Editorial and Portrait Photography – Eric Kayne

It’s a question I get asked fairly often by the photo desk at the local paper. I get a strange mix of excitement and trepidation. Excitement because I know if I want the most dramatic photos, I’ll need to get there quickly and hit the ground running. Trepidation because I don’t get phone calls because something really good has happened – it’s usually a fire where someone might be trapped, a SWAT stand-off with a hostage involved, or like yesterday, when I got a call to head to east Harris county because a four-year old girl had been shot.

I knew that it would be at least 45 minutes before I could be on the scene. It was late in the day and I wasn’t sure what traffic would be like. When I relayed this to the editor, he said the incident had happened hours ago. I settled down a bit, knowing that all I’d probably get was a shot of some yellow police tape flapping in the wind with maybe a cop standing around in the background. I wouldn’t call this breaking news. It was more like news that was already broken.

Harris County Sherrif's Deputy J. Guillen removes police tape after officers investigated an incident where 4-year-old girl, Marquetta Davis, was accidentally shot this afternoon as two people argued at an east Harris County home, sheriff's officials said, Aug. 31, 2010 in Houston. The child was taken by ambulance to Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center, where she was in stable condition. She is expected to survive, authorities said. The incident happened in the 13500 block of Castilian at 2:50 p.m. as two people argued inside the residence, deputies said. During the fight, someone fired a gun through a door and the child was struck in the back by a bullet, sheriff's officials said.

Nonetheless, I’m a firm believer that there is always something worth documenting. I got to the scene and sure enough, there was the yellow tape in front of the tired, weather-beated apartment complex. Harris county sheriff’s deputies milled about and I could tell by the feel of the scene that things were going to be wrapped up soon. I was about to pack up and leave after I photographed a deputy taking down the police tape. When behind me, I heard a woman crying. I followed her to ask her what was wrong. The police were taking her husband down to the station (others were later charged) for questioning. He had been sitting in the back of the police car since I had been there, but she had thought they were going to let him go.

Crystal McGaha cries as Sheriff's deputies drive away with her husband for questioning in the incident.

A photo I made of the band behind the Granada Theatre in Sherbrooke, QC before a warm-up show in June, 2010.

The nice people at the ArcadeFireTube twitter feed found this for me. Thanks!

Like the caption says, I made this photo behind the Granada Theatre in Sherbrooke, QC before a warm-up show in June, 2010. The whole back area of the theatre was great – lots of shaded light, a fire escape balcony to stand on, a great rock band to photograph.

Lately I’ve been doing quite a bit of shooting with my Yashica T4, a great point-and-shoot from the mid-1990′s that has a very sharp Zeiss lens on it. Part of the fun is heading to Walgreen’s or CVS to turn in a roll of film when I’m done. I love the anticipation and waiting and most of all getting prints(!) when I come in to pick up my order.

My last visit, I had the roll scanned to a CD instead of getting prints, figuring I can order prints individually (all these prints can get expensive, yah know? and where do I store them all? it’s bad enough trying to keep digital files organized, but I digress). Before I left, I looked at the photos on a reprint kiosk next to the counter. I noticed that just about all of the scans were off, showing some or most of the edge of the negative frame between shots. Looking through them, I was excited by the dialogue these happy accidents were creating. I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes by photographer Keith Carter, who quoted poet William Stafford to “always be on guard against perfection.” The image below is my favorite “mistake” from the roll.

Carrie with red handbag/red shirt in bathroom

Two more published photos of Arcade Fire I shot for the band were presented online yesterday for a couple of French-language publications.

Arcade Fire photographed at the Laval Cine Park, an abandoned drive-in movie theatre about an hour outside of Montreal.

You can find a link to the story where this photo was used here.

Arcade Fire photographed behind the Théâtre Granada in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

You can find a link to the story where this photo was used here.

Pitchfork Media uses a photo I made of the band in an abandoned drive-in theatre outside of Montreal. Check it out here.

Arcade Fire photographed for The Suburbs

This is one of my favorite images I made of Arcade Fire. I’m very happy to see it on a cover. We photographed this in the woods near a resort town in the Quebec countryside.

There was a lot of spontaneity on the shoot at this point. Win Butler jumped into the water on his own volition and this photo lined itself up soon after.

If anyone has a few extra copies of this magazine floating around and would like to send them to me in Houston, I’ll make it worth your while – I’ll send you a free 20″ x 30″ print of the band.

