Will It Fit?

Busily making last round preparations for flights to & assignment on the Island of Oahu for the last half of this week. Flights are booked, land-chariots reserved, rooms for the stay overlooking Ala Moana Harbor confirmed, assistant booked. Now all that's left is the final packing & repacking of massive amounts of lighting & grip gear, cameras, external storage drives, laptops , food styling tools... all while praying that everything fits into multiple flight cases (6 total) and fall within the weight restrictions for checked baggage. So far, so good... everything thus packed falls with the 50-70 lb.weight limits. There's still some more gear to cram into those overburdened cases but it  looks like we'll manage to meet the limits.


We'll be spending a full two days shooting refreshed rooms, suites and food for Prince Resorts Hawaii at their Waikiki property, followed by a four day trip to the Big Island early next month to do the same for two of their properties there.


This morning's pile of email included a link to a survey of top Art Buyers conducted by Agency Access, the creative source list company providing contact lists and marketing strategies for photographers & illustrators. In this survey, titled "What Buyers Want From Photographers" more than 500 top art buyers & photo editors were questioned about how to best get their attention, where they find new talent, where they search for stock images, how to best deliver images and much, much more. You can follow the link here, sign up and receive your copy of the survey in downloadable .pdf format.

Seize This Day

The Missus celebrates her birthday today. Let there be cake! She deserves it after all. She's been quite busy keeping the home fires burning and acting as nursemaid to the recently eunuch-ized pup - sore, wobbly and insistent on trying to lick his fresh sutures. 


Meanwhile, I've been running between the fine, blue editing screen and various assignments... several trips to the Winery and several hours of editing & retouching, a big Willie K production at the MACC & more editing & retouching, a big Throwdowns production with yet more editing, retouching to follow, a benefit golf tournament with even more editing & retouching, followed the same day with behind-the-scenes coverage of the Aloha Iapana Japan Tsunami Relief Benefit Concert and more, you guessed it, editing & retouching.


That one was amazing... an afternoon & evening of outstanding Hawaiian Music performances by some of the finest practitioners of that genre. Kudos to Karey of Island Soul Entertainment, Luly of Pono Communications, Art & his staff at the MACC, all performing artists and attendees who produced a brilliant & very entertaining evening under the stars for a very worthy cause. I'm sure a fat wad of cash was raised towards relief efforts for the stricken people of Iapana (Japan).


 A week's worth of back & forth proposal revisions for a resort management corporation ended yesterday with final approvals. The assistant is booked for the job and all that's left to do is book the flight's, rental vans and try to figure out how to get all the gear packed to meet flight weight restrictions... an impossible task, I fear. Let's hope that the expeditious greasing of a couple of porter palms does the trick on departure day. Two islands, five days plus travel days required for this one.


Two new 2 TB back-up storage drives are slated to arrive today. They will be added to the mounting pile of redundant externals rising skyward on my desk. Methinks it's about time to seriously consider the Drobo option.


Two hundred sheets of 4x5 transparency film ordered yesterday and winging it's way across the Pacific in preparation for another project. It will be great to dust off the Sinar 4x5 again and put it to use. The sad news is that my favorite film, Kodak EPP Ektachrome 100 Plus, I've just learned, is no longer being produced and with only 20 or so sheets left in the studio fridge, I'm forced into the Fuji RDP option.


A few days ago, boxes of new fine art paper arrived, so... in between edits, I've been busily printing new work on the trusty Epson Large Format printer. Five new images delivered to the framers yesterday.


Trying now to squeeze in a couple of more shoots before flying off to H-lulu & the Big Island mid-next week. Fingers crossed that the fine weather of late holds thru until the jobs are in the can.



In closing... a couple of behind the scenes shots of a recent celebrity profile due to appear between the pages of MAUI NO KA OI Magazine at the beginning of May. Photos courtesy of Road Manager William Pie'. 'Tanks Bill!

©2011 William Pie

©2011 William Pie

Big Thumbs Up

photo: Jeffery Michael/ Images By Jeffery

It's early Saturday, the sun's just up and I've been since 5:30am. I should be sleeping but I'm equal parts exhausted-excited.... there's stuff to do - domestic duties to complete, images to make, editing awaiting my attention on the desktop. No rest for the wicked.


The massive airline campaign project is now completed, delivered, invoiced... done 'cept for the final bit of post-production. An email from one of the assigning agency's creative directors yesterday curled my lips into a smile when she reported that one of the delivered scenarios that I lobbied heavily for "cracked [her] up".


Things I learned during this project:


1) Facebook can be a viable casting resource. Thanks to all the helpful, talented folks that rose up to aid, assist, & act in the two week plus production.


2) I CAN (almost) still keep up with a crew of hyperactive 13 year olds.


3) If you lurk around a cemetery long enough, you're likely to turn up a live one now & then.


4) There is NEVER enough time.


It's no secret that I'm a music freak. The last three months have allowed me to indulge & engage my eyes & ears with some of the cream of Hawaii music talent. We've completed projects recently for HAPA, Willie K & his Band, editorial pieces on Mick Fleetwood, video production stills for The Throwdowns & more. There's a project for progressive/performance artists MOTH in the works and yesterday was spent shooting new promotional images & CD packaging art for The Throwdowns (see photo above). A massive mansion was conscripted for this effort and a full day of production ended with the band submerged in a swimming pool. And there's more to come with images for Barry Flanagan's (HAPA founder) solo projects.


Today, there's a benefit golf tournament and coverage of an evening Japan Relief Benefit requiring coverage. A project for the Pacific Cancer Institute is on slate for next week and a three day shoot on the Big Island for Prince Resorts is scheduled for early May. 


One of the best things I've stumbled across this week was a three part interview with uber-inspirator Dan Winters, published at Rob Haggart's A Photo Editor blog. Insightful, inspiring and well worth a read.


Now, it time to throw myself under a shower and head off to the links... FORE!

Deer Hunter

The Past Two Weeks In Pictures

You may have noticed that I've been conspicuously absent of late. Here's why...

Photo: Barry Frankel