On Assignment Archives

On Assignment: Monteverde

A sunset panoramic view from just outside of Monteverde, Costa Rica, looking out towards the Pacific Ocean. Click on the image for a (much) larger version.

As excited as I was to head down to Costa Rica this week to work on a pair of stories for The New York Times, the thrill did not register until our van left the even pavement of the Pan-American Highway and started its steep, winding ascent up to Monteverde. As is often the case, not until I'm on the ground and engaged are most of my trips anything but logistical puzzles nagging to be solved. And when I'm already really busy, as 2008 has been thus far at JLPFL headquarters, its all I can do to stay focused on each day and job without looking ahead.

My planning for a week-long travel job like this starts with simple assumptions and then backing them up with worst-case scenarios options. Even though my first assignment to hike through the Children's Eternal Rainforest with a group of CEOs, successful and environmentally conscious business leaders mostly in their 40's and 50's, was likely to be pretty tame, I didn't want to chance it. And so thank god for the single Boy Scouts meeting that I attended as a kid. I basically went overboard on preparation and bought a ton of gear (new photo bag (Crumpler's Whickey and Cox), hiking pants, socks, moisture wicking shirts, under shirts, and boxers, time-release DEET, mosquito net, permetherin treatment for net and clothes, malarone, etc.), as well as get a few vaccinations, as per instructions by the trip organizers, NYT, and CDC. So after all of the buying and re-buying (hiking shit is always sized weirdly) and shots I really wasn't that jazzed about the gig. But that all changed with the first night's sunset seen above.

Monteverde is purposefully hard to get to to help keep the tourism industry at bay at the door of one of the too few cloud forests left in Central America. All of the roads leading to it are dirt and studded with holes and rocks with very little encouragement (road signs) along the way. But once you arrive you find a nice little village that has grown to benefit from the eco-tourism revolution, and we arrived to a great lodge and an amazingly warm dinner with the group and local representatives of the Bosque Eterno de los Niños. It was immediately clear that all of the CEOs, environmentalists, and support staff were all just really amazing people to be around. It also started to become clear that the hike was not going to be a stroll through the forest.

I prefer to pack light and had especially gone out of my way on this assignment to make sure that everything I was carrying on my back was needed. But even then I had to ensure I would be able to carry out my job as a professional; so there was no getting a heavy pack. Ultimately the Whickey (which I chose because it doesn't look like a photo bag, has adequate storage but a smallish profile, and because you can screen off equipment from clothes or a laptop.

And so officially, as I woke up with the sun to set out, here is what I had in the bag: rain jacket, 4 extra pairs of lightweight hiking socks, 2 extra dri-fit t-shirts and underwear, camping towel, assorted drugs and DEET, 8 energy bars, pocket knife, Leatherman, thin nylon rope, mosquito net, passport, notepad, 2 pens, 1 Sharpie, deodorant, toothpaste & toothbrush, Jimi wallet & cash, 1Ds Mark II, 5d, 6 batteries (3 each), 28/1.8, 50/1.2, 100/2, case w/ four 4GB CF cards, backup 2 GB SD card, lens wipe, HyperDrive 120GB backup drive w/ charger, 4 extra rechargeable AA's, LED headlamp, 3 extra AAA's, Shure headphones, iPod shuffle, iPhone (off the whole time), a large silica gel pack, and a wooden walking stick that was given to us just before leaving (which ended up being priceless).

It became clear halfway into our first day that the hike was not going to be tame... at all. But it was beautiful and fun and as we stopped for lunch next to a small shack along a river I was feeling good. Later that day my body began to revolt that I'm such a lazy ass who spends countless hours in front of a computer, and not at all in shape. I began burning way too many calories and growing less hungry all of the time. Muscles were cramping up badly despite lots of stretching and my pace slowed over the 15 km we covered on day 1. Arriving to the refuge we would sleep at that night a half hour before sunset, and just after nearly stepping onto an extremely poisonous snake, I was exhausted (all but 2 of us non-locals were, and several people didn't get in until well after dark) and began to get worried about the following day's hike.

After a freezing cold shower and change into clean socks and underwear I felt better and made pictures of our group eating dinner and setting up mosquito nets by headlamp. No other pictures were possible because there was no electricity, and I couldn't afford the weight or size of a flash in my pack. I was disappointed in what I had been able to shoot the first day because I had to focus so much on my own energy and hiking but even if I had been in perfect shape the group was so spread out over the mountains that many of the shots I hoped for just never happened. So it goes on these kind of assignments.

The next day began at dawn and I was shaky, sore, and tight. I had been careful about my feet the day before and was in much better blister shape than many others. I wanted to get out on the trail ASAP and try to take it slow and easy. In the morning there was a presentation of donations to the Monteverde Conservation League by Whole Foods and New Chapter to help preserve and expand the Children's Eternal Rainforest for generations to come, which was followed by the hard news that the day's hike was going to be just as long as the first day. We set out and I began to find my stride but early on realized that my water bottle had been jarred out of my back somewhere in the first hour (potential disaster). Luckily someone else had a small extra bottle, but it meant that I was going to have to refill using stream or river water the entire day (personally I didn't mind, but I don't want to endanger getting sick while on assignment).

Luckily the hardest part of the last half of the hike was in the first 3 hours as we climbed up steeply to the ridge line. The images still came very slowly (mostly because the rainforest has almost not open parts to see any scale or volume) but I was feeling better and stronger. The hike ended for me at an incredibly beautiful lake 2 hours before sunset and my small group swam and laid out in the grass. I was honestly just too tired to raise a camera to photograph the others. After waiting for some additional hikers we made our way to the Luna Nuevos Extractos de Costa Rica organic spice farm where the fast group was waiting with a warm welcome, hot shower, great food, beer, and a hot tub. I turned in shortly after dinner and was dead to the world until we (awesome guy and stud reporter Andrew Martin and I) had to wake up very early to travel south and meet up with Starbucks for our second assignment in Costa Rica on farmer education.

It was a great and beautiful and exhausting experience. Photographically I was just too drained to think as clearly as normal, though I think that I got what we needed and more. The experience was far more personally rewarding though and I had a ton of time to think about the important things in my life and ways I want to live and be known. I'm now all the more in awe of the adventure photographers out there who shoot incredible images on much, much more rigorous treks in more extreme locations. I'd have to get in shape and train for years to get to that level where I could perform as a professional while enduring the mental and physical strain.

Now at the San Jose airport waiting for my return flight after 2 days visiting farms around the country that Starbucks works with to become more sustainable and higher quality I'm feeling about 90% better. Two nights of staying in plush Marriott beds does a lot of good, as does the light hiking around that we did on the farms, easing out my sore legs. The coffee farms were also beautiful but we sort of missed the right time of year to be here (due to last year's rainfall the harvest came early this year). Yesterday afternoon we stood on a dirt road overlooking a valley of coffee named for the two grandmothers of the Vargas family who owns them. Hawks circled overhead in the late day sun that stretched across the trees and sky towards the Pacific. I made a portrait of Carlos Rodriguez, who is the director of Starbucks agronomy department, and have satisfied myself was ready to come home. Many, many thanks to all of my new amazing friends from the hike and farms.

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On Assignment: Art Basel MB

A skate ramp in the middle of ABMB's Art Positions stands in front of the hotels along Miami Beach. Skateboarding legend Tony Alva will be hitting the ramp for a performance during the exhibit on Wednesday night, Dec. 5th.

I may have set myself up for this by using the phrase "Art Basel | Miami Beach craziness," but last night at my first official shoot connected to the 6th annual gigantic art fair things got nuts. Working for new client Monopol, the German art magazine, I showed up to the opening party for the 2007 ABMB for the Basel staff held this year at the Art Positions exhibit space (an outdoor space right next to the boardwalk) to do a large group portrait of the staff. And then the rain began.

It rained off and on for 2 hours while staff slowly gathered. I had plenty of time to scout and make a plan, but couldn't actually get any gear set in place because of the weather, which I was anxious to do and get some tests done since I don't shoot 25-person group portraits all that often (and because it was such a large group I was shooting a mixture of my Hensel Portys and a Profoto 7b set-up, which though I knew it should work just fine talking together w/ Pocket Wizards I still wanted confirmation). We got there at about 6:45 p.m. for a 8 p.m. shoot time, and by 10 the rain stopped long enough and 3 out of the 4 Art Basel directors were now present. Go time baby!

Josh Ritchie, The Fiancée, and I (big thanks guys!) got the location and lights set up and balanced pretty quickly and we were ready to roll. We called for the staff to come over and suddenly about 50 people started to walk our way. WTF?! I'd been told 20-25 by the client and then confirmed that with the communications manager. Suddenly it looks like I'm shooting a high school class portrait and I'm just about to freak out. By sheer dumb luck (uh, I mean superior foresight) our set-up was flexible enough to squeeze in the full lot, though with the extra persons the composition lost some of the umpfh (whaddya going to do).

