January 2007 Archives

Jesus & the Olive Garden

My freelance life is a lot less romantic than it seems from the outside, especially to people with office jobs, or who just think that they are so very normal (which in this case means boring I guess), who occasionally ask me big questions like "where's the best place you've traveled?" or "what was your favorite assignment?" Those are interesting questions and I do love my job, but I rarely am able to give an interesting answer. Occasionally though I work on a story that is so unique or surreal that I do get caught up in the act.

As alluded to a couple of times last year, I pitched and worked on a story for Newsweek about a Puerto Rican minister named Dr. Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda who leads Creciendo en Gracia (Growing in Grace) and claims to be the Second Coming of Christ. Yup, this man says he is Jesucristo hombre, and his organization, which is now estimated to be at least hundred thousand strong in 30 different countries (mostly Latin and South America), is spreading into the U.S. from its headquarters in Miami. The story was published in this week's issue of the magazine (though it unfortunately didn't get very good play). If you want to see de Jesus in action the online version includes a couple of videos.

It's not everyday that I photograph a guy who says he's Jesus, and certainly not one who has a weekly worldwide audience of a couple of million people who seem to believe him. But the really, truly surreal part of the experience for me came when I flew to Houston to photograph de Jesus and family at their new Texas home. I was pretty damn nervous about what I was going to be able to get photographically, not only because of who this guy says he is but because it was the first original story that Newsweek has ever accepted from me. It turned out that de Jesus was even more nervous than me, and was extremely welcoming into his home. We even had good conversation about religion. I only had a narrow window to spend with him and that was too bad because he and his wife even invited me to go to dinner with the family at Olive Garden that night. You heard it here first: Jesus loves the Italian food.

The story was slated to run a dozen different times since I shot the final piece last September, but it just finally eaked in now. Since my visit the story has gotten even stranger, to the point that last week de Jesus revealed a "666" mark on his body and announced that he was the Antichrist. I really don't even know what to do with that. Um, OK. Antichrist, sure. Hopefully I can find another home for the project internationally through resale... but until that happens you can check out my personal edit of the project on my website.

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Internship roulette

Over the last few days I've become really angry about internships, which is funny since I'm not likely to apply for an internship at any point, hopefully, in the next 50 years. It started when my good friend and former assistant Travis learned that he had lost out on an summer opportunity at a small but very strong photo paper last week. Then a couple of days later I saw a post on Lightstalkers for an unpaid internship opportunity with a well known "documentary" photographer who in my opinion could, and should, afford to either pay her employees a real wage, or live without another fucking assistant. These two events stirred up a lot of college-era resentment about the whole world of internships and the role they play in photography... and all in all, I'm now pissed. It's been a while since I wrote an "I'm pissed" blog post, so lets get started.

Travis is a very talented young photographer, and more than that, he's a very good person. Now, those of you who know me know that just being a good person really isn't good enough for me when it comes to photography, but when it comes to newspaper internships, especially at small newspapers with tight-knit staffs, it's really important. In this case I know that it was very important to the photo editor doing the hiring because he told me so on the phone when he called me a couple of weeks ago as one of Travis' references. And why it's very important goes beyond this particular editor's preferences, and shines a little light on the way that internships are killing photography. (I'm going to stick with talking about newspaper and editorial photography here... I don't know enough about fashion/art/advertising internship practices to really comment, and if I did I think my head would have probably already exploded).

This newspaper that Travis hoped to work for, like dozens of other newspapers around the country who have cut back their staffs over the last dozen years, has created their internship position in such a way as to count on that candidate to not only learn their craft and be influenced by the other talented staff members, but to basically become a full staff member of the organization. Because there is no slack in the staff, the intern can't be an intern, but has to mesh with those around them and immediately begin to produce, often at a 5 assignment a day rate. Travis would have been expected to carry a full load, work his ass off, and be rewarded with a pat on the back, a pathetic pay check, and zero benefits. That is stupid. Sure, there is great experience in that, one which I took part in on 4 occasions, and I believe that he would have come out the other side as a more mature and smarter journalist. But the very idea that the newspaper industry has raped their internship slots for an economic crutch is pretty disgusting. At other newspapers they have fired staff photographers, making decent money with benefit packages, and replaced them with more internship positions. Why?! Because it's a fuck load cheaper, the culture of journalism with its bust your ass and don't complain work ethics taught in our journalism schools rewards the paper with applicants who are willing to suffer for some hopeful future, and because ultimately the bean counters have decided that quality photojournalism doesn't matter much to them anymore. The bigger question is why not!

