Chicago Blues
I finished my audio slide show on blues clubs in Chicago , with a music bed I licensed from the great John Primer, seen above. I've put up the show…
Day for Night in Kyoto
One of the better assignments I’ve had was to shoot a story on ryokan, the traditional inns of Japan. My brother Gary was the writer, and we got to crisscross the entire country and stay at a variety of inns from the very fancy to the unelectrified rustic.
One thing the editors wanted was a sequence of shots, showing a Western couple checking in and going through the activities of a typical ryokan day (i.e. you take a bath, have tea, eat dinner, and then go to sleep…the latter three all in the same room!)
We couldn’t afford pro models, but our fixer found a very nice, attractive young couple who were teaching English nearby and were agreeable to pose…but they only had two hours on a Saturday afternoon between 3-5pm to do it! They couldn’t stick around for the “futon” shot.
It was looking like we might have to sacrifice that night shot for a while there, but fortunately, I had a complete battery-operated flash setup with me…five units with stands, gels, radios the works.
To see how we made day into night, hit the jump.
It’s black and white, but will it be read all over?
For the last six or seven years, I’ve done a large calendar of images from around the world. We use them as promotional mailings for me, and as gifts for donors to the Jonathan Krist Foundation . I usually look for bright, saturated iconic images from my travels, and my printer does an excellent job with reproducing those colors on thick glossy paper. It’s a fairly expensive promotion piece, but it goes over big.
This year, I’m thinking of doing something different. A while ago, I got an old D70 body converted for black and white infrared by the folks at Lifepixel and I’ve had a blast using it in a variety of locations all over the world. It’s gotten to the point where I have a decent collection of black and white travel images, like the one of the Easter Island moai above.
The question I’m asking myself (and I have to decide soon because time, as well as a calendar deadline, waits for no man) is “would these images work in a calendar?” I’m waiting for one thing to help me make up my mind. (more…)
Speedlinks 6/10/09
If you've been in the business for a while, or if you're trying to break in and wonder why the veterans in the biz all seem so, well, shell shocked,…
My kind of town…
I’m just finishing up a 9 day shoot in Chicago and all I can say, with apologies to The Chairman of the Board, is that this is my kind of town too. I feel just about as good as Pistol Pete does in the above snap. Pete is a Chicago guitarist who, I swear, channels more Hendrix than Albert King during his gigs at clubs like B.L.U.E.S.
Spectacular architecture, rich culture, great food, and friendly, really friendly people; why, here, even the Public Relations people treat photographers with respect and they even try to help you do your job instead of telling why you can’t.
Now if you’re not in the travel photo biz, that last statement might be puzzling. Aren’t PR people supposed to help promote their attractions? Not always. In fact, many PR folk will offer more support for Aunt Minnie and Uncle Joe, the septuagenarian travel writing duo from the Podunk Weekly shopper, than a photographer from a national magazine or major agency. Why? Hit the jump for my theory.