Commercial Photography: Boston Marathon
I have never run any sort of race, let a lone a marathon. When I was actively running a few short years ago I found myself enjoying the hell out of it. For years my asthma prevented me from doing so. The closest I ever came to running any kind of marathon distance was the day my friend Kris and I ran a portion of the Charles River in Boston.
At the time Kris was living just south of Bean Town. I went out to visit him and we planned a swell run. We were going to do the entire Charles River loop, which totaled the sum of 17 miles. The day of the run we pounded an unhealthy lunch, something you wouldn't see a marathon runner doing. But, the commute we had from Canton Ma to Boston was enough to let our lunch set in and give us the energy we needed to tackle such a feat. We got off the train, walked from South Station to the Charles River as a warm up and began running the moment we set foot on the pavement that wrapped the river. It was one of the greatest days, one of the greatest moments, one of the greatest runs I've had. We were competing against ourselves. We were making our own marathon and running our own race. We set the pace and chased the ladies, flexed our muscles as we passed them, let the athletes pass us, watched as a cyclist made love to a fence when he didn't make the turn, as his handlebars caught the pole, we sweat, we ran, ran, and ran some more. We made a decisive turn, skipping the last leg. By that point we realized we would not be able to make the full loop. We would be shaving off about 6 miles and ending our run just over 11 miles. Why ruin a good run with over extended ourselves? Right? Welp, we ran a good race, had a blast, and it is a memory I will never forget.
Over the last 4 years my running has declined. I have had major set backs with running and have become incredibly frustrated. I have been trying to work through it and am in the process of making incredible changes in my lifestyle. Said changes will be enabling me get back to a place of comfort and joy. Amongst the changes I have been making, I have found inspiration in a project I worked on. Below is a photograph of my sister-in-law Alison. Today she is one of over 14,000 women running in the Boston Marathon. I am proud of her for the training and strength that she has show me, us, her family. She has taken her training seriously, inspiring not just me, but my wife as well.
Alison is a recent mother, as you will notice by the image below. Over the course of her pregnancy she came into the studio, discretely, not telling anyone but her husband. We were working towards the below image, a timeline of her pregnancy in a running pose. The idea, of course was born, PUN intended, because of the two pervious progression series I have composed. These kinds of shoots are so fun, so awesome to produce, and so enjoyable. I love the task of coming up with a concept for the series and will take them on in the blink of an eye.
For all the thousands and thousands of athletes, runners, new, young, old, seasoned, best of luck to you. You have been training hard. Maybe you have worked your entire life for this moment, maybe you have been running the Boston Marathon for years and you still get that adrenaline spark that defines every step you put on the pavement. No matter where you place, whether first, second, third, 18 thousandth or dead last, you are still completing a marathon. There are a lot of people who can not and will not compete in a race for any number of reasons, but there you are, running, winning a race. Yes, winning a race. Even if you are not the first person across the finish line, you still beat the biggest competitor, yourself. You have beat the odds, beat the doubt, and won. Congratulations to all who have run and will run. Your accomplishment is your reward and an achievement, which no one can take away from you.
Photography, Entrepreneurship, : Know your limits
I once had a business partner. Things did not work out and we parted ways. He moved away. I stayed here and continued running the show. In a way, I always ran the show and held things to a higher standard. The parting of ways was an eye opener. I was able to discover things about myself, my business, and most importantly, the direction I wanted to be going in. While we had a business and a studio and worked toward building a reputation and taking on larger studios in our area, I was building a reputation for myself. I was doing the work that I really wanted to do, which was most important to me. When the time came and things were ready to end, after a small messy battle, I kept moving forward and have made changes with my business.
You will not see me discussing the past business beyond how I did so above. I will not discuss past shoots that occurred under that business. By all accounts, I am that business, have always been that business and will always be that business, that is, until a time comes that I chose to follow other leads in life. I have a new partner now. A new business parter, my wife. She believes in me and wants me to succeed more that the former business partner did. She cares about my business, nurtures my creativity, and wants me to be the success that I am and will continue to be. She does so out of love and care, but also because the more successful I am, the more we prosper as a couple.