Rock and roll! The photos I shot of Arcade Fire are finally starting to be published. I have the front cover and a double-truck in the current issue of Billboard magazine. Check ‘em. Let me know what ‘cha think!

These photos were shot in an abandoned drive-in theatre outside of Montreal. The weather was miserable but I think it added to the mood of the photos. There are so many from this session I love, but alas, most of them are still embargoed.

Cover of the July 10, 2010 issue of Billboard magazine. Arcade Fire cover story.

Double-truck!!

The scoop!

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted any fresh work on here, but trust me, I have my reasons. My saga began back in April, when I decided to take a trip to India. It had been a life-long dream. It was two weeks I’ll never forget and don’t worry, those pictures will come soon. I shot it all on film and I’m still in the process of scanning in medium format negatives.

Another adventure began when I was hired by very well-known indie rock band that, until the embargo on the images has passed, I’ll refer to as AF. AF flew me literally half-way across the world from Mumbai to Austin to shoot production stills for a movie they wrote the script for. It was directed by a famous director that, again for now, I can only mention as SJ.

After that adventure, I settled in back at home in Houston and did post-production on the stills from the movie. The band loved the photos and hired me to photograph some of their warm-up shows and band portraits for 10 days in Canada.

Between band gig number one and band gig number two, I hired photo consultant extraordinaire Jasmine DeFoore. She negotiated my contract. Currently, I’ve retained her services to help me with my brand and marketing. She is also my editor for a new project I’ve started, tentatively called “A Man and His Castle”.

It’s a project I’m very excited about. The basic premise is photographing people who have had to use deadly force to protect themselves and their property. Most of the time a person is protected by the Castle Doctrine. The  plan is to photograph people in the room where the shooting occurred while holding the weapon they used. I’ll also be shooting some interview video and will do my best to take you, gentle reader, along for the ride.

For the time being, y0u’ll have to satiate yourself with some greatest hits from my day job as a photojournalist from the past couple of months.

Cheers and more soon,

Eric

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Klein celebrates after defeating Klein Collins in the second of a best of three game to win the Class 5A Region II finals Friday, June 4, 2010 in College Station, Texas. Klein defeated Klein Collins 10.

Klein Collins’ catcher John Ledesma has a quiet moment after being defeated by Klein.

Giuseppe Risi, president of Risi Competizione, sits next to a Ferrari 430 GT raced in the 2008 and 2009 season. Risi Competizione was founded in 1997. Risi Competizione is the Ferrari of Houston-based racing team, directed by Risi, that has been very successful in sports car racing in both Europe and the United States. In addition to racing Ferraris and Maseratis, Risi Competizione also provides competition development, management, and support services. Giuseppe Risi is the owner & managing director of the team.

Houston Police Department investigates a possible capital murder in an apartment complex in the 5800 block of Sunforest.  The Luxor Apartment complex, where the murder happened, is also where Houston Police Officer Timothy Abernathy was ambushed and killed following a traffic stop in Dec. 2008.

Days ago, Stanislass Augustin lost her mother, Gertha Augustin, in a terrible car accident. Initial reports said the accident was caused by a local high school basketball superstar. The following day when the accident was reported in the news, only the name of the basketball superstar was mentioned. Augustin, understandably upset her mother’s name wasn’t mentioned in any news reports, called local media outlets to ask why. The reason is the family needs to give permission to release the name.

That being said, it’s a tragedy anytime a person, in this case a grandmother and a nurse, dies because of another person’s irresponsibility. Gertha Augustin was a generous woman, originally from Haiti, who worked at M. D. Anderson.

Myself and Shaminder Dulai, a reporter at the Houston Chronicle, were called out to photograph and interview her daughter. Situations like these can sometimes be uncomfortable. I’ve been on more than one of these assignments where the surviving family didn’t know we were coming. However, this was not the case this time. Augustin’s daughter, Stanislass, was very open and inviting. While she chatted with Shaminder, I made a picture I thought was story-telling and documentary in style. I also always make a safety picture in assignments like these. Of course, the safe photo is the one they ran with.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Stanislass Augustin, 32, pictured with her son Elijah, 18 months, talks about her mother Gertha Augustin, who was killed in a car accident with Belliare star basketball player Tobi Oyedeji May 17, 2010 in Richmond, TX.

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The “safety” shot.