Larry Kurzweil & Bart Simpson
I got to head down to Universal Studios Hollywood a while back to photograph the President of Universal Studios, Larry Kurzweil for Carnegie Mellon’s alumni magazine. The one requirement, not imposed by the magazine, was that one of the Simpson’s characters had to be in the shot. Universal PR was insisting on this one point and the magazine was ok with it so I obliged. The studio originally wanted Homer in the shot but the costumes are so enormous in real life that Larry was dwarfed next to Homer, so we went with Bart.
Mamiya 7II
Last summer I bought the much hyped and hard to get Fuji X100 camera as a little carry around camera. After using it I instantly determined that, while the files it produces are very nice, the camera itself is infuriating to use. As I noted on my trip to New York City, even though the X100 was with me everywhere I went, I used my iPhone instead.
Shoot Film
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.”
Christopher Hitchens RIP
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).
Smile
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.
