Photographs Archives

CA 49

The slow boat to Miami finally arrived in order for me to wrap my mitts around the new Comm Arts photo annual, which I'm proud to be included in for the first time. The result above is nice enough, but as always the sizing and placement and all of that is one of those dice-rolling (whaddya-goin-ta-do-abut-it) factors in life. I instantly felt better, however, after flipping 100 pages before to randomly find Platon's fantastic portrait of President Putin printed even smaller. Wowzers. Anyway, big ups to Mother Jones picture editor and talented photographer Mark Murrmann for the assignment that yielded the winner. Thanks Mark!

Also of note, and the very first thing my eyes landed on in the front of the book, is a very nice promo from the boys of Wonderful Machine that I was included in, seen below. As kind as it is, and as proud as I am to be honored, I feel obliged to state here for the record that I'm not associated with Wonderful Machine in any way. I wish Bill and Neil all the success in the world, and I appreciate the support, but them's the facts as I remain an independent photographer (cough, looking for a great commercial rep).

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Shelved

A package in the mail this week saw the return of 2 early Redux-era portfolios which I had pretty much forgotten ever existed. At the time I was in to creating real books working with a cool, talented book binder in North Carolina. Back then I was actively trying to get some travel work (I eventually gave that up when I decided that I sort of hate shooting travel photography because its usually hellish). Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share this little book that I designed back in the day.

Perma-link | Comments (5)

Big League Tri-Guy

Stumbling through the New Orleans airport on the way back from a quick assignment this week for a new Reader's Digest magazine, I picked up the August issue of Bicycling Magazine which featured a fun piece I shot of former MLB all-star Jeff Conine who has taken up triathlon training for the Iron Man competition this fall. Jeff was great to work with though it was a hot, sweaty shoot. I had high hopes for this clip, but it looks like things were cut back a bit (that song is getting familiar).

In other promotional news, my old project on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome transformation has found some new life as a feature on the web zine File Magazine. Stop by and take a look if you have some time, and enjoy this other favorite from the Conine shoot below.

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Future

My cousins are illuminated from the glow of illegal fireworks over Tallahassee.

Over this weekend honoring the past and America's birthday, I've been thinking mostly about the future, or lack there-of. Where in the fuck is the future these days?

I saw a little of it in Tokyo, jammed right up next to the (way, way, way-older-than-anything-American) ancient feudal Japan (eg. skyscrapers towering over 7th century hunting grounds turned urban park). Well, it wasn't exactly future, but there were a lot of escalators and I really like escalators. But back home we've been promised The Future for 50 years by Hollywood and I still don't have a floating car or skateboard, white jumpsuit, robot butler, ticket to another planet, proof of intelligent life beyond Earth, efficient nuclear energy, Home Alone 8, unfrozen Walt Disney, or anything else even approaching the promise of year's past. So exactly when does the future start? I mean come on people, we don't even have decent internet bandwidth!

In my own corner of the corporate landscape ("The Media;" I think we should adopt Gatsby's creepy "blue and gigantic" eyes as our logo) the future is already here. Yay for us! Well, by future I mean that the dystopian nightmare of the future as a chaotic, fear-ridden battlefield half-full with the charred embers of past glory and integrity, with the hope and respect for our audience shipwrecked against a god forsaken rocky outcrop perpetually assaulted by our maker's fury...... whew, yeah, that's now. Um, so at least any step forward is a step up. Big hugs all around!

I don't have any answers when it comes to the future of my industry, and especially not about the clusterfuck of newspapers. I'd sort of like to see Mark Cuban have a go at it before its all said and done. Its pretty strange to see the massive forces on each side which have so much darkness and hope alternatively that nothing actually makes sense. On the one hand the world is sharing and publishing so much more information and art than every before that things seem that they can only work out for the best in the long run. On the other, newspaper owners have had their head up their asses so long that they incredibly entirely missed this whole "internet" tube thing coming down the pipe 20 years ago in order to recognize it as a complete game changer.

