Joshua Tree

Click the play button to watch the video below.

You either love the desert or you hate the desert, a phrase I heard some time in 2019. I forgot who said it but its trivial at this point because I learned very quickly that I love the desert. The following film was produced in 2018 when we visited Joshua Tree for the first time. Well before I heard those words I knew the desert had a hold on me.

We started our day early in the morning entering the park sometime after 7:30. I took with me a Sony a6300 and a Nikon F4. When I wasn’t shooting with one I was rolling with the other and vice versa. At this moment I have only scanned about half of the 14+ rolls I shot that day. Don’t judge me for over shooting, like I said it was my/our first time there. I could have spent days in the park making photos. Sometime in the near future I plan to return for camping trip. It has been a few years since I have overnighted in a tent. I am not sure what mode of domicile I would use for camping in a desert. Id probably lean towards a vehicle that would keep us safe from all sorts of things that crawl around.

We did a fair amount of walking. No major hiking, but as evident by the film we did do quite a bit of exploring. I wanted this film to capture what I feel the desert is and can be, a very weird place. If I was to close my eyes and imagine the Sahara Desert, I would think of camels, Egypt, large expanses of sand. In comparison, when I think of Joshua Tree, I think of Indians, I think of Crows (something I see a lot of in Joshua Tree), and I would imagine some sort of spiritual quest or trip. I found Joshua Tree to be inspiring. So much so that I returned literally 1 year later, October 2019 and photographed a model there. The photos ended up being published. I will be sharing those shortly. But for now enjoy my first trip into Joshua Tree.

Travel Photography: France, Some Film, and Mistakes

It has been nearly a year since I have posted on here. In that time a lot has happened. A lot is happening. I am not going to share my most significant images of 2019 in this post. I will not be writing about the best shoots I had last year, yet. I have plans for that, but at the moment I am going to start writing here as a daily practice to decompress and reduce the stress we are all facing. I have a goal. I want to take your attention away from what we are all in fear of.

Each post, or story, that I am going to share will be visual based. I will give you insight into the images, the shoots, or the travels. I worked with some great people in the last year. I traveled to new places and made some images that I am excited to share. Initially as I began this post I started with a proverbial quote, “I don’t know where to begin.” Which, is also an oxymoron if that is the intro to your post. I hit the delete key and looked at the blank page for all of 30 seconds before I started with what you’re now reading.

France and one of the biggest mistakes of my career: The first full day of exploring Nice France I kept with me two cameras, a Holga 120 film camera and a Sony a6300 to record any video. After making some great images that would never see the light of day I went to change the roll of film. As I pulled the back of the camera open I noticed the film was lose on its spool. Even though it had been exposed and wound, it was lose. My heart sank and I was irritated. I had with me about 20 rolls of film I planned to capture our trip on. With me I had a Hasseblad 500cm, a far cry from the Pentax 67 kit that I rented. Welp I said to my wife, looks like I am not going get anything with this thing. I threw it back into the bag. Once back to the room I would swap it out for my 500cm.

I rented a Pentax 67 kit with a few awesome lens. A wide angle, a telephoto, a 50mm, a 90 mm and a 75mm. Sounds like one of the most bad ass kits you could think to travel with, right??? Aside from the weight of it, it was a beauty. I am not one to complain about the weight of a camera but this thing was going to be some serious weight to trek around Europe. I really didn’t care that this camera was going to create a back problem, the photos rendered on Portrait 400 were going to be so worth it. So I thought.

Literally 24 hrs before flying the unimaginable happened. The camera’s mirror locked. I was taking out a roll of film that I shot in Joshua Tree a few days earlier. I forgot to take it out after the shoot and as I was prepping the camera and packing my gear I went to remove it. I am not sure how the mirror locked up but it did. Nothing I could do would unjam it. I spent hours searching my camera store and a few other stores for batteries. After swapping them out with a fresh one, it was locked up for good. I was pissed. I spent well over $300 for month long rental and I now had a giant paper weight. I had just purchased a TON of film and was amped up. In my mind, knowing where I was traveling to, Nice, France and the Cinque Terre Region of Italy, I already had images framed and being developed. Those images would never comet to see the light of day, just like the photos from my Holga.

Getting back to our room I swapped out the Holga for the Hasselblad. I was excited to put this baby to work on foreign soil. There was something incredibly satisfactory about looking down the lens of such a remarkable camera in such a beautiful region. Square format, Portra 400, France, sounds like a great time with a camera, right? Wrong. After spending about an hour making photo I finished the roll. Somehow I managed to roll the film incorrectly into the back. Ive done that serval times, usually while loading in a pinch. Also, I don’t use the camera daily, soooo muscle memory..Yet again another set of images that would never see the light of day. I was on a roll. Strike 3. I was out. Needless-to-say I was pissed. I decided right then and there, standing in Old Town in Nice, France I was done with film for this trip. This was the third strike.

