Poor, poor Abaco

Mark and I were assistants for Denny Tilman way back in the mid-70's. The location was Abaco Bahamas. My job was to be in the water keeping the boat steady and helping the models get onto the plexiglass table so it looked like they were walking on the water. I recall diving off the boat into a school of barracuda. I got back in the boat quickly. The truth is: Mark and I spent the days helping Denny and the night drinking way too much. I even drove a golf cart into a swimming pool. I loved being an assistant. I loaded film, built sets, printed in non ventilated darkrooms. Mark and I have way too many stories from those days. I have a BS degree in commercial photography but I really learned my craft as an assistant for major photographers in NYC.

Why I run 3 monitors

I have always watched TV while I work. Maybe watched isn't the proper verb as "listened to" is probably more accurate. I use a Dell 27" that is profiled for Photoshop and color accurate work. An older Cinema Display for YouTube TV and the MacBook Pro for Skype and email. People have told me that the reason I need the noise from TV or radio while I work is because I am very ADD and the noise keeps part of my mind busy while the rest of my brain works on each project. When working with clients it's music from Spotify. When working alone, it's YouTube TV or Netflix. No one has ever complained. Most of my clients love music and I love just TV.

Weird angles

I love to shoot from angles that might be unusual. I was driving around Spain a while ago when I saw the Rock of Gibraltar from a different angle. It made me realize that while we all have an idea of what things look like, people who live near famous things see the good, the bad and the ugly. If I had been closer to the rock with a wider lens, I would have gotten a nice image of just the rock (I actually did later) but this is the view that the locals probably see more often.

Hera's Crown Video

DP and PA this time. Video like still photography is nothing but fun. Of course, it depends on who you're working with.

Ah poor Venezuela...

I had an girlfriend back in the early 70's. Her parents moved to Venezuela for work so the next Christmas I flew down there with the live caged chickens (on the plane). All I can say is that Venezuela was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. I remember driving North to the beaches at Maiquetia and buying empanadas out of oil drum stoves. The beaches had names like Mobil and Esso and if you looked hard you could see derricks way out in the water. Going out to dinner in Caracas was strange for an upstate NY boy in that there were guards toting machine guns all over the place. Still celebrating Christmas in South America (a very sad tree) was magical. But then, I guess that's all over now. Maybe, just maybe it'll come back someday.

I was home with a cold, mining my 4TB HD's for stock when I was asked to DP a short video shoot. Making Dirty Dr. Pepper is a thing... I guess. He wanted it lit a little rough so I used 2 Lowel DP's. One on the background and one on him doing the work. I don't think I would drink that. Dr. Pepper is made out of prunes after all. Anyway, as I always say; light is light. Vidoe or still. You just get a picture in your head and move light around until what you see matches the picture.

I am always playing with different ways to create really small client videos. I got this mp4 small enough to email but it's always a challenge. I am using a lot of the Adobe Creative Suite. Photoshop (of course), Premier Pro, After Effects and Adobe's Media Encoder. It took Photoshop's Save For Web to get the GIF's small enough. It seemed to work the best. The mp4's were even smaller. This mp4 was 5mb, the gif was 6mb. While this one worked well, I'm still looking for a better way to shrink things.