And on the other hand the cost of publishing and distributing digital content has gone down to $0.00. But on the other hand it costs tens of millions of dollars and is incredibly inefficient to publish and distribute a print edition?! Facebook is free, infantile and an advertising profit-generating machine worth billions. News media websites are mostly free, incredibly poorly designed, and anger-generating machines for readers worth next to nothing.

New media is capable of energizing and engaging the content-devouring masses who want to be connected and learn more than ever before. New media has become euphemistic in our newspapers and magazines of asking already overworked and underpaid staff members to learn new skill sets without comprehensive training or even some extra off-time with their shiny new non-professional tools, then immediately forcing them (pulling out the violins to talk about duty and wanting it) to do multiple jobs on deadline or be fired (though, they'll be fired anyway, eventually... that's the big reveal at the end of this hilarious gag).

While theoretically I may agree with Vincent that there are blue skies yet to be discovered (that transition at the end of 3,000 Chicken Little words is a bit forced, no?... not as bad as the promotion of his yet to be named workshop though), it's only going to brighten after a lot of blood letting for the industry, and even when the blue seems within grasp the true effect of the unbelievable loss of institutional knowledge is going to cripple our reach. The chorus of video cameras will change everything is pretty fucking old; they will not. The truth is that the baby and bath water both need to go. First publication to 10,000,000 Facebook fans wins, OK!?

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Stack

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

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

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

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

Perma-link | Comments (1)

Final approach

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

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

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

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

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Japan, Pt. 3

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

Perma-link | Comments (1)

Japan, Pt. 2

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

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

Perma-link | Comments (2)

Japan

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

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

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

Perma-link | Comments (0)

The opposite of love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perma-link | Comments (3)

Bust

I did another interesting assignment for The New York Times business section a couple of weeks ago about the incredibly high foreclosure rates in Miami's (many) dozens of condo buildings (across the board from low to high end), many of which were just built in the development boom that I began to photograph when I first moved to south Florida two years ago (turns out I was really looking at the death throws then). Though the story was not as graphic as we had been led to believe (big surprise), I really enjoyed mining for a sort of "evidence" approach, even more because I got the OK to use my now departed Mamiya 7 camera to do it. So all in all the assignment brought me full circle in more ways than one.

We (some realtors and an Italian investor looking to capitalize on the foreclosures) visited a few buildings in Brickell and I was pretty shocked to learn that a couple of these condo towers have foreclosure rates from 15-30% (not just unoccupied, but foreclosed). Now many floors in the buildings feel like a ghost town, with lock boxes covering doors, dirt and dust everywhere, and very dark hallways with bright yellow foreclosure notices pasted up. I guess just like in the Texas oil towns, if you believe the boom you gotta expect the bust.

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Cool beans

Workers speed drying of the late harvest coffee beans in the open sun at Doka Estate, part of the Santa Eduviges farms in Costa Rica. See much more in the archive.

Found in this Sunday's New York Times business section are the "cherries" from the last half of my week down in Costa Rica back in February and a small photo essay on Starbucks Coffee and their farmer education program. Despite being pretty exhausted from the hike, Andy Martin (the writer) and I had a really great time with the Starbucks folks as we saw just a tiny corner of their operation in central Costa Rica and the way that they teach sustainable methods and quality control to help farmers around the world not only produce better beans but also become able to earn a much higher premium for their efforts and families.

No matter what you think about Starbucks as a company you have to be impressed by the lengths they go around the world to source their product. They look at the whole thing a bit like I try to with my freelance work -- I don't want a single job from someone, I want to build relationships that can deepen and strengthen over time. The same is true with their relationships with farmers (which in many of these places is really just huge extended families who have worked the same ground for generations), some of which are 20+ years old.

Photographically speaking we were off in our timing down in Costa Rica and had missed the first big harvest of the year; so many of the images I wanted just didn't exist. Instead I did portraits and details and tried to make something interesting, while also trying just to soak up the environment while simultaneously not getting attacked by bugs. Big ups to Sbux rockstar Scott McMartin (seen below) who was fun to hang out (bullshit) with during the trip.