After a lot of shouting (I nearly lost my voice by night's end) I managed to get everyone in positions, directors front and center. Thank god these were creatives because they all immediately got it when I began yelling about the GUTTER! running down the center of our portrait (Monopol always runs their monthly feature double-truck). By this time it was 10:30 and had been dark for hours and hours so I had to drag the curtain for 1-4 seconds to get some/any detail and color in the clouds above and boardwalk behind. Dragging an exposure isn't a big deal with 1, 2 or even 5 people. But with 50 its a pain.

We wrapped the first set-up after a few dozen shots and I told everyone to go get (another) drink while we regrouped. The second set-up took advantage of a very cool skate ramp that had been built right in the center of the Art Positions exhibit. Without the rain there were dozens of ways I'd love to have done the group shot on the ramp, but with all of the treated plywood wet there was no way we would be able to get everything dry and safe to have 50 people climbing all over it (my liability insurance is only $2 million folks). So our second shot was fun but pretty safe, lit by 2 large softboxes and a beauty dish running down the 60 feet of ramp.

Once everyone was in place (herding cats) and the shot was in the bag, Judy passed out numbers written with Sharpie on some commercial grade paper towels we found and I had everyone hold them up in front of them for a Where's Waldo picture. We then went from either side of the group shot and put numbers to contact information for the whole group (the magazine had to have names and titles for everyone). Thanks to all the staff (many of whom were still fighting jet lag) for being so patient and great to work with, and most of all to Josh and Judy who saved the day. All told and despite the rain and numbers everything went off well and we were on our way home just short of midnight.

Truly if you are anywhere near Miami over the next week you should try to make a huge effort to get down for the ABMB fair and/or the now 23 additional satellite art fairs going on (including Photo Miami and the AIPAD Photography Show). There is just so much cool shit to be seen and experienced and the weather this week is looking pretty sick as well. If you do head down give us a shout and we can grab a drink. And if you are skate fan the legendary Tony Alva will be hitting the above mentioned ramp that I shot on last night during the opening night of the exhibit this Wednesday.

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On Assignment: Davie, FL

The Redux finale ended up being one of those assignments that is just a mess. I got a call about the job last week, a portrait of Miami Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor for The Sunday Times Magazine, right after another gig fell through for the same day. Great, no problem... but the next day the problems began. First the shoot day was moved to this week, which was already pretty full. After learning that the flat fee was less than inspiring, I quickly demanded more money thinking that I would either be making my schedule easier or my life a little more profitable. The picture editor responded in one of those split-second, I-don't-even-have-to-ask-my-boss-about-that replies to my 60% increase (I should have made it 100%!) and that was that.

Minutes before boarding our plane to L.A. I made the final call to arrange this week's shoots to include the new portrait, and minutes after landing 5 hours later all of that was fucked again. The P.R. dude was now pushing the lunch-time shoot 4 hours earlier, which over-lapped with a portrait series that I'm working on for another client. But now its Friday night and I'm on the West coast, so all I can do is wait. On Monday morning I'm up early to try and reschedule the displaced morning shoot (which was a pain to schedule in the first place). After some give and take the shoot is back on (I shot it this morning), and the Dolphins gig is a go.

Of course I then made the giant mistake of getting on a plane. After landing back in the East coast on Monday night, yup, everything is sideways again. Dolphins P.R. dude has moved the shoot time again (!) and now its in the later afternoon, fucking up yet another shoot. Shit. It's 10 p.m. and I can't do anything about it until the morning. In the morning the very nice assistant tells me that the afternoon slot was the only time that subjects could possibly do it in the foreseeable future, so I'm stuck either way. I can either throw a fit and cancel the Dolphins shoot (which is not the last impression I want to leave at Redux, of course), or hope for a change of heart with the other assignment. The Dolphins won out, despite the fact that I still had no clue what the story was even about until an hour before the job (via a pay phone call from the writer in London).

My buddy Josh and I arrive an hour early to the team's training camp near Fort Lauderdale in the afternoon to set-up. In the lobby we page our P.R. dude contact (who I'm already feeling unfriendly to) and he sends down one of an apparently giant staff of 22-year old, frat boy P.R. interns to show us to the interview room where we'll be shooting Jason Taylor. In the small room there are two big lockers that have been wheeled in for us to shoot in front of (as per the art direction from the magazine, to re-create the locker room). I immediately ask the intern to go round up at least 1 more locker. "Oh, there are only two... sorry." Fine, whatever, I'll make it work.

A couple of minutes later another P.R. intern dude comes by and starts to basically yell at Josh and I as we hurried set-up stands and lights for (a hopeful) 3 different set-ups. "Woah, you guys can't be in here! This is not your room!" Yeah it is, I reply, Harvey said we are supposed to be here, these are our lockers, this is where we are shooting! "Wait a second, wait a second," he replies, and leaves the room. Apparently they've double-booked the room with Sky Sports who needs to do interviews that they weren't able to get time for the previous day. Instead of waiting a second, we keep setting up. Back come 2 or 3 different intern P.R. dudes, scratching various parts of their bodies. Houston, we have a problem.

After a 10-minute argument where I insisted over and over that I absolutely had to have both lockers for the shoot ("Jason Taylor is a giant man! Jason Taylor is a GIANT man!"), it is decided that we'll have to share the room and we will go first since we already have our stuff set-up (which is why we didn't hold on). We are ready to shoot, light checked, card formatted - locked and loaded - and still 15 minutes before our 3:15 shoot time. And then we waited.

Thirty minutes passed. And then another thirty. Every once in a while a P.R. dude would stop by and make up some number of minutes before Jason would be ready. Another thirty minutes passed. Josh eventually found some free food in the media room to nosh on (he was starving). I drank 3 bottle of water. We waited. At around 5:30 another group of media guys passing our room asked who we were waiting for. "Jason Taylor?! Dude, he's in the locker room (yes, there is actually a real locker room in the same building, which we were not allowed to shoot in) playing dominoes for the past hour!" Completely pissed, I call the main P.R. guy on the phone and finally get his secretary to agree to call him on his radio.

Several minutes later another intern stops by to tell us that Jason was almost ready. "Are you fucking kidding me that Taylor has been playing dominoes instead of doing his fucking job over here?!" The intern was shocked long enough to make it obvious that his forthcoming declaration of Jason's time in a meeting is a total lie. Fifteen minutes later we finally have all 6'6 of the linebacker and are ready to shoot, over four hours late.

The shoot went fine and I got all three set-ups completed in under 13 minutes, helped along by the fact that Jason only has one face that he'll give to the camera. Actually, I got him to laugh twice after making a lewd joke about a funny Pittsburgh-area (Taylor's home turf) town that a friend of mine is from. Thank god I held tough about the two lockers, because 4 would have been barely enough. Ten minutes after the shoot the gear was packed back up in the car and Josh and I had decided that a few beers was warranted and needed. And that was the last one.

After a burst of energy following dinner, I edited, toned, captioned, invoiced, and transmitted the under 100 frame shoot (first in a long time) and sent them off to the client. Despite the waiting, I got a couple of frames I really liked, and today I got a call back from the other subject that they found some time for the shoot tomorrow afternoon. Life goes on.

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Sweet spot

The rough life... drinking premium rum and surfing the internet in a posh, air-conditioned airport loungue, waiting for my flight to be called to return from a fun and interesting portrait job in Barbados. I think I need a vacation.

The shoot was for a new client, The Guardian's Weekend Magazine, which always gets me pretty jazzed. But really everything has been going my way on this short trip. The flights worked out, and I was automatically upgraded to business class. The taxi ride was quick and cheap, and I found the location easily (not always that easy when you don't really have an address). The subject, a former pro horse jockey, was very cool to work with, and gave me a ton of time. I felt good shooting, trying a huge variety of set-ups and approaches, and ultimately I was blessed with some beautiful golden hour light just before sunset to finish the whole thing off. And Barbados itself was so charming... the cool breezes off the ocean, the incredibly blue water, and, well, the rum.

In short, I felt like I was in the sweet spot on this assignment. Even when things went wrong (I'm going to throw my 580EX Canon flash into the fucking ocean, the piece of shit), I was easily able to make something else work. I saw the angles, and opportunities clearly. I was able to make the subject comfortable, even though he wasn't that at ease in front of a camera. I found details to give the client more flexibility. And I found a way to tell the story that might please the three of us: me, the client, and the subject.

