Cheese

This time it was cheese, lots of cheese, 64 shots of imported cheese, yummy cheese, all for the Arthur Schuman company with the delightful Melissa.
This is the way things work today: One full day of studio shooting, and then more than another day and a half, stripping and retouching. 100 years ago, tintypes and glass plates identified the photographer. Today, it is Photoshop® and image manipulation. These are the things that keep us working.

It's a crazy life!

It's a strange life for sure. Life seems to travel in cycles. For a while I was just a food shooter, next came a year or two of fashion, and lately it seems to be time for cosmetic still life. I now count three different clients from different agencies (one is Revlon's agency), all who send me cosmetic products to shoot. Hey - it's making money with a camera. What could be better than that?

Boots

Boots.
People are still asking me where my cowboy boots have gone.
I've worn boots almost every day since 1975. Most of the time they are Noconas. They seem to fit perfectly from day one. I don't wear them the way you are supposed to. I wear the same pair almost every day and they last about three years, being resoled 2-3 times within their lifetime.
However, I have worn Nike running shoes for the last year. After walking all around Manhattan with my friend Mark (from Quad Photo) at the photo show in 2006, I started a hole in the bottom of the sole. By summer 2007, it was too bad to wear. Since then I have worn these running shoes while I tried to find someone near here who would resole these boots. No one liked the job done by the last guy in Ridgewood NJ, so no one near would do the work.
Finally, in February 2008, I dropped them off at the same old place for their last re-sole. They should last one more year, and soon, I'll be back in boots again.

I always wondered if I my 5'8" frame could live without the 2" heals the boots offer...
Well, after one year without, I guess I know I can.

waiting

Well,
life is certainly interesting.
It's still January, and I have failed to be healthy yet this year. I have been on 2 different anti-biotics, and 2 different antihistamines and I am still deaf and a tiny bit pained (it's a sinus infection).
As for the car, the green wagon engine does not match at all the gold one, so we are trading the struts, wheels and tires, but my faithful mechanic is looking for a rebuilt trans so I can finally drive it home. The reason there is a picture of a Mercedes above this blog, is that my faithful mechanic lent me the one he is rebuilding for auto shows while he fixes my car. It rides great and is a nice trade. Still, it will never be able to carry my gurney.
I did teach my new semester Wednesday night. It'll be a great class. Only 8 or 9 students (instead of 16), and we'll all learn a lot.
I've been uploading stock images to Almay (my stock agency). It's a slow grueling process involving keywording and stuff, but it fills the down times.
Oh, I have shot 3 jobs this month, it's a slow start, but it's not dead. Thank God!
Bye

We'll see...

What do you get when you have a green wagon that was hit in the rear at 40 mph, and a new gold wagon with a perfect body but trashed transmission? Well, like the title says, we'll just have to wait and see. If this thing works out well, I'll give the repair place all the credit. They were the only ones who were willing to do this. The gold wagon has already limped over there. I'm driving the green one still (the one that was considered totaled). I'll give them the green one in the new year. I have high hopes as I need a working wagon for the studio. We'll see....

An Article from Studio Photography Magazine

The studio Bill Truran rented for this pizza
packaging shoot was in Fairfield, NJ. All the
equipment for the shoot arrived in his Taurus.
Thanks to the gurney and some strong straps, he
was able to bring it all into the studio in one trip.

Bill Truran, of Bill Truran Productions LLC (www.billtruran.com), owns a commercial photography studio in the New York City area. To keep overhead costs down, he closed his full-time studio and began to rent for each shoot. Only problem is, this caused logistics problems.

As Truran explains, "Adjusting to different studios is no problem, as long as we have our own gear. Problems begin when we have 10-16 cases of equipment on the sidewalk, a car to park, and no way for our assistant to get the equipment off the street and into the studio while I go park the car.

"Our solution was to retrofit a medical gurney like the ambulances use, replacing the tilting bed with a desk surface. Now we pack most of our cases onto the gurney, and strap them on. We push the gurney into the back of our company's Taurus station wagon, and the wheels collapse up and under it. Any additional cases get packed around the gurney.

"Once we arrive at the rental studio, we pull the gurney out and the wheels drop down and lock. We strap the additional cases on top of the others, and my assistant puts all the equipment on one rolling table ready to roll into the freight elevator. All I have to do is drive away, park the car, and walk back to the studio, entering through the front door. One photographer and one assistant is all it takes!"

Alice B. Miller Studio Photography Editorial Director

Ah, a week off...

Well, the last three weeks were spent shooting fashion & stills for a catalog.
That might sound fun or glamorous, but at my age, the constant running seems to wear me out. I never like time off from shooting, but I soooo look forward to having the last week of the year to recuperate. The great part of this kind of photography is that I get to play with some great people. Bouchelle is wonderful (she does hair & makeup). Sally, Astrid & Barbara took different days styling the clothes, and Dawn (one of my favorite directors) told me what to shoot. While the work may be hard, the whole time is fun because of good models and the great team. I think that by the first of the year, I'll be raring to go once again.