From where I can really see.
Today is one of those days where upon completion my initial response is to pat myself on the back for juggling so many projects and responsibilities. Bills paid (some not), invoices processed, expense reports detailed and post production begun along with a litany of other marketing, accounting and organization concerns which constitute running a business, but I find myself missing the pictures.
After two weeks on the road shooting and spending time with family I returned to start right up with long time client Cook Children’s Medical Center on a full day job and off to Houston tomorrow for HealthLeaders Magazine and yet on down/office days like these I miss my subjects and the raw energy of shooting.
From the New York Studio to the rocky mountain altitude all the way to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Medical Center I find myself experiencing great gratitude for the people who support my career.
New York was a powerfully productive trip both in the shooting and the visits. I can’t wait to share the images we produced for the Mac Group, both the crew and the models were sublime and made for an amazing shooting experience. Once our shooting wrapped I made it to see my NY support crew at the Getty Images and Spike TV offices. With both the new faces and familiar faces I left feeling recharged by what they are creating and where we are pushing my presence. The year is half over and so much to achieve.
The return to the mountains in Colorado was such a needed escape. I took my 13 month old on her first altitude hike and with her on my back and the crisp air blowing our hair it was amazing how clear my mind was above tree line. Like the mist and rain crawling across the Rocky Mountain National Forest the doom and gloom over our industry is palpable on a daily basis as we advertise for new clients and diversify our outlets in search of creative and monetary solace. Yet underneath all the rain there is so much stunning beauty filled with trails just waiting for us to walk down. Thinking of the amazing stories and lives I am blessed to visit and the endless creative outlets at my fingertips supported by the most consummate professionals left me buzzing with ideas. Hiking down the mountain with my baby girl asleep on my back I found myself charging down the trail ready to erupt over the edge.
At the half way point of 2009, and stopping to take a breath I can’t say I have created the body of work I want to remember 2009 by. Charged and challenged I step forward into the rest of this year hungry and lustful for more adventures, for more evocative imagery. I will get to the bills eventually but for now I really want to keep pushing the development of the vision up that steep climbing trail.
Persistence
The number one national track recruit Marquise Goodwin preparing for a long jump. The Texas recruit won gold at state last year in the long jump, triple jump, 4x100 relay and garnering national attention during last summer's IAAF World Junior Championships when he was the only prep to win individual gold in the long jump. (Jensen Walker / Getty Images for ESPN RISE)
Life’s synergy of late has taken me by surprise. The sheer momentum created by putting an idea into the universe or choosing to step forward regardless of the fears or misgivings continues to give me pause and encouragement. March was a whirlwind of movement, changes and preparation I still don’t fully grasp as I stepped up my testing schedule, watched my wife prepare her package for the Air force and recommitted to my social networking.
After mentioning an ongoing project with friend and Profoto stud Cliff Hausner he shocked me by stepping up and shipping loaner gear to the steps of my studio all so that I can complete the vision I concepted almost 6 months ago. The mere act of showing up on Model Mayhem, Twitter, and other social media outlets has yielded feed back and support from such a wide pool of people it is hard to take it all in. Offering suggestions and inspiration from business solutions to “ur work is simply breath taking if you are ever in need of a model let me know…” these people offer their own type of stimulus package as they push you to stay focused and creating. At one point this month I even had a model accuse me of being quiet, calling into question where the new work was or why I had not shared a new adventure. Honestly, it is a strange sense of accountability and maybe a surrogate for a freelancer to the newsroom or creative team.
By saying yes to the act of creation amazing people have always shown up in my life wether in life altering or small critical ways. As people continue to bemoan the state of our economy or the glut of content, shooters, or other countless woes I find myself very gratefull for the people who support me and my career. Family, mentors, models, editors, art directors, make-up artists, proffessional support, stylists, editors, booking agents, web designers, and the list that could go on for pages, Thank you. I could not and would not want to do it without you.
4th and Long
The alarm went off yesterday at 5:00 a.m. to a day of cold, wind and pouring rain. While getting ready I kept hoping for the call of a shoot postponement, it never came. Layered down, we loaded the gear in the rain and headed to the Cotton Bowl in preparation for our shoot for SPIKE TV’s new reality show “4th and Long.” The shoot was actually a fairly quick one and we produced some nice images of the contestants and Hall of Fame honoree Michael Irvin. The film crew will be here in Dallas for the next 5 weeks and the contestants will be living in the locker rooms of the stadium as they compete for a spot on the Dallas Cowboy spring training roster. The contestants were a really nice group of guys from around the country and seemed pumped up if not a little deer in the headlights at the opportunity laid at their feet. I am looking forward to working with the team again this Sunday as they start shooting their episodic, should be fun and lets hope the weather clears up a bit.
