Emerald Bay Photography News and Updates

Traditionally, the Thanksgiving feast is an opportunity to give thanks for the bounty of food, bestowed by a successful summer and fall harvest.

Given however that most people don't hunt or grow their own food these days, it just becomes a beautiful ceremony - a chance to gather around the table with family, friends and loved ones, and share some good chow.

If you're lucky like me though, and accidentally surround yourself with foodies who cook up the perfect storm of dishes, it becomes an opportunity not just to feast the stomach, but also the eyes...:

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, Bend photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, food images, food photographer Bend OR, food photographer San Francisco CA

So I got myself a ring flash not too long ago, and finally got the chance to try it out on a client shoot.

Here are the yummy results!









I love how it glosses and tones the skin. I tried a couple of different backgrounds, and found a flat black painted, smooth wall in the gym to be ideal.

Try this at home!

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, commercial photographer Bend Oregon, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, fitness photography, sports fitness photographer Bend Oregon

I think my editor at TIME Magazine has some sort of special radar. I may not talk to her for eons, but she seems to know exactly when I'm either gone on vacation, or when I'm about to leave on vacation.

Point in case: last week, I was scrambling to get my work organized in order to leave on a 10 day trip to California. Tuesday was a day of solid meetings, and I had a 2-hour shoot scheduled for Wednesday at 10am. So who calls me on Tuesday afternoon with an assignment, completely out of the blue? My TIME editor. Just like she did last time.

Now - alert readers will note here that my bread and butter consists of architectural, food, and product photography. To spice things up though and keep it lively, there's the occasional editorial/corporate portrait. But what really trips my trigger (literally) is shooting an editorial - telling or illustrating a story with my camera.

So doing the occasional shoot for TIME, Canoe & Kayak, or some other magazine is always fun. Yet this particular assignment was different. No heads-up to the subject. No fuzzy, happy "let's make this look good" approach. No. This was going to be complete clandestine. A "no comment" shoot. My instructions were *not to be seen*, and not to talk to anybody.

The target? Mount Bachelor Academy, about 20 miles east of Prineville.



The private school had been recently in the news about the State investigating possible abuses. TIME was picking up on that, but because the story was going to be negative, they couldn't ask for PR images from the school. So they called me.

The deadline was tighter than usual - less than 24 hours. As I had already scheduled that other shoot (which was impossible to postpone due to a unique subject unavailability), I decided to get up at 5am and drive the hour and a half to the location in order to be able to return to Bend in time for my 10am.

April in Oregon can be unpredictable however. As it turned out, it had snowed the night before. The road froze, coating the tarmac with a 1/4 inch of black ice. Which literally turned the surface into an *ice rink*. I got only a few miles past Prineville before I had to turn around - or risk breaking my neck.



A quick call to my editor later, she agreed to postpone the deadline to the early evening so I could go back in the afternoon (and after the ice had melted off the road).

So I drove back to Bend, did my other shoot, then returned to Prineville in the afternoon. The road was clear now. Thanks to Google Maps/Earth, I knew exactly what to expect from the location: a big, semi-fenced compound with several buildings, situated clear up against a deserted stretch of highway, high up in the Ochoco National Forest. No real way to sneak up and carefully compose a shot. Oh, well. Drive-by shooting it was then.





Hours later I delivered the finished shots to my editor. She wrote: "Success! This is better than expected." Thursday morning I delivered high-res. Friday, the story ran.

Wham. Bam.
High pressure deadline.
Instant gratification.

As much as I love being able to take my time styling, tweaking, and lighting my photo subjects, and through the resulting images help my clients gain new business - I have to admit, the editorial way of working has its appeals too. There's a certain soul satisfaction in contributing to a story that might alter someone's life, change someone's mind about a topic. Especially when you know that millions of people will read it.

What it boils down to for me however is balance - keeping my interest in the craft fresh, knowing that I can tackle any challenge that presents itself, and maintaining that equilibrium that gets me up out of bed every morning, ready to shot the next big challenge.

I love my job.

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, Bend Oregon photographer, Bend photographer, Central Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

Bend-based travel writer Tim Neville and I have been working for the past 8 months on a 4-part series of articles for Canoe & Kayak Magazine, chronicling his efforts to build a kit kayak in his garage.

Arriving at Part 3, he writes:

"You start out building a boat with all these grand, romantic visions of Man and His Craft, getting sawdust in your hair, sanding a keel that's fair and true, and then reality hits. You don't know shit and things that should take an hour take a day.

Then winter hits and it's freezing outside and you have no place to work. But you're not alone with your troubles. In fact, there's a whole community of boat builders out there with all the knowledge you need. Hit it right and not only will you have a warm place to work with an expert to guide you, but you'll become friends in the process and that means paddling buddies when it's all said and done."

And looky here - a community of saw dust, glue and cedar he found indeed:



Look for the entire story and more pics in the May or June issue of Canoe & Kayak Magazine.

