Lodging Magazine

I recently had a sneak peek at the eagerly anticipated Andaz Maui Resort. I had just stepped off a plane after a 26 hr. flight returning from S.E. Asia only three hour prior... quickly showering, loading the gear in the car and driving down to the island's south shore to meet the publications Art Director and our subject for the shoot, new GM Michael Stephens.

Though I was wrapped in a fog of culture shock & jet-lag and the property covered in a good layer of dust and crawling with round-the-clock construction workers, I could easily see that this property, a new "boutique" arm of the Hyatt chain, would be a stunning addition to the star-studded resorts lining the beaches of the Wailea resort area. Watch for an opening either late this month or early september.

The photos appeared in the July issue of Lodging Magazine, landing on the cover, table of contents page and a double page spread on the inside.

JSB + T+D + .GIF

It wasn't long after yesterday's posting went online when I received a call, followed by an email, from an Agency AD friend in H'lulu. The call was to alert me to the email... and to apologize if I might have been offended that she had "stolen" the images posted yesterday. The AD had taken some of the Cambodia images and created the animated .GIF file you see above and then sent it to me, thinking this might be a useful tool for my future marketing schemes. She may be right. Either way, I am not offended... grateful might be a more accurate description. Grateful that my work & blog remain on her radar. Grateful that she would bother to take the time to make the .GIF file, to send it to me and to bother to follow up with a call to offer suggestions that may prove valuable to my continued viability in the image marketplace. With all sincerity, a big THANK YOU to W!!!

In further effort to get current on the happenings around here, we had the chance to photograph noted author, thinker, lecturer and self-described Chief of Confusion, John Seely Brown for an issue of T+D Magazine. The publishing photo editor, being a mainland-based journal for business training and development, had specifically requested that "JSB", as he prefers to be called, appear in a suit & tie against a white background. The background was no problem, yet JSB, being an island resident, shared the typical island-resident disdain for all things suit & tie oriented. While he did arrive at the studio with a sports jacket as a nod to the PE's lack of understanding about the informality of tropical island life, he had no shoes. Ha!

In the end, we photographed JSB in shirt-sleeves and barefoot... the PE ended up loving the departure from the typical business guru style of portraiture usually on display in the pages of T+D and I had an interesting conversation during the shoot with an animated & brilliant man.

JSB for T+D Magazine

The Deadline Doth Approacheth...

Regular readers of this blog should recognize the name Leslie Burns Dell'Acqua, law student, photographer's business consultant and author of the always excellent Burns Auto Parts website & blog, a place where there is no information about cars, auto parts or anything even remotely automotive related. What you will find there is lots of helpful advice and information about the business of photography.

Lately, you will even find a little bit more... as a few weeks ago, Leslie began the first of what promises to be a series of fictitious editorial "assignments" to participate in. The first one I missed, regretfully, and centered on the theme "PEACE". On January 29th, the second of these "assignments" was announced. For this assignment, Leslie borrowed a news story on the current mortgage crisis and asks readers of her blog to submit photography to illustrate the article. Submissions must be emailed to Leslie by the 11:59PM, February 27th deadline. You can find the details and submission guidelines for this "assignment" by clicking HERE. I'd love to see some of our local Hawaii talent and readers of this blog participate, so get cracking... there's only 8 days left to turn in your submissions.

I promised myself, after missing the first assignment deadline, that I would make a concerted effort to turn in a photograph for the current assignment. In fact, I turned in two, designating the fishbowl shot as my "official" entry. As the article this assignment was based on opened with and continually mentioned the idea of mortgages being "underwater", I felt this image was more true to the story the assignment was based on. What fun it is to attempt to wrangle a live goldfish into position. Goldfish are certainly NOT one of God's more cooperative creatures. (Disclaimer: No goldfish were harmed in the execution of this photograph. This one swims happily in his little bowl beside me as I peck out this screed.)

Another phrase constantly being thrown around by the media these days is "mortgage meltdown", on which the second image is based. This one was also fun... trying to figure out how to best melt those tiny plastic Monopoly® houses. First attempts using a propane blow torch ended up blackening the melted plastic too drastically, I felt. I finally settled upon a Pyrex® baking dish, the bottom sprayed with WD-40 (to prevent the melted plastic from sticking... sort of worked). Various times were tested with nuking in the studio microwave until the desired "melts" were achieved... the longest nuke time being about 20 minutes for the full melt.