This has been going on for a long time, and if you didn't connect the dots before today then I don't know what to tell you. However, that's not the only reason why I was upset that Travis didn't get the internship position -- because I actually wanted him to get it, despite hating the system itself. What really made me upset was that he lost out, as a finalist among 3 other college photographers, to a fellow OU photographer who had an insane amount more experience. This person had already worked as a staff photographer at another newspaper for years. WTF?! Why are the photo schools in this country allowing its grad students with a SHIT TON of photo experience to dominate internship positions at newspapers? They don't need the experience. This photo editor at this newspaper talked a lot to me about how he really wanted someone who had potential... and yet, he hired someone who was many years into their career. The simple reason is that he was getting a great fucking deal - a probably talented photographer, who was willing to work for total shit and bust their ass, who already had a lot of real experience. So what if this photo editor is basically a dick, he now has another full staff photographer instead of a green intern, and a little bit easier life potentially.

The buck doesn't stop there for well experienced photo grad students... they should be totally disqualified from entering student competitions, period. Attention Rita Reed: stop fucking allowing extremely over-qualified grad students from OU or Mizzou or Texas, etc., from entering CPOY. Are you crazy?! When I was in school at Mizzou, before your time, I remember losing in a category to a OU shooter who had worked at the Boston Globe for something like 12 years before heading back to school to get her masters. And it keeps happening, because each year I'll look through the winner's list to some college competition and see a name from some guy who I recognize from their 6 years of professional work at a daily newspaper. That isn't helping this industry in any way.

OK... I'm pretty worked up, so lets tackle the work for free internship world. I don't begrudge Magnum for allowing all of the ICP kids who fight for the opportunity to clean their floors for free as a 6-month intern. Fine. I guess that's how it is. But if you are a successful editorial photographer out there and think it would be cool to have an internship program, you better fucking expect to pay them, especially if they end up acting like 2nd or 3rd assistants on photo shoots. Maybe this is just me, but if I allow a young photographer to come with me on a shoot, or help me in my office, I also assume the moral and professional obligation to pay them for their hard work. Working for a top tier photographer seems like it can be a valuable experience, and you certainly may get the opportunity to make contacts that it is very, very difficult to make the hard way, but respect yourself and your career enough to demand to be paid.

I made a big allegation above about how newspapers working their interns as staffers is killing this industry -- and I'd like to follow that up so that it's not just hanging out there like a giant piece of rotting meat. Cutting staff jobs and swapping them for internship positions is slimy, low-down, bullshit. If you can't afford to pay for a photographer, then you don't get a photographer. The sum effect of all of the people working for free or peanuts within photography, of which newspapers and editorial is just a small part, is that it devalues the industry at large. It just works its way right up the food chain, and some other bean counter looks and wonders, "shit, if that beautiful bastard can get away with not paying his people and still have people begging to work there, then I'm an idiot not to try it. Why don't I cut our digital fee? Or maybe add a work for hire clause to our new contract?"

Photography is already undervalued enough, and being a freelance photographer is pretty damn tough as it is, believe me or just look at the trend of newspaper photographers paying a lot of money to go back to school for a master's to try and move to the next level (not a hopeful sign). As an industry, lets not continue to allow this to happen.

To the photo editor at this newspaper, who because you are also a nice person I will not mention your name or company, I think that you had an opportunity to really invest in someone who had a ton of potential (and was a helluva nice guy as well), or to choose yet another female candidate who was old enough to make your life easier. There were certainly other factors and I'm completely biased, but I think you know what I'm talking about. The next time my name is on your reference list, don't even pick up the fucking phone unless you have decided to make a better choice and help develop potential in an effort to push photography at large forwards.

( note: please read the follow-up post )

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Take 5, step 5

The portfolio has been side tracked for most of this week, first by sickness borrowed from the girlfriend, and now from a general lack of motivation combined with a hang over (dinner last night was so worth it). However, work on the new book is coming along reasonably well, as I pull together the final rough draft of pages.

There are still too many pictures, almost 30 pages worth, which is 10 more than I was planning on, or even purchased poly sheets for. The work in progress hasn't really found its focus either, and feels detached from section to section. I've done a couple of different sessions of portfolio mix-up -- the newest game sweeping the nation, wherein you arbitrarily move spreads around in a layout and then try to find dynamic new connections -- to little effect.

This morning I spent more than an hour looking through images from the last couple of years that were visually appealing but extremely simple and graphic, a sort of stand-in photo boyfriend to make the other picture in the pair feel special. But after only finding a couple new pairings that I liked I decided that I didn't want to slide down that path anymore... I'm not that photographer, and I don't have those pictures. And both of those things are fine. (Picture a pairing on a portfolio spread, on the left some sort of casual portrait and on the right a random abstract colorful image of a bench or a cloud or a fire hydrant, and you might understand).

I don't want a portfolio of ironically paired pictures whose relationship doesn't mean anything or suggest my interest in a particular issue. I've seen hundreds of those type of portfolios. But what some of them are really successful at, and the reason that I sometimes want to copy them, is that I do want the experience of flipping through my work to be engaging and stimulating, even if I spend most of my time taking my photography somewhat too seriously.

There is a basic rift between the work I am showing and the work I most want to be assigned, and it makes creating a portfolio very difficult. On top of that, there a few groups of images that I'd like to consider including, but just can't because the clients I shot them for still haven't published them (which would allow me to use them for self promotion.) The waiting game of embargoed photography is one of my biggest pet peeves.