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Cousteau vs. Cousteau

It's been a good week in the JLPFL mailroom, highlighted by some long awaited checks (straight to the AMEX) and the new (May) issue of Men's Journal for which I shot a really interesting feature on the legacy of ocean explorer and environmental champion Jacques Cousteau. Its a meaty piece and I was very excited to work on it with Rob just before he made his exit (stage West). The shoot was first mentioned vaguely on DwaDM back in November, but there was ultimately a lot more to it.

The idea for the piece was to shoot Cousteau grandsons Philippe Jr. and Fabien, and contrast the different ways in which they've used their famous last name in a profile on the bitter family feud that erupted after Jacques death. I was initially only hired to make an "authentic" portrait of Philippe and we went out on a boat off of Lighthouse Point to shoot early in the morning. As I mentioned in the previous point it was gnarly with bad luck, seas, weather, wind... but Philippe was super awesome to work with and despite shooting 6x7 film with lights on a small boat while trying not to be tossed into the rocks, we managed to get some cool stuff.

A couple of weeks later Rob was back in touch and I was asked to photograph the other half of the family represented by Fabien. Sweet! Only problem was that MJ wanted to try to exactly match the best selects from the first shoot again for the second shoot of Fabien, and of course I hadn't exactly been taking notes on the positions, angles, lighting, exposure, time of day, etc. from Philippe's session. But no problem, right?! At the very least we were certainly not to get shit weather two straight times!

Ah, well, no. Not only was Fabien's shoot extremely tight on time and at a different part of the morning, the conditions were even worse. Immediately upon getting out on the boat with him and his very cool sister (regardless of whatever tension there is in the Cousteau family, I had a killer time meeting and working with everyone), we found out that we didn't have all of the (scuba) gear we would need to really mock up the first session, which sort of didn't matter anyway because the only suits that Fabien had were their very cool new free diving suits (I was thankful that they were different colors, lending to the Spy vs. Spy aesthetic of the final layout). But with 8x10 print outs of my Philippe selects (Rob picked 3 to do our best to replicate), we tried to make the best of it.

Out on the water the wind was whipping like crazy and the sun was in a completely different spot and height than I wanted it in (matching would be impossible given our time frame). As soon as we got in position my assistant almost immediately had 2 of the 3 8x10 selects fly out of her hand and right overboard into the rough water. Amazingly we were able to save 1 of them, but there was a very awkward moment when one half of the family was all huddled around looking at these images of Philippe in the exact same setting. I don't think I would have been very cool with this, but they were and I respect them for being open and honest.

With a beauty dish being hand held by my assistant Erica off to my right, she holding on to the rail for dear life, I had 15-second window opportunities kneeling in the right position with Fabien in place to shoot before the captain had to gun the engines and keep us from crashing on the rocks. We only had a total of about 15 minutes out on the water, and I had maybe 10 of these 15 second bursts. We only had 2 of the 3 8x10's left to compare with (next time I'll me smarter and laminate and bring extra copies), but with all of the rough water and wind I was trying hard just to get my exposures right let alone match horizon lines and body posture. By the time we wrapped I was pretty bummed that we just didn't get it done.

My 6x7 selects of the 2nd shoot got to the Men's Journal office the day before Rob left (bummer), but Jenn Santana picked up the pieces and made some great sense of the images. I was super excited to get a call from her a couple of weeks ago that they loved the results and wanted to get me to get back out on the water for another feature story coming up this weekend (I must be crazy). Nothing better than that though! I'll leave you another frame that I liked of Philippe Cousteau, Jr.

Perma-link | Comments (1)

Viral

I'm back in the office today after a quick and soggy trip up to Amelia Island, FL for a shoot with ESPN the Magazine this weekend. Easy shoot, fun subject, and part of a little mini-roll I'm trying to cook up to begin April at JLPFL. Another building block of my wished-for roll is a total website refresh that I installed last week @ JL.com which is in part inspired from Rob's promo slideshow that you see above.