Sue, cliff side, Cannon Beach area, Hiking to Indian Head Beach, Oregon
My wife, Sue, is always quick to point out the importance of downtime and knowing my limitations. Sue has endured her share of physical set backs. Her health at times is like a roller coaster, up and down, peaks, highs, and lows. She is always encouraging me to rest and get better sleep, which I am finding out makes a huge difference. I have cared for her when she has needed it, never giving her many opportunities to reciprocate. Her mother is a retired nurse. Sue grew up in a house with two other sisters, her father, and the best possible kind of caretaker there is, a nurse. She learned to be more compassionate, undoubtedly, from her mother, who I may add is a sweetheart, and if she is reading this, I'm sure she is now blushing.
Photo Credit: Sue, my wife. Landscape, Oregon.
Yesterday, while running some errands for the house and picking something up at the Home Depot for a project I am starting, I experienced a pain in my back. It was familiar, yet strikingly new. By the I made it home, I could not walk up the driveway. I attempted to help with a few minutes of yard work and found it to be a challenge. I retired to my new leather chair and ottoman. I fell harshly into it and painfully began to find a spot of comfort. With minimal strength to even lift my legs, I was able to sit into some sort of contorted position that was as pleasant as it was painful. I texted my uncle to let him know I would be unable to join him that evening. I closed my phone and laid back watching season 7 of Californication. I had no idea the rest of the night was going to be a painful spiral downwards.
By the time I was able to get into bed, wiping the tears from my eyes, I was near delusions. Some how she managed to make me laugh, which amplified the pain, which increased the tears and laughter. Oh I was more of a train wreck last night than anything I have seen in a while. After some pills and a few sips of water, I checked out for the night.
12 hours later I rose like the holy man himself. I was in pain, yes, but had to get up and stretch out as well as empty the bladder. Today was a new day with a new possibility of gaining some mobility. Around mid-night I had texted one of my long term clients, whom I am friends with and informed her I had to reschedule the shoot. That is something I do not commonly do. As a business owner, there are times when meetings and shoots have reschedules, and things need to be adjusted. Happens in all industries for countless unforeseeable issues that arise. Today mine was a physical limitation. I was upset and concerned that I would either end up in the hospital or worse have to cancel the first few days of my week.
While I was seeing the light and nearing the level of pain that induces a coma, my first thought was my business, my second thought, was my business, my final thought before passing out, was my business. This is where knowing the importances of your limitations are and knowing how to shut off from time to time comes into play. This week was not horribly crazy, compared to the past. Friday was fast paced day, day before injury, and was not super, over the top crazy. However, the fast movement from place to place, shoot to shoot, in some way contributed to my Saturday collapse. Not that I fell, but that metaphorically I did collapse. It was time to rest. The biggest bummer of all, Sunday, today, was one of the most nicest days we have had this spring. I was looking forward to a successful shoot in the morning, a nice road trip with my wife and our fur kids, and a grilled dinner, with a fire to top it off. So far I have managed to sit in the sun, read 8 pages from a book I am in love with, and barely eat a frozen mash up of rice and beans cooked by one of the finest microwave ovens Best Buy has to offer. However, during all of that, my new partner has been there by my side, holding me as needed, walking with me to loosen up the tight muscles, and tend to the yard work that so desperately needs it.
View of Pacific Ocean from cliff side, Indian Head Beach area/Cannon Beach area, Oregon
It is incredibly cliche to say, "don't take things for granted." In some ways, we are as human beings take everything for granted at one point or another in our lives. The flexibility to get in a car and drive anywhere and do just about anything, so long as we have the proper resources, enables us to take for granted what we do have, life. During my struggles and my pains over the last 24 hours, 12 of which we unmeasurable in terms of pain levels, I never kept my wife in mind and thought of how well she is doing with taking care of me. I am not easy to manage when I am in pain and she did a stellar job. While this blog post is more about the undertone, "don't take what you have for granted" and know your limitations and rest as needed so you can avoid injury and risk to your job, life, or business, it is also a way of me publicly saying thank you to my wife. Without her I would have suffered insurmountable levels of pain that would have kept me out for days to come. But her encouragement and support is what has gotten me up. She believes in me in ways I still don't yet understand. But the level of support and creative freedom she gives me gives me courage to fight on and be better than I can imagine.