This shot is from my good friend Tom Pennington whom I first met at the Eddie Adams Workshop when we were students back in 1998. Thank you again Tom, it was great to see you.
The Simple things
I admit this image has no bearing on my career. It does not pertain to jobs or clients not even a developing technology but in mentioning her in previous posts I received requests for an updated image. I present my daughter Genevieve to open my week and to remind myself who I am blessed to work for. She is a really cute boss.
Tuesday and Wendsday I am working in the Rose Bowl with SPIKE TV as they prepare to cast and film a new reality show here in Dallas. Right now I have very little information on what we will be working on but I will keep you posted. To all of you, have a great week and remember who your working for.
Slugpuppies
Here we are back to my ongoing practice with airborne paint sculptures. I spent all of Sunday in a dusty, filthy, awesome abandon facility creating images for the local band The Slugpuppies and their upcoming album Emo Therapy. This project was their brain child and yet serendipitously syncs with my testing for an upcoming paint project. As with all tests though, I learned a few things.
In the last test I realized the flash duration on my Profoto Pro7B and shutter speed on my Canon 1Ds Mark II were not truly suited to the concept in mind. Then one brisk day last fall at the Eddie Adams Workshop my good friend Cliff Hausner of Profoto introduced me to the new Pro8a Air. I won’t attempt to define the specs on this new pack you can check on them for yourself. However, to give you an idea I will share this with you, at the farm we photographed a subject on a trampoline with a Nikon D3 at 11 fps at f16 and the camera buffer filled before the pack ever missed a discharge. My inner dialogue shouted “This is the pack for me,” only to discover it is an 11k investment. Thus relegated to renting for now I went out with one on Sunday. To my enraged dismay I discovered that contrary to the rental houses assurance the Pro7b head does not work on the Pro8a Air pack and so returned to 1… 2… 3. GO. One action, one spray, one shot, all said and done though we created some nice frames.
The band showed up with paint shooters, 15 gallons of paint, suit jackets, even craft services and we spent the better part of the day going for it. I think their album and promotional art will look amazing and look forward to seeing them perform in those jackets. On the back side of the test I realized I am going to have to really take a long look at the lighting style and paint deployment to make the next one sing. For now I celebrate the joy of airborne color and simultaneously realize the images lack the sense of organic subtly I want out of the final project. Till next time.
Launching the Year
The year is off to a good start! Last week was a fantastic grinder, which I will share with you in a later post, and yesterday I was back to work for ESPN RISE Magazine and today off to make more images for SLAM Magazine. This particular image is one of an amazing young athlete who graduates today and accepted to Texas Tech in the fall. Shade Weygandt is the nation’s top pole vaulter and is rated the nation’s No.4 recruit in the ESPNU DyeStat rankings. Weygandt is the three-time defending Class 5A state champion and set an overall state record with a mark of 13-10 at last year’s meet. That mark was the No. 3 mark overall in the U.S. last year.
Shade’s father toured me through their home showing me every magazine, poster, picture, and interview framed and displayed with the pride only a parent can emit and it left me smiling. Remember when we were all graduating seniors and rising stars with those splendid dreams and infectious hopes? With so much doom and gloom being preached at the onset of this year, it is nice to return to that frame of mind and look into 2009 with the same fervor and passion. Forgive the cheesy metaphor of jumping over the bar of achievement, but as we all forge forward in what looks to be a daunting year lets do it with the same passion we started our paths on. We don’t get the medals and we don’t as often have our parents tacking our achievements on the fridge, and yet maybe this year we will put them on our own (next to the drawing for Daddy of course.)
The more I look into his eyes the more I want to fight him.
Portrait of Jeremy Sandoval for ESPN Rise Magazine
This is an expert from a shoot for ESPN Rise Magazine featuring high school wrestler Jeremy Sandoval. Sandoval is one of the best wrestlers in the DFW area and is competing for his fourth state title in four years this winter. He touts an impressive career record of 102-1. According to his teammates however, the 1 should not be there. They assured me, while laying mats for their weekend tournament, that the move that led to the loss was illegal and never should have counted.
Jeremy was a professional and a pleasure to work with and yet something about this frame really drums up the urge to don a singlet and headgear, shoot for a single leg take down and brawl.