The redesign is a bit radical but I really want to keep myself and my clients' focus on what is new and where I'm heading, instead of where I've been. Thus the 2008 framing and the extremely limited initial gallery of just 20 images, which will be added to on a weekly basis for the rest of the year, building up to 2009, when I'll launch a brand new super bad ass website that I'm beginning to mock up and get bids on from design firms right now. Its all about the new this year. Nü, baby.

And speaking of fresh/clean, APE's slideshow is a cool first attempt at creating a free and open promotional stage for photographers to be found by the people who need them. I think that using Flickr creates some logistical challenges that need to be ironed out, and there are WAY too many pics for my taste in this first slideshow (cue Rob trimming the slideshow by *2, ahem). But its a great experiment nonetheless and hopefully some ADs and PEs will be turned onto new photographers outside of their normal circle of inspiration.

*EDIT - Rob sized the final show down a bit more and polished things. You'll have to look pretty hard to find my image. Thanks for putting it together, Rob.

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Super green

Today's New York Times business section features the first half of my work in Costa Rica that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. The article online also includes a nice little photo gallery (with an apt headline) that works better for me than what was chosen in the print edition. I'm still firmly in the I wish I had shot a little better camp, but that's life. Next time I'll just be in better shape!

You can see a whole lot more from the trip in my archive. And here are a few others that I took a shine to in the editing process.

Perma-link | Comments (2)

Cheers: Eric Larson

I've been waiting several months since this fall's bourbon road trip to write an official "cheers" post about my friend Eric Larson, namely to give a plug for his sweet new site and branding that is still yet to be launched, but this week's big help on a quick job in Orlando for ESPN the Magazine is forcing my hand. Larson, seen above, was not only kind enough to assist me, but he also let me rent his gear, crash on the new office couch, pick me up AND drop me off at the airport, cook us breakfast, and even share some single malt scotch! Talk about a go-to guy!

Eric assisting me is pretty laughable because he's the first person I call when I have a question about just about anything. So cheers to you, Eric Larson! Thank you for your friendship, passion, dedication, undeniable talent, bitchin' taste in all things edible and liquid, very cool wife (Judyta says hi, Jen), and for truly being an inspiration for how to be a complete professional in this industry.

It was because of Eric's help that Tuesday was on its way to being an extremely good day at JLPFL, in what could have gone terribly wrong (two shoots in two cities, with a tight schedule). We got to Ilseworth Country Club right on time for the ESPN shoot early and had an easy set-up with the white seamless of golfer Charles Howell III, who was not only on time but also a really nice guy. We quickly got everything we needed and were out the door in amazing time, so much so that I was able to jump on an earlier flight back to Miami to gain a bit more time for an early afternoon shoot.

The lighting and background was already set up and ready to go for the corporate portrait shoot in the afternoon, and it was looking like a perfect day as I waited with my regular assistant Erica for the subject to arrive... and then the spell broke. The subject completely flaked out and cancelled the shoot on set moments before it was to start. What's more about 15 minutes later the sky literally opened up and it started to POUR. It was the first time that a shoot was killed on set for me, but the client is going to eat it to the tune of 100% of the estimated fees (plus earn the distinction of going on my "never again" list). Only time and the check's delivery will tell if the day actually did end perfectly (getting paid well to take a nap).

Perma-link | Comments (1)

Clip, clean, clip

It's a rainy week down in South Florida and I've been spending the time between gigs trying to find my desk under the stacks of junk, bills, invoices, notes on hotel stationery, and magazines. Somewhere buried in all of this are a couple of new clips that I'm proud of and wanted to share.

The first is a portrait of nurse Fonza Jones (who I wrote about last month) in the yet to be released March issue of Mother Jones (thanks Mark for giving me the go ahead to post). I've already explained how great it was to meet Fonza which makes it even better now to see the clip and feel like I was able to make an interesting portrait that their design team presented in a clean and authentic way, making the final version that much better.

