Joe Walsh: Great for the last 40 years

I think I was the second or third round choice of winners for this Q104.3 classic radio contest to see an invitation-only Joe Walsh concert. I've loved him since his 1970 album "james gang rides again".
Anyway, I got an email yesterday from Q104.3's work perks saying I had won: for last night. I asked Barb (the wife) first but she said no, so I went to my friend Bruce Frazier. This became the third concert we have seen together since 1990. 
It was a stand up only concert in the tiny but neat iheartradio theater. Joe is amazing: It seems he hasn't changed since the early 70's. He was great as ever.
One change maybe... it was a 45 minute show with no encore. 
But it was one awesome rockin' 45 minutes.

One Pretty Dodge

You have to admit, this is one beautiful car. I'm trying to loosen up my car photography. I want the images to look great, but real. I am best known for food and fashion but when the job to shoot a car comes in, I want to be ready and keeping up to date is important. I can still shoot cars in a studio with perfect highlights, but I am enjoying this looser style. 

Making money with a camera

I am a commercial photographer. That means that I trade images for checks. The only thing better about a client sending you money in exchange for an image is the client calling you back time after time for a new image and a new check. Wow.

I was asked by a client to shoot a three day conference a few years ago. I never really do that kind of photography. I am primarily a studio shooter and for my first 30 years in business never used an on-camera flash. I am now onto my 4th or 5th job like this and am finding them to be lots of fun. This image is of the 2010 Breast Cancer Walk in NYC. I was hired by the Sensible Portions company (I usually shoot food packaging for them) and got to spend the day in the sun, in Central Park and just look for interesting images that told the story of how Sensible Portions was helping the walkers.

This Thursday I will be driving for about an hour to get to a winery where I will be photographing people from the Post Foods company as they get to know each other better. I will be bringing a very nice Nikon SB900 flash with a Quantum battery (that I borrowed from my good friend Bernard) and will try to visually tell the story that is happening there. Wow again. Money with a camera and a new option for me. This is too much fun!

Guitars

This is one beautiful bass guitar.

It was created by B&G Kaufmann.

The shots I did were for a new web site. My friend Manny Rhinesmith is doing the site so he asked me to do some images of the guitar. Manny is a guy you just have to love, so we spent the afternoon shooting pictures and having fun! One of the great things about photography is having a subject that is just plain beautiful (be it a guitar or a human) and meeting the challenge of lighting it so that it's beauty shows through. I love this shot. Now I wish I could play the bass.....

History Channel

This is why I love working on my own. Sometimes things just work out great. I got a late start yesterday after spending about an hour on the phone with my friend Bruce Frazier, another photographer. We had a great time catching up. After the call I got $20.00 cash, air in my tires, and headed down to NYC to shoot for Pearl Media again. On the way I called Josh and it's a good thing because he told me there were 2 different locations to shoot. Since I was heading into the city anyway, I arranged to meet my old friend Mike Harris at ICP to see the Avedon fashion show in NYC. I hit the first location at 5th and 43rd by 12:30 with just a bag full of cameras and began shooting the building piece by piece. The images go around the corner to 43rd street so it took a while to cover the whole thing. I shot a full 2 GB of images so I would have enough pieces to assemble and get rid of most of the people in Photoshop. The top image above is the assembled 5th Avenue side. I hope it looks like one quick shot, but it's really assembled out of over 20 files. By 2:30 PM I was done so I headed over to the ICP at 6th Avenue and 43rd Street, just one block west. It was great walking through the huge exhibit with Michael because he began his career as an art director for such companies as Revlon. That was in the late 60's and early 70's so he actually knew some of the people in the images from those years. I didn't arrive in NYC until the mid 70's (when I assisted Michael) so I missed out on knowing people like Jean Shrimpton. We had a great time. I shot us as we stopped for a nosh, I wasn't even supposed to take a picture there....
After the show I got my car out of hock and dropped Michael off at Penn Station so he could catch a train home. I then drove down to West Broadway just below Spring Street and waited while the guys finished installing the other History Channel building art. When they were done, I shot pretty quickly and was all done by 5PM. When I finally got home I began the Photoshop work of taking all of the disparate pieces and loosely joining them in layers. I have spent today correcting and cleaning up the shots. We'll have to wait to see what the client thinks. All in all it was one beautiful day in NYC.

Product shots keep you busy.

