You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2008.
We are continuing to work on our project with the United States Coast Guard shooting portraits the other day…
Stay tuned for some of the selects from that shoot!
Richard, Chris and I hope you’all have a blast this weekend! (You can tell what we will be up to)
In the imortal words of the Beastie Boys: if your driving, dont drink, and if your drinking, dont drive….
Happy Turkey Day!
Just wanted to share…
One of the best parts of our job is the travel. And one of the best parts of traveling, is going to distant lands and trying strange foods.
This one however was right here is our own wonderful country. (we found this refreshing beverage after a shoot in upper Wisconsin.)
Yes, there is nothing like enjoying this tasty treat after a hard days work. Mmmmm. Beer and clam juice! Ahhhhh.
Calumet
Big thanks to our friend Jim Staples of Calumet Cambridge for keeping our little photo biz running!
If you are in Boston, and ever need ANYTHING, Jim is your man. He has peeled us out of too many scrapes to count. If you want to know just how hard we beat up gear, Jim is the man to ask!
We couldnt do it with out you J-Man!
Another video interview in the can… Its so exciting to be doing so much film making again. I started my career on the film side, and it is nice to be able to be be doing so much of it again!
The fact is I really do love conducting video interviews, especially with brilliant people! The other day, we got to spend two hours with Professor Vladimir Bulovic of MIT. We spent the time discussing his research areas which include quantum dot optoelectronics, large area electronics, strong QED coupling, and organic optoelectronics.
Another early call
Another pre-dawn rainy drive
Yesterday I was killing time on an airplane and instead of working, I found myself watching a DVD of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Half way through the film, Indy and Sala had just opened the top of the vault where the Ark was hidden.
Radio Active Rabbit
One of them tosses a torch down to the bottom of the dark tomb and Sala asks, “Indy, why does the floor move?” To Indy’s disgust, he replies, “Snakes, why did it have to be snakes.”
This is where Sala gives his unforgettable reply, “Asps. Very dangerous! You go first!”
I immediately laughed out loud as I though of a shoot we did last week in Cambridge, MA.
We were shooting photos and video of technology and had pretty much finished up for the day when one of the researchers came up to us and said, “Hey. I’m going to turn on the big laser if you want to come shoot that!”
Well, I have been in enough labs to know that when they use the “big” whatever, you might want to think twice about your safety.
So when I saw Richards eyes light up at the prospect of being shot in the face with a high powered laser, I thought… Lasers. Very dangerous. You go first…
(OK…. YES I know I look “special” in the photo below. That is the point…. )
Ask any videographer, photographer, or filmmaker who is on the road a lot these days, and they will bitch and moan about all of the extra fees we are being hit with by the airlines. Every time we stand in line at the airport now we come away with less money, and for the most part, we have a hard time passing these costs along to our customers. There are overweight fees now, there are extra bag fees, there are even bag fees if you bring ANY bags. One airline just charged me an extra bag fee, and then on top charged me because the bag was overweight! It was a double whammy!
There is a simple solution that will help mitigate this. It seems a bit humorous, (it is…) and a bit self serving, (it is…) but it works.
For those of you who dont know, most airlines (except US Air) will allow the media to check extra bags, and some give waivers to overweight items.
This is a great help with one simple exception. If you are an independent contractor, or shoot commercial rather than news, you really dont have any ID to prove you are a photographer. And really what is the difference between a photojournalist, and a commercial photographer?
Here is the simple solution:
This ID took 45 seconds to make. Aim the laptop camera at your mug, click the shutter, throw it into Illustrator, add your type and logo, and print! Then off to Kinkos to use the lamanator and your golden.
Now whenever we fly, this comes out of the camera bag and around our necks. When the ticket agent says, “Im sorry sir, there will be an additional $100 fee for that bag,” we pull out or “official” ID’s and say, “Its all right. They usually waive those fees for us.”
Never underestimate the old “Jedi Mind Trick.”
Good luck!
