Weaving

Trying to spend time weaving together various images to make a PDF portfolio to work as an easy email-able introduction to my work.

A series, a book, a story- all of those projects typically are easy to edit. A portfolio is more like a greatest hits type of collection, and is always much less satisfying for me. I can never really hit it right or weave the elements together to make a bigger statement.

But I'm trying...

Here are some screen shots from my attempts. Enjoy.

It Might Get Loud : Duncan / Channon SF

When SF advertising agency Duncan Channon commissioned us to create a group portrait of their team for their forthcoming feature story in CA, we left the meeting a little confused.

Should we get risers for people to stand on? How are we going to get everyone to smile? Oh...I have an idea: let's get the really crazy people up front...can we do that?

In the end, the agency wasn't really able to tell me what this experience would be like, and I was totally unprepared to address what we'd find. Let's just say it was more of a large scale collaborative performance art piece than an executed photograph really. It felt like creativity, like live performance in the most immediate way. And in the end we all were in awe of our epic creation. Art direction by Anne Elisco-Lemme and retouching by Faye Champlin.

See the image in all it's splendor HERE and see it in context in this month's Communication Arts magazine.

Ansel Adams Coffee Can

Ansel Adams' 110th Birthday Today.

Young Ansel was dismissed from several private schools for his restlessness and inattentiveness, his father decided to pull him out of school in 1915, at the age of 12. Totally ADHD before they even had a label for it, he blew up like no photographer ever before.

Embracing art and commerce like the best of us, AA licensed an image to Hill Brothers Coffee to be reproduced on a coffee can! Genius!

I have had mixed emotions about AA's work over the years. Loved it, hated it, made fun of it, and then stood in awe of it once again. Like anything that is popular and complex, there are going to be a full range of emotions. But today, his birthday, I want to celebrate the Hills Brother's Coffee Can, seen above, with reproduced Winter Morning, Yosemite Valley, California, 1969 on the can itself.

And then this quote from Ansel, about his Imogen Cunningham's accusations of him being a sellout:

"In any case, I know she disapproved of that Hills Brothers coffee can that came out about 1968 - the one with one of my Yosemite snow scenes on it. She made that very clear. She sent me one of the cans with a marijuana plant growing in it! And then there was the television commercial I did for Datsun. For every test-drive a potential customer took, Datsun would have a seedling planted by the U.S. Forest Service. I thought it was a pretty good idea to get some trees planted, and if you have to have cars, at least Datsuns get good mileage. But Imogen didn't see it that way."

Who knew the history of photography could be so awesome...?

The Lonely Doctor / CPW

Wow...we shot this series a while back.
Story was held, went quiet, then never saw the light of day.The Lonely Doctor was ideal for Commercial Photography Week. Originally commisioned for Smart Money Magazine, we wanted the scorched desert of daytime and the cool night light of closing time...and I think we got it. Killer tumbleweeds flown in by Shannon Amos and recently polished in post production by Laura Johnston.

See the images in all their splendor HERE.

Tales Of The City / PDN

Photo District News came out with their City Guide on San Francisco. Essentially it is supposed to spell out the pros and cons of the local and national market from the perspective of those living and working here. In the end it read like a big puff piece to me, but from the vantage point of Manhattan, I guess it seems like The Garden Of Earthly Delights out here. Happy to see new Dad Jeff Singer grab the opening spread with a great portrait as well.

I'm super thankful to have some images included in the story, very thankful that I'm remembered as a commercial photographer with projects shot for Duncan / Channon and Crispin Porter in the mix . But of course, you can't look thru the story and not think of all the killer talent the bay area is packed with who are living and working and kicking ass here on a daily basis.

Today's Spam : The Twins

2 Things On A Friday

Above is a painting of a cat my son Wilson just did this morning after breakfast. I drew the cat and he did the stain glass painting treatment. Kinda looks like cubism to me.

Busy week this week culminating in the neat experience of having my AA grad student Emily Sevin accompany Sz and I on a very make-shift portrait shoot we tried to pull off in the early hours of San Francisco's bustling financial district. SF is not LA, thus you can try to pull off guerilla style photo shoots in various knooks and crannies and alleys and foreclosed storefronts and business facades...really now more than ever. The snap below is from our class / shoot. Grecian columns appreciated by all.

October has lots of big stuff going on...so we are getting ready for that and thankful and amused by every assignment we are getting to do as well.

Peace.

Photo Eye Sells ECHOLILIA

Photo-Eye Bookstore in Santa Fe and online joins forces with Echo Press ( me and my kid in our garage ) to promote and market ECHOLILIA / Sometimes I wonder.

The good folks at there were super helpful in selling Sex Machines : Photographs and Interviews and really sold more signed copies than anyone. Now they have set up a beautiful web prescence for the book that displays it more elegantly than ever before..the BookTease they put together really captures the arc of the book.

See it and love it HERE.

In LA : A Shot Of Echolilia

In LA on Thursday evening: Watch the sunset, stroll along Montana Avenue. Stop by 728 Alley. Drink in the art and do a shot of ECHOLILIA. In the north alley off Montana Avenue Between 11th and 12th St., Santa Monica, California. Also showing prints by Kerri Parker. Come join us for food, drinks and conversation. Nourishing snacks compliments of holistic dietitian & yoga teacher Beth R. Sobel.

Shannon Amos Q & A on P.O.P.

