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In the spirit of the new year, I asked Rabbit to go thru the blog photo file from this past year and pick out his favorite behind the scene image from the last 12 months. I told him he would have carteblanch with no reprisal.
He could have chosen anything… Dangling from a Coast Guard helicopter, riding on a tank, diving in the Caribbean… Nope, he chose to poke fun.
So here it is. Rabbits pick of 2009. Me, in pink, riding a pink scooter. Dont ask…
Back from another trip…
I can’t seem to help myself, and please… don’t ask Rabbit his opinion Re: my roadkill obsession cuz he was perturbed when he had to wait for me again as I laid on another roadway shooting God knows what.
This time I made Rich hold the SB900 and snoot the light. I never use flash on these shots, so I thought I’d give it a try. It isnt portfilio material, but alas, its good blog content.
I’m off again to the West Coast next week, so maybe I will see something good whilst driving… Keep an eye out.
(for more of the Roadkill series, check the website under personal work)
Enjoy!
Not posting… yeah I know. Just not interested in social media these days. Canceled Facebook, canceled Twitter, gonna scratch Linkedin… The blog still gets lots of traffic, so I guess I am a schmuck and should get off my ass… New Years rez?
That said, I saw something this afternoon that got me really inspired. I went to the barber (same barber since my first haircut) today to get all pretty for the holiday, and I bumped into this really cool older guy. We yapped for a while about his time in the service and his knowing Chinese. I asked him if he lived in town, and he said yes and that he had moved here in the 70’s. When he asked him if he had kids, he told me yes, and then told me his sons names. Lawson and Penn he said. I smiled a big smile, and knew why the man looked familiar. Penn was younger then I, but Lawson and I went to school together. When we were both sort of starting out, Lawson and I had a joint show where he screened his film, and I hung a bunch of images.
At any rate… Both Lawson and Penn are now in the business. Penn is over at Partners and Simons, and Lawson (from Arnold) is now working freelance. His dad told me about Laswson’s new website and the buzz around it, so I had to check it out…. It’s totally worth checking out. My kind of humor.
Make sure you also check out his work. Lots of funny creative stuff!
Kudos Lawson!
Siemens MRI
Sometimes life is just too strange with the coincidences… Three weeks ago, we were shooting MRI machines (kind of scary because of the giant magnet that will suck your gear inside the doughnut.) What I didn’t know was that a couple of weeks later I would be laying in one myself. But not as a photographer, as a patient. I got up today and couldn’t even put my arm in a jacket nor close the door to the truck.
I think the cases are getting just too heavy. (Partial tear in my left rotator cuff.)
Ugh…
Behold! Rabbit reads!
We were sitting patiently yesterday whilst waiting for subjects to miander into the room for their portraits when the peace and quite was broken….
“Did you know.. That the sea otter has the densest hair of any mammal known; 130,000 hairs per square centimeter of skin by one count….”
Fascinating!
Rabbit loves when we share these photos with the world….
For those of you who are interested in the on-going saga of young Richards facial inventions… I give you some of the outtakes from the other days photo shoot.
We shot some portraits in Cambridge this week. It’s important to remember that portraits dont always have to be serious. Sometimes you can just have fun!
We’ve done stuff like this in the past, and its always great fun. These shots were for an undergraduate program that brings in aspiring physic teachers from all over the country in order to give them experience teaching middle and high school students in a summer program
Shooting them this way embodies all the emotions experienced over their six weeks in the program. (we also shot them in a nice smiling pose as well.)
Yes yes… I have been a total slacker! Its been about 6 weeks since I have posted here… And thanks to all that have been pestering me and wondering what the hell has been going on. I took some much needed vacation in May/June to shoot some personal work, do some surfing, build a deck on my house, get the garden going, and reorganize the studio.
Long board at Nantasket
Spring planting around the shop
I have to admit, the time away from the posting was nice! Richard and I also took some time and found him a really cool 1976 Honda CB550. We have been diligantly restoring it down in the shop. If we can pull it together and set aside the time, we plan on shipping that, along with my bike out west for a cross country ride back to Boston.
Rabbits new CB550
Building a deck...
I also was able to get up to Maine with my friend and fellow photographer Mike Weymouth of Weymouth Design. We did some great trout fishing and had some nice quite time up in the woods.
Best trout in ME...
Probably the best day so far was spent with Robert Krevicich (a print designer over at Weymouth Design.) We headed up to Joppa Flats at the mouth of the Merrimack River in Salisbury MA for the first Striper fishing of the year. Ill let the photo do the talking…
44 inch Striper
The second half of June has been pretty much chalked full of video work. Rabbit has been putting in 70hr weeks again trying to keep up with the editing work. We have also done some interesting portrait work, along with some other cool projects. I will start posting on the where and the when.
Anyway… we are still alive and kicking! Thanks to all of those who sent me the “are you dead” eMails. You guys rock!
Greg-
two phone calls at once...
Slowly loosing our minds here in Boston… Just too much going on. Sorry not to have anything meaningful to say today, however I though I’d share the bit of chaos that we call life.
Shot this photo just before we ran out the door to the airport. Rabbit and I are off to Colorado for some more fire training at the Colorado Fire Camp owned by our friend Kent Maxwell.
We were out there last year to get spooled up for a photo project we were working on, but now have caught the bug.
Not sure if you can appreciate the photo… but i was stuck on two calls putting out fires so we could blast out of town.
More to come.