Thankfully it's much the same story with the second clip, a portrait of environmental rockstar and physicist Amory Lovins made in December for The Guardian's Weekend magazine and their cover story on the 50 people that can save the Earth (woah, big time!). We shot this on a tight schedule in a busy, busy week for both Amory and myself, but it worked out really well since we both love banyan trees (thanks Libby for the scouting). The first time I shot for Weekend I felt like I had hit a home run and was rewarded with a postage stamp sized clip in the resulting story. I fared much finer this time though unsurprisingly a fake (I think, right... they didn't get Leonardo to Greenland or someplace for that cover shot, did they?!) cover of a movie star beat out my images of a real scientist. Someday, Caroline, someday!

As always, here are a few more from the cutting room floor:

Perma-link | Comments (2)

Semper fit

February may end up being a nice big month of firsts at JLPFL. There was this week's first assignment to Costa Rica, and today I stopped by the bookstore to pick up the new issue of Men's Health which features my first ever pull-out poster (ooooh-rah!) of Colonel Brian McGuire, A.T.C., head of the USMC's sports-medicine and injury prevention program at Quantico.

The assignment was really fun and worked out incredibly well in what could have been a high-stress slot (I shot it the day before Thanksgiving). All of the Marines were super great to work with and just watching them do their core training exercises caused me to lose 5 pounds.

Obviously this is a different side of my work. I was a little nervous to shoot the poster and "hero" sort of vibe after I got a stack of their previous posters, but I rolled with it and had fun trying to make it work. I think it looks solid but certainly not as "me" as the rest of the images they used. I hope the "firsts" keep on rolling...

Perma-link | Comments (1)

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.

Perma-link | Comments (2)

Ground level

A week ago at dinner in a sushi place I got a call about yet another photo essay assignment from The New York Times that was tangentially related to the campaign trail (what isn't these days). The idea was big and juicy and hard and stupid, and I was all over it like, uh, well, white on sticky rice. About 10 hours later I delivered myself to the airport and flew to Nashville to begin a two state, 1200 mile effort to create a thematic collection of images that measured the "pulse of the South," as part of a new NYT project called Ground Level that will look at five regions of the country.

I'm too tired and busy to play the back and forth game of why I have been lately accepting jobs for a client that has me racking up much higher expense tabs than day rate fees. But the trip was a pretty intense kick start to my head and heart, and I again had the incredible fortune to meet and photograph several very real and very amazing folks in Columbia, TN, and Yell County, AR. To all of you, very truly, thank you for allowing me in and sharing your lives with the readers.

Published today in the paper (a larger and different edit is online), the "photo essay" was supposed to document some of the many issues that people in these two small communities will use to vote next week on Super Tuesday. I was supposed to wander about and take images of race, the economy, polarization, immigration, etc. Say what? Yeah. Obviously I could work on an idea like that for the rest of my life and still not get even close. But I only had 3.5 days to make it work, and it was an exhausting and challenging trip to say the least. I'm proud to say that I left nearly all of it on the field (as they say in sports), and came home in some serious need of sleep.

The hardest part of the trip was trying to balance logistics with luck; trying to plan ahead but keep my eyes open and in the moment. And also, of course, trying to distill something so big and complicated such as "the South" into two small dots on a map. From a photographic standpoint this was the first really hard core documentary assignment I've done in a while that stretched over several days and was filled with freedom (and pressure). I felt pretty damn rusty actually, but it started to wear off near the end a bit. Hopefully the Costa Rica trip will benefit. And to end, here are a few other frames that I liked:

Perma-link | Comments (3)

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.

Perma-link | Comments (1)

Miami splash

Also found in the December magazine stacks is a bit of déja vu in the form of another piece on the Miami art scene and upcoming Art Basel Miami Beach fair, this time for Smithsonian. It was a fun job that ultimately mixed a bunch of new portrait and location days with existing stock from last year's coverage. One of the cool bonuses was finally finding a real home for the panoramic stitch overall of the convention center during Basel craziness! Thanks Bonnie!