Allison McCreery has a great interview with stylist Shannon Amos on her blog Photographers On Photography. It just hit on Monday and has been quoted and referenced on blogs throughout the week. It is no secret that there really wouldn't be a commercial career to T.A. if it wasn't for the hand and eye of Amos. I pulled a great quote here, but read the whole thing HERE.

I wish someone would have come to career day and talked about being a stylist. That would have been an Ah-Ha moment. It also would have made my parents understand a little better why I was compelled to redecorate and paint my bedroom on a weekly basis.

I am completely visually driven and have been since I was a kid. I would find a way to skip math class and go sit all day in the art room. Otherwise I was always reading design, fashion and art books in the library. Luckily, I went to a very liberal high school and actually felt a great deal of encouragement.

I finally put all of these interests together and started working at our local theaters doing wardrobe and building sets. And let me just say there is nothing that will teach a stylist to work on a budget like live theater. After high school I moved to San Francisco and got a job at the New Lab developing film. I had no idea when I took that job how greatly it would effect the rest of my life. Suddenly I was spending eight hours a day viewing the work of the photography world greats. It was a usual Saturday afternoon to sit around with Jim Marshall while he waited for his film and hear all the stories behind the legendary photographs that he had taken.

In the process of proofing film I started developing an eye for what works and what does not in a frame. How color and texture are effected by lighting. And how much is needed or not to tell the story or sell the product. There was also a lot to be learned from what photographers were leaving on the cutting room floors.

Subscribe and tune into Photographers On Photography HERE.

MICA / Baltimore, MD

Had a wonderful time with the photography department of MICA in Baltimore and found this image in their offices. Art Department meets the Department Of Motor Vehicles meets a private detective's office.

The teachers at MICA I met: Tom Baird, Nate Larson and Margaret Adams describe their students with such admiration and affection, I'm just kind of taken back. Later in the day I hear the students describe the three of them in similar terms. All of these sentiments prove themselves to be true: these kids, these teachers, can solve the issues of contemporary photography. One topic leads to another topic that leads to a side observation that again leads back to the original concern and a new observation. As we post a snapshot of the class to facebook, Larson jokes that the image will be appear with every student tagged in it. Later that afternoon....every kid's name appears on that shot. Larson has sent a message to these kids that he is on their side, he is with them on this journey and together they are going to discover the wonder of this language. He knows it, the teachers know it...and the kids know it too.

Here are some snaps of our lecture and class from 4/19/11. Enjoy.

Otto Bock Campaign / SF

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Just got a chance to see the final spreads of our Otto Bock ad shot here in San Francisco back in September. Kent Brown and Cody McDonald were our subjects and the streets of San Francisco made up our set. Glad we got to shoot it out here before the rains kicked in. Great post production on these images executed by Steve Peters Digital also here in SF.

We are finishing up our next Otto Bock Relationships ad, shot in Chicago a few months back. Hope to see that released at the start of the new year...

The holiday gauntlet has begun...

The Lonely Doctor's Office

Monday found us at Left Space studios creating another conceptual photograph as well as playing with some motion exercises seeing that we had this nice set and a professional actor with us. Before starting it off stylist Shannon Amos made this mini film, as we have so many times on various projects we have worked on together. Looking at this film the day after the shoot, it really made me smile. The sense of Art School experimentation that comes into play whenever we have our core group together is really never lost on me.

Here we are on the set created by Shannon, and Suzy is dancing thru the set like a character in Mummenchanz. And me? I am the Master of Ceremonies.

Echo Bookmark

Mass producing the Echo Bookmark, as conceived of by Diane Eames of Eames Marketing.

One Last Epic Baby

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This is the last one.

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I'm thinking I may not really need three....

but sometimes you push just to see if it works.

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I Love Commercial Photography

I love commercial photography : Suz, Shannon, Natalie, David and Meaghann all got to gather for a project for pals at Agency.com. Sometimes SF can just be so beautiful....

And Then We Have This to Contend With

Scouting The Engine Shop

Oh, this place looked like a real good place to make a commercial photograph....agree or disagree?

The Family Portrait

We shot this ad for Don Sebastiani And Sons a few months back and had to keep it quiet until the season arrived....and now 'tis the season. We blogged about the shoot back in July here
as we shot the campaign with creatives Dave Knox and Patrick Nistler of Duncan Channon in SF.
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Got to shine a light on the inspired post production on this project...it was way too late to get those sweaters made... courtesy of Adam Moore of Sugar Digital. And of course we have the sad "bank xmas tree" delivered to us by stylist Shannon Amos.

Electricity / New Dynamic Inn

Up at the Russian River region today and a day last week shooting landscapes for Scientific American....a great project and a real change of pace in a very nice way. I found this hotel and loved it and was repulsed by it. I shot it with my cameraphone while getting gas. I went home and looked it up online. It read : The New Dynamic Inn, Where Cosmic Energies Unite Within You ®
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I laughed at that slogan, because the place looked so un blissfull....so not cosmic. But that idea...cosmic energies uniting within me....oh, that I like. There has been lots of fun stuff going on these past few weeks work and art wise. A while back we discussed The Silence. The opposite of The Silence is The Electricity. The Electricity feels like....oh...electrical currents, magnetic currents aligning themselves with you and drawing people to you, drawing projects to you....options are presented, life seems full of opportunity. Exhibitions seek you out....stock sales go thru effortlessly....it just feels like you are in the current. You blow a job and easily make the changes to resolve it....the flow, the current...you are with it, not against it. That's the feeling of The Electricity....it really does feel like cosmic energies uniting within me.
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But as you know, you gotta enjoy it when it hits...because its not gonna last forever.