Thank you Susan.
Fashion Photography: Cover Shoot
In March, a couple of weeks back, I found myself admiring the view from the 8th floor of an apartment window on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I was thinking of how I could incorporate the scene I was so longingly appreciating into the images I was about to make. Michael, my assistant, and I scouted the apartment for what would work, both for the cover and interior pages. In terms of the cover, I kept coming back to a scene in the bedroom as a possibility. During the pre-production we had discussed a few ideas for the cover, but never settled on anything final. There were a few images I put into the mood board that incorporated views out a window. All of us agreed, editor, myself, Michael, that the ledge in the bedroom, set against the quintessential Manhattan view would work. The bedroom was the perfect size to shoot with the bed and then reconfigure everything and shoot against the window.
Behind me the dialog between the editor, Mariana, our cover model and her assistant filled the room with conversation that echoed down the hall. The dialog shifted between the modeling industry to the wardrobe that was styled for the shoot. My assistant, Michael, was moving equipment around, setting things up. Depending on time, we would be shooting between 3-4 looks with 3-4 different sets within the apartment. The first agreed upon set was the bedroom. Directly across from the bedroom there was a kitchen area, a play area for the kids, and a small reading room off of that. The kitchen area would work for one of the ideas that Mariana had. From there we decided on a spot in the living room. There was a beautiful couch set against an orange wall that was close in color. Dale wore a vibrant orange top and a pair of white jeans that provided the perfect contrast.
Our shoot time, like our pre-production planning was short. Working within a narrow timeframe, we had to shoot the cover image in one outfit and change sets as fast as we could to allow for the other outfits. Our model for the shoot, Dale Noelle, a veteran to modeling, founder and owner of True Model Management, was in the chair being prepped for the shoot by Hair and MUA, Shqipe Gocaj. As Michael was finishing with setting the lights up, the next step were to plan the wardrobe. This was the first time any of us, with the exception of Dale and her assistant were seeing most of the pieces. For the cover we agreed upon a dress that had arrived from Jovani Fashion just moments before we were ready to start shooting. As you will see below, the dress is stunning and Dale wore it well, very well!
I think we rocked this shoot. Mariana was ecstatic on set and the flow was great. This shoot had a lot of time crunchs, in terms of planning and execution on the day of. It was fun to work quickly, under the pressure of getting the shots in as fast as we can. While I have not had any exposure to photographing A list celebrities, yet, I look forward to when I get 5 minutes with, oh lets say Jason Statham or Kristen Bell. This shoot was awesome. I had such a great time working with everyone. A HUGE thank you to Dale, Dale's assistant Rachael, Mariana, Michael, and Shquipe. I am proud to have worked with everyone!
Commercial Photography: Portraits
Rome is the ideal client. He has a need for great portraits. While he has ideas of how he would like to be photographed, ultimately he leaves the creativity up to me. Back at the beginning of March I had the pleasure of having Rome in the studio for a shoot. I put together a working plan to photograph him against a white background, knowing he would want some full body shots. I also photographed him against a very nice muslin background that I bought for a trip I took to the left coast in February. Sadly it never got used on the trip, so I was very anxious to shoot against it.
I kept the lighting set up simple. For half the shoot I used a softlighter with my AB 1600. For the white, I used a parabolic with an AB 1600 and a bare bulb AB1600 to illuminate the white. I kept the background light off to the side a bit to add a bit of glare. With a few outfit changes, we navigated through the shoot with ease. I took him off the white and the other muslin for a few shots against the bare walls and window of the studio as well.
Rome is an R & B Artist, producer, and song writer. He is quite the talented chap. I first had him in the studio back in July of 2015. A mutual friend of ours produced a music video for one of Rome's songs. We were able to shoot the entire video in studio. During the shoot I popped off a few stills with the lighting having been set up for the video. I really liked the photos, as well as Rome did too.
Rome needed some updated images for his social media as well as for future releases of work. I was happy to have him in studio. You can see some behind the scenes as well as the results below. I will be working with him again in the next few weeks to create a different look. Of course I will share that shoot as well.
