Exploratorium and SF Magazine.
The Exploratorium in San Francisco has moved in to a new location that's going to make it one of the biggest attractions in the city. San Francisco Magazine asked me to capture a couple of photos of the new location before it opens. The museum's crew spent a day moving construction materials and equipment out of the way just so I could get a clean shot. It is a beautiful new space for the museum. I knew I wanted a soft light to showcase the building.
We were shooting other areas inside the building when I noticed the sun outside was how I envisioned it would be to capture an exterior photo. We rushed outside and got this shot just in time!
This is my favorite image they used for the spread (plus a behind-the-scenes photo). The magazine is on newsstands now and also
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Portfolio and Blog Update
It was a busy and productive 2012. We finally updated the website with new images from the previous year. On top of that, check out a revamp update to the blog. The Posterous era has come to an end. Therefore, a new blog engine needed to be used. With the change comes great opportunities for minor improvements. So, we decided to incorporate more social features to the blog. You can now subscribe via email, link to my Instagram and it includes a much better comment section with the help of Disqus. Have at it and take a look…comments are welcome.
San Francisco Magazine Cover
I was very happy to be asked to work on the October issue of San Francisco Magazine. It is always great to collaborate with clients that have creative ideas. After talking with them about what they needed I set out to photograph all the parts to c...
I was very happy to be asked to work on the October issue of San Francisco Magazine. It is always great to collaborate with clients that have creative ideas.
After talking with them about what they needed I set out to photograph all the parts to create something that looked realistic. San Francisco may have lots of roads with views like this one, but none of them conveyed what I was looking for. Often I would find a good location and have to drive it multiple times to get a good shot with no traffic or the right lighting. I photographed lots of roads, cars, city views and signs to create a composition that aligned with the essence of the feature article. It was like working on a puzzle of photos.
Look for it on newsstands or view the digital version for free
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Motion and stills
More and more frequently magazines are creating interactive versions of their print magazines rather then just a static copy of it. Recently Macworld magazine has created issues for the iPad that works with Apple's Newsstand.My role as the photogr...
More and more frequently magazines are creating interactive versions of their print magazines rather then just a static copy of it. Recently Macworld magazine has created issues for the iPad that works with Apple's Newsstand. My role as the photographer is really interesting because I now need to think of my photos as both stills and motion. The cover image and opening spreads are more likely to be used as a stills in the print magazine and as motion sequences in the iPad version.
When I photograph the still version I use still equipment. I could change to the 5D Mark III and hot lights, but that would double my work and change the look of the photo. The work flow that I found that works well is to use stop motion or a layered photo. With stop motion the art director, Rob, and I plan out the best way to use motion that ends at a still image for print. I use Apple's Motion program to combine all the stills into a video for the iPad version.
The other method I use is to shoot a still photo and then remove the product from the set after I shoot so I have a blank background. This way I have the product separated from the background. This allows me to bring the files in to Apple's Motion and animate the foreground giving the photo a more animated feel. So far we have done this for two issues, I'm looking forward to fine-tuning and improving this as we go along.
The July issue and the November issue both have examples of this. Look for them in the App store. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macworld-digital-magazine/id505331062?mt=8
Grace Kelly
San Francisco Magazine approach me with another great idea that got the creative juices flowing. This time it involved a scarf with a Grace Kelly inspired look. The twist was to have no one wearing the scarf, making it a free floating subject. The...
San Francisco Magazine approach me with another great idea that got the creative juices flowing. This time it involved a scarf with a Grace Kelly inspired look. The twist was to have no one wearing the scarf, making it a free floating subject.
The challenge with this image was how to get the scarf floating in the air while having the interior visible. We used wire and paper to get the shape of a human head then cleaned any visible wires in post production. Since influence laid heavy on Grace Kelly, a moody beach was the perfect choice for a background.
Look for the magazine on newsstands or check out the free digital edition online here.
Hanging with Bikes
I love bikes, especially well designed and functional urban bikes and accessories. Naturally, I was excited when Dwell approached me to photograph some beautiful bike gear. The idea was to photograph 3 bikes hanging on colored backgrounds. Normall...
