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Wiped out from the road...
I must say that we finally have gotten our asses kicked!
Took the red eye flight back from Denver on Sunday night. We arrived in Boston at 05:30, and had to head straight to a shoot.
I have to admit… we are officially smoked. I even skipped a day on the blog yesterday, and was contemplating doing it again today… Maybe something more interesting tomorrow.
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!
DC Shoot Off Crew. Photo by Johnny Bivera
Well we made it to the Navy League Building without incident, and were immeadiatly greeted by lots of familiar faces, the first of which was Brien Aho, who was one of the event organizers.
Brien is an great military photographer, and has been spending a lot of time as of late mentoring young photographers.
Greg and military photo legend Ken Hackman
One of the photographers that I was excited to see was Todd Frantom. Todd is an amazing combat photographer whose images really strike me. We also got to catch up with our Coast Guard friends Tom Sperduto, Etta Smith, Annie Berlin, as well as lots of other old as well as new friends.
Mark and Mark from Nikon
Just as at the DINFOS workshop, the Nikon crew was in attendance. I got to hand it to Nikon for their participation. Both Mark and Mark kept busy handing out rental gear for the competitors to experiment with. Thanks Nikon!
Rabbit loving the train station...
This month I was asked to be a guest lecturer down in Washington at the D.C. Shootoff, so last thurs night Rabbit and I headed on down.
We would normally fly down to D.C. from Boston, but because we had to shoot till late on Thursday, and we had to be back in Boston early Sat morning, the only transportation we could get was the red-eye Amtrak.
I actually like taking Amtrak, but that’s to NYC. (and that’s the hi speed train called the Acela.) Unfortunately, the only train that was running that late at night was the Regional, which takes 10 hours. I figured, what the hell… it was better than driving, so we grabbed some tickets.
Can you tell I rode a train all night long....?
So here was our travel plan: Depart Boston at 10pm, train all night long, arrive at 07:00, subway to the Navy League Building, hang all day, give our presentation, subway back to the Amtrak station, 10pm departure back to Boston, 07:30 arrival, at our location on Sat at 09:00. (yes, we are insane…)
Train food....
The train proved to be quite pleasant. We brought some beer and some sandwiches, and were able to have a relaxing time. I was also able to get a ton of work done on the computer which was nice. (I also was able to get some solid zzzz’s thanks to Ambien.)
Once in D.C., we grabbed the subway right to our location. I will post tomorrow about the day, so stay tuned.
D.C. Metro Station...
Mmmmmm.... fish heads....
Rabbit has to be one of the bravest eaters I know. One of my favorite parts of traveling with him on location is meal time in a distant land.
Rabbit loved the food down in the DR (as did I.) One the second day, we had some AMAZING fresh fish. Rabbit devoured every scrap he was given, and when there was none left, and he was still hugry, we dared young Richard to go ahead and try an eyeball.
I will just say this…. I almost puked.
The Hacienda, looking from the bay
It was a great trip in the end. We were able to shoot lots of fantastic images, ate amazing food, and made lifelong friends! What more can one ask for a day of work?
Our flight was at 2pm, and we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us, so we were up before the sun, made a couple of last pictures, shot some time lapse video of the sunrise, then packed the gear and hit the road.
Of course the drive back was just as exciting as the drive when we arrived. Actually, it was probably even more exciting as we were following Henry (the care taker) who incidentally drives like Colin McRae. Most of the first hour was an intense high speed dust bath. It took every ounce of concentration to keep the cows and mopeds out of the front grille.
Rush hour traffic in Ensenada
Once on the hard top, we said goodbye to Henry, and made a B-line across the mountains toward Santiago and the airport.
The afternoon of day 3 down in the DR was spent shooting portraits of the local folk of Ensenada.
The main drag of Ensenada (main drag is a stretch, as it is small dirt strip about a quarter mile long with a cul-de-sac at the end. On one side are these little Casitas or mini open air restaurants, and the other side is the beach)
The street picks up during the weekends when (mostly Dominicans) arrive to hang on the quite secluded beach, and eat great fresh food.
The Hacienda
Day three down in the DR was spent shooting the Hacienda, and the local color. We spent the sunrise hours shooting exteriors, and then walked down to the beach shooting landscapes, and detail shots of whatever was interesting.
The grounds of the Hacienda
Stanley, the care taker coming to work
Some of you may or may not know this little trick… but if you dont, it is a must have for your camera bag.
The circular polarizer is one of my FAVORITE filters of all time. I will let Wikipedia explain it better, but in a nutshell, it basically increases the contrast between the sky and the clouds.
Below are a couple of images that I made whilst traveling through Iowa this past summer. For each of these images I used the circular polarizer. Even in the case of the image with the crop duster (with no clouds) the filter darkened and saturated the sky. I did this as I wanted to play a deep blue sky against the bright yellow fuselage.
I tweaked the saturation very slightly in post, but for the most part, the images are out of the camera.
The effect is very cool, and worth the space in your bag! Give it a try!
Good luck-
Today couldn’t have been better as we were able to spend most of the day both out on, as well as underwater the water.
Shooting underwater presents an entirely new set of challenges and can be fairly difficult. It can however also be very rewarding!
Working with the underwater housing
The biggest challenge is lighting, and as we had limited space for gear on this trip, we had no room for underwater strobes.
Luckily, as the underwater element for this job was relatively small (just needed enough to convey the feeling) we were able to shoot great images using natural light.