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Dirty don

One of the strangest profiles I've ever shot finally made it to print this month in the pages of Radar. Clarence Reid, AKA Blowfly, is a 68-year old rap pioneer who started it all during the 60's in Georgia, arguably inventing modern hip-hop, touring with the Godfather, and spending 50 years on the road spreading his scatological scrawl. These days ole Clarence lives with his mom in North Miami between tours in one of the most rancid homes I've ever been in (my assistant, god bless her, actually got the flu after our shoot). I don't mean to be disparaging to Blowfly, I actually really enjoyed meeting him and collaborating, but its super intense stuff. He spent most of the several hours I was with him cussing at anyone or thing that moved or making obscene gestures (even while sitting in front of him mom in her bedroom while she read the bible).

I've talked before about the importance of finding characters and this is the case in point. Honestly, how in the fuck do you make lame pictures of a crazy old dude in a sequin suit and mexican wrestling mask?! Even so, I was still very pleased when I heard back from Radar photo director Greg Garry with his response to my take: "John these are genius!!!!" Why thank you, thank you very much! Here are a few more that didn't make the cut (I really like the last one because it was the only time that the personality was suspended and a tired old man shown through).

Perma-link | Comments (0)

Drunk

View from the top of Pride Mountain; Dad at left and Amy in the middle. Click on the image for a much larger version.

My sister put down her feet after last October's father and son romp through Napa Valley, and last week the three of us set out again and enjoyed a wonderful and ridiculously decadent tour of wine country. The trip was literally organized around a dinner at world acclaimed restaurant The French Laundry (after we secured reservations a couple of months ago), and that indulgent dozen-course dinner was basically a metaphor for our whole week.

In total we amassed 7 Michelin stars -- Laundry, La Toque, Bouchon, and Cyrus -- and many other corks, tours, and tastings at some of our favorite valley vineyards, including Schramsberg, V. Sattui, Joseph Phelps, Castello di Amorosa, Quintessa, Nickel & Nickel, and Pride Mountain. Amy, Dad, and I had a wonderful time, amazing wine, incredible food, saw and made friends, watched the sun set and rise, the mist roll in and evaporate, and many plates and glasses be filled and emptied. Here's hoping for next year!

Home to the oldest wine caves in Napa Valley, Schramberg's tour (their icon is the frog above) ends with a great tasting, below, of several of their sparklings. Another cave leads past new French oak barrels of Quintessa to a worker pressing the recent harvest. Far bottom, a Rutherford field lies below the morning fog after the harvest.

Perma-link | Comments (3)

Joe Hound

While shopping for cold remedies yesterday I picked up the December issue of XXL, which contained my portrait of emerging Miami rapper Joe Hound in the Show & Prove section. Wouldn't you know it the very next day I received several more copies from the magazine. But that's just the way my luck is running this week.

Bad luck exhibit A came on Monday morning during my shoot for Men's Journal when 4-ft seas quickly (by means of some strong winds) turned into 8 to 10-foot swells. If only I had a video camera with me (and an extra assistant) it would have made a hilarious video... me on the bow of the boat shooting the subject perched precariously on top of the railing, waves tossing us every which way, my assistant Erica trying to hold on while simultaneously keep my large reflector in the right spot as it got more and more slick from the salt spray. And of course I was shooting on my Mamiya 7, which loads slower than any other body I've ever had, so film changes on the bow were a trip!

By shoot's end, my assistant had managed to stay on board, no gear was lost or water logged, we got plenty of stuff to work with, and none of us had ralphed -- talk about success! Speaking of assistants, because Erica did such a great job this week its only fitting that she be honored by being clearly visible in the above XXL clip, holding up a 1-stop scrim in the reflection of Joe's shades. Way to go Erica! And lastly here's an additional frame that shows why I liked this building along Biscayne Bvld. that I picked for our location.

Perma-link | Comments (2)

Cheers: Travis Dove

An overall good week last week was made even better with the breaking news that my good buddy and former assistant Travis Dove won the College Photographer of the Year competition, taking home gold in the portfolio, documentary, and portrait categories!! Congrats T.D.! You are the man!

So cheers to you, Travis Dove! Not only are you an incredibly talented, passionate, and dedicated young photographer, but also, and more importantly, a great friend and extremely warm and generous person. Tr