As this year wraps up I realize I spent a good amount of time photographing sports portraiture. While it was an unintentional direction, I do find myself enjoying the subjects for a variety of reasons. Yesterday a modeling agency sent new talent over for “go sees” and rather than having them just show a book I decided to put up a seamless and shoot some video and stills. Out of the dozen or so models we met, only one was willing to engage in powerful visual emotion. With the sports figures I find it much easier to get them into a combat mindset, one either defined by victory or challenge and I find the intensity in their eyes is so much more engaging.
So Jeremy when I say this picture makes me want to be number 103 on your career record, I mean it out of the greatest respect and wish you the best of luck in your upcoming tournament. Thank you again for giving us a glimpse inside the circle.
The Three Reasons
A young man on the day he is preparing to leave the Hemotology/Oncology Unit at Cook Children's Medical Center
I spent this last weekend in a padded room, two foot by 8 foot, listening to their voices over and over again. In that room I stared at the same people in the eye for over 48 hrs, never engaging them. I sat in that room alone and slightly nervous, listening and watching and ultimately finding myself in a place of illustrious gratitude.
I have a very good friend who once told me there are only three good reasons to take a job: The Creative, The Money or The Relationship. Yet, as I edited content all weekend from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Epilepsy Monitoring Unit, and Deep Brain Stimulation surgery of Cook Children’s Medical Center, I can’t help wondering if there is not a fourth reason, The Heart.
Initially, I started my career in photography as a high school student who loved the adrenaline of the chase, the all access pass and the totally legitimate reason to go up to the hottest girl in the room and start making her picture. Quickly, however, those reasons gave way to the desire to connect with people, to tell their story, or to capture the expression uniquely theirs, in a moment written for them.
Somehow, somewhere along the line though, I discovered I had to pay an electric bill, and as much as I hated the idea of a phone, I was going to have to pay for one of those as well. So here I am 31, married, a father and paying the electric bill. With this epochal shift come the jobs that don’t always make the portfolio or imbue me with a sense of change or impact. That being said, for every quick in and out corporate portrait, I know I get to shoot for the medical center soon.
Cook Children’s and I have worked together for almost a year and half now and we are now starting to create new avenues for the content. However, during the multimedia editing this last weekend, it was not the video, audio or even the images that captured me; it was the people looking back at me.
The patients, the nurses, the doctors, the volunteers, even the security guard, who hugs me every time he sees me, have all opened their world in a way that says: we love these kids and if you love them too… come help. Families have granted me access to areas spanning from isolation rooms, brain surgeries, and bone marrow transplants, to playing on the floor with big foam blocks in the playrooms. The gift though, is the chance to connect with the kids, the families, and the health care professionals. It is so hard to measure the value of a mother hugging me after a surgery, or a child going through chemotherapy who lavishes the room in the most unabashedly childish giggles. These are the gifts that I cherish with this client.
I spent the weekend in that editing room visiting with families and medical center staff, watching and listening to joys, fears, challenges and triumphs and I would like to say thank you to all of them for giving me a privileged glimpse into their lives; it has and continues to be my honor.
Vitamin Water
I recently spent the day shooting production images during the Vitamin Water and Carrie Underwood TV spot. The piece is currently running and I thought I would share a couple images from the dust choked barn.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sru_8iMeTxA&hl=en]
Surefire
[Gallery not found]4:30 a.m. – Two empty bottles of red wine stagnate on my desk (a step up from days past when 2 empty bottles of rum would have been more likely), 5 cans of Red Bull permeate the air with an acrid stench of sugar and caffeine, a model is passed out in a soft coma on my couch and the printer is just starting to churn out prints.
In the previous 3 days as the sun skulked over the horizon we brought from the shadows a terrorist wielding a 9mm in South Dallas, were kicked out of an empty parking garage with our rage full ex-girlfriend, convinced a cop we were not tagging the walls as our cholo shook a baseball bat wrapped in electrical tape, persuaded a model to dawn my wife’s stocking on his head and made a nice guy find his inner predator in the woods by the lake.
To be serious for a moment I must acknowledge these images as the execution of Juan Facio’s vision for an assignment in his advertising class at the University of North Texas. Through it all we had a blast and as far as Juan’s education goes I want his professor to know he demonstrated an adeptness at running interference with cops, homeless people, the Texas film commission, and security guards not to mention a skillfulness for maintaining his concept while accepting feedback and input. Looking forward to working with Juan once he gets out there and starts grinding.