I don't have a fix yet for the tone of the portfolio. Perhaps the book is still trying to do too much; trying to cross off to many boxes like some of the photographers you see on portfolio websites who list 25 different specialties. The last section currently ends in a 3-spread burst of moody travel images, which are nice and images that I absolutely know editors will respond to, but one of the solutions may be to just delete that section all together. That would at least focus the book on editorial, portrait, and documentary work. Hopefully some of my friends can help me cut some of the portrait spreads as well. Though I doubt Redux will agree, there are just too many portraits in there.

Judyta suggested giving myself a false deadline to get at least the draft version out the door for feedback, and she's right. Tonight I'll plunk down rough copies of each picture into my newly upgraded version of InDesign and will export a pretty PDF to really get the ball rolling. Hopefully my excitement about finally getting my hands on the new portfolios I'm using will keep me rolling -- the shipment arrives tomorrow.

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Working vacation

Some of my year-end stress is now being born out in print, and I have a new clip this week that I had previously promised to share. Here is the final product of my profile on NASCAR driver Greg Biffle's (very busy) off season from the Jan. 29 issue of ESPN the Magazine.

I'm happy with the clip but as always there were other out takes that I wish had seen the light of day in the issue, however one of the funniest images from the edit did wiggle its way into ESPN's table of contents (it's the second image below).

After a long weekend of photo shoots and sponsor appearances (above, going fishing with two lucky winners of a contest held by Luhr boats), Biffle spends some time with girlfriend and their dogs, trying to take it a little easy on his injured shoulder from a bad crash the week before in Las Vegas. Later in the day Biffle tells the crash story again to members of his crew at Roush Racing's headquarters, below, as they stand around the destroyed vehicle, which was Greg's favorite.

Greg participates in an early morning photo shoot for 3M, one of his major sponsors, at the Roush Racing complex in Mooresville, NC.

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Big and beautiful

I'm finally ready to face the music now, and deal with the promises I've made and broken about last fall and the ever-distant next trip to NYC. This week I received another helpful nudge from Redux, and Jasmine put in an order for something "big and beautiful" for her to show around town. At the last second I even added a small note at the end of my January newsletter which also locked me into making it happen. So it's go time for a new set of print portfolios from HQ. Lock and load, baby!

Creating a new portfolio is a painful process for me, as it may or should be for everyone. It's become a process that I loathe because as I begin to collect all of the loose ends of projects, assignments, and ideas I've been trying to work on, there is the sudden realization that hardly any of them are as far along as I hoped they would be a year ago. The timing is right though, because it makes sense to begin this arduous journey right in the middle of contest season in photography, a time when we collectively strip our souls and wallets bare in the earnest hope that overworked editors will see something deep within our new work to reward. If anything, portfolios are even more difficult because we are not subject to an abstract set of rules that were created by some contest, and in that freedom we find a wide panic in navigating the troubled waters of printing a dynamic, diverse, and cohesive book of our best work; one that we will be forced to live with, and up to, over the next long haul until we must suck it up and start all over again.

Even while I fully understand the need to put together an updated portfolio, and it is very important to put new, interesting work out there as often as possible, the process can be so unforgiving that even starting down the path can grind your professional life to a dead stop. More than a few times in the middle of designing a portfolio I've basically thrown up my hands and shouted, "holy shit, what am I doing?!" What you are really doing is creating a mirror of your passion and vision of the world you live in, and sometimes that reflection is extremely difficult to see anyway but darkly. In college you start the first rounds of portfolio-making with such hope that it almost seems like fun, but dozens of portfolios later, perhaps sometime in your late 20's after all of the self-doubt and cursing you've experienced at moments late in the night, maybe while standing under the harsh, green glow of a 24-hour Kinkos, desperately trying to make the paper cutter bend to your will... (sigh)... lets move on.

Just like in any other process, there are many important steps to follow in making a new portfolio book. Although I've still yet to officially "begin," I'm already well on my way, because step 1 is actually "denial." Denial can last for months. But once its fading away, you are really about a third of the way done, despite still having finished no real work. Just like shooting free throws, a lot of it is mental. (I'm also a terrible free throw shooter).

My step 2 is actually pretty fun. I like to create a new folder on my hard drive and label it something very official. Perhaps "winter 06/07 editorial print portfolio." Mmmmmm, tasty. Then I create a new iView Media file of the same name and begin importing any picture that I've made since my last portfolio that I like at all. At this moment you start feeling good about yourself because the math seems to be on your side. You know that your finished portfolio (if its to be big and beautiful) will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-60 images), and as you fill up your database of new work the number you'll edit from keeps getting bigger and bigger. Only 40 pictures from this giant pile of great work?! This'll be cake!