It's such a great feeling coming home from a job that the client has spent a good bit of money on, and knowing that they are going to be really happy with the images. I work hard to make sure that they have something solid, no matter the circumstances, but its that much better when things have come together to give you an opportunity to really kick ass. And on top of all of that, I made a friend in the subject. Looking forward to the next trip and a few more Carib, Lee!

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On Assignment: Punta Cana

After my dumb post full of gloating last week, I wanted to follow up with a short summary about the strange assignment that reconnected my relationship to Golf Magazine for a last-minute portrait in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) of Donald Trump at his new mega resort development CapCana.

Like most other assignments in the Caribbean, this job proved to be logistically tricky, especially since I didn't get any real details until Friday morning (and still didn't learn some of the most important bits until I had actually boarded the plane at the airport). On Friday morning I was woken up pre-8 a.m. (not a problem because I was already up and waiting for my assistant to arrive to my apartment for another job in Coconut Grove for People) by my editor with the news that I had to get to Punta Cana that night. However, because I was already booked in the middle of that day, I couldn't manage to get the last direct flight to PUJ at 1 p.m., and also could not take a early flight Saturday morning (because Donald wanted to do the interview first thing).

So the remaining option was a late-afternoon flight (which was delayed twice - late arrival and broken cargo door) from Miami to Santo Domingo, followed by a 3-hour drive over the mountains to Punta Cana in a hired car. Further complicating the whole situation was that also at the last minute the art director decided that I really did need to bring a light kit with me (instead of the reflectors that I had already gotten the editor to agree to). We (the girlfriend/assistant (above in the CapCana lobby) -- double duty this weekend! -- and I) finally arrived to our hotel/resort just before midnight and were right away completely disoriented by the all-inclusive surreal-ness of the place.

And that's the thing... Punta Cana doesn't seem to belong in the D.R. at all. It's a weird other place, not belonging anywhere, catering to well-to-do clientele from around the world who would rather experience the Disney version of "the Islands" than actually bare any sort of discomfort (other than the oppressive heat).

After not enough sleep the girlfriend and I lugged our gear to an awaiting SUV and were shuttled with the writer into the CapCana resort. We traded the SUV for a deluxe golf cart and were soon at Trump's villa, where I quickly got to work getting lights and set-ups ready for action. This was one of the kind of assignments where you are warned that the celebrity/big wig subject will give you almost no time or flexibility, "so get everything that you can and just shoot the lights out!" After creating 2 different set-ups within 20 feet of the back of the villa (I wasn't allowed to bring Trump far), I went back to shoot some "Playboy-style" interview shots of him gesticulating and making various faces. Ohh, ahh... serious Trump, laughing Donald, pensive Trump, etc.

Somewhere in here is where the shoot took a strange turn. Simultaneously it seems like Trump decides that he likes us (especially the writer and my girlfriend/assistant -- who caused him to stop in mid-sentence when she came in to the villa to ask me a question during the interview... you are right, Don, I am a lucky guy!) but doesn't really dig the formal interview/photo shoot dynamic. After the short talk with the writer he reluctantly follows me out for the formal portraits. I got a total of maybe 15 solo minutes, most of which was spent with Trump asking if he could wear a hat ("no" but then he stopped asking and just did), and how much he hates wide angle lenses (the widest I shot with was a 28). Before I could say "we are done" he was already sort of walking away from the 2nd set-up.

To be fair Trump had a busy day lined up -- giving tours to investors who had gathered at CapCana to take part in a lottery to win the pleasure of spending millions of lots of land in the exclusive resort (the development group made more than $300 million that afternoon). But because he apparently liked us (not so much me!), his people called us 5 minutes after he left us that morning to ask if we want to hang out with Trump and sort of tag along. Duh. Of course. Hopefully this was a chance to get something of him that was not perfectly automatic and plastic.

Ultimately though I didn't get nearly as much as I wanted from the formal lit portraiture, I spent another 5+ hours shooting documentary stuff of Trump on the move. Schmoozing, selling, doing quick video spots during a long tour (it was his first time at CapCana also), eating, playing golf, shaking hands, posing for pictures, waxing poetic on his "empire." The writer and I ended up getting a TON of stuff. And by the end of the day we were both invited to play golf with Trump and his golf course's pro (I was invited to play, not shoot, and I don't play golf).

Exhausted and very-red from the tropical sun (I didn't put any sunscreen on because I didn't expect to have more than 30 mins of exposure), Judy and I retired back to the resort. We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying ourselves in our Disney-fied "paradise," and then managed (despite a very close call) to make our flight back on Monday having completed both a successful job and mini-vacation all at once.

The story won't be running until the fall so I'll have to wait until then to share some pics. After spending most of the day with Trump I don't really know him anymore than I did before this trip. For my part he was generous to us and everyone around us (but he also had something to gain from each of us, even if that gain didn't amount to that much for a guy in his position). I can say that it is impressive to be around a guy like Trump, who lives and operates on this huge scale, with dozens of giant projects going on simultaneously. He has vision and his business acumen is incredible, but I wouldn't trade shoes with him.

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On Assignment: Guantánamo Bay

By definition, working on a military base as a journalist is pretty weird. Same with prisons. And also Caribbean islands (in my experience). But add those three together and you've got a very short list of places that are truly strange and surreal. At the very top is Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the oldest continuously used overseas naval base of these United States, covering 45 sq. miles of desert and water in Fidel's giant backyard, home of the famous holding cell for our war on terror, and the location of my assignment this last week for ESPN the Magazine.

First the obvious question and answers. What in the hell does ESPN have to do with military prisons? Guantánamo Bay is a large base with a very small detainment camp, which I had no access to and was no part of my story. So it doesn't have anything to do with that. But the base itself, like every base, plays host to entertainers and athletes of every stripe for the troops to give them some relief from the stressful and confined work that they have signed on to complete. I was sent to Cuba to photograph a group of professional wakeboarders, one of which has a brother stationed in the Coast Guard at Guantánamo, who came down to put on some demos and spread the gospel of extreme water sports to some very excited fans.

The week before last I got a call from one of my editors at the magazine, who has previously sent me on some very fun and challenging shoots (Goodyear blimp crew, Metrodome transformation) which began with the question: "So John, how is your criminal record?" Once the location “Guantánamo Bay” was spoken a few seconds later I was already sold no matter what, even though it meant re-scheduling a small portrait job. Sure, I thought it was an interesting story about two brothers and a very cool young sport, but I was really just thinking how fucking cool it would be to get the opportunity to see Guantánamo Bay in person. How many people get to do that? Very few; so I immediately started spitting out my personal stats to get the required clearance forms filled out.

Getting to Cuba is not very easy these days. But getting to Guantánamo Bay is predictably an order of magnitude more difficult. There are only 2 large flights there and back each week, and to get there (even though I was already pretty close from my house in Miami) our group had to assemble in Jacksonville, FL, and fly out from the Naval Air Station. Our directions were to arrive to the base by 8 a.m. (0800) the day of the flight. So when we were still sitting on our thumbs at the crappy airport hotel 30 miles North of the base at 8:10, I was pretty nervous. Here is a good tip for other travelers in Jax: the taxis there are a complete joke, even when they are called 90 minutes ahead of time. By the time it did arrive, over an hour late, we were at serious jeopardy of missing Cuba altogether.

Thankfully our group (5 pro boarders, 4 media members, 2 marketing dudes) made it to the base and onto the plane, and we began to form our little tribe which immediately, due to clothes and hair styles, stuck out wildly and elicited questions from other passengers like, "what's the name of your guys' band?" The flight down was on a large commercial jet that just like every other one you've ever been on, including the vaguely horrible in-flight movie, but as we banked very hard in our descent (because of a Cuban air space issue) and landed on an empty runway on the edge of the sea, it started to become real just how different Gitmo is, and isn't.

Our days were filled with tours, meet and greets, and demos, shuttled in and out of the oppressive heat by our incredible go-to man Jaren. We saw all kinds of giant guns mounted on Humvees and viper boats on constant patrol and un-inviting layers of razor wire fencing interrupted by spartan observation towers. There was plenty of other, most of which I was not allowed to photograph (which I completely expected). But there was also a lot more same than most people know... McDonald's (Cuba’s only), cold beer, friendly bored people, rap music, beaches, recreation, cable television, bad jokes, relationships, decorative shot glasses in gift shops, etc. My editor joked about me enjoying my cot in the barracks, and that would have been just fine, but instead we were each put up in great little apartments that were truly a step-up from the La Quinta in Jacksonville. So the assignment was filled with this tension between "what the fuck" and "sweet, this is nice."

Nearly each day the boys did their thing on the water (incredible and not just a little challenging to shoot) or spent time surfing or snorkeling on several of the local beaches, and each night we retired to a different restaurant or galley, kicked back and got to meet a lot of troops ranging from privates to the General, most of which could not have been more welcoming and thankful to have us there. Though we only saw a small and well-managed corner of the community, our contact with everyone was extremely rewarding.