6:30 a.m. The sun heralded its return with whispers against the sky, and it was time to wake the model, box the prints and kick these two out of my house. In true homage to the all-nighter, albeit a long time since I pulled one, I took one last drink shut down the computer and with that trite experience of pride you get on the back side of a completed project headed to bed. My wife stirred groaned and look at me with a mixture of confused repulsion and asked, “How did it look, what time is it?” I snuggled in, rolled over, snickered and told her “went great, its 6:30 time for you to get up.”
Endeavor Games – London Sunday Times
On the road a lot today for the London Sunday Times. Drove north of Oklahoma City to photograph two US paralympic athletes who will be competing tomorrow at the Endeavor Games in Edmond, Oklahoma. Scott Winkler is a discus thrower and shot put athlete and I just hope our session today did not wear out his arm. James Stuck is a sitting volleyball player and track athlete we barely caught up with due to registration and pre-competition appointments. We got our five though!
Both of these athletes are veterans of the Iraq war and I was lucky enouph to see Scott with his mentee, 12 year old Josh Ruoff, during practice. Scott is a true warrior spirit, holding such a large space in his heart to give and to lead. It was exciting to see him passing that on to the younger athletes.
It was a crazy day as the athletes were getting registered and evaluated for their perspective events. All the while I sat in the sun and wind waiting for my ten minutes. All said and done though I wish I was staying for the event. Mentors, mentees, athletes, volunteers, supporters and loved ones will all be converging for the games. With athletes from around the country and the level of heart and passion out there, I left knowing I was missing amazing action and reaction at tomorrow’s events. So to all the competitors, GOOD LUCK.
Cook Children’s Healthcare
[Gallery not found]These are images from the shoot last week at Cook Children’s Healthcare in Fort Worth. For three days we visited the staff and children of the hospital, capturing their interaction and portraits. We covered the hospital from IMRI, surgery, child services, transportation, emergency department, all the way to the patient’s rooms. If you have kids and they get sick, take them there. The hospital staff are amazing. Nurses, doctors, surgeons, and volunteers were all such a treat to work with and watch.
We also worked with a great marketing team at the hospital and probably had far more fun then we should have. Thank you Kristin and Dierdre, looking forward to next time. Also, thank you to my excellent assistant Kenny.
Cindy Sheehan Resigns
I can’t believe two years have passed since I spent a month sleeping in a ditch photographing Cindy Sheehan. Now it looks as though she may be bringing her battle to an end. One of my images, from that hot summer in the weeds, is included in TIME’s Cindy Sheehan antiwar legacy photo gallery. (I am also in the preceding image, the crunched over guy in the front row all up close and personal)
US anti-war symbol Cindy Sheehan gives up the fight (Washington, May 29th AFP)
US anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has announced she no longer wants to be the public face of the movement against the US-led invasion of Iraq, a cause she spearheaded following the death of her soldier son.
Sheehan, who shot to fame when she camped out at President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch in mid-2005 while he was holidaying there to protest the war, said she has become disillusioned with the struggle, which has ravaged her bank account, wrecked her marriage and strained her relationship with her surviving children.
“This is my resignation letter as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement,” Sheehan wrote in a blog entry posted Monday — the US Memorial Day holiday to commemorate fallen soldiers.
“I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost.”
She said she made the decision to abandon the movement after about a year of deliberating.
“The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing,” she said in reference to her son, who was killed in Iraq in April 2004.
“I have tried every (day) since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.
“It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.”
She said she had lost faith in the anti-war movement’s ability to make change and even in Democrats, who are largely opposed to the war and who took control of the House and Senate last year.
“Bush will never be impeached because if the Democrats dig too deeply, they may unearth a few skeletons in their own graves and the system will perpetuate itself in perpetuity,” she said.
“I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.”
“Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives,” she said, referring to the hit television show, a national singing competition.
“Goodbye America … you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it,” she concluded.
Gay Cowboys in this weeks issue of TIME Magazine
This week in TIME I have contributing images to a story in the Society section on how the gay community is changing the political face of Dallas, and Texas as a whole. It was a last minute assignment and called for a quick round of research in order to find the quintessential Texas flair if you will. With the kind assistance of the Round-UP Saloon and several line dancing cowboys we were able to capture both part of the community and the requisite amount of Texan to convey the story. The people in the bar and subjects were so excited we were shooting “real people” rather than the drag queen or flamboyancy so often associated with gay culture that several of them came up to us as we left to shake our hands and say thank you.
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