But then you move on to step 3, wherein you post this giant edit of new work to a private gallery on your website and invite your close friends (the ones who care enough to make you truly feel like shit) to give you some honest feedback. (I used to encourage honesty, and make a special effort to sound like I'm really open and ready to sort the wheat from the chaff, but I soon realized that it wasn't necessary - carnage doesn't need an engraved invitation). After you send your e-mails you wait by your inbox. Slowly the messages start trickling in from your lazy friends, and the large pile of great pictures starts to look like a giant pile of something else.

Step 4... now that your total images to edit from seems to be under the magic number of 40 (how did that happen?!), its a good time to take a step backwards to throw away several hours on the internet "researching" presentation possibilities for your new portfolio. You already had the idea that you wanted a simple black faux leather 11x14 portrait style book, but are you really sure? Maybe what you need is a custom white crocodile skin 20x30 landscape book with tassels and embossing? Or a giant steel box that is both impossible to open and carry that will hold loose leaf prints? Hmmm... you like squares, don't you? Maybe a square book! How much is that one? Holy shit, you are kidding me?! $350! and it doesn't even come with pages?!

The next morning after some terrifying dreams I wake up and over the 2nd cup of coffee realize that simple is better. This is step 5, and where I'm at today. I'm refocusing on my pictures and trying to find the right mixes. There are so many extremes to fit together that my portfolios become jigsaw puzzles in my head. Personal work vs. client work. Lit portraits vs. snapshots. Subtlety vs. vibrancy. Documentary work vs. portrait vs. travel. Project work vs. the rest of the portfolio. Captions vs. clean design. Page numbers? A CV/bio/client list? Stickers? Will all of the pictures be presented in the same size, or will each layout be designed? Does the designing get in the way of the pictures or enhance them? I want each picture to play off of the ones around it, but I don't want that relationship to be cliché.

Step 5 is the hardest step because you've passed the point of no return and learned enough to know what is not going to work. You would think that experience would help you to navigate the whole process easier, but I'm not sure that its helped for me. Photo editors don't know what they are looking for either. They want to see personal work and your passion, but they also want to be sure that you can do this very specific thing. They want to see something new, but something old as well. I've been told a hundred times, "why is this in b/w?!" but then also told on the next page how much they love how it brings out the emotion. Ultimately what I have learned is that portfolios need to make you excited and risk something. They need to ask questions and open up dialogues, but at the same time answer the larger question of whether or not you can be trusted with an assignment definitively. A portfolio can feel surprising, but pictures can't come out of left field in the middle of it and draw away the editor's focus.

Just like mix tapes, there are a lot of ins and outs; just be careful that you never blow your watt. I'll write a few more updates as I go along and will post the "final" version hopefully in early February.

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A case for People

Though its changed more recently, I've always been a photographer who shot for a wide range of clients, all of which ranged widely in style, content, and expectations. And accordingly, I approached my work for each client with a slightly different style or sense of purpose (as I touched on a bit in my last post). In addition to the nuts and bolts part of dealing and shooting for my clients, there is also the more ephemeral but vital category of what drives me to work for each magazine. For instance, ESPN the Magazine jobs are often really fun to work on and I love their editing staff, or Phil at The Fader is extremely open and excited for his photographers to take risks, and back it up by actually publishing the successful outcomes, etc.

Yesterday while doing some grocery shopping I flipped open the new issue of People Magazine, one of my biggest clients in 2006, and saw that they had published another of my recent shoots from Atlanta that I worked on just before the holidays. And in the same spirit I was really struck by how often I'm privileged through People to work on some extremely big-hearted stories about normal people making a difference in their communities. If one of the giant perks of being a freelance photographer is meeting interesting individuals, then the magazine has again and again brought that to a new and inspiring level in putting me in contact with some very cool people. Of course, in full disclosure, I think I've also shot 3 different American Idol features for them, so...

Above is the new clip from this week's issue (Jan. 22) with a story about Kate Atwood, the founder of Kate's Club, which is an organization in Atlanta that works with kids who have suffered the loss of a parent. And below are a couple of other images: the first is an out take that I also liked from the Kate's Club story and the annual retreat I documented of theirs (where the kids learned how to make cookies from scratch and then went ice skating); and secondly, this is Anna Hanger and her mom Lisa have way too much fun shopping together at Target for Anna's Angel Fund, another Atlanta based charity, which responds to the needs of families of very sick kids who are in financial trouble. It was really wonderful and inspiring to meet and photograph both Kate and Anna.

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Sketched out

Half-way through my first full year of freelancing I was on the phone with the art director of a new magazine client discussing an upcoming assignment (I no longer remember which one it was) when they suddenly asked me a simple question: "would you like me to send you sketches of what I want the pictures to look like?" All I could reply was, "uhhh?...", to which they said, helpfully, "you know, like storyboards or drawings." A few seconds later I had calmed myself enough to politely decline.

The shock of his request has of course completely worn off now, so far removed from the idealism of younger days and journalism school, but the experience proved instructive ever since, even though I've still never accepted such an offer. Unlike other photographers whose ultimate passion is documentary project work (that sacred beast), I acknowledged right away two important things about my future in magazines: first, I needed to learn the portrait skills that I would need in order to accept the portrait assignments that make up the vast majority of the editorial market, and secondly, that despite my personal convictions to do a very specific type of work I must put myself in a position to accept any jobs I could get because of an immediate need to be able to support myself.