GTMO is a large place defined by a single small camp that has only recently been added, and may soon be gone again. For every Marine whose job it is to shackle and transport a detainee back and forth between their cells and an interrogation room, there are at least a dozen other Coast Guard, Army, Navy, and civilians who are primarily concerned with the state of the surfing or fishing that day. And all of them are pretty much just like you and I. I know it’s insanely obvious to even write those words, but having been there it's important to me to spell it out here. (Breaking News: Again life proves to be more complicated and rich than expected). Myself included, our whole group was extremely gratified to have the opportunity to connect with the soldiers out there.

Dispite my respect for those stationed at Gitmo, and in addition to the us vs. them tension, as a journalist there was this strange pull about photographing a very different story in a place known so well, and so poorly, by newspaper readers. I was happy to do it and at the same time a little sad that my ticket to Gitmo was via wakeboarding, a sport that until I got this assignment I had almost no clue about. My attitude is conceited and dumb, but its how I felt as our van slowly passed (there is nearly a base-wide speed limit of 25 m.p.h.) camps and checkpoints.

And at the same time the trip was really fantastic. The pros and other media members, including a writer for ESPN I worked with for the first, but hopefully not the last, time, were amazing to get to know and share laughs and a lot of sun with. We meshed in a special way over the week, creating a tribe with our own in-jokes, and on Saturday as we packed our bags we already had plans on how and when to come back for more days at Windmill Beach and nights at the Tiki Bar. It was one of those rare assignments that was as rewarding personally as it was professionally, and I am honored for the experience and connections made. To everyone: Alyssa, Tony, Matt, Jack, Keith, Mikey, Billy, Zane, Andrew, John, Justin, and all who helped us... thanks!

Photographically I feel that I shot pretty well, not to mention a friggin' ton (3000+ frames), and was able to figure out the sport better each time we went out for a demo. Though I once did dream of becoming a big-time action sports photographer (yep), it was a challenge to get back into those shoes (and reflexes) to try and track the explosive energy of the boarders ramping off the wake a dozen feet or more into the air. My biggest regret was that I didn't have an underwater housing to use, because there was a very cool opportunity to shoot the wakeboarders from a tube pulled by the boat, on a longer cord than the wakeboarder, that I would have loved to try.

The bigger difficulty of the assignment was ultimately trying to find the right context (considering our access) that showed we were in fact on a military base and not just somewhere like Costa Rica. Beyond my work for ESPN I hoped to bring back a sense of the community beyond the headlines, but as is often the case my time was too short and my job too specific. Maybe (and hopefully) next time.

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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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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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On Assignment: Martin County, FL

If you're rubbing your eyes about now at why something seems a bit different at Drinking with a Dead Man, you can stop. Something is different. And shit, there is even a RSS feed in the house! That's right, the blog has been revamped and moved into the 21st century with some amazing help from an extremely talented friend and Movable Type. Thank you, thank you, and thank you again. You'll now have a much easier time finding old posts in the archive (not sure that's a good thing), and also be more able to join the conversation using the comments (definitely bad).

Well, it was inevitable, someone at The New York Times read my last post. They haven't said anything, but I know they saw it from my site stats (they are regulars). So far there is nothing to report, and I'm pretty sure there will never be any drama. On the one hand my own self righteousness in that evaluation makes me pretty ill, but on the other I really think I was fair and, yep I'll say it, balanced. And thanks for all of the e-mail from those of you who have agreed. And speaking of all things NYT... here is the recap of my election coverage of the Negron/Mahoney race.

Bored after waiting for over 3 hours for Congressional candidate Joe Negron to greet his crowd of supporters on election night in Hutchinson Island, FL, 10-year old Heather Carroll, of Hobe Sound, distracts herself by playing with her cell phone while perched on the front of the stage.

I was already interested in the 16th Congressional district election before I got a call from the Times last week. It's an easy "yes" -- you got a Republican sex scandal which forces a family values line-toer to resign in disgrace, which then forces the national GOP troops to find a new squeaky clean home town guy just 5 weeks before election day to face off against a first-time Democratic candidate, and a week before election day the race is nearly a dead heat. When my editor told me that I'd be heading to Stuart I also had cause to be excited because a good friend of mine from college works for the paper there and I knew that he had already started a project on Joe Negron. What could be better than working on a great story with a good friend?

Unfortunately, all of that excitement started to melt away as soon as I met Joe Negron. Joe is actually less animated than Al Gore. That's right, less. He doesn't make eye contact, he constantly looks away from the people in an uncomfortable way, and he blinks at all the wrong times. This guy is made of wood. He also struck me as a really nice, straight-forward, and honest candidate, but that doesn't translate into my photography, and so for the first half of my day on Tuesday I was in pretty bad shape. OK, so the candidate isn't that media friendly or savvy, no big deal, I thought; it'll just take me a little longer to get some good stuff of him. Ouch, strike two. Negron's official schedule for election day only had 2 events on it... one at 9 a.m., and his trip to the polls with his family at 11 a.m. That's it. His media people assured me that he was spending the rest of the day holed away and was not interested in any media tagging along. Uhhh... and so by lunchtime I was worried about what I was going to be able to provide for my client, especially because press is not allowed to come within 100 feet of a voting center in Martin County.

After lunch I got a break and found out that Negron was actually heading out to each polling station that he could to deliver snacks and bottled water to volunteers. This is one of Joe's traditions, which is great, but I was pretty shocked to hear that he was still doing it in the afternoon. When I left him in mid-morning to file my first set of pictures he was driving around passing out water. And hours later when I caught back up with him at 5 p.m. he was still at it. I'm not sure how I would spend an election day if I was ever insane enough to run for something, but I'm not sure it would be spending 6 hours making sure there wasn't a single thirsty person in all of Martin County. The good part about Joe's tradition was that by the late afternoon everyone else had lost interest in his quest, and as I followed him from voting center to voting center it was just the two of us. No campaign people, no other members of the media. Me, Joe, and hundreds of bottles of water and Nutri Grain bars (in strawberry or blueberry). It was a beautiful rainy afternoon for the two of us, until at one stop when I became so excited that Joe was actually smiling and animated talking with supporters that I didn't notice I was crouching down in a giant ant hill. I still didn't notice until I got in my car to follow Negron to the next stop and tried to not run into other cars while killing the hundred or so ants running into my jeans.

Fast-forward into the evening and the election night party for the Republican candidate at the Hutchinson Island Marriott (posh). I got there 20 minutes early (after stopping to file my pictures for the second of 5 times on the night that the NYT had demanded that I do so) and found the ballroom already humming with journalists and camera crews getting ready. I plopped down my laptop on a table right off the ballroom floor which was so close that I could have easily shot his upcoming speech from my chair if I was another type of photographer. As soon as I booted up my computer the free wireless network came right up, and my buddy Matt arrived just after me to take one of the last laptop spots right next to me. We were in business. Then the waiting started.

Now I haven't covered an election in some time. I'm not even sure how long its been, but I had forgotten how fucking long you have to wait for something, anything to happen. I arrived 90 minutes before the candidate was supposed to arrive (8 p.m.) and greet his supporters, but by 10:30 (well past my last A1 deadline) there was still no sign of Joe Negron. The hours were passed with a lot of bullshitting, flash tests (its been acting up, and I almost never use it anyway), and watching the AP guy accost the head press manager for the campaign every 15 minutes for an update. Working with Matt I thought a lot about how much I do miss the community aspect of shooting for newspapers and getting to know your colleagues over time. I also thought a bit about how incredibly useful zoom lenses are for political events. I did just fine with my primes (I think I shot the whole night with only the 28 and 50), but I was definitely a bit behind everyone else in tight situations.

At long last, and well after most of the crowd had gone home, there was an announcement that Joe was going to take the stage in just a couple of minutes. The happy band of still shooters all made our knot right at the front of the stage (which situated at too high of an angle for us to get a nice clean background from down in front; fucking broadcast journalism), and as I tried to cover yet another yawn (I woke up early to drive the 2.5 hours up to Stuart from Miami) I began to panic. What I mean is that I began to feel light headed right there standing front and center before the press and few hundred Negron fans, and because I knew what feeling light headed was going to mean (I was 30 second away from blacking out) I started to panic. Three times in the last 6 years, due to a combination of stress, lack of sleep, not eating, being dehydrated, and sometimes being in crowds, I've fainted. Once was really good, as I flat out dropped to the floor in the middle of a packed concert, scaring the shit out of my buddy Scott (who wasn't so upset that he didn't leave me for a few minutes, after I had come to and been taken care of with some water, to get the lead singer of Azure Ray's phone number... it was unsuccessful I think).

