June 2008 Archives

Stack

I woke up this morning home again and happy, even if zombie-esque, until I saw my large stack of mail and to-dos forming a crumb trail between the front door and bedroom. Luckily the 2-week stack includes a handful of checks along with the bucket full of bills, and a couple of new summer clips to share, beginning with my profile of remarkable explorer and submariner Capt. Alfred McLaren, retired U.S. Navy seen in the new month's Men's Journal. I'm really pleased with the clip and give big props to picture editor Jennifer Santana for choosing this select, which I think fits in well with a nice July issue overall for the MJ crew. Thanks Jenn for the gig, and many thanks to you, Capt. Fred, for a great morning shoot.

Next up is new client CRM Magazine, who commissioned me to do a cover of Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer back in March during a conference in Orlando. CRM is not a magazine that uses much, or really any, photography (other than some stock), so I was interested to see how they would manage the shoot, which was made complicated by Balmer, who I found to basically be an über-hyper child. He's a rich and powerful dude, and obviously can do whatever he wants, but out of the 15 minutes we were promised I got about 45 seconds, during which he would not give me a single straight face, even though he knew that the tone of the piece was about his serious and bold leadership role. Instead of being the picture of a CEO that the client wanted he opted to act like a giant ass. Note to Microsoft PR: if your CEO doesn't want to do photo shoots, then just don't have him agree to do them; I couldn't care less either way. From the looks of last month's Business Week cover, Balmer is an ass no matter which magazine shows up.

CRM really stepped up though and handled the tanked formal portrait aspect of the shoot by leaning on the documentary photography I shot during Balmer's keynote address. Fist-pound (Michelle Obama style, baby!) goes to designer Laura Hegyi for the opening spread use (which was my favorite image from the shoot based on Balmer's apparent disconnect from, uh, sanity?). Nice work, Laura!

I'm going to wrap up my morning of catch up and head north to see The Fiancée who is at Baby H.Q. with her sister. I come bearing Japanese gifts, and am excited for a bit of post-vacation vacation before the show starts back up again on Monday. Have a good weekend and enjoy these other favorites.

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Final approach

The trip home from Japan has landed me in San Francisco for a 23-hour layover that I have used to basically just sleep my ass off in Marriott's comfy beds. I'm excited to get home home, though English-speaking "home" is nice too, and I celebrated being back in the States with a first meal of a turkey bacon club and a half bottle of Cabernet. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes my body to re-adjust. I was so tired this morning when I landed at SFO that I took the wrong hotel shuttle twice. There are just too many separate Marriott properties.

At dinner I watched the tribute to Tim Russert and thought about how we respond to and are influenced by the passing of icons. For some reason I began thinking about Bresson's recent death and the total non-affect that it had on my life or work, considering his stature in my specific profession. But Russert's passing has had me reeling and thinking in double-time; just as it created a loud gasp of shock and sadness in our Kyoto hotel room from my sister.

I watched Meet the Press but I wasn't devoted nearly as much as other friends of mine. What I now miss and always respected, though, is how Russert conducted himself and represented within media and the sad, diseased, dark corner of our industry perversely titled broadcast journalism. Through his passion, preparation, and intelligence he elevated the form to some of its former Murrow-era glory and partially suspended the "left" vs. "right" talking points insane 24-hour, time-filling exercise of TV news (which reminds me of the Seinfeld joke about how the only reason that people exercise is to be in good enough shape to exercise more).

The take-away from Russert's life of joy and early death should be for all of us to try to bring just a percentage of his integrity to our work. Let his passing challenge journalists around the world to work harder and better to inform citizens without insulting them with make-believe drama, fear mongering, and laziness.

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Japan, Pt. 3

Some of Japan's billions of amazing textured details, modern and traditional. Will be on my way home tomorrow.

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Japan, Pt. 2

Up and down hill through thousands of torii prayer gates to the Shinto god Inari in Inari, Japan. Below: people lounge at sunset at the Sky Garden on top of the JR Kyoto Station; part of the vast Osaka skyline from behind lined glass; visitors to the Floating Garden Observatory in the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka are reflected in circular windows; School children segregate by gender to take snapshots at the Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion) temple in Kyoto.

The second half of the trip and Kyoto has been fantastic. Our hotel, Hotel Granzia, located directly in Kyoto Station, is pretty much wicked awesome (if the means are available, Ferris would highly recommend it) - the public spaces are like Japan-cum-Star Wars (dozens of floors, escalators EVERYWHERE, sky bridges, public art, crazy lighting), the staff is incredibly helpful and gracious, and there is both a Cafe du Monde and Starbucks within 3 minutes from our door. Things are winding down though and I'm getting the itch to get back to my regularly scheduled life. Here are a few more...

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Japan

Sunday afternoon picnics at the Japanese garden section of the beautiful Shinjuku-Gyoen park; Afternoon showers bring out umbrellas in high end shopping district Ginza; Visions of the Rinnō-ji complex in Nikko.

After a morning spent with jaws dropped at the amazing Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, we arrived to Kyoto this afternoon to begin the second half of our vacation in Japan. Not much to say except that its been great, except for the 13-hour time change which is still playing tricks on my body/mind. I'm looking forward to seeing Japan from a traditional standpoint down here in shrine/temple city, after becoming dizzy day after day in the hyper modern verticality of Tokyo. I'll be back in the office ready to work on June 20.

The fast and furious tuna auction at the Tsukiji central warehouse market in Tokyo; A foreman stands on a mountain of styrofoam containers during the morning rush at Tsukiji.

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The opposite of love

High school, 2008 - from the series "Opposite of Love"

June began with a sweltering shoot yesterday for Der Spiegel in Key West that was just plain brutal even if rewarding, and continued this morning with the exciting news that as of 12:57 a.m. the fiancée and I are aunt/uncle's to a very cute and plump baby boy (congrats Madzia & Mohammad!!).

As things usually slow down during the summer I've been refocusing myself on a few personal projects, the new website, and of course on getting the hell out of Miami for vacation, which I'm going to accomplish quite dramatically on Friday when I head to Japan for 2 weeks with my little brother and sister. It's going to be an amazing trip and wonderful to get some distance and perspective in a country I've always wanted to visit.

Before leaving I wanted to share the beginnings of one of the new projects that I've been trying to wrap my head around this last few weeks. The idea began as a portraiture record of all of the people that I know, and then expanded into the memory of my friend Tracey in college and her talk about how love & hate are not opposite emotions, sort of trading on the Elie Wiesel notion that "the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." Born out of my belief that apathy is sort of the quintessential modern emotion (we have so much, so efficiently at hand, that many of us Westerners are bored/overwhelmed by all of it), I've started making portraits for a series titled "Opposite of Love."

The project is interesting for me because its on top of being a pretty large departure from my background, the idea exists in a paradox. As soon as you ask someone what they care the least about, they immediately care a little more than they did before you asked in naming it, which means that in some sense I'm perhaps helping to change things (minutely) just by my process. I wanted the series to find the subjects in a sort of trance, akin to the excellent "gamers" series shot by a few smart portrait-eers, and for the style to be straightforward, but overlit and melodramatic.

These first two images explore the at-odds lighting with the simple premise of people not caring, hopefully in a similarly perverse way as how the most annoying (and loud) television commercials are always for shit you would never want/buy. "High school" and "Politics" will soon be joined by several more, including (no big surprise here, from a girl) "Baseball," once I return from the land of the Rising Sun. For those needing to reach me from June 6-19th, I'll be in limited touch via e-mail.

Politics, 2008 - from the series "Opposite of Love"

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