Let's see... feed the family, pay suppliers, have some fun... this is why we trade checks for images that fulfill our client's layouts. This job was for Andy at Gerber. It was a rush job. I had two days to shoot and strip 55 Gerber products and then overnight a Fed Ex envelope so Andy would have the disk in his hands the morning of the third day. Andy did a great job of providing me with an Excel spreadsheet that laid out each shot needed and I kept throwing jpgs at him so he could see if what I was shooting matched what he was thinking. I only had to reshoot two shots and Andy got his disk on time. We call product shots like these our "bread and butter" shots. They can be done well and quickly and can be shot in the dungeon so the expenses are close to zero and everything is profit. We depend upon these kind of jobs to keep all of the bills paid. They are an important part of keeping a commercial photo studio profitable over the long haul. Hey - it's making money with a camera. What could be better than that?

Wide lenses

There is something special about using a wide lens. They don't work for every shot but when they do, they are amazing. Okay here is the truth: The lens I used for this series of pictures (I only show one here) was a Sigma 10-20 mm rectilinear wide angle lens. On my digital camera it acts as a 15-30 mm lens. That's still wide. I originally purchased this lens for a shoot of the Gerber building redesign. I have used it for the Sika antique flooring jobs as well as these Pearl Media jobs. In this shot I wanted to see the big white pointing finger, the general HP signage and the fact that this building is well placed next to the David Letterman Late Show studio. The only way to get it all in is with a very wide lens. Most of the shots for this job were straightened up using free transform in Photoshop. That way we got to see all of the different aspects while having the vertical things vertical. Somehow, I prefer to see it the way it shows above. I've got to say, this lens is super sharp. If you get the chance, try a really wide lens. It adds to the fun!

Lie To Me

It's been a slow start to the year but every job I have done has been tons of fun. This job involved shooting on a cold but clear day in NYC and then a lot of Photoshop back at the studio. I was able to park near the target building at a Muni-Meter on Broadway. I even ate breakfast at the Applejack diner after the shoot while I backed up all of the files to a portable hard drive. The bottom image ended up being one single pan image but is actually built out of 4 different shots. I didn't use Photoshop's photomerge feature, but instead dragged them all into one big (32" wide, 192MB) file. I then used free transform and masks to match and blend the layers into one.
My client had asked me to shoot around 2PM to capture people lined up for the David Letterman Show, but this was a Friday and they don't tape on Fridays. Ah well, I captured as many people as I could and retouched them into some of the shots for the finals. Another happy client and more money for fun. It's still a great life.

Free tan!

This job was different (I guess every one is different).
This job came because a client gave my name to one of his clients and they hired me to shoot this job. Pearl Media does huge advertising displays just like the one above for Fox's new show Fringe. They wanted a lot of people around their display, so we shot during the All Star Parade (see the red carpet?). Even with over one million fans on 6th Avenue in NYC, my 6' tall 19 year old son and I (he watched my back and carried the laptop), got good spots in front of installations on 47th street and 57th street. The sun was hot and the day was great, the people were fun but nobody understood why I was shooting the buildings while everyone else was photographing the old baseball players. It's a nice way to make a living... hanging out on 6th Avenue in New York City on a beautiful day.

The Company Car

Well, we're back in the saddle again.
Here is what you get when you buy a junker, replace parts from the crashed car, and buy a few new ones (like a rebuilt transmission). I have to thank All Tune & Lube in Dover New Jersey who did the great work for a great price and saved the business some debt. Now we have a 24 valve Dura Tech engine, dual exhaust and even reasonable gas mileage.
A funny thing is that over the winter when this whole mess was getting straightened out, we only went on location once and took only minimal equipment. Since the car was fully rebuilt, we have been on location using the gurney 6 or 7 times. The timing was perfect.
Anyway, there you go. Nothing in life is ever easy, but in the end, it's always good.

It's nice having a history in this business

I moved to NYC in 1975
Although I had a BS degree in Photography from RIT, I knew that I really didn't know anything about NYC commercial photography. Therefore I was a freelance assistant for many great photographers to learn the "business". The Mark who graduated with me and dragged me (thank you) to NYC (He got me my first assistant job), is still my friend today. We've had our ups and downs over the last 35 years, but we're pretty even now, and getting along well. That's cool!

One of the 10 photographers I assisted regularly back in the mid 70's was Mike Harris. He shot lots of food and drinks for big advertisers. I built sets, loaded film, moved lights, all the things assistants do for photographers. He was always a nice guy, and a good boss.

We kept in touch with each other after I started my own business, and have even shot together occasionally. My expertise in digital has brought us together as peers but still as friends. It's nice.

That's what I mean about having history. I have a number of colleagues, some peers some previous employers, who continue to be good friends after all these years. We share information and knowledge back and forth, share our lives as they are today, and just relate on all levels.

And that's why it's nice having a history in this business.

New photographers remember, be nice. You're developing relationships that can benefit you for the rest of your life.