In A White Room With No Curtains...

...or retouching... (with all apologies to CREAM)

Assistant Jeffery Oltman strikes a pose & gets the reading. Add further light tweaking, one talented rock band, a couple of day's retouching & a splash of lime... shake lightly.

Stay tuned...

Furlough Friday

iPhone 4 Capture

For the first time ever in 20+ years, had to postpone today's shoot for health reasons. Fortunately, weather bringing strong gusty winds, intermittent showers and hazy, less than ideal skies provided cover for the image of invulnerability I try so hard to project... Ha!

Only made it out of bed yesterday for multiple runs, always a few seconds too late, to the loo. Fever, chills and intense intestinal distress had me lying around in a daze for most of the day. Haven't eaten a bite now since dinner two night's ago and beginning to feel a little weak. Need food, but fear that it will spontaneously eject itself across the room (think Jackson Pollock canvas) as soon as it's ingested keeps me from tempting fate for just a little while longer...

After a few quick design changes, the summer email promo was completed and roughly 250 sent out last week. Very happy to report that there was an immediate response rate of 20%... emails acknowledging receipt (and none of them cursing me for SPAM) & two immediate assignments a direct result. One of those assignments was supposed to happen today, but you know how that turned out... or didn't. Fortunately, we've been able to reschedule it for a week from now, followed by another two-day assignment taking us back to the Big Island for more resort work.

Here's the final promo design sent:



Now the weekend is nearly upon us - offering a couple of days to completely mend the bowels and, with any luck, get some long-overdue gardening done. Last week's strong winds threatened to topple a massively top-heavy bougainvillea tree, destroying a supporting fence structure in the process. Heavy-duty pruner & saw in hand, I fought the bougainvillea & the bougainvillea won. So scratched and bloodied was I that the guy managing the weigh-in station at the local composting repository felt compelled to inquire if I was "OK"? Horror show... Let's hope we fare better during this weekend's lawn-warrior outing.

HAPA is currently winding it's way through Japan bringing music of the islands to their multitude of Japanese fans. Founder Barry Flanagan was kind enough to text me this photo of their show poster, drawn from our studio sessions of a few months back, taken outside Tokyo's Cotton Club:

photo: Barry Flanagan/HAPA

Coming Soon To An Inbox Near You...

Summer 2011 Emailer Promo

Summer's Begun - Back To Work

After enjoying a blissfully unproductive uneventful three day weekend, I'm back in the studio to finish up all those monthly loose-ends & paperwork so that we can soon be done with the month of May. Summer months around here are traditionally quite busy and I'm anxious to see what sort of activity this year's will bring after the virtual drought of the past two years in general. Given the flurry of activity over the past two months, I'm feeling quite optimistic about it all...


There are already a couple of decent projects on the calendar, a call this morning about another (estimate/proposal just now submitted for approval), an interesting sounding editorial assignment photographing chocolatiers pending and an invitation to produce a a solo exhibition of THE WORK tentatively scheduled for next summer. Should this one come to fruition, it will take a year of effort to put a show together, not to mention the goal currently kicking around inside my head to produce a series or two of new work specifically for this exhibition.


Late last friday afternoon, the last images of the three month project for Maui's Winery were delivered and reports from the client are very positive. Multiple trips into the vineyard for early morning and afternoon for photo-making... a couple of sessions on the stately tasting room grounds are now completed until harvest time... sometime in August, I believe... when the grapes are fully ripened to juicy fatness and more photography will be required. Here's a few samples of what was produced up to this point...

A Little Inspiration To Get You Through The Long Weekend

He's at the top of every photo-editor-worth-their-salt's want list. He delivers ONE... got that... ONE print for assignments. He is a contemporary master of portraiture, routinely photographing members of popular culture's A-list...


"Who's that" you ask? He's Dan Winters. To see more, go HERE.


And here's a little video of Dan talking about his work to inspire you through the long weekend:





Happy Memorial Day to all, gratitude to those that serve, have served and have given their lives in service. 

