Archive for August, 2010

This image is from a trip I took to San Paulo, Brazil to visit a friend.  For whatever reason I like this photo, probably in some respect to the fact that it is chaotic, which is what San Paulo feels like.  It is like New York city on steroids and is the most populous city in the Americas.  I happen to fly in the day the airline workers went on strike and ended up standing in the customs line for over 5 hours. With no way to communicate with my friend on the other side, I finally emerged through customs with no one to greet me.

Weighing my options, and not able to speak any Portuguese, I exchanged some currency and finally decided to show a cab driver the address I had written down on a piece of paper.  It was then that I experienced the most thrilling and nerve racking cab ride of my life, complete with motorcycle messengers racing in between traffic and kicking the cab if it dared impede their progress.   They are commonly referred to as “cachorros locos,” Portuguese for “mad dogs” and rightfully so.   One or two die every day doing their job.  Surprisingly, I made it to my friends place in one piece.  As interesting and cultural as San Paulo is, the ability to escape the chaos in a couple hours to some of the most beautiful beaches and small coastal towns in the world is what I found most appealing about the city.

This was back in the days of film when one of my clients was South Carolina State Parks.  It was after sunset on an incredibly calm summer evening.  If I recall correctly the exposure was around 20 seconds or so and the boat was so motionless that it is still sharp.  It was the last exposure of the night before I called it a day and went back to my tent for the night.  To think I actually had to wait several days before picking up the film from the lab to see the results……… boy have things changed in this business.

This image brings me back to my formative days.  After college in Baltimore I moved to Greenville, South Carolina to take a full time assistant position with a commercial photography studio.  After work on Friday I would head to the mountains to camp, hike, rock climb, kayak, and shoot.  It was during those two years of exploring that I fell in love with this region.  I was hooked……..and still am!

Rolling Kayaker on the Chattooga River on the South Carolina/ Georgia border.

This was a photo shoot of a Pheasant Hunt for “Garden & Gun”  in West Virginia.  It was a great assignment, but I was also thrilled to come back in one piece.  Walking ahead to be able to photograph them shooting over top of my head when the Pheasant was flushed out, was a little unnerving.  It was right around the time Dick Cheney shot his friend while hunting, which definitely affected my typical “these are experienced professionals, I have nothing to worry about”  mentality.

Pheasant Hunt in the fall at Primland Resort in West Virginia for a story in Garden & Gun Magazine.

This is a category that will encourage me to produce fresh content on a consistent basis, share recent work and projects, or dig into the archives and find images that may have been overlooked or just forgotten.

It is truly amazing how many images we create as photographers, never to see the light of day.  Only a tiny fraction make the cut to be published, used in the marketplace, or even grace my monitor for more than a second.  If the most recent re-release of the infamous 1972  “Exile on Main Street”  album, by the Rolling Stones, isn’t a testament to the gems that may be buried in the archives, I don’t know what is.  Not that I could ever compare myself or work to that of the Stones, but if songs like “Plundered My Soul”, which has quickly become in my top ten list of all songs, could somehow be passed over and missed by the band and producers, surely, there are a couple images in my archive ready to get a second look.

There will be no rhyme or reason to this category.  It will  simply serve as a place where I can upload an image on a consistent basis that does not need to fit into a category, illustrate a story, or be approved by an art director or editor.  It can stand on its own for what it is.  Here begins a personal test of my commitment to posting work on a consistent basis.