Those caveats, when met early on with the idea that someone would dare (gasp!) suggest that my journalism might ever be art-directed (double-gasp!), made quick work of illuminating my understanding of the freelance assignment world. In short, I swiftly moved to the conclusion that I was not an "artist" or a "photojournalist" (both of those words don't mean anything anyway), but was rather a "photographer" whose job is to create imagery according to the standards and needs of my clients. Therefore, learning the broad outline of what each magazine might want or need for an assignment was not only permissible to my fragile ego, it was extremely important if I wanted to stay in business.

Fast-forward to the new year and there I am this weekend sitting in the very charming Houston home of Mr. Christer Fuglesang, otherwise known by me as The Swedish Astronaut, who was very nice to meet and photograph along with his wife and son. The memory of that art director and the sketches came to me as I sat in his living room trying to stay engaged in the writer's interview and figure out how else I could possibly photograph him while he answered questions. I was having problems staying focused because I kept being constantly reminded that I don't understand any Swedish at all (my client was Swedish, and thus so was the dialogue). Somewhere in the middle of the long conversation, as I sat politely drinking the coffee they kindly gave to us (thank god), I realized that I really had no clue what kind of photographs my client expected from me out of this assignment. The job and trip had pretty much been last minute, arranged from half-way across the world, and my instructions had been vague to say the least.

At this point I start to feel a bit panicked. Christer is a giant rock star in Sweden and his leap into history as the first Swede in space has been front page news for a month there. My assignment to photograph him at home was an exclusive that my client set up, as he had apparently granted very few other opportunities. So at the very least I had a vague sense that the stakes were potentially high for my client and agency. Also, and the only way that I could be confused as to what kind of photography that one of my clients could want from me on a given assignment, my portfolio contains images shot for a lot of different sorts of clients in a variety of slightly different styles. Though I am confident that the client was had seen my work and was excited for me to deliver my personal vision of this situation, I really didn't know what types of my images they wanted me to try and bring out with Christer. For the first time in my career a stupid sketch was beginning to sound pretty damn good.

I only had one solution and its the same solution that I've realized and taken advantage on almost every job I've ever shot. Be yourself, make your pictures, cover your bases, and do your best. Even with sketches, maps, or whatever else, in the end there is only the photographer left to make the right or wrong decisions and determine the fate of the visual side of the story. Though Christer was a very nice guy and extremely cooperative, his house was boring and 110% free of anything at all relating to space. I didn't expect him to open his closet and pull out a space suit or anything, but it would have been pretty rad, right?! And so I kept working and shooting, and kept asking for more from Christer and his wife. We even went for a walk together in their neighborhood. Overall I think I did a pretty competent job profiling a normal guy's home life who has lived an extraordinary life. I haven't heard back but I hope the client and my agency are happy with the images. Next time they should just book an extra ticket on the space shuttle for me and I'll deliver the goods, baby!

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The Swedish astronaut

I've finally found it! 27 years of life spent looking for the perfect title for my first novel (to be written at some future time when I actually have an idea, whether or not it relates in anyway)! Coming to a book store near you probably never, the daring debut novel by John Loomis entitled The Swedish Astronaut. I'm sure its going to have it all: love, mystery, intrigue, ghetto blasters, Chris Cooper, pop songs as metaphors.

Silliness aside, I got a call today from Redux asking, "would you like to photograph the Swedish astronaut"... The Swedish astronaut, really, I mean, come on, that's a no brainer. Do I want to photograph a Swedish astronaut? Fuck yes! If it had been a Swedish dentist, or car engineer, or even an American astronaut, then I'd have been a bit more wishy-washy. But nope, its the genuine article, and therefore I have an early flight to Texas tomorrow morning, which is apparently where the world keep's its first and only Swedish astronaut.

As is becoming clear this post is simply an excuse for me to type "the Swedish astronaut" as many times as I can. And if you were wondering, Swedish for "astronaut" is pretty much "astronaut." In addition to Texas, things are picking up a bit on the year (I'm a bit surprised, too). I have a few shoots for new clients making me busy; again tonight for Every Day with Rachael Ray (no mom, I didn't actually photograph her, just for "her" magazine), the Swedish thing, and then a piece next week for Sherman's Travel that has been in the workings for some time. The percentage chance that I pull off my World Press entry in the next few hours before the extended deadline ends is pretty poor. I really did mean to get it done. POYi will probably suffer the same fate, not because I'm lazy, but World Press is really the only competition that means anything to me (and POYi isn't free).

To belabor the point, and I don't have anything in particular against contests, but I can think of only 2 reasons to enter any of them: money/fame/career and/or finding a larger audience for long term work about an issue you care deeply about. The first reason is only realized if you win one of the major awards in the contests... a 2nd place in general news, or something, doesn't mean a damn thing ultimately, even if its nice on a book shelf. As for the second reason, I didn't finish any body of work this past year that I believe is important.