Some Housecleaning, Some Resources & Some Changes

Given the recent demise of the WTJ? Blogroll - it was there, then the updates ended a couple of months ago, now it's gone altogether - it's been a bit of a struggle finding one source for current updates to my favorite photo-bloggers. 


Why, Andrew, have you forsaken me? Too busy with the Olsen Twins, I suppose...


The daily blogroll updates at WTJ? were usually my first stop for morning business readings & creative inspiration.. Now it's gone and I'm here to tell you that there's nothing out there that comes close to consolidating the best in photography blogs on a single page, allowing quick access to the best in business advice, creative output, commentary, criticism & sometimes, even side-splitting entertainment. 


Andrew still manages to regularly post entries on his exploits, current projects & announcements to things of interest going on in the photo world of NYC & elsewhere and I continue to dial him in as a source of inspiration. But the freakin' Blogroll? 


The closest I have come to finding a reasonable facsimile for quick links to the photo-world is The Photography Post, another clearinghouse, if you will, to all things photo-related. TPP is good, quite good really, in organizing the best blog output of the photography & commentary that most interests me... my only complaint being the need for multiple clicks to get to the actual blog. A minor annoyance in our faster, better, quicker, immediate world, but an annoyance nonetheless.


So, to that end, I've just updated the Blogroll here at CTL (you'll find it in the left column of this page).. dropped a couple of links that have been long inactive & adding a couple of others to blogs a read regularly but had somehow been negligent in adding to this site. 


Aspiring photo assistants & those of us looking for new assistants might take special interest in the new addition of A Photo Assistant blog. 


From the UK, we bring you the most-entertaining Perou's Secret Diary, penned by the quintessentially Brit fashion/music photographer Perou. Part punk fashionista - part english gentleman/country squire, car enthusiast, father, farmer, brilliant photographer and entertaining diarist, Perou's daily entries of family life, creative endeavors, frustrations of parenthood are generally a very entertaining read.


At No Plastic Sleeves, you'll find lots of tips, ideas, products and resources relating to all things marketing & promotional.


Onward....


I spend a lot of time looking at photography. I see a lot of good stuff. I see even more stuff that makes me shake my head & mutter. Rarely do I see stuff that leaves me so gobsmacked that I can't stop thinking about it. Angela Bacon-Kidwell is a photographer of whom I know almost nothing about yet her entire body of work, brought to my attention by a friend, simply takes my breath away. Click on her name above & see for yourself. The first two portfolios, A Fishes Woe & Traveling Dream demand a look. Hauntingly beautiful is the only descriptive I can draw upon in reaction to this work. Recent work & current projects & news at Angela's blog.


Further onward... some resources:


If you're a professional photographer in Hawaii, you're generally shit-out-of-luck at a major disadvantage when it comes to buying equipment. With virtually no professional supply houses left here in the state... places where you could actually hold, touch & fondle the latest in gear & accessories for you photo-fetishists. Mail order, for years here, has been our only option... buying new gear sight unseen. Things might be just a tad bit better in this regard in Honolulu than they are, say, here on Maui or other remote, neighbor island burgs, but not much better... that is, until recently....


Hawaii Camera Rental has recently appeared on the scene with two locations in the state. The main location, over near Kaimuki at 3408 Waialae Ave. has the bulk of the best stuff... top canon, Nikon bodies & lenses, lighting gear including Profoto 7b Battery portable strobe kits, water housings, Hasselblad digital cameras & lenses... all available for rent, providing you the opportunity to handle. HCR also has an outlet here on Maui. You'll find them inside Photographics Maui, at 22 Hana Hwy. in the maui Windsurf Company building in Kahului. The Maui location has a very adequate supply of great specialty lenses, camera bodies, housings, etc. in-stock. What is available at the Oahu shop but not here on Maui can be flown in on short notice.


If you live on a neighbor island and have to work on Oahu, Foton Hawaii is another great resource for lighting, grip equipment... even a studio rental is available. FH rents an arsenal of Profoto lighting gear, modifiers, accessories, even a wind machine, all at very reasonable prices. They will ship equipment state-wide with insurance & a deposit.