I love bikes, especially well designed and functional urban bikes and accessories. Naturally, I was excited when Dwell approached me to photograph some beautiful bike gear.
The idea was to photograph 3 bikes hanging on colored backgrounds. Normally, we would paint the walls the day before the job but the client wanted the flexibility to change the colors once we had decided on what items would be in each shot. In order to achieve this, we hung paper on the wall instead of painting. I was worried that the strong side lighting would show all the wrinkles in the paper. We were really careful and it turned out extremely well. The side lighting gave the sets great depth.
It was great working with the stylist, Janis, and the talented team at Dwell. Now I just have to curb my bike envy!
Look for the magazine on newsstands or check out Dwell for more great info.
iPad at Macworld
I was approached by Rob (the art director at Macworld) about their up coming feature "iPad on the Job." We both thought it would be a good idea to try something new. Rather than shoot small sets in my studio we thought it would be appropriate and ...
I was approached by Rob (the art director at Macworld) about their up coming feature "iPad on the Job." We both thought it would be a good idea to try something new. Rather than shoot small sets in my studio we thought it would be appropriate and more interesting to take the photos at the Macworld offices. We wanted to keep it real. Instead of trying to build and style the "perfect" set, we would let an honest and actual desk be the setting.
The one thing I didn't keep real was the lighting. Each set required relighting to give it the feel and mood I wanted.
The image selected for the opening spread was photographed in Jason's (the Editorial Director) office. Good thing he was on vacation—my lighting and grip really made a mess of his office! It was a refreshing and stimulating challenge to introduce new parameters to our typical process. Looking forward to more such experiences in the future.
The Brokenmusicbox Full Album
The cover for the single, "We Will" was a teaser for the full album???which I'm excited to say is out in it's full glory. The music, design and photography have all come together in harmony to form an exciting album. How was it all done?? We met wit...
The cover for the single, "We Will" was a teaser for the full album—which I'm excited to say is out in it's full glory. The music, design and photography have all come together in harmony to form an exciting album.
How was it all done??
We met with Tony and Kim from The Brokenmusicbox in September of last year. In the meeting we talked about what the album meant to them and what they were trying to convey with it. During the meeting we came up with some basic ideas and then narrowed it down to one. After the meeting I gave them a final sketch of my idea which they approved before I started photographing.
The technical part:
The dirt was pilled up in front of a turquoise background. Once I was happy with the shape of the top dirt I placed the flower. I test photographed about 6 flowers but only one was used for the final image. The dirt was lit from above with a long strip box. This gave the dirt a nice edge light. The lighting also left the front of the dirt dark, making it easier to blend with the "underground" dirt photo. I had one light with a 7" reflector coming from the back to give the photo lens flare. The flower that I picked didn't have any leaves so I had to photograph them from a different flower. Once I was happy with the dirt and the flower I used a water spray bottle to add the rain.
The "underground" portion of the photo was taken separately and upside down. This way I had gravity working in my favor rather then against me. The root for the actual flower in the final image wasn't very photographic so I picked a different plant that had a nice root. I then used scissors to trim the root so it didn't look too busy. Once the bottom image was photographed I just rotated it 180 degrees and blended it with the top photo.
It was great working with The Brokenmusicbox and Amy Gregg from A1 Design.
Listen to the full Album here
http://thebrokenmusicbox.bandcamp.com
I love all the songs but my favorite is "California Year." Listen to the album and post which song is your favorite.
Editors' Choice
The latest issue of Macworld Magazine gave me the chance to use my new 100-400mm lens. San Francisco is the perfect city for it! Every neighborhood has a view. It is crazy how many tourists come and go to famous landmarks. They take their photo an...
The latest issue of Macworld Magazine gave me the chance to use my new 100-400mm lens. San Francisco is the perfect city for it! Every neighborhood has a view.
It is crazy how many tourists come and go to famous landmarks. They take their photo and then on to the next spot. I guess I do the same thing when visiting other places. As we waited for the sun to go down, we were asked by at least 7 tourists to take their pictures.
Here are some photos I took from the same spot at full zoom.