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Here is a recent portrait of two dancers, sisters, that I photographed in the studio. I will be doing a blog post about this shoot shortly.
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From the Wall
My career as a graffiti writer was short lived but plays a key roll in my photography. I was introduced to graffiti when I was 14-15 by a friend who showed me a legal wall. Painted from top to bottom on an expansive wall, ironically across the street from the police department, there were characters, lines, colors, every single element of a well composed piece by a reputable crew of talented writers.
At that time I had just finished my first photography class and was already hooked. I made a point to go back and shoot some photos of the painting. Walking in a straight line, left to right, I framed up sections of the painting until I captured the entire piece. Did I mention I did this with an old 35mm film camera and stitched the pano together in camera. When I received the 4x6 prints I taped them down to a piece of cardboard. I still have that photo, 16 years later, sitting in the studio.
i began documenting the places that had the best paintings. I always went alone, never when anyone was painting. I would photograph the paintings that I admired, by the artists I admired. I started doing research, bought sketchbooks and markets and gave myself a name. In high school I was known for drawing, the graffiti. I always had a camera around and was always drawing graffiti. Occasionally Id scribble on a desk, but mostly in my books. Chicks loved it, so did a few of my friends Id skate with. Graffiti went hand and hand with skateboarding. I introduced the medium to a few friends, some of whom either curse me commend me for getting them hooked because they are still at it.
Where I grew up was a haven of writers for years. In the backgrounds I would follow the artists by photographing their work. During that time I began painting, developing my style, learning and researching. I once came across a few paintings on website. I searched the interwebs, way before Google was around, and found something beautiful. The paintings always stuck with me. One eventful day I climbed through a fence, walked down an embankment, stepped onto the train tracks and looked at the wall. I was flabbergasted to see the same paintings I adored. I somehow thought these painted existed in some far off place in the world, not anywhere close to me. I began snapping away. I maneuvered around and kept shooting. There were two sets of tracks and a train quickly approaching. I was in awe and hadn't noticed the impending freight train. What seemed like inches away, the train engineer blew the horn, scared the crap out of me so hard I graffitied my underwear and ran for my life. It was a close call, but I caught some amazing paintings.
For years I followed one group of artists. I was never in their league, not even close. I had a few friends that knew them, but I never met them. I kept my silent distance and photographed their work. Of the group there was one artist in particular that I was inspired by. I admired his work, his style, his bold use of paint. Over the years I heard the rumors of the trouble he got in, the time he did, and that one time a judge let him off by painting a piece right behind the courthouse that had a positive message, "The future is in your hands." It was a beautiful painting of a pair of hands extended from a character the artist made.
One evening I was with a friend. At times he was a chill kid, other times he was a raging dick. That particular night he was a dick. He told me I should never pick up a can of paint again and that I should just make photographs of the writers and their work. He said the world needed someone to document the work and make the books instead of someone that couldn't paint. Id like to say that I took his advice, however I did not. I was not discouraged in the least. I continued painting and documenting what I saw. It would be a few years before I put the cans down. In full disclosure, I was never one of those offensive artists that would maliciously paint everything I could, racking up a case of vandalism. Graffiti for me, as it has been and always will be, is art.
Recently I found out from a friend of mine that the artist I idolized for so many years passed away. I was saddened by this news. While I did not know him personally, I took the loss in my own ways, knowing that another talented artist had left this world too soon. The day I found out about his passing, my long time friend, the one who loves to curse me for getting him hooked, was at an undisclosed location painting a mural with a group of friends. The mural was the last piece the artist was working on. They were painting it in his honor. He invited me down, but due to a shoot, I was unable to make it down. This past week I had a shoot in the neighborhood of the wall. I had a few minutes to stop and admire the work, so I did. I snapped a few photos and thought back to all those short years of the smell of Krylon, markers, discovering new paintings by the artists I admired, and that sensation I got from graffiti. It is sad to think that the artist I admired so much will no longer be producing work. There comes a date when we all retire from what drives us, the things we love and the work we love to produce. Enjoy the days you have and the work you make. Keep sharing, you never know who you will inspire.
The following photos are from the memorial mural.