Fuji X-Pro 2. That was the camera I decided was going to be my back up. I left home my Canon 6d Mark ii and allllll my lenses. I had with me, as my digital savior, my favorite travel camera. It is the perfect camera for traveling. The only issue, as if you werne’t really expecting another one, right?, I only had one lens, a 35mm. No big deal, right? Well it was sort of a big deal because I was going to be in an area with dramatic landscapes. You don’t want to be standing on the Italian coast holding a 50mm lens in your hands trying to film large landscapes. Really, you don’t. So when you hear, “gear doesn’t matter,” it really does. There are the right tools for the right jobs, just like there are there are the right cameras and the right lenses for specific types of images you intend to make. I would go on to spend 7 beautiful days with my Fuji over my shoulders and in my hands. At times it would be tossed into my bag as I recorded video using my A6300.

The following images are unified not by their physical location, but through the compositional traits they share. Each image fits perfectly next to the next and previous photo. They demonstrate my ability to see, what gauges my interest, and how I can tie images together to form a visual narrative. When I travel I do not just aimlessly point my camera in a direction and hope something magical befalls my lens. I see, I search, I compose through the lens just as much as I am orienting myself in a new place. This type of work satisfies my need to travel and create. Traveling for me is validates the existence of the places in the world I do not yet know exist. Photography for me is a way of communicating my vision, saying this is where I was and what I saw when I was there.. Each photo below is a window, a doorway, a walk way, a space that holds its own composition, the view on the other side. I love architecture and when I can I like to capture images of buildings and architectural features that represent the styles and periods of history of places I am traveling through.

I did mention above that during this trip I did make the biggest mistake of my camera. I will be explaining that in more detail of a few more posts about this trip. For now, enjoy these photos. Cheers and stay happy.

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.

Notre Dame Cathedral

It is a story that has spread around the world, “flames engulf Notre Dame in Paris.” Holy shit, I said out loud when I saw a Facebook live video of the cathedral. I was in disbelief. Stunned. I am near speechless as I turned CNN on and watched the news. One can not understand the gravity and severity of this massive loss. I grew going to a Catholic Church and was an alter boy for a short period of time. When I landed in art school and began to learn about art, religion, and architecture, I took on a new appreciation for such monuments. As I progressed through my art history courses, Paris and Notre Dame were always a discussed focal point during those periods of time covered in the classes. I wanted to see Notre Dame. I wanted to visit Paris.

It was a cool afternoon. It was late August and the temperature was lower than normal. We had a day of grey over cast skies and periods of mist to light rain. When we crossed a bridge filled with locks and made our way to Notre Dame, we were greeted by hundreds of people. I couldn’t help but stand in awe of what was greeting me, a beautiful cathedral, a massive structure that took 200 years to complete, and had impossible to comprehend details. Every detail that I could absorb, I did. I moved my lens across the exterior of the building and eventually on the inside once we passed the doors. Notre Dame Cathedral had more details than any one building I think I had ever visited before, until the Vatican 8 days after visiting Notre Dame. I can not remember the smells from inside, as I do recall there was something that stood out to me, but what I can remember is the light. Low light, candles illuminating pockets of the cathedral, and of course, the focal point, the glass windows. There were so many beautiful moments happening. People. Hundreds of us in amazement of the structure we were standing in. People using phones, cameras, and their eyes to sneak images. We moved through, a bit quicker than I would have liked, but what we saw, what I photographed, rendered impressions in me that I will never forget. I am saddened as we witness something so significant, so beautiful, so dear to so many burn.

Here are a few images I made of Notre Dame Cathedral when we visited.

Los Angeles: Fashion in the rain

This article is the first of 3 about my recent trip to Los Angeles. 3/13/19

I worked hard to layout a schedule in the weeks and days leading up to my arrival in L.A. I coordinated with models and my friend Rome, an R&B artist that I have photographed before. I have had images of Rome on my website since the first time we met and I photographed him. Its been a few years. While planning my trip I let him know I was going to be in town and we should shoot. He was eager. He was anxious. He was excited. He was looking for some updated work of himself and left all the ideas and creativity up to me. I built a mood board around him, his styles, and of course reflective of his talents and industry. I set the foundation for a great shoot and the last thing I needed were locations. I contemplated a studio. I looked at the options for renting and decided against it and to stick the the theme in the mood board, which was an urban, city vibe. Not that banal grungy urban cliche we’ve seen shot to death, pun intended. Not having a vast data base of locations previously scouted, I had to take some time to scout once I arrived. That was priority number one after checking into my Airbnb, get out, see, create, and document locations I was going to use.