The Brokenmusicbox Single
The Brokenmusicbox has a new single out, "We Will" from their upcoming album. You may remember their first album from when I used the song, "Time," for my video, "Macworld Cover Creation."I was very excited they asked me to collaborate on the albu...
The Brokenmusicbox has a new single out, "We Will" from their upcoming album. You may remember their first album from when I used the song, "Time," for my video, "
"
I was very excited they asked me to collaborate on the album art with them. The photography on the single is a teaser of what the photo will be on the full album. I was also lucky enough to work with Amy from A1 Design on the album design.
Checkout the song on
or
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You can also listen to the full song here.
Macworld January Cover
The iPhone 4s has been unleashed all over Macworld Magazine, inside and out. The cover may look nice and clean but the set to light it was a mess. If you're traveling for the holidays, load your iPad up with the Zinio version or look for the analo...
Eames: The Architect and the Painter
About a year ago (November 2010) Dwell magazine hired me to photograph a bunch of cool chairs. Of course one of the chairs was a requisite Eames chair. Dwell had asked if a film crew could come by my studio as well since the editor of the magazine...
About a year ago (November 2010) Dwell magazine hired me to photograph a bunch of cool chairs. Of course one of the chairs was a requisite Eames chair. Dwell had asked if a film crew could come by my studio as well since the editor of the magazine (Sam) was being interviewed in a film about Charles and Ray Eames. They thought they might get some footage during the day. See photos from that day
Fast forward to now, and the movie, Eames: The Architect and the Painter, is now out in theaters. I went to see it since I thought it would be interesting and I wanted to see how the film turned out. I wasn't expecting to see any footage from my studio but was super-excited to see that towards the end of the movie my studio (and I) were shown. I even had a big line—I don't want to spoil it—but it was something like, "I think we should move the chair."
I encourage you to see
my film debut
this really fascinating portrait of an incredibly innovative, influential and talented couple.
Red, Red, Red
San Francisco Magazine approached us with a fun idea for "The Trend" section of the December 2011 issue. They wanted to incorporate the color red in an over-the-top fashion. They provided a selection of red products to pick from to form the groups...
San Francisco Magazine approached us with a fun idea for "The Trend" section of the December 2011 issue. They wanted to incorporate the color red in an over-the-top fashion. They provided a selection of red products to pick from to form the groups. Rather than washing the photos with a red overlay in Photoshop, we went old school and used red gels. Each grouping was giving it's own surface and gel treatment. This allowed the photos to have their own identity while relating to each other as a series.
Read it for free at
http://media.modernluxury.com/magazines_san_francisco.php
or download their free app for your iPad and iPhone at
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/san-francisco-magazine/id370424626?mt=8
city lights
It's always fun when we collaborate with clients and come up with bright ideas. This time we captured the luminance of lamps against a city background for the Dec/Jan 2011 issue of Dwell Magazine. It took a few extension cords to get all the lamps...
It's always fun when we collaborate with clients and come up with bright ideas. This time we captured the luminance of lamps against a city background for the Dec/Jan 2011 issue of Dwell Magazine. It took a few extension cords to get all the lamps lit. We also got to roam the streets of downtown San Francisco pretending we were tourists and photographed various city backgrounds.
You can find it on newsstands or zinio.com
Aperture Smart Albums
People often ask about our Aperture workflow so I've decided to once in a while share little ways in which we work. You can see all my past Aperture posts by clicking on the Aperture category on the right side of the website. For this post, I want...
People often ask about our Aperture workflow so I've decided to once in a while share little ways in which we work. You can see all my past Aperture posts by clicking on the Aperture category on the right side of the website.
For this post, I wanted talk about smart albums. We use smart albums to pull together images that are spread across different projects. For example, if I wanted to find all the Macworld covers I photographed during 2010 and 2011, I can create a smart album that searches only the years 2010 and 2011 for photos with the keywords "macworld" and "tearsheet-cover" since these assets where originally keyworded during import. We always tag each photo that is imported into the library. This makes it easy to search and separate certain assets.