It seems that more times than not, this is the view from my office window. I have been doing a lot of thinking as of late… and I believe it is this view that I am most grateful for.
As photographers, we have the chance at traveling the globe and meeting all sorts of people doing all sorts of jobs. Often times these folks have views, but more times than not, they don’t. Having the opportunity to visit these different offices and experience these diverse jobs has really made me become more aware of the view out my own window.
So let me just take today and say thanks to everyone involved with keeping my window open. (You know who you are…)
Thanks!
When we left the studio this afternoon, the destination was Phoenix… But alas, the stars have worked their magic, and we are now stuck in Salt Lake City at a skeevy Radisson.
Who ever said that having two floors in a hotel room was cool? If you ask me… it freaks me the F#@K out!
Well, at least Delta put us up and gave us a $400.00 voucher. And I guess it aint all that bad….. because even here in Utah, they have good Boston beer. (Harpoon)
Good Boston beer.... Even in Utah!
My friend and colleague Tim Llewellyn has a new blog up and running, and its worth a look. Tim and I have crossed paths many times over the past couple of years and have worked for many of the same clients. Tim is a great photographer in his own right, and is the guy I refer clients to for portraiture when I am in a bind.
I must admit, I always get jealous of Tim cause he is always getting his work into Communication Arts!!!! You can check out his work here:
Kudos on the blog Tim!
Yesterday Richard and I spend the day at the Holiday Inn Brookline where I gave a lecture along with Sean Alanzo Harris and Craig Orsini to graduating students from NESOP (New England School Of Photography.)
The students are finishing up their final days at school, and are getting ready for their portfolio review. Sean, Craig, and I gave presentations on our bodies of work.
Sean, Myself, and Craig (far Right)
The event was organized by Selina Maitreya, who is a famous photographers portfolio consultant. (she was actually the first in the United States, and has been in the biz for almost 30 years…) She has a new book that is worth checking out called How to Succeed in Commercial Photography.
Sushi lunch at JAE's
We started a day at JAE’s in Brookline for some sushi (which was delicious!) I had never met Sean or Craig before, so I was excited to do so. I have been following Craig’s career since I began my business, and it was really cool to get to lecture along side of him. If you are not familiar with his work, you should really check it out. He really has a cool sense of humor, and is a consummate professional. Read the rest of this entry »
Chris and Greg demonstrating Warrior One
We were back at Work N’ Gear last week shooting more lay downs.
As I have said in the past, shoot over at WNG is blast and we always have fun. The photography isn’t that complicated, but working with Chris, Tony, and Gary makes them some of the more memorable days. (to get limbered up, we started the day with a little yoga…)
We use basically the same set up every time we are over there. We use one pack, and two lights. The clothing is laid down on the seamless, with the large 7′ Elinchrome Octabank one side, and the 3′ Octabank on the other for fill. Nothing specially fancy, but it work great.
CB can't seem to stay away...
Chris then strips out the shirts from the white background, and lays them into the comp.
If we have lots of shirts to shoot, then we usually mount the camera on a rig and suspend it over the set, but when we have 5-10 set shots to do, we just use a ladder.
Shot by a woman traveling with her husband from Atlanta to Aruba. Great framing!
Since we started this blog, we have been shooting a lot of photographs in and around our jobs, especially whilst on the road.
One of my favorite things to do has been to stop random strangers while waiting for planes, trains, meals, hotel rooms etc… and ask them to shoot our photograph.
Shot by a man traveling with his two daughters by train to NYC. Obviously needs help with focus...
Its always fun for us to go over the photos that these people shoot and see just how they approach photography. Do they have an eye? How do they deal with composition, can they even focus the camera?
Starting today, I am going to try to keep up with this loose series of down and dirty portraits shot of us by random strangers. It should be fun to see what they come up with. I will start to shoot a photo of these strangers to accompany their portraits.
Here are a couple from recent days… I hope you enjoy!
Shot by a Dominican woman traveling to Lima to visit her mother. Remember, there is a zoom on the camera...
On of the cooler effects you can do with a camera is to combine motion with a flash. This is called the flash blur.
In a nutshell, you use a long shutter to create the effect of the motion, and then freeze the action with a flash.
Normally, the flash goes off at the front of the shutter cycle, or as soon as the shutter opens. In the case of the fire photo above, I used what is called a rear curtain sync. This means that the flash goes off at the end of the shutter cycle, or just before the shutter closes.
Sometimes this can get a little confusing, so think of it this way… For the sake of this illustration, lets expand the shutter cycle to 10 seconds. We press the go button and the shutter opens. One, two, three, four….. nine, ten, the shutter closes. When your camera is set to “normal,” or front curtain sync, the flash is triggered on the one count.
Now imagine the camera is on a tripod, and a man is walking from left to right across the frame. As soon as we see him in the lens, we press play, and open the shutter. One (the flash goes off and freezes a bright, clear impression of the man on the left side) two, three, (the film is continuing to burn his image as he streaks to the right,) five, six, seven, (the man is still moving and his image is still being blurred as he walks. Nine, ten (the shutter closes.)
Jeff from Calumet Cambridge with his DC Shoot Off t-shirt
I don’t want this to be too big of a plug… But I did honestly want to thank my friends (Jeff, Steve and Jim)a over at Calumet Cambridge as well as Michael Costuros over at Livebooks for their support of the D.C. Shoot Off.
It is a big deal for these guys to support young photographers, especially in this rough economy. I appreciate their commitment, and certainly will remain a loyal customer of both.
Thanks again guys!