Lastly, and officially now, Blueeyes Magazine's new issue is now online!

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Welcome one, all

After trying to keep this blog experiment as much on the down-low as I could for the last few months (I took the super secret steps of just not linking to the blog or advertising its existence - shocking that didn't work!), the trick is definitely up now. It was inevitable, and I'd like to welcome all of the new readers from a variety of sources to the blog.

A quick recap: Drinking with a Dead Man is a blog about freelance photography; its challenges, insanities, and passion. It's written in the first person and is really only for myself in an efffort to push my photography and personal work forward. I have tried and will continue to try to be as honest as my livelihood will allow me to be, though that is a sensitive and shifty issue. For my clients who may be worried, and seeing this blog for the first time, let me say that I will of course never share any privileged information or embargoed photography without prior permission, no matter what.

The newly created need to address my readers is due to the delivery this morning of a newly designed photography newsletter to the e-mail inboxes (hopefully it made it to the inbox and not spam!) of my clients, supporters, and friends. The newsletter replaces my previous monthly promos, and includes news about recent assignments and personal project work, as well as updates on upcoming events from John Loomis Photography Headquarters. For those of who would like to join the newsletter, you can sign up here. If you are curious about what it looks like, you can find the current month's newsletter here.

The decision to take the promo to the next level was inspired in part from my blogging activities and also a simple wish to create a more dynamic way to share my work. I hope you enjoy the newsletter and welcome to the blog!

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Download: Making it work

Things have been quiet on the blog and in my new year through the first week, though not as dead as my previous post on my usual January slump forecasted (or probably should have cursed me with), thank god. Outside of being lazy, hanging out with friends and family, and ignoring new apartment house chores, I've mostly been trying to blaze a trail through yet another endless list of to-dos under the exciting category of "things that should have been done last year!"

This morning I finished captioning the final batch of a large December shoot that was such a low priority for my client that they told me flat out, moments after hiring me and suggesting a handsome fee, that there was almost no chance they would ever use the images for anything. Their real mistake, however, was later replying that they didn't need to receive the final images until "January sometime," which gave me a perfect reason to join in the spirit of making it an even lower priority during a busy month. A medium-sized FedEx box sealed and dropped off later, I'm on to the next item, which is, now lets see here, "enter contests ASAP." Fuck me! No way am not doing that tonight!

But because I also really didn't want to organize our new closets, or hang shelves in the garage (sorry the girlfriend!), I decided to take a look at my more vague long-term list of things to get fixed on a rainy day that are annoying but not pressing. On top of that list was trying to get my fancy Treo cell phone back into working order, which I was prepared to spend an entire sarcastic blog post talking about. Luckily for you, and me, I became very, very bored talking about looking around the web for the solution I needed. And after a couple of hours I solved my problem, and was so jazzed that I even went on to solve yet another Treo issue that I've been meaning to finally gather up all of my nerd power on.

And so instead of the inane chatter that could have been (similar to that Little Train that Could), here instead I offer the answers to my particular Treo problems - they might even work for you, if you are a moron like me and bought this giant thing for an insane amount of money (no, no, Mom, I actually got a sizeable discount!).

Problem 1: Treo 700P (Sprint) will not fully sync with Mac OS X

Solution: The Missing Sync for Palm OS

Skinny: Ever since upgrading from my Treo 650 (which met a sudden and untimely end in about a million pieces on the sidewalk in front of my post office), I've been unable to sync my new phone with my Address Book and iCal applications (OS 10.4). Palm/HotSync and Mac/iSync have never worked well together I've learned, but it wasn't working at all for me, and I had to resort to entering numbers manually that I needed to have on my phone. After going through several forums, I saw a variety of posts about Missing Sync, which is a 3rd party Sync conduit manager that replaces HotSync and overrides iSync (I think). Though the software costs $20 (there is a 2-week free trial), it immediately fixed what ailed my phone, and not only do I have all of my names, calendars, and digits back on my phone, its greatly expanded what will transfer over to my Treo from the Address Book categories. (Without being too nerdy here, HotSync has never allowed you to transfer over certain categories of data, such as mailing addresses, birthday, or the extra notes that I like to add to the bottom of an Address Book entry.)

Problem 2: Using a Treo 700p as a Bluetooth modem

Solution: Dial-up networking tutorial (& hack)

Skinny: Being able to wirelessly use my Treo as a way to go online (and transmit photos on deadline) with my laptop while traveling was one of the big reasons that I wanted to buy the damn phone in the first place. Even so, after months of trolling online and trying different configurations I was never able to get a consistent connection that was 1/3 as fast as the Pony Express with either my 650 or new 700p. Tonight I finally found a tutorial that made sense to me and I was able to easily follow. The giant added bonus of Trevor's guide is that it included an easy to install hack that bypasses Sprint's ability to tell the difference between when you are surfing the web from your phone, or from your laptop using you phone, which in turn saves the user $40/month (which is how much Sprint's business connection service is apparently). I did some checking up and this hack seems to work and be legit, but I'll be sure to come back and revise this post if I'm stuck with the $40 this month after testing it out.

