Emerald Bay Photography News and Updates

Great article in the New York Times today. Renowned photojournalist David Burnett explains why he prefers lugging around a 55-year-old 4-by-5-inch Graflex Speed Graphic camera to his Canon 20D digital SLR.

On the screen was a wide overhead picture of a John Kerry rally last fall in Madison, Wis., which Mr. Burnett shot with a Canon 20D digital camera, the same camera used by thousands of other professionals around the world. Not surprisingly, the picture looks like thousands of others that were shipped around the globe during the campaign.

The colors are bright. Every part of the image is crisp, so crisp that just picking the minuscule figure of Mr. Kerry out of the huge crowd takes a "Where's Waldo?" moment.

And then Mr. Burnett flipped to a photograph taken seconds later with the ancient Speed Graphic. Suddenly, the image took on a luminescent depth. The center of the image, with Mr. Kerry, was clear. Yet soon the crowd along the edges began to float into softer focus on translucent planes of color.

The effect is to direct the viewer's eye to Mr. Kerry while also conveying the scale and intensity of the crowd. In accomplishing both at the same time, the old-fashioned photograph communicates a rich sense of meaning that the digital file does not.

The digital picture pretends to display raw reality. The analog picture is a visualization of human memory.

Alert photographers might also remember the image David Burnett took of Al Gore on the campaign-trail that won him a "Eyes of History" award. It was taken with a $15 plastic Holga camera.

Labels: photography, photography gear

Photographers who have been in the business for many more moons than me will placidly smile at me for this post, for they know the feeling (and they're sooo over it) - making that very first cover.

But - it's still exciting for me. Especially if the cover is for a classy publication like Bend Living - or more precisely, the "High Desert Home" section of the June 2005 edition of Bend Living.



Shooting the house of painter Rika Peterson has been a real pleasure in more than one way - after the exhaustive selection of log and arts-and-crafts homes I've shot over the past years, Rika's clean white walls (adorned with those fabulous paintings), the straight lines, and modern furniture was like a much-needed rejuvination for my own artistic eye.

Above all though it was a challenge. Shooting a home that gets away with very little detail decoration - all the while wrestling two young, energetic Great Danes roughly the size of your average circus pony into sitting still on a sofa - was a lot harder than it sounded at first. Getting those colors (and especially the white of the walls) just right, was a whole other can of worms.

But even without the reward of the cover, the experience itself was well worth it.
For I got to work with a fantastic photo editor who chose all my favorite images (thanks, Tiffany!), I gained a new friend in Rika - *and* the hearts of Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, the two very large, very slobbery dogs Rika calls her own.

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, photography

Another image from my Vienna file - Hofreitschule (Royal Riding School):



The interesting thing about this image is not necessarily the fact that these stunning and famous Lippizaner Stallions are being worked in what must be the world's most lavish riding hall - but how difficult it was to actually *obtain* the image.

Because you see - the facility has a strict no-photo policy. And by "strict" those Austrians really mean *strict* (the word "Nazi" creeps to mind, but I won't go there...). During the entire workout presentation, they had guards with sinister faces circulating among the crowd, yelling at you if they even sensed you were thinking about using that camera that hung around your neck. They even threatened to kick you out of the building altogether if they caught you in the act.

They claimed that the flashes of (those mostly all-automatic consumer) cameras made the horses nervous and irritable - and while I actually don't dispute that, they could have just had a no-flash policy instead of a no-photo policy. (The fact that the adjoining gift store was loaded with pretty postcards and picture books of the building and the horses probably had absolutely nothing to do with their policy either ...). After all, my 10D took a perfectly good image without flash and an almost silent shutter...

Astonishingly (and this explains the very presence of the guards), at almost any given moment during the entire 2-hour presentation, you could hear the faint clicks of shutters - mixed in with the blasting tune of Mozart's music - and see the flashes. At this point, I have to sheepishly admit to ganging up with my travel companions in keeping one eye on the guards, while we took turns sneaking our cameras out of the bag, taking a shot, and then instantly dropping it back into the bag or under the shirt.

Why? Because you see - we humans are weak. The breathtaking beauty of the hall, combined with those stunning horses doing flabbergasting things we never thought a horse could do (except in Disney movies), is simply too much for the mere mortal tourist with his camera - it simply has to be recorded. For all eternity. And of course for your friends at home to see. We are even willing to take the risk of a confrontation with one of the meanest guards anywhere just to satisfy one of our most basic urges: the irresistible need to click away.

Labels: oregon stock photography, photography, travel, travel photographer

Yes, I suffer the fate of every freelance photographer - trying to balance work life (shooting assignments, stock, and charity gigs) with the fun life (stuff I really want to shoot, but never have the time to).

For almost 9 months now, a file has been simmering away on my hard drive. It's been whispering to me "Open me! Work on me!", but I've been ignoring it, opting to focus on the work life. Lately however, that file's call has been getting louder, and I've decided to harness a few minutes every day to work on and post its pictures.

They are from my trip to Europe last September. The old world is so rich on eyecandy, so overwhelming - that you come back, your visual cortex brimming and singing with imagery. It takes a while to digest them, and the same went for that file. But I think I'm ready now.

So here's the first of what I hope will be a daily installment of fresh images from that file:



Prater, Vienna - Funride, blurred. Handshot @ F 6.7, 1/4 sec.

Vienna is famous for many things. But one of the only ones you should go to at night is the Prater - that's when the one of the oldest amusement parks in the world really comes alive. With almost 150 rides and a huge Ferris Wheel, it's an exhilirating experience, both visual and tactile.

Labels: oregon stock photography, photography, travel, travel photographer