For whatever reason I checked the weather 48 hours before I was flying out. It must be a force of habit when traveling to check the weather. Well, once I slid the screen open and pulled up, Dark Sky, I was met with gloom. Nearly an entire week of rain in the forecast. I dropped the phone into the cup holder with an echo that mimicked my now re-adjusted mood. What the F*** was I going to do. I had planned two big shoots outdoors and was hoping to film my entire week with outdoor shoots. I took a few hours to think of what I was going to do. I needed a back up plan for both outdoor shoots. One of the shoots, TBD, To Be Discussed, in the next post, will spot light a schedule change and the location. Well, if ever there was a wrench thrown at anyones plans, it was at mine and it was right then and there I knew I was going to have to flex some creative muscles and figure something out.

As I mentioned above, I thought for a hot second to rent a studio for Rome. That thought crossed my mind because some of the images I pulled were location/studio based. I ultimately decided against that because I wanted something location based. I wanted to shoot in LA, embrace LA, and get an LA vibe in our images. So the studio wasn’t something I was really pushing for. Rome had a date on his books and that wasn’t going to change. I wasn’t going to request a schedule change and disrupt his busy life so we could get something better. The problem was rain. The solution, make it work. If I was shooting a big production with a massive team and big dollars at stake, we wouldn’t be rescheduling unless hell itself was hailing stones down on us. Even then, I would still roll with it. With rain in the forecast and knowing it wasn’t likely to change, I set out to scout some locations that would be ideal. I decided to check out the arts district. Until then, I never visited that area. I have seen some youtubers shooting in that area so I figured I would check it out.

I found a gem. A spot that made me go, “WHOA this is going to work.” I wanted to stay very clear from any wall that was saturated with artwork and graffiti. Again, avoiding the banality of the urban landscape. But but but but, this wall spoke to me. Flashy. Vibrant. Ultra. Portra. The right amount of saturation that would yield something spectacular. I was like, this, this will work. I took a photo of the wall, pulled up GPS on my phone and got my location and made a screen shot. I would end up spending two hours doing this. I was happy with my choices and knew that I would have some great images to work with. I had enough locations and ideas that I could create enough images for Rome that he would be able to use them on a multitude of platforms. The next hurdle was styling the shoots. The stylist I was hoping to work with couldn’t get her schedule to sync up with ours. No worries. I got this. I did. I did just that. I sourced the looks myself and built a wardrobe based on his style and the mood board I curated. To be confident I had enough looks I made a stop at one more place and found a crew sweatshirt. When I saw it was like Indiana Jones seeing the holy grail. Gold light was shinning from the rack right to my eyes. The entire room went dark as the gold radiated out, calling me, begging me to photograph it. This shirt not only was going to make the shoot, it literally was artfully made just for my above mentioned location. I don’t know how or why, perhaps it was just the timing of things, but something aligned and I knew I was on to something. As amped as I was about this shirt and the location, Rome shared that same feeling when we arrived at the spot. Gold.

With the locations, some great looks pulled, all I needed was a clear day. That was asking for to much. Even though my cameras are weather resistant, I really didn’t want to shoot in the rain. The only ones that can’t work in the rain, my Sonys. I wasn’t concerned about the rain like that. I was concerned about shooting in the rain and getting soaked. I did bring a single waterproof jacket with me, but when the talent is getting soaked, thats a problem. Lets roll with it. Lets see what we get and what we can produce. Yolo, right? That is exactly what we did. We went with it.

Morning Light

Most days I am not up before 7-7:30. I have no reason to get up at 5 am. I do not like going to the gym first thing in the morning. In fact I despise going to the gym early in the morning. If I happen to wake up early and I am bored at 6am and there isn’t a scheduled shoot for a couple hours, I might go to the gym. But out of pure boredom. I will get up at 3 am to travel anywhere in the world. That to me is exciting. I will wake up at the crack of dawn if there is an early call time. I have just never really been much of a morning person. When I was in college I had an 8am class after getting out of a third shift at 7:15 am. That was an awful semester. Full time overnight gave me a lot of early mornings.

When my career as a photographer started and I discovered what the golden hour was capable of providing, the evening light became my favorite. Every so often, maybe a handful of times throughout the year I will find myself up early enough for a shoot. On the rare occasion that I am up early enough to capture the first light of the day, I will do so. In the north east when the winter winds down and spring starts approaching, the temperature changes in the morning can cause some fog on the water and the lower parts of our city, especially with the canals. It becomes very cinematic.

Saturday morning was one of those mornings where I was up early. I crashed hard Friday night, very early. It was a gnarly week and I was exhausted. I woke as the sun cracked the horizon. I went down stairs and grabbed my Fuji X-Pro2 and snapped away. I finished up inside the house and wanting a coffee, I took my camera and left the house. Below are a few photos.

One of the motivators for making photos inside the house has been the times when I get up and see the light pouring in and illuminating objects and parts of the house. I wanted to capture that light.