The panic in this case was 2-fold. On the one hand I didn't want to faint in the middle of the photo pool and crowd, fall down on someone most likely, and snap back up very embarrassed. On the other, and what was making me far more upset, I really didn't want to risk missing Negron's entrance and speech. I really only had one course of action... I turned around, left my prime spot in front, and waded through the crowd towards the back of the room where there was a banquet of refreshments. I grabbed a bottle water, gulped it down in 2 sips and then just about dunked my head in the cold ice water that the bottles were sitting in. After repeating the dunking for bottled water trick twice more I grabbed a big piece of melon, gobbled that up, dried off my face, and concentrated on a few deep breaths (its amazing how we forget to breath sometimes). 45 seconds after I felt very close to fainting I was almost completely fine, and went straight back into the fire. Negron entered 60 seconds after that and I didn't miss a single thing.

So much of shooting politics is the luck of which position that you are assigned or choose for yourself. That night I guessed well enough to catch this little thing that Joe did with his tongue right after announcing that he was conceding the race to his opponent. He then hugged his wife and closed his eyes (my friend Matt was blocked by the podium and got the stinky end of that stick) and I redeemed my boring photography of most of the day with a very strong final take. 2 minutes after the end of Negron's speech I was at my laptop editing through the files. Right before the speech I had the idea of switching to JPEG instead of RAW files so that I wouldn't have any problems with buffer during what I thought would probably be a very short delivery, and that ended up being a really good idea. Not only was I able to shoot very quickly but it cut down my editing time significantly and I had my 5th take off to the NYT more than 45 minutes before my final, final deadline.

The following day I woke up early after very little sleep and one too many bourbons (after election drink with the gang) in my great uncle's beach condo on Hutchinson Island. My plan was to take a quick shower and then meet up ASAP with the winner of the previous night's congressional race, Democrat Tim Mahoney, and document his victory lap also for the Times. I was moving pretty sluggishly and so it took me about 30 seconds of staring at the shower head to figure out what was wrong. There wasn't any water. I traced what I thought was supposed to work with my eyes... lever up, over to hot water, up to shower head... no water. I then went to the bathroom sink. No water. Kitchen, nope. A foggy thought began to emerge that my family turns off the main water supply to the apartment each time they leave. No problem... I'll just turn it back on. 15 minutes later I still had no idea where the water was turned on from. I found breaker boxes and water heaters... but I was stumped. So, because I thought it wise to spare the world "un-washed John" for the remainder of the day, I decided on an alternative, and quickly jumped into my bathing suit and grabbed a bar of soap, and headed for the pool where I was sure I would find an ocean rinse off shower. I was right about the shower, but wrong about the gamble that there wouldn't be anyone else out early in the morning to witness my ridiculous dance. There was.

The rest of today's work was pretty standard and not worth detailing. I eventually met up with Tim at his headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens. He was so exhausted by the campaign and late night that instead of a "victory lap" all he had planned was a few hours in his office taking care of some immediate business (a few hundred phone calls to media and supporters). After 2 hours I had worked the situation in just about every way that I could, none of which made for interesting images, and then got back on I-95 to head home. What a special gift I was for my girlfriend when I arrived: a partially unshowered freelance photographer with a couple dozen ant bites all over his legs and a giant grin on his face after 2 hours of NPR coverage of the Democrat's day in the sun.

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On Assignment: St. Barths II

Thanks very much for all of the notes of good wishes and birthday salutations. It was a busy but overall good day down here in paradise... I'm not sure that's an apt name, but its what the cabbie told me when I arrived from the airport. St. Barths really is an interesting spot, and is notable within the Caribbean not only for its fabulous wealth, restaurants, beaches, and boutiques, but because the island is very white. Unlike any other Caribbean island, St. Barths has a huge caucasian population (relative to its tiny actual population of somewhere between six to eight thousand. For those of you who may have traveled a lot in the tropics, you'll know what I mean when I say its weird to not see any black faces. I don't mean weird/good or weird/bad... just weird.

I spent most of yesterday walking around Gustavia, the largest town on the very small island, and stopping by shops and restaurants. Some of them had been called ahead of time and were expecting a somewhat pasty, white dude who probably speaks little to no French to nudge in their door and ask to take pictures. Several others had not, and I spent a lot of my birthday "lost in translation." Having to resort to hand signals, facial expressions, and the like is actually something that ends up making me happy. When I'm actually on vacation, getting lost and wandering about in a place where I don't know the language is one of my favorite things to do. It's only after you are truly, monumentally lost somewhere do you begin to feel like you know a bit about it. But anyway, I never got lost in Gustavia due to a combination of a lot of friendly help from the Charles, the general manager at the Hotel St. Barths Isle de France, where I'm staying, and the fact that Gustavia isn't big enough to be lost in.

By the days end I had crossed off more than half of my grocery list of travel shooting and enjoyed some good food and very nice views. I narrowly avoided 3 giant downpours, and passed time between each talking with locals who told me some great stories about the St. Barths days before ultra posh hotels and boutiques lined the quaint streets. I ended the birthday on an ugly note, however, when late last night I got pretty sick from something I had eaten most likely at dinner. Not fun. Puking never is. I feel better this morning after some rest and a lot of water.

The girlfriend accused me of "whining" in my last post -- oh woe is me, I have to spend my birthday on a tropical island filled with beautiful French women (I didn't actually add that part before but I think I will now) and get paid for it -- and in response let me be a little more up beat to round out part 2 (not that I think I was that whiny). The battery problem has been one at all. I was 99% sure it wouldn't be, but I don't like to leave things to chance. Getting around the island has been a total pain, but I've figured out how to group things together and am just about down with the rest of the list, including some items that I found on my own. Due to the periodic rain storms, I've been able to begin editing through what will be 1000+ frames on this assignment, and will be transmitting my work back to The New York Times Magazine before I even leave the island.

Lastly, my friend Brian exclaimed to me yesterday after reading part 1 of this post, "the whole world knows you forgot your battery charger to a shoot on a remote island." Yeah, I guess; or at least the 15 bored people who read that post do. I just wanted to reiterate that this blog, especially now that it may be getting more eyes on it, was never meant to be anything but a document for myself about what I'm doing, and what I'm trying to do to work and shoot better. I forget shit all of the time. I have bad shoots. I accept work that I'm not interested in just for the money. I do all of that shit... just like pretty much everyone else I know. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm hoping to create this blog as a place for me to be real with myself about my work. Good, bad, ugly, this is freelance photography, or at least this is my version. I hope that I can continue to write about things in that spirit. And on that note, its just about time for me to shoot at the spa.

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On Assignment: St. Barths I

A bit of personal news to begin with... I turned another year older today. I'm now firmly in the "30 is just around the corner" camp -- not that I'm complaining. But a birthday can be a strange thing to spend whilst on assignment, especially in a place that isn't super easy to reach by any particular loved ones or friends who want to send you some cheer. I'm not complaining about that either, mind you, because I'm writing this from my beautiful hotel suite listening to the ocean crash over the beach in St. Barths... life could get worse than this.

I got a call on Monday from Redux asking me about a job down in the Caribbean. Sounds perfect, right? But after hearing that it was going to be a grocery list-type travel job, where I'd be given a big list and have to run around madly trying to check things off (I'm not a big fan of that both because it can be very stressful and also nearly impossible to finish since there is always more you can check out. And since the editor feels like they've basically sent you on vacation, they expect the world) and once I found out that it was scheduled for the 4 days surrounding my birthday, I politely asked Redux to turn it down for me. Laura, the rep who called replied "uh, really?" And then after I assured her, "really," she quickly replied, "OK, oh, wait, Jasmine wants to talk with you about this." I get transferred to Jasmine who starts in immediately, "are you crazy?! You want to turn down a job in St. Barths for a great magazine?!" You gotta love when your agency calls you crazy.

It is a little crazy I guess, but jobs aren't everything. It takes a long time to get to a place, and I'm very fortunate to even have the luxury of turning things down in a way, where that's an OK option. To explain, what I was thinking was that I've been out of town at least a couple of days every single week in the last 2 months, and it was clear my girlfriend was looking forward to having me around a bit. Also, I wasn't sure what plans she had for my birthday and even though its exciting for her that our life together throws a lot of curve balls, I didn't think this one would be met with anything close to enthusiasm. So I said no.