Because I'm lame though and forgot to post pics of Part 1 & 2, here they are now. Better late than never, right?

Labels: boat building, Canoe and Kayak, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

Last Tuesday, February 12th, BendFilm and the Tower Theatre premiered the first film in their new Indie Reels series, a celebration of independent film outside of the annual festival.



The brainchild of new BendFilm director Sandy Henderson and Tower Theatre chairman Eli Ashley, the series debuted with the film "The Breast Cancer Diaries", and drew a packed house.



A sometimes sober, sometimes bitterly funny commentary, the film chronicled the story of a thirty-something Maine newscaster who turns the camera on herself during her ordeal with breast cancer. The excellent documentary was followed by an equally interesting panel of local doctors, discussing the disease and answering questions from the audience.



It was an enlightening evening - part entertainment, part education, but wholly for a good cause. Getting the opportunity to be part of and photographing important events like these makes it all worth while for me. More pics here ...

Labels: BendFilm, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography, Event Photography

Sometimes, in my line of work, it happens that I have to wrestle beasts, brutes and monsters. And I'm not just talking about a particularly finicky photo editor or client...

And so it was then last week, that I got to work with a special kind of monster. It had a purple tongue. And scaly skin. And claws. In short - it was the newest addition to the wildlife area of the Bend High Desert Museum: the Gila Monster.



Wikipedia generously provides us with the following account (and so much more) about the charming qualities of above creature:

The gila monster (pronounced "HEE-la") is a species of venomous lizard native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It is a heavy, slow moving lizard, up to 60 cm (2 feet) long, and is the largest lizard native to the USA.

Unlike snakes which use hollow upper teeth (fangs), the Gila monster injects venom into its victim through grooves in the teeth of its lower jaw. The teeth are loosely anchored, which allows them to be broken off and replaced throughout their lives. The Gila monster produces only small quantities of its neurotoxic venom, which is secreted into the lizard's saliva. By chewing its prey, however, it tries to put as much of the venom into the bloodstream of its victim as possible. The Gila monster's bite is normally not fatal to humans (there are no confirmed reports of fatalities), but it can bite quickly and holds on tenaciously.



From the kind and most informative creature wrestler at the museum (a brave soul who stood in the terrarium only inches from the lizard and tried to coerce it into posing for my camera for a full hour), I learned that the Gila monster is shy and spends 98% of its life underground. Which I suppose explained why it apparently didn't like my lights too much and - fussy as it was - constantly tried to crawl into cracks and holes in the exhibit.



The lizard also showed off an incredible gift for climbing and moved at surprising speeds on the slick rock. Again, the handler related that should one come across one of these lizards in the wild (unlikely, but it's been known to have happen), one should just back away slowly - and quietly hope that the lizard may be too full from a recent feast of mice and other small animals to be in the mood to chase after you.



Knowing all that, I was pretty happy that I even got the shots I did - without having had to sacrifice any small animals, handlers, or even editors.

I think the museum was overjoyed too.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

As our world grows more visual every day, some of my clients are starting to look for new and innovative ways to incorporate my photography into their marketing.

One such client, Pilates Center of Bend, has just set foot into the brave new world of the web's latest darling - podcasting. By producing a series of podcasts, showcasing specific pilates exercises, and posting them for free on iTunes, they are hoping to attract not only virtual admirers, but also real-world clients.



Cleverly - and to keep their presentation dynamic - they have incorporated some of the photos I took for them into their own iTunes page and at the beginning of the podcast.



The first in their series of presentations - demonstrating the pelvic curl - is now available in iTunes or as a Quicktime movie via their website.

Want to even stay tuned to new pilates episodes as they hit the web? Easy. Just subscribe to them via iTunes!

Overall - very cool. And a refreshing way for me to see my clients utilizing photography.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, commercial photographer Bend Oregon, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

After the appetizer I served up last Monday, the main course is finally ready now for consumption.

Go ahead - gorge yourselves!

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

I did some cooking yesterday. The ingredients were:

6 beautiful fire dancers
Several cans of Kerosene
Colorful costumes and makeup
1 snow-covered clearing in the Cascade mountains
1 bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey

The result:

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

Kudos to the New York Times for writing an most excellent article on the importance of good architectural photography when trying to sell a high-end property or residence.

In real estate, a picture can be worth more than a thousand words. Much, much more. When selling properties online, agents and Web designers say that the pictures buyers see of houses and apartments for sale are often the first - and sometimes the only - chance for a seller to make a good impression. Less-than-flattering pictures can turn buyers off and lead to lonely open houses.

"Good photos will grab people's attention and help you sell a home," said Jacky Teplitzky, an executive vice president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in New York. "Bad pictures will absolutely give you trouble, because you won't have any calls on it, and nobody will come to see it."