Even further onward... misc. stuff and expendibles:


Attco Inc. Hawaii, in Honolulu, is a local source for stuff like set-paper, gaffer's tape and other stage & theatrical supplies. I've found it much cheaper to order rolls of set-paper (they carry the Savage brand, call for a swatch book of available colors) and small expendibles. I've found that if I call with an order in the morning, the staff will get it on a plane - shipped cargo - and have it to me here on Maui by the afternoon of the same day. Attco also rents grip & rigging gear, fog-machines, stafing & portable cycs.





Not exactly close to home but most definitely a one-stop shop for all things expendable for photographers is JCX Expendables in San Francisco. Here, you'll find set-paper, tapes, tools, gels, bulbs, they used to and probably still do have special effects materials like smoke cookies (like little incense tablets that are small enough to hide and, when lit, produce a large amount of thick smoke - used for fogging outdoor sets or special-effects where smoke is required) and other pyro aids. Sadly, the online or over-the-phone ordering experience pales in comparison to a real-life trip to the place, where you will be greeted by a helpful & knowledgeable, self-styled rasta staff and a lingering whiff of the ganj hanging in the air. 





Closer to home is Ehman Productions, serving the film industry locally for years now, EP rents seasoned crew, grip trucks, booms & jibs, Matthews grip gear, Arri Lighting, Kino-Flo & Led lighting and lots more. Based here on Maui, if you've got a major production planned, these guys are going to be your first stop.

Is It Friday yet?

For the past two weeks the fun just hasn't stopped. Wrapped up yesterday with a late afternoon trip up into the vineyards of Ulupalakua, yielding a handful of good photos, including the one above.


Otherwise, the past five days have brought a couple of other assignments but have otherwise been largely occupied with post work on images captured from the previous week's outing to the Big Island. In the employ, once again, of Prince Resorts Hawaii, this mission was to capture two resorts with refreshed rooms & suites, including the suite favored by Star Wars creator George Lucas. One day devoted entirely to capturing dining items from one of the resort's fine-dining venues. Long hours, lots of equipment schlepping to & fro yielded good results. Some samples of the effort: 

The very first Norman P1250D strobe pack I ever owned was sacrificed in the effort. 25+ years of service that thing has given me. It's beaten, battered, dented, scratched... it's been dropped, blown-up, recklessly abused and has only failed me one other time. Let's just see if our man Brett over in California can manage to squeeze another couple of more years out of her.


Return flights home booked for mid-afternoon of our last day left some time to head for the South Kona-Captain Cook area of the island where we visited Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the fabled "Place of Refuge".

You've got to admire a culture possessing a tradition of refuge & redemption so strong that they built a sanctuary where the violators of sacred kapu & defeated enemy combatants would be spared certain death as long as they remained within the sacred walls of the heiau (temple) within the sanctuary. After a period of time, the refuge-seeker could endure some sort of ceremony where his or her transgressions could be forgiven, allowing the return to society.


Also a past home to many of Hawaii's ancient royalty, the 420 acre site was designated a National Park in 1955, is beautifully restored, maintained and now provides sanctuary for Hawaii's endangered Honu, green sea turtle population as well as being a cultural resource & popular sightseeing destination.

After serious consideration as to whether or not previous crimes warranted an extended stay in the refuge, we decided to take our leave, heading just down the road to a sacred site of another type entirely.

Overlooking historic Kealakekua Bay, where famed explorer Captain Cook met his fate, becoming known as "the other white meat", sits St. Benedict's Church, originally built in 1899 by Rev. John Velghe. The church is commonly referred to as the Painted Church. With no formal training and only ordinary house paint on bare wood at his disposal, the Good Reverend adorned the church's interior walls & ceilings with colorful frescoes of Hawaiian scenery & illustrated bible stories. In those days, few Hawaiians could speak english, let alone read... Rev. Velghe would use his works of art as teaching tools.