JEFF SINGER BLOG - SAN FRANCISCO EDITORIAL & COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER » editorial

Shoot Film

Jeff Singer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:07:20 +0000

I’ve been shooting film on all my editorial shoots so far in 2012 and I plan to continue (unless things like deadlines call for digital). Whenever I mention that I’m shooting film to the Photo Editor or Art Director, they pretty much say the same thing; “Film? Cool! I love film!” A Photo Editor just the other day said to me: “Oh, you shoot film? No wonder I love your work!”

Then, when I get to the shoot and pull out something like my Mamiya RZ67, every subject has said just about the same thing; “Whoa, what kind of camera is that? You’re shooting film? Wow!” You know what I hear a lot when I pull out a Canon digital?

“Oh, I have one of those.”

Update:
Of course, the day after I post this, Kodak files for bankruptcy. Time to stock up?

Christopher Hitchens RIP

Jeff Singer — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:04:11 +0000

Christopher Hitchens died today. As I wrote here before, Hitchens has been one of my most interesting subjects to date. He was actually one of the very first assignments I received after becoming a photographer… my second editorial assignment to be exact. It’s intimidating enough to be a new photographer and working on only your second editorial shoot let alone having it be Christopher Hitchens (it didn’t help when his wife told me, during the shoot, how Annie Leibovitz photographed their wedding with a Holga).

I was familiar with Hitchens through appearances on shows like The Daily Show and Bill Maher and some of his writing for Vanity Fair. I knew going in I didn’t want to discuss politics with him since I would be far outclassed but given that there was an election coming up, it was inevitable. It was interesting to hear the perspective on the candidates (and their wives) from someone who actually knew them personally. When most people give their opinions on a candidate it’s based on what they see or read in the news, but when you’re with someone telling you about having dinner “at The Kerry’s”, it gives a different level of credibility to what they’re telling you.

The shoot probably went on longer than he anticipated but he was incredibly patient with me and made the shoot enjoyable. It was an honor to get to meet him.

RIP Mr. Hitchens.

Smile

Jeff Singer — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:01:28 +0000

Today over on A Photo Editor there’s a link to a Rodney Smith blog post about smiling in photos. Rodney doesn’t think smiling photos have substance. I don’t know that I agree with that, but I know I tend to like non-smiling photos. I have a total of seven on my entire website and only one in my portfolio (although it depends on what qualifies as a smile… there are some very slight smiles that I didn’t count). I tend to take things a bit further though… It seems I don’t even like people looking at the camera.

I posted about this a year ago, but looking over recent shoots I think I’m getting worse. I routinely choose the photos where the subject isn’t looking at the camera (I will say, the client rarely chooses those). I keep wondering what this says about myself.

Emily’s Army – Travis Nuemann

Jeff Singer — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 17:23:33 +0000

Follow up on my post a couple days ago, last week I photographed Cole Becker and Travis Nuemann of Emily’s Army for Guitar World magazine. Here is an outtake of the other guitarist Travis Nuemann.

More about the band and the shoot when the issue comes out.

License or custom prints of this image here.

Emily’s Army – Cole Becker

Jeff Singer — Tue, 31 May 2011 16:47:05 +0000

Last week I photographed Cole Becker and Travis Nuemann of Emily’s Army for Guitar World magazine. The issue won’t be coming out until September so I can’t show any of the pics yet but here was an outtake I shot for myself because I really liked this giant door at the shoot location.

More about the band and the shoot when the issue comes out.

License or custom prints of this image here.

Nick Zinner @ Public Works

Jeff Singer — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:59:48 +0000

Another shot of Nick Zinner of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs taken for Blackbook Magazine at Public Works in San Francisco.

Hunx & His Punks

Jeff Singer — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:00:32 +0000

I photographed Hunx & His Punks for Blackbook Magazine at the San Francisco Library. I had never heard of them but I’ve been seeing them mentioned in a magazines quite a bit lately. They were an interesting and fun crew to work with.

Vintage Luxe

Jeff Singer — Tue, 03 May 2011 15:20:37 +0000

The magazine Vintage Luxe out of Taiwan wanted to use one of my Thomas Keller images for this months cover. Looks good.

Andrew Bangs

Jeff Singer — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:47:26 +0000

I met Andrew Bangs working on a shoot for Blackbook Magazine covering Noise Pop. Andrew is a writer here in San Francisco and if you need to know where you should go in San Francisco Andrew is the man; He researches restaurants and bars for Blackbook’s City Guide. Sounds like a good gig to me.

Andrew gave me a shout-out in a Scout Mob interview today:

SCOUT: Noise Pop was about a week’s worth of events, but you must have had one super memorable moment. What was it?
ANDREW: It actually wasn’t at a show or anything like that. One morning we were scheduled to meet the singer Ted Leo at the Peace Pagoda in Japantown for an interview & photo shoot. He was running late, so the photographer Jeff Singer and I just hung out and had a long conversation. Jeff’s a real cool guy, SF based, super talented.

Well thanks Andrew, you’re a cool guy as well and it was fun hanging out in the freezing cold waiting for the hung over rock star who would never show (although my girlfriend thinks she’s the reason it’s was the most memorable moment… understandable). And thanks for being my stand in at the shoots.

Tamaryn

Jeff Singer — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:45:20 +0000

I photographed Tamaryn for Blackbook Magazine for an article on Noise Pop. We did the shoot at a local vintage clothing store in San Francisco.

You may notice the larger image. I’m going to start posting larger images here. If I’m feeling sufficiently motivated I’ll update some back posts as well.