Eighty percent of people across the country who bought a new home last year used the Internet while house hunting, and they rated photographs as the most useful tool in their search, according to a survey of buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors.

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, architectural photography, Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

Normally, winter is a time for me to kick back a bit, relax, collect myself again for the busy Spring/Summer shooting season. You know - catch up on reading those great books you've been saving all summer, go out snowshoeing, organize your office, prepare your taxes - fun stuff like that.

Not *this* winter, however.

I suppose that's what happens when you're finally so sought after in your field that you can (have to) work all year round... Or when you decide to pull a second business up by the bootstraps, make yourself CEO and photo editor of it, and end up having the thing take on a life of its own.

Serves me right. I should have known better. That's what I get for being so damn ambitious. Hahaha.

To sum up the past 3 months though:

• My clients know that I love a challenge. This residence certainly was just that. Contemporary homes are hard to shoot because they tend to be very uncrowded, with simple, clean and stylish lines. That makes it hard to find things to fill your frame with. But I was actually very happy with the resulting images - look for a full portfolio and an article on the residence and its unusual family dynamic in the March/April issue of Bend Living.
  
• Speaking of Bend Living: Their beautiful coffee table book hit the stores and shelves last November, just in time for Christmas. Given that I was one of the 27 photographers chosen to participate in the project, I'm very happy with the finished book. Yay. And a big thumbs up to Tiffany at Bend Living for making her way through 9000 images to choose just the right ones. Nice going!
  
• Another project I recently shot that is worth mentioning: the St. Charles Heart Center in Bend. This is actually an amazingly elegant, non-sterile space for a hospital. I wish all my commercial architecture projects were this interesting!
  
• Couple of editorial assignements that were fun: shooting Patrick Kruse, CEO of Bend dog product company Ruff Wear, with his dog Otis. And Redmond mayor Alan Unger - both for the Oregon Business Magazine. Look for the shots in this February's issue.

So there. That's the reason why I haven't really blogged in a while. Just in case anybody was wondering ...

Labels: architectural photographer Bend Oregon, architectural photography, Bend Oregon photographer, commercial photographer Bend Oregon, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

After shooting the BendFilm festival for 3 days straight - frankly, I'm exhausted.

On Saturday, I barely had enough time to process a few shots for Day 2, but just not enough to actually post them in the blog - so here they are now.

More extensive commentary and more images from all three days (and in specific the awards on Saturday) will get posted a bit later this week.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

For all those of you who have been living under a rock - the BendFilm festival officially opened yesterday for its 3rd year of showing and celebrating independent film.

I was there (as I will be today and tomorrow) to bring you all fresh shots from the event, hot off the CF card.

Check it out ...

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

:: Let it be noted that this post is preceeded by some seriously furious chest beating a la King Kong .. ::

So a couple of weeks ago, while I was still lingering in California on food photography assignment, a surprise phone call from the West Coast photo editor of TIME Magazine came in. She had found my website (yes, this one), liked my work, and needed me to do an assignment in Bend for them. This was Friday afternoon, 4.30pm.

After I had gotten over the initial minor heart attack and wave of self-doubt (ME? Why did they pick ME? Can I pull it off?), I convinced myself that this was going to be just like any other assignment - only on a bit tighter deadline. I made the arrangements for the shoot with the contact in Bend, cut my California stay short, did the shoot on Monday afternoon, and had the final 30 selections to the editor Monday night.

The coolness of it all hadn't really sunk it though until yesterday - when I found two sample copies of the magazine (current, October 9 issue) in my mailbox.



Here's the page with my half-page shot leading the story:



And if anybody is interested in reading the story, it's right here (although only the print version shows off the picture).

Yay.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

I first saw them a bit over 3 weeks ago - during ArtWalk in downtown Bend.

There they were: Clad in leather and colorful outfits, adorned with tattoos, lean, glowlight paint on their bodies. They twirled and twisted to the rythmic beat of drums - and they breathed fire.

"They" are the newest (and by far coolest) night-time attraction in Bend: FyreFlyte, a troup of fire dancers.

Watching them, I trance-like time-travelled back to last year's Burning Man - and then I remembered to pick up my camera, and actually take some shots....

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography

Many moons ago, when I was still living in the Bay Area (or more precisely Sonoma County), I used to go to a small Irish pub in Sebastopol to listen to some live music on Wednesdays and enjoy a hard cider.

The acts were always good, but one frequently featured musician with a raspy blues voice, cool funky tunes, and some interesting tattooes really stood out: Eric Lindell.

So when I saw his name in the line-up at last Saturday's Bite of Bend, I grabbed my camera and headed down there to take some shots and enjoy his music.













Overall, it's just real nice to see a musician do well, and judging from the concert line-up he has on his site, he seems to keep busy.

For anybody interested in hearing his sound, head on over here.

Labels: Bend Oregon photographer, editorial photographer Bend Oregon, Editorial Photography