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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Comments (1)

John,

KIller captain work, too bad Balmer was an ass. Sadly I would have expected better from a guy like him.

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