15 minutes passed before I picked up the phone to call back Redux and tell them I'd come to my senses. Yes, I would love to spend my birthday in St. Barths... but that I wanted an assistant. It was an awful 15 more minutes before I heard back that the job was still mine and I should pack my bags. In the mean time I had called my girlfriend and was half-sure that if I could get the assistant budget OK'd, that I could bring her with me and make it a great time for both of us. She has assisted for me several times, and has always been a big help. Using your girlfriend/significant other as an assistant certainly could have some big detractors, but its also a very cool thing... especially when the job can bring you somewhere fun and relaxing. I've long been jealous of my friends Eric and Jen who manage to trek all over the place together for clients and therefore spend way more time together than I get to do with my girlfriend, who doesn't have much time during medical school anyway.

By the end of the day the word had come back that there would be no way to bring an assistant (ticket prices were abnormally high because there were very few seats remaining), but the girlfriend was happy I was going and gave her blessing. On Tuesday I talked with my editor at The New York Times Style magazine about the shoot and grocery list (which ended up being smaller than I had feared). That night I got to have a pre-birthday dinner with the girlfriend and a small group of my family which made up for the fact that I wouldn't be around for the actual day. Everything was working out, except for the "getting there" part. Many small islands in the Caribbean have restrictions against direct flights from any major city, so you have to fly into a much small nearby island that has been designated to be the hub in the region, and then find another way to go the rest of the way. Getting to St. Maarten from Miami was a piece of cake -- there is even a daily direct flight. Getting from St. Maarten to St. Barths is normally no big deal either... except when the ferries aren't operating.

My first phone call to my hotel confirmed that ferries were out of the question. Shit, OK -- well what else can I do? A prop plane or hire a private boat/jet to take me. At this point I've already plunked down way more for the airfare to get me to St. Maarten than my client was happy with. There are 3 small carriers that use prop planes to bring people to St. Barths from St. Maarten. A flurry of phone calls confirmed that 2 of them were completely book all week. The third and largest carrier, WinAir, was not picking up their phones... literally, I called and called and called, and no one wanted to talk with me. Gotta love the islands. So just to be prepared to answer my editor's first question once I told him that the flights were all full, I called back the hotel to ask about how much a private boat would be from St. Maarten (a 30-45 minute trip by sea) -- the answer was almost hilarious: 1000 Euros. Right, well, hmm. I called my editor and told him the skinny... shit. We had basically gotten me to within 10 miles of my destination, spent over $2000 in expenses, and it was looking like I wouldn't even be able to get there. He decided to call his travel agent and see what we should do.

30 more minutes and there was good news... the travel agent was able to find me what was basically the last seat that day on any airline to St. Barths! But in order for me to actually get the seat I would need to have the printed tickets overnighted to me in Miami (going to the Caribbean without hard proof of your ticket reservation is not a good idea) and though I agreed I immediately had a similarly bad feeling about the likelihood of FedEx's first morning delivery getting to me before I had to leave for the airport.

Dinner was wonderful, the tickets arrived on earlier than they were even due Wednesday morning, and I was off to the airport with no problems. Getting to St. Maarten was a breeze, and since I didn't have to check any bags it was easy to get through immigration and customs. However, I just happened to be coming through St. Maarten on the very first day that they had opened their new airport, which was long since been under construction, and it was really not done yet. Signs led to no where, or the wrong way. People stood everywhere looking about them and scratching their heads. I was looking for my WinAir ticket counter, but there wasn't a WinAir ticket counter. I finally found 2 counters that didn't have a sign at all and asked the woman if this is WinAir. "Of course." Yeah, of course. I waited in line while the guy in front of me who just had an electronic confirmation was sent away back to the office because he needed a "real" (paper) ticket (whew). When it was my turn up to the counters the computers froze. Finally they used another computer and gave me a boarding pass. This was going fine.

My gate was C-2, but there wasn't a C-2. There was a C, but there were no employees. More nervous waiting and head scratching all around me. Finally a woman came over and was almost literally attacked by a mob of people ready to start their vacations. She assured us that the flight was going to take off a bit late, at around 4 p.m., and we could just sit down and would be called. 20 minutes 'til 4 I happened to be passing the "gate" and heard the same woman ask about passengers to St. Barths. I went closer (I had been heading to the bathroom) and she said, "Who is going to St. Barths on WinAir?" 15 people who obviously knew enough not to listen to the "just go sit down" speech had their boarding passes raised in the air. I put mine up in the air and waded into the crowd just as she counted up to 18, which was the max for the prop plane. The flight numbers, times, seats, etc. -- it meant nothing, and I was just happy to be heading in the right direction at the right time.

On the plane the captain/flight attendant steered out to the end of the runway, then turned around 180 degrees and announced for us to fasten our seat belts... "the flight will take about 9-10 minutes and we won't get any higher than 1500 feet." He wasn't lying. 10 minutes later we took a hard dive into St. Barths, barely clearing one of the volcanic peaks, and took a hard short landing perfectly into the airport. The pilot pulled up to the building, shut the plane off, opened his door, and exclaimed, "welcome to St. Barths!" From there I was met by DJ from my hotel and was ushered straight to their grounds, up and down insanely steep, narrow roads. We got to the Hotel St-Barth Isle De France and the general manager greeted me and led me straight to my room, an incredible suite with a beautiful view of the ocean -- which is where I'm sitting right now waiting for the rain to pass.

After a nice evening, great dinner, great sleep, wonderful breakfast, some shooting around the hotel, and a swim -- things are going pretty well. Upon getting into my room and doing some unpacking I discovered the one thing that I left behind. It's always one thing, and its never a HUGE problem, but still annoying. I had meant to bring my battery charger with me, but forgot. I wouldn't even mention this at all, but when I grabbed my camera last night and took off around the hotel for the sunset I immediately was greeted with an empty battery on one of my two batteries for my digital camera. Thing is that I intentionally recharged both of them before the trip, which is why I wasn't adamant about bringing my charger. I should have anyway, but I was about to freak out while I went back to my room to check to see how much charge my other battery had left. Thank god its completely full. I've had this problem with batteries not charging when I put them into the charger, but instead doing a total "dump" (completely draining to be refilled so they don't have a "memory" problem). But, there is a button you have to push to "dump" a battery, and I didn't. Just another problem I've had lately with a Canon accessory; my 580 speed light & transmitter have also been going crazy lately too.

So other than the nightmare that I would run out of batteries while on an isolated island on assignment, there are a couple of other things I'm trying to overcome to make this job successful. First, there is the fact that I don't speak hardly any French. St. Barths is a French outpost, but there is a lot of English spoken too as you would imagine in a economy based on tourism. Next, I don't have a car on the island because I don't really need one, but getting around may be difficult. Also, its incredibly humid this time of year -- so much so that I really have no choice but to keep my gear on the porch at all times except at night, so that when I leave to go shoot I don't have to wait a long time for the cameras to get unfogged. Lastly, which is the reason I am taking a break to write this post at all, it rains a lot here, so I'm going to have to try and make it not look blue and overcast in every picture. Wish me luck... and happy birthday.

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On Assignment: Nashville, TN

I'm sitting at one of the traveling freelance photographer's favorite chain lunch spots -- Panera Bread (free wireless, lots of power plugs) -- near downtown Nashville after my assignment this morning for Newsweek. Honestly, there wouldn't be much to tell about this job normally to make it worthy of a whole post... but I had a special sort of energy going into trying to finish up this shoot today after a problem on another for Newsweek earlier this week in Orlando. Though the problem was not entirely my fault, it left me, as my girlfriend can attest to, feeling really shitty.

Going back in time to three days ago... I was hired by one of my favorite editors at the magazine to go up to Orlando and do a story related to the homeless population in the city. Orlando, as the home is Mickey et all, is very protective of its tourism industry and has taken steps to control homeless people's effect on business. The job was an open-ended open, which is to say that I was instructed to go check things out, spend at least a day, and see how much more time I wanted -- ie. there was an opportunity to make this into a longer piece and create a small essay. Now, let me stop right there. For those of you who may be starting out and thinking, "wow, that sounds about how it should be," well its not hardly ever. Hearing "see if you think you want to spend more time on this" is a fucking miracle. It's simply a beautiful, wonderful, and rare thing to hear from your editor, and I was excited at even the remote chance that I could take this story and run with it wherever it may lead. Ah, the set up for the fall to come... sigh.

I drove up to Orlando Monday morning -- it has been a long week and a half of 2-4 hour drives for several assignments, but it was nice to be behind the wheel instead of fighting my way through airports -- and met up with the writer on the story, who ended up being a very cool guy and good reporter despite being very young. The immediate plan was to meet up with a local ACLU activist and lawyer and get the low down on the city's homeless scene. We visited a couple of shelters and found some other areas of interest, including a remote camp of dozens of homeless living in the shadow of a downtown freeway overpass right along train tracks.