So I hope that helps someone out. Do please make sure that you backup your Treo before attempting either fix, just in case. Now its time to try to be enthusiastic about closet reorganization!

**For those of you who are also Apple nerds and are currently glued to your computer(s) for the MacWorld Expo announcement of the new iPhone, I'd like to state for the record that I feel like a total jackass going on and on about my Treo the night before this insanely rad new product was unveiled. Thanks Steve!**

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On Assignment: Mooresville, NC

Though I lose track of this from time to time, assignments themselves are living, breathing things, prone to unexpected outcomes and radical shifts of focus, all normally way beyond the photographer's control. This notion has been recently re-drilled back into my head with a couple of magazine jobs that winded up ending pretty far from where they started. One of most interesting shoots was for ESPN the Magazine. While scrambling through rush hour Houston traffic in my rental car I got a call from an editor at the magazine, and was immediately jazzed about the profile she wanted me to work on. Her story pitch pretty much had everything: thrills, chills, deep sea fishing, a helicopter, and great access. (I've never really been one of these guys who becomes a photographer in order to do cool shit, but of course, I'd also be flat out lying if I said that doing cool shit is not a really fun part of my job. It definitely is).

A few days later I woke up long before the sun and cruised up I-95 to meet up with NASCAR driver Greg Biffle for a story focused on his off season and the changes going on with his team at Roush Racing. The plan was to head out with him and a couple of lucky contest winners to go deep sea fishing in the Atlantic. Even though its really early, I was driving and smiling like an idiot at the thought that I was going to get to go fishing on assignment. I love to fish (I'd like to think, as a Florida native, that it's in my blood), and I never make any time to go fishing myself. The little that I knew about Greg before I took the assignment was that he also loved to fish, and so it looked like it would be a great day for both of us. But then... cue some dramatic music... about 45 minutes into my drive I instinctively reached for my cell to check my e-mail - absurd since it was 6 a.m. - and found that had a message from my dad. Straight to the point, which my dad always is, he asked, "did Biffle cancel the fishing trip? He had a very bad wreck in Las Vegas and is hurt." WTF?! Seconds later I called my dad and got some more info: my subject got in a serious wreck while doing a tire test and dislocated his shoulder. There was no way that he would be able to go fishing or even hold a pole.

Within a couple of minutes I made calls to his PR people, my editor, the writer, and got no answers anywhere. I figured I'd take a long drive early in the morning, get there and learn the bad news, and then head home. I wasn't that bothered because it was a nice morning and my favorite Sirius jazz channel had just played 3 Mingus tunes in a row. When I pulled into the marina and Greg and his entourage were nowhere to be found, I camped out waiting and eventually the PR guy called me back to confirm that Biffle was going to go fishing even though he was hurt; they were just running late. By the time that they arrived and chatted with the contest winners and the gathered media, it was clear that even though Greg had agreed to go out on the boat, there was no way he could fish. Also, the weather out in the Atlantic had turned from poor to very terrible, and it was unlikely that we'd even go out to deep water. Our dramatic deep see excursion turned into a leisurely boat tour up and down the intercoastal waterway, with Greg, his arm in a sling and looking very tired, mostly taking it easy and trading tips with his boat sponsors.

A couple of hours later I felt pretty sure about two things: first, that I had exhausted every possible way of photographing Greg on a rainy morning of not going fishing, and two, there was a pretty good chance that Greg's injury was going to cause the rest of my story (and several days to be spent with him up in North Carolina) to be either cancelled or put on hold. Growing very bored as we passed a ridiculously gaudy mansion festooned with 8 ft. inflatable Christmas decorations for the 3rd time, I thought how much I liked that assignments couldn't be kept in little boxes, like the pictures they produced.

The day after the boat trip I was surprised to hear that ESPN still wanted the writer and I to go to Mooresville, NC. Biffle, for his part and despite his shoulder, kept every event on his schedule as well. By the time that I saw him again at his lake house he had filmed 2 commercials and made another public appearance for one of his sponsors (NASCAR drivers, as you can tell from the cars, have dozens of sponsors each, and even more that aren't involved with the racing team itself). We drove to his house in Mooresville and met his girlfriend and their 4 dogs. Together they run a foundation that finds homes for neglected pets, and their love for their dogs was pretty cool to see. Outside, and again despite his delicate shoulder, Greg picked up one of their boxers in his arms like a HUGE baby (the dog is probably 90 lbs.), and rough-housed around. In addition to being a dog person myself, I really love when there are dogs around on assignment when I'm doing a profile piece. With someone like Greg who has media around him a lot, and who is also a very private person in many ways, having his dogs there to play with went a long way towards opening his personality up and making for more dynamic pictures. Later my editor reported back to me that her and all of the editors basically fell in love with these dogs.

