long as I have been a photographer I have had a desire and a passion to photograph people. Being able to get into my studio, create a set, light, pose, compose, and make portraits of people is a feeling similar to being in a darkroom and watching the developer magically (scientifically) bring to life an image rendered, near permanently, on paper. I love meeting new people, photographing people, hearing their stories, and sharing with the world the moment they were in front of my camera. 

Portraits of Rachael. Natural light. Paul C. Buff Einstein with Octabox. Canon 5Ds with Sigma 85mm f 1.4 Art