I don't think it will be that surprising to learn that I'm pretty sensitive to photographing situations that deal with people in difficult circumstances, such as homeless people living in squalor. What I try to do is take things slowly, pay respect and attention to the subjects, and make sure that they know I'm only there with their permission. I always make it a point of introducing myself directly, shaking hands, and then engaging with everyone that I meet. Only when the writer or I had been talking with them long enough for them to seem to accept us and open up, did I even broach the subject of photographing them. Even then I made it clear that I wanted their authorization before I would snap a frame and tried to present myself clearly, without lurking in some corner or trying to be coy about what I was doing and why I was there. In short, I treated the situation exactly as I would stepping into anyone else's home, and for the most part almost every person was fine with my presence.

But this approach takes time -- time that I thought I had. Basically the first part of our day was doing background while we waited for the main event later in the afternoon that brought us to town. I wanted to make some contacts and gain what trust I could, and then come back later to try and work more and dig in deeper photographically -- also, as always, I wanted to wait for better light. However, it turned out that there wasn't a later, and so I missed dozens of pictures that I could have shot but decided to wait on. Right now the pictures are still waiting there, but the story isn't.

As you probably have guessed, the main event turned sour. What was supposed to happen, what made the story visually compelling in a particular and newsworthy sense (and made our reason to choose Orlando specifically --there are homeless people everywhere, right? -- valid), just didn't happen at all. Instead, it went sideways... and sitting there watching it in disbelief, the writer and I sat both summed it up with a "well fuck." The story wasn't over, but it was no longer something that I thought had any legs, whatsoever, especially as far as the photographs were concerned. My job, basically, unless you greatly expanded the overall story to "homeless in Orlando" was pretty much over. I wasn't mad, because it happens sometimes. And because I thought I knew so well the sorry turn things had taken, I made a stupid mistake. I've set this up to be dramatic, but it isn't. I simply didn't pick up the phone, right then and there, and call my editor to tell them that things were looking ill.

That's it. I didn't send in an update, or at least I didn't until the next morning. What later got me so angry with myself about it was that I knew much better and felt like I had let down the editor who I have a good relationship with. It was emotional for me, quite honestly. I've talked about before how I really have a hard time dealing with coming up short on an assignment, especially when I could have done more. The lesson for anyone out there is that you have GOT to update your editors, and keep them in the loop constantly, good or bad, so that they are able to help you and direct the story. We all know this. I just forgot for 12 hours.

The next day there was nothing left to photograph, so I thought. I was right there too, but it wasn't my call, even if it was obvious. My editor didn't get my update via phone and e-mail until much later in the morning, while I was more than half of the way back driving home to Miami. He had arrived to work assuming everything was perfect. And what made things much worse (it probably wouldn't have even mattered otherwise) is that my editor's editor, who was updated by the rookie reporter, who was totally honest in saying that the shit hit the fan, decided that even though shit was everywhere, the story was in GREAT shape. So not only is my editor without the knowledge he should have been given, he has had his expectations amped up. Then comes my e-mail, and his call to me in total confusion. I explain what happened, and its all fine... what happened is what happened... but then he asks me why he didn't know this sooner. And that is that, folks. Fuck. Who is the rookie after all?

So now we can fast forward back to present tense. I've been shooting a lot for Newsweek lately and already had another job for a different editor at the magazine scheduled for 2 days after my botched shoot. Emotionally, I felt that I needed to hit a home run in Nashville, even if it was for a different Newsweek editor, just so that I felt like I was bringing my A game back into play. I really wanted to go way beyond the call of duty. I was asked to do 2 set-ups for this portrait in Nashville, of the same family that I shot at the beginning of the week in Naples. 2? I thought... nah, I'll do 6. So I hit the ground running in Tennessee, and by that I mean I practically ran from my gate to the rental car counter, plopped down my AMEX, and ran to my car. I made it to the assignment 20 minutes early, and spent twice that time looking around the house to find where I wanted to shoot.

Ultimately, I did as good of a job as I could on the Nashville job. It doesn't much show, because the assignment is not very visual, or at least not a job that I would ever hire me for (hint: it involves real estate.) I busted my ass and made the kids in this family grow to basically hate me, but the pictures are still only "solid." Not great... but I did everything I could. There is only so much you can do at a house that is preparing for a wedding in 2 days time, and is surrounded on 3 sides by GIANT white wedding tents. Yeah, giant.

The larger point for me is to point out that I very often am assigned to photograph things that in some ways I shouldn't be. Alternatively, I'm also almost never asked to shoot assignments that I feel would really showcase my strengths. It's not me in that case, though, its the industry. All you can do is make every job count. Some photo editors don't know that documentary photographers are really bad choices to shoot portraits on a white seamless (or at least a lot of them are.) Some of them do, but they like your work and know you can, at the very least, do a competent job and would rather throw some money the way of a photographer they like regardless. There are risks in this equation too -- namely that you can get pegged into sub-genres of photography that don't even interest you all that much, like business portraiture. You take what you can get early on, and even later if you are slow, and realize that you are running a business and the market is not something you can control. And all of this is why I was even more upset at myself about the Orlando job... here was an editor giving me a chance to do something with more heart and allowance for time than is normally on my plate. Hopefully next time I can push myself to make it work out.

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On Assignment: Minneapolis, MN

I've been sitting at this noisy Starbucks for almost an hour, racing against the clock to upload the 400 images from part of my job in Minnesota to ESPN's server before my battery on my laptop runs out, because I forgot to throw either my extra battery or the charger into my bag before I ran out the door to find a better high speed connection than my horrible DSL at home. Oh, BellSouth, how I loathe you so!

Minnesota is a long way away from Miami. Yep, you heard it here. It's a long way away to the tune of 2 long plane segments beyond the steamy heat of South Florida, and into the crisp, amazing fall weather in Minneapolis. So, to set the stage...

Who? Me, and my college friend and occasional assistant Brian Harkin. What? An assignment from ESPN the Magazine, one of my top 5 clients, in frequency and quality, to photograph the Metrodome. Where? Minneapolis, MN. Why? The Metrodome is a very interesting example of one of a handful of multi-use stadiums around the country which are shared by different pro teams in different sports, sometimes on the same day, only hours a part. My assignment was to photograph the transformation of the dome from baseball field to football stadium to starting point of a marathon (Twins to Minnesota/Michigan to Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon) all within 24 hours. How? Documentary photography of the crew breaking down the stadium from baseball to football, including a mounted camera position in the upper deck rigged with a remote interval timer.

This year I've had a handful of break-out clients who, though I've shot several things for them each of the last 2 years, have really blown up for me and our relationship has matured to include a lot more travel and more interesting assignments. As a freelance photographer, and as a business owner in general, this is one of the most gratifying experiences there is... delivering a service that is not only good, but good enough that the client returns and increases their order and expectations time and time again. This job for ESPN was one of the most complex I've had given to me thus far, was directly after my last shoot for the magazine which has been my favorite and best shoot I've had all year, and the new job looked like it had the potential to be one of the coolest things that I'd seen in quite a while. And while a component of it (the mounted camera) wasn't really in my normal wheelhouse, the assignment posed a challenge that I was excited to attempt. Notice all of the run-on sentences... its basically how my brain works directly after getting a job... ; )

As I chronicled in the last post, a couple dozen seconds after I wrote about how much I like the day after a bunch of work, etc., I got a call from one of my editors at the magazine and was asked to go to Minneapolis pretty much immediately. The immediately part is not a problem almost ever... I've flown off to assignments on a couple of hours notice at least a dozen times this year, and because I travel pretty light and don't use, or even like, a ton of gear, its a pleasure that I have to always be ready and willing to go do an interesting assignment, no matter the distance. That sounds a little far-fetched, but I actually do like having to extend myself out and head off to some place off the beaten path and get something done quickly. It's probably not healthy in a long-term way, but I grew up in newspapers and its always been part of the terrain that I knew. Deadlines are my friend.

However, this assignment's immediacy was matched by 2 potential problems that had to be solved within an hour of accepting the job, or else I was in trouble.

First, I couldn't do this job alone -- wasn't even a choice, because of the secondary mounted camera which had to be watched over, and occasionally tweaked. And #2, I had to get my hands on a remote timer to attach to the remote camera. Equipment issues first: normally buying a piece of gear last minute is not a big problem... you either get it locally, or have it shipped overnight from B&H or Adorama, etc. However, I got the call at around 2:30 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. Slightly bigger problem because that's after the deadline most mail order photo places have for shipping out equipment for overnight that day... so I couldn't buy from NYC or anywhere in EST. Then I had to factor in the upcoming Jewish holiday which could affect hours and work load at almost every mail order place in the country, which are almost all run by orthodox Jewish owners. Also the timer, a Canon TC-80N3, which I researched quickly and found that I couldn't do without, was not an item that many stores kept in stock, especially locally. I called a dozen places in South Florida... no luck. Then I called places in Minneapolis... no luck. The problem was getting bigger within ten minutes of accepting the job.