The shoot at home with Greg seemed to start off the North Carolina piece of the story in a great way. At first we hadn't been invited to their home at all, but were supposed to meet Greg and the dogs at his personal automotive shop. But that morning they decided it was better for us to go there instead, and I was excited that he might have trusted us to get a little closer to him and his world. However, that turned out to be short lived.

Our next stop was at Roush Racing and their main automotive shop where Greg was having lunch with his new and old teams and talking about the wreck. The car that he wrecked in Las Vegas with was in the shop, and it was insane to see and think of someone enduring that sort of impact at 200 mph. (The left side of the car was almost gone from the car slamming into the wall for 2 turns, knocking Biffle unconscious, and catching on fire). I was able to photograph the car, even though I was later sternly lectured at by one of the PR people. It was stupid on their part... they knew I was coming there, it was out in plain site, and there was no way in hell that I wasn't going to photograph it. Even if they had asked me not to photograph it before I got there, I would have stilled tried to get something as subtly as possible because that is my duty on behalf of ESPN, who they've allowed access to.

At Roush, unfortunately, Greg became more distant and disinterested. His injury and insanely full days seemed to be running him down, and I knew that the rest of his week was going to get even worse. He stayed around with the crew for another 30 minutes and then split, which was a lot less than we had hoped for and included nothing of him working with his team on any of the new cars. We also learned that later that night there was a charity Toys for Tots event that we had not been told about that Greg was participating in. However, when we mentioned that we were going to try and check it out, his PR people, who weren't actually in charge of the charity event in anyway, told us that we would not be allowed to and that Greg would rather it be low-key. Obviously he was just tired, and I don't fault him for that, but he had also committed to us being there.

In those sorts of cases it can be very difficult to strike a balance between the needs of your clients and limits of your subject. Because we still had another day to spend with Greg, I decided that we should just forget the charity event that night. If it had been our last day, and especially because we had not been able to get as much as we had hoped for, then I would have gone regardless. A few days later I was on assignment in Atlanta for People Magazine and had a similar situation concerning wardrobe. The editor really wanted the subject in a certain style of pants, but after multiple locations and changes, my subject just really wanted to be more comfortable, and I stepped in because there was no reason for her not to be, despite my editor and the stylist. I feel that when I have the ability to make the subject feel more relaxed and open to being themselves, then I'll almost always do what I can, be damned some sort of plastic objective of documenting them in some particular way.

On assignment you are always leveraging the short term and long term implications of any number of decisions. Do you fight for more access now and possibly ruin your good will for later? All I think you can do is go with your gut and try to give yourself the best opportunity to do good work. My inclination and preference is to always go with the flow, because that's how I view my job as a documentary photographer, but I'm also perfectly willing to stand up for myself and my client, resorting to being a giant fucking prick if need be, if it means saving the assignment from falling apart.

Having the rest of the afternoon and night off was great for me in Charlotte, and I was able to get a ton of work finished and transmitted from several shoots for other clients that had all been back-to-back-to-back. Doing a bunch of work was against my instructions from my editor, however. She urged me to "go crazy and party in Charlotte!" or something like that. Sorry Tricia, next time!

After a good night's sleep, the next morning the writer and I went back hoping that Greg would be feeling refreshed and aware that we had given him some room, but that was over. Greg was in complete auto-pilot during a early morning photo shoot for 3M (another sponsor) also held in the Roush Racing complex. For me it was surreal photographing the shoot, all product shots of Greg holding roll after roll of tape or other 3M stuff, from behind the scenes. The photographer and his assistants were nice, but they reacted pretty strongly to my being there and photographing the in between boredom and zombie-ism that Greg and every other sports star or celebrity experiences at these type of shoots. He stood there next to an infinite white wall set-up, surrounded by booms, soft boxes, scrims, with a stylist running out to fix his fire suit and thrust the next of an endless line of products in his hands. Crazy. This and the dogs ended up being my favorite parts of shooting, representing either side of the intimacy spectrum.

Just like in a race, Greg was speeding his way through the photo shoot. They had 4 hours, and by hour 2, when they switched sets to a giant area where one of his cars had been towed onto the set, he was nearing the end. 45 seconds after the last shot he had shaken everyone's hands, said thanks and happy holidays, and was out the door. The photo shoot, and my profile was over. Instead of showing all of the different ways that Greg spends his off season time on his hobbies (fishing, flying his helicopters, his dogs), it instead really illustrated the insanity of Biffle's life and lack of free time. Two hours after the end of the 3M shoot, he boarded a private jet and flew back down to Florida for another public appearance. I guess that's just another reason why I'm glad I'm not a NASCAR driver.

I spent the rest of my time in Charlotte editing the Biffle shoot and doing Christmas shopping. A week later I was glad to hear from ESPN that they loved the photography and were giving the story more room in the magazine. I think it comes out next week, so take a look and I'll publish the layout and some of my favorite images they didn't use here once I get a copy.

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