The trick with shooting underwater with natural light (which is the same as with shooting strobes) is putting the light in the right spot.
Waiting for bags in Santo Domingo so we can clear customs
Thanks to American Airlines, we arrived in Santo Domingo alive with all our bags… (which is more than I can say for past trips to distant lands.)
Picked up our rental car, and we were off!
All bags arrive safe and sound
Renting a car outside the US can be a dramatically different experience. Even though we rented through Hertz, and we are Gold Members, the process of picking up the car took well over 60 minutes. There was paper after paper to sign, deposits to be paid, and a full inspection of the little Fiat.
Traffic in Santo Domingo
Once we finally made it out of the airport, we hit the road. The airport in Santo Domingo is a bit to the east of the city, and since there is only one highway that goes north south, you have to drive directly through the center of the city before you can hop on to the highway (which is called John F. Kennedy BTW) and head north.
If you want a white knuckled adventure, definitely go for a drive in the Dominican. The drivers are INSANE. (but this was a good thing…. so much fun!)
Traffic light count down
The drive north toward Santiago (the capit0l) was pretty damn cool… Lots to see.
Once out of the city of Santo Domingo, it was about a 2 hour drive. (Of course no self respecting traveler in the Dominican Republic would miss a stop for a Presidente… the local beer, so the total drive took a bit longer)
Checking bags at Logan
As an older photographer friend used to say… this job sure beats tarring roofs!
Just in the nick of time (winter is getting old) we are off on another adventure. Its not really for a long bit of time, but we are fortunate enough to be heading down to the Dominican Republic to shoot tourism photos for a remote Hacienda on the north side of the island. The photos (as well as video) will be used for a new web site.
Rabbit wont be needing that hat
We will be shooting architecture, environmental portraits, underwater photography, video interviews, and video interviews of the owners.
Boston to Miami, then off to Santo Domingo DR where we rent a car, and then drive 4 hours across the mountains. I will post more as the trip goes along.
Leaving Miami
Sawing logs...
This doesn’t exactly have to do with anything photographic exactly…. but it just has to be shared.
Flew back to the US from Argentina over the weekend. The flight is pretty damn long and you actually fly overnight. I left Buenos Aires at 20:00hrs local time (3hrs ahead of EST) and landed at around 04:30 at JFK in NYC.
I then stumbled over to my gate to sit out my 4 hour layover, and there they were….. I quickly grabbed a pic, and it is priceless. I truly do love my work. For me, the road is where its at!
Suffice it to say, it was great to be back home!
Enjoy…
One of the things that we (Americans) tend to forget when we are traveling abroad is language. Now of course I can only speak for my own experiences on the road, but I think this is an important one.
As English speakers, it has been my experience that we can sometimes take it for granted that everyone will understand us. (For the most part because it is true,) most everywhere we go on the planet you can find someone who can speak at least a little English, and I think we just expect that the person we are speaking to will at least partially understand. Even when we can speak the language of the country that we are visiting, when we get frustrated, we often just default right back to English.
“Donde esta el…..el….., la…., shit…. the bathroom….”
What’s cool about the city of Buenos Aires is that when moving about, it is very easy to stay connected. Unlike the United States where one is asked to pay, almost every cafe you pass in this city offers free Wi-Fi.
Local guide (and X-Pat) Andrew Locke eMailing home...
Some may argue that this is a bad thing, but when it is important to keep in the loop… this is a great thing. There is nothing like batching photos, answering eMails, and sending images back to the states from the comfort of a sunny street cafe. (….and lets not forget the local beer.)
¡Salud!
Richard dropped me off at the airport yesterday for a solo mission to Buenos Aires, Argentina and another long ass plane ride!
Traveling is getting both harder, AND easier. Especially when traveling alone! Weight constraints are much tougher, the bags you can carry on are smaller, and there are no more peanuts.
That being said, every once and a while though you do find a stress reliever here and there. This was a small deal, but a good one. KUDOS to Boston Logan for providing a powered set of seats! Keep it up!
Anyway… Uneventful flight from Boston to JFK, a 3 hour layover and then on another jet to B.A.
Bear loading the cart
We were back at our old client Entegris just before the weekend shooting some product photography on seamless.
I have posted about Entegris before, but what is cool about working with them is that they have us shoot a wide range of photography, which really exercises our versatility. I have worked with this client for about 8 years in different capacities. First shooting for the company when it was called Millipore and Mykrolis through our good friends at Weymouth Design, and now as Entegris with Art Director Anna Anderson. You can view some of the Entegris work on the commercial web site under “Campaigns,” but we have shot everything from portraits, to clean rooms, to product on seamless.
I swear!!!! Every time we hit the road it gets more and more complicated!
Check out this line at security at the US Air terminal at LAX…..The line went out the door, around the corner, and all the way down the sidewalk outside the terminal. Took forever to get into the airport!
The best news was from US Air. I guess come Feb, the official carry-on size will now get even more restricitve and will become smaller.
Oh joy!
Got your shirts Aaron!
Tradition has always been an important part of life to me. Not really sure why, but I assume it most likely has to do with the fact that I was born in New England.
Anyway, we finished our shoot in Anaheim at the NAMM show for Catapult, and simply had to make our way over to In-N-Out Burger for lunch.
True to form, Richard and I ordered our Double Double’s and as tradition requires, we picked up T-Shirts for our clients over at Catapult.