Meanwhile I also started to call assistants. My friends Travis, Kenneth, and Andrea... no, no. no. One in college and busy, one moving Eastward, and one having just left for 2 weeks in Bogota. The question of finding a good, solid assistant has been a big issue since moving to Miami, and since Travis started grad school in Ohio (bastard!), because, even though there are TONS of assistants down here to help with the commercial catalog and fashion shoots, there are very few, so far as I've been able to tell, assistants who do editorial and are fun to be around. Therefore I've had to call on friends who live various places around the country to fly out and meet me at the assignment. It can be done, but its not something that magazines really appreciate (having to arrange travel from multiple locations to the job).

So now its 3:15 p.m., I still don't have an assistant or a remote timer, and have now learned that ESPN wants me on the 11 a.m. flight the next morning, which means that even if I could find the timer in a place on the West coast that would ship it overnight to me in Miami, it wouldn't do any good, because I'd already be at the airport and would miss the delivery. Bad. Shit. FUCK.

But then I got a call back from Brian, who was on assignment and couldn't talk, but told me that he was free to do whatever it was that I needed (he still didn't know... that's what great about other photographers; they say yes first!). Then I got a bit of inspiration that I should look for a photo store in the Dallas area, where Brian lives, who may have it. Yes! My first call found the timer in stock, but at a considerable mark-up to the price that B&H carried it at. At this point, that didn't matter at all... I needed it, or had to call back my editor and give him the unfortunate news. The other pieces fell into place: ESPN arranged all of the travel for both of us, I called the Dallas camera shop and gave them the situation and my credit card number, and Brian promised to pick up the timer and a few other goodies at the camera shop before he went to the airport. All of the problems had been solved, and I even found 2 micro ball heads that I had packed away in one of my many old camera bags, so I didn't have to buy a new one to use to mount the camera. The logistics and prep for the assignment were done... so I went out for sushi with my girlfriend, as a apology for having to leave, again, and had a quiet and nice night.

The flights to Minnesota on Friday were uneventful but long -- OK, because I had picked up Zadie Smith's excellent "On Beauty" on my last assignment. Brian joined me on the 2nd leg, as I was routed through DFW on my way. We got in at 5-ish CST and found our rental car (note to the directors of the MSP airport... for God's sake, make it easier to get to the rental car station from the terminal... its really pathetic). We got to the hotel very easily, not always the case, which was perfectly situated just about 6 blocks walk to the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, and after checking in (another note: what ever happened to the ever-expanding network of hotels offering free wireless??), got a great recommendation for a local, independent restaurant called Nochee, where we had a nice dinner. The big bonus of the entire weekend was the incredible early fall weather in Minneapolis, which is a great city itself. Having lived in Miami for 9 months, I can't tell you how fucking awesome it is to again feel the crispness of a fall day. Very glad that I packed my favorite zip-up.

After learning that the writer missed his flight Friday night, and would be late getting in, I was also told that the video team (on some ESPN the Magazine jobs, things get slightly more complicated because Bristol (headquarters of the TV network) gets involved and also wants to send their people to do video and sound, in addition to the rest of the team. Sometimes photographers and videographers (and their crew) work very well together, and its all good. Other times, its hell and you are constantly getting in each other's way and crossing swords. Normally, its not great news to learn that Bristol is coming) was not going to arrive to the stadium until 1 p.m. on Saturday, well into the Twins game that began at 11 a.m. So we had tons of time to hang out in the morning, get breakfast, read the paper, and relax. We were relaxing, in fact, when I happened to finally see an update on the baseball game going on down the street, and learned that at 12:20 p.m., the game was already in the 6th inning and was flying straight through to completion. Shit! Brian and I jumped up, got our gear, and practically ran to the stadium just as the writer had gotten in town and arrived himself. We needed to capture, at the very least, the last inning of the Twins baseball game (from the remote camera) in order to show the evolution of the stadium from fully from diamond to football field.

With hardly 3 outs remaining in the game, we finally had a position picked in the upper deck directly behind home plate, and got set up and clamped in. The remote timer, which I was worried about and had Brian check again and again all day, worked perfectly. By the last out I was in the team tunnel on the 1st base side and took to the field with the crew members who instantly upon the end of the game began to break the baseball field down and start preparations for pigskin. It was really unreal to watch three guys run at the pitcher's mound and attack it with shovels, breaking away the dirt to expose the edge of the wooden palette that its built on, so the whole mound could be carried off the field and preserved (the mound is too preciously made and perfected to be totally destroyed and remade each time). Literally after 15 seconds, the outfield walls and banners were already coming down. 5 minutes after that another crew was painting the end zone logos of the home town University of Minnesota Golden Gophers. The pace and energy of the crews was absolutely incredible, and I ran from place to place around the field trying to document everything.

Photographically it was a pretty easy shoot on the field. The scale and number of people made for easy compositions and dramatic pairings, and the backgrounds were either very clean or had an epic depth (eg. the rest of the dome). It became very apparent that I was going to shoot way more than normal on the job because after 20 minutes I had already filled up the first of my 4 GB CF cards, which is about 300 images in RAW format on my 1DsM2. By the end of the 2nd day of shooting, I had reached the 2000 mark, which is probably the first time I've ever done that on a assignment that short. 2000 digital files is a totally different problem on the post-shoot end of things, of course. On assignments where there is a chance that I'll shoot a lot, and need to download my digital cards on the fly, I make sure to pack a portable hard drive made by HyperDrive that I call my "dump drive." I've now had 2 different types of these, one with a screen to preview the images, which also played music and shit, and the new one with only a LCD panel that told you the bare essentials of information. The new drive is totally great, and very fast. I'm not the type of photographer that wants to see what I'm shooting while on assignment... I actually prefer not to, unless there is a CD or AD present who needs to direct things, which is pretty rare for me.

After several hours the field had been transformed, with only the dirt around the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bases left over as reminders of the diamond. Brian and I had time to head outside and try and find something interesting with the tailgaters, of which there wasn't much. We even had time to try and eat some of the terrible press food, which made me glad I didn't continue in my early-college aspirations to become a dedicated sports photographer. But by the beginning of the football game (Minnesota vs. Michigan -- Mich. dominated the game from the very beginning), Brian and I were both exhausted, and happily packed up our gear and finished the remote timer work with the kickoff. Beer and pizza were in order, and I downloaded all of my cards and made sure that the timer camera had done its job. We made it an early night because the last part of the assignment was to photograph the beginning of the marathon that was using the Metrodome as its starting point early the next morning.

The marathon could not have been scheduled on a more beautiful day. In Miami there is often a thick haze and cloud cover at sunrise over the Atlantic, like a lot of other big cities, and you sometimes miss out on the first rays of sunlight. That's not the case, or wasn't on Sunday, in Minneapolis, a city that both Brian and I wondered aloud several times in a our short trip why we didn't just move there. The light was gorgeous as we walked back to the dome, and there were people, happy, excited, and very nice people, everywhere. I had expected that because it was a relatively early start to the race, 8 a.m., that people wouldn't really gather in mass until at least 7:30, but when we got out there 20 minutes earlier than that, there were already people filling the streets.

The light was beautiful, but not in the right places, and most of the Metrodome that was visible from the race was in deep blue shadows, making exposures difficult for the race. I quickly got what I could and moved further and further down the course until I found a spot that the runners would have to come by near the start line, which lined up perfectly with the metrodome and the morning sky. This part of the shoot was again pretty easy... by 8:20 a.m. I was finished and with the free coffee that Brian had scored for me from the race, we headed back to the hotel, had breakfast, and then packed our bags and headed to the airport. The airport had been such a close and easy drive to the hotel, that I didn't even have to refill the rental car to full again (and it was a SUV!) so that was even better. After figuring out that we would be done shooting far earlier than our planned flights back, we had changed our flights the night before, and I had received a much earlier trip back through Chicago. That flight ended up being 4 hours late, and I was rerouted again, pretty much back to my original flight back.

Being stuck in airports is such a huge part of being a freelance photographer who does any traveling. It's really what wears me down. All of the other stuff, no big deal. But the airports kill me. When I would otherwise return home in a good mood after a very successful shoot, often times the trip sucks all of that out, and I end up pretty grumpy when my girlfriend kindly picks me up outside the terminal and drives us home. She is eager for details and stories, and I have almost no energy to even feign interest in sharing much. It gets down to one-word responses... "good, OK, yeah, no." And then once home, she has learned, begrudgingly, to let me get my head settled... let me logon my computer and check my e-mail and do the insubstantial little tasks that make me feel slightly caught up, before I'm back to normal and want to interact with any person on Earth. Weird little emotional experiment, really.</