Clutch Bags With SF Magazine
Now that the we finally got the blog up and running with Posterous, we are playing catch up with a few new blog posts of recent work. The September 2011 issue of San Francisco Magazine includes three of my photographs in it's "The Trend" section. ...
Now that the we finally got the blog up and running with Posterous, we are playing catch up with a few new blog posts of recent work. The September 2011 issue of San Francisco Magazine includes three of my photographs in it's "The Trend" section. This time, we got to work with fancy, designer clutch bags and incorporate fruits and vegetables. Shannon Amos (stylist) came through in the clutch to provide good quality and photogenic produce.
Read it for free at
http://media.modernluxury.com/magazines_san_francisco.php
or download their free app for your iPad and iPhone at
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/san-francisco-magazine/id370424626?mt=8
Blog Now Powered by @posterous
I made the leap and migrated the blog to Posterous (a more robust blog platform). I know what you're thinking, "it looks the same!" Thanks to Good Dog Design, the Posterous blog looks good and integrates well with my site. My blog needed updating ...
I made the leap and migrated the blog to Posterous (a more robust blog platform). I know what you're thinking, "it looks the same!" Thanks to Good Dog Design, the Posterous blog looks good and integrates well with my site.
My blog needed updating as it was starting to fall behind in this crazy world of social networking. Now I have a much tighter integration with Facebook and Twitter. My old blog was custom designed, which made it really hard to move my posts over to another blogging service. However, I was able to move over my posts with some tricks to get the photos added. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to transfer any of the comments.
I hope you enjoy the new blog and take advantage of the new features like subscribe and having posts emailed directly to your inbox. You can also follow the site and get notified of new posts.
Dwell: Desks
For the September issue of Dwell magazine we photographed desks. We worked with a set builder to make custom pedestals, which looked great but moving things around was no easy task! When asked if we could move a pedestal "a little to the left" we ...
For the September issue of Dwell magazine we photographed desks. We worked with a set builder to make custom pedestals, which looked great but moving things around was no easy task! When asked if we could move a pedestal "a little to the left" we had to really question if it was needed. When we did move things, it took considerable effort not to scratch the floor or anything. Even with all the heavy lifting it was a really fun job. After we assembled all the desks Jamie, the editor, tried them all out for her story.
For the September issue of Dwell magazine we photographed desks. We worked with a set builder to make custom pedestals, which looked great but moving things around was no easy task! When asked if we could move a pedestal "a little to the left" we had to really question if it was needed. When we did move things, it took considerable effort not to scratch the floor or anything.
Even with all the heavy lifting it was a really fun job. After we assembled all the desks Jamie, the editor, tried them all out for her story
DIY: Overhead Camera Stand
Studio stands are great but when shooting from above, the legs of the stand will get in the way of the shot. Hence, we created one ourselves. We got two 20ft. aluminum squared pipes, three pieces of plywood, two Avenger plates and two tall boys to...
Studio stands are great but when shooting from above, the legs of the stand will get in the way of the shot. Hence, we created one ourselves. We got two 20ft. aluminum squared pipes, three pieces of plywood, two Avenger plates and two tall boys to create a rolling, adjustable studio stand. We still need to tethered the camera to a computer but unfortunately, the firewire cord is not long enough to reach our tower on the ground. Instead, we tethered to a MacBook Pro up high next to the camera and controlled it using Screen Share with our MacPro from below. It worked great. To top it off, Capture One now has an app for the iPad. It's amazing and works well from shooting to viewing to changing camera settings and more.
DIY Macworld
Rob and Kate from Macworld were on set for the "Do It Yourself" feature of the magazine. Kate doubled as the hand model in two of the photos. In the spirit of "Do It Yourself" I ended up making a rig to support the iPad Kate was holding to help ke...
Rob and Kate from Macworld were on set for the "Do It Yourself" feature of the magazine. Kate doubled as the hand model in two of the photos. In the spirit of "Do It Yourself" I ended up making a rig to support the iPad Kate was holding to help keep it in the same spot. It made lighting and focus a lot easier. In the photo of the audio system I created the wall with a sheet of foam core, which made it easy to cut a hole for the outlet which the Airport Express plugged into.