Needed to find a feature yesterday for the Houston Chronicle so I found a cheerleading competition at the Reliant Center.
On Assignment: Dr. Jeffrey Starke for Consumer Reports
Last month I had the opportunity to photograph Dr. Jeffrey Starke, a researcher at the Baylor College of Medicine for an interesting article about unnecessary cancer screening tests. The reproduction looks great, as it usually does in magazines.
Foggy morning
A foggy morning in Houston last Sunday helped me produce the couple of images below[gallery ids="2109,2110"]
Brad Epley, chief conservator, at The Menil Collection
Brad Epley is a hero of sorts. When a vandal named Uriel Landeros decided to spray-paint a stencil over a Pablo Picasso painting in June 2012, Epley, the chief conservator at The Menil Collection in Houston rushed to begin repair on the painting before the paint dried. I was assigned to make his portrait for the Houston Chronicle. After making a series of portraits outdoors beside the museum, and a few in front of a large John Chamberlain sculpture (the museum would not allow us to photograph the repaired Picasso. I did see it personally, however, and it looked great to me), I was ready to pack it up when I spied a headset magnifier in the conservator's workspace. It's not the most original idea to photograph someone wearing glasses that distort their eyes, but the location was great and I was hoping everything would work as a two shot portrait. Plus, the conservator's workspace included it's own lights, used for illuminating art while cleaning and repairing it. It was like walking in to a perfect studio.
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Boeing 787 Dreamliner
A photo that I quite like of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner ran last week in the travel section of The New York Times as a minor element in a review of the aircraft.[gallery link="file"]
Venomous Maximus
A few weeks ago, I photographed the Houston metal band Venomous Maximus. I was encouraged when I arrived at lushly overgrown yard deep in the Montrose, just a few blocks from where I live. From the outside, it looks like the Boo Radley house. Inside, however, is a fully fledged tattoo parlor called Secret Tattoo. What more perfect place could one ask for a metal band portrait. As corny as it sounds, I thought earlier in the day about getting a smoke machine just to pump up some of the texture. I later vetoed the idea, but remembered that a buddy had given me a small bounty of cigars at a house warming party. They were pretty dried out, almost yard-gar status. After working for a bit, getting them used to the strobes going off, I pulled out the cigars. The next thing you know, the lead singer goes off to his room and comes back with a sword. It was pure metal overload![gallery link="file"]
Shale water portrait
I had the opportunity yesterday to visit with and photograph entrepreneur and director of the Shale Water Research Center Ross Tomson for a Houston Business Journal story. I almost always enjoy photographing scientists because they're typically more giving of their time and let's face it - their lab is full of cool stuff to use as props. While Tomson's lab wasn't exactly like Dr. Frankenstein's, it did have a flask with cloudy water in it, something you don't normally find in the office of a CEO. I started with a straightforward portrait, one with very little shadows. I lit it using a strip light on either side of the subject and then using a softbox in front to illuminate his face. I don't think I quite have this mastered so I won't be showing it here. I have a friend of mine who uses light like this to amazing effect, but I'm still working on it. The second set I fell more into my comfort zone, which is to make portraits with heavy, stagey chiaroscuro lighting. I threw a 10 degree grid on the flask, and used one strip light to light Tomson. What does Tomson do, you ask? Basically, he researches and creates more environmentally-friendly shale water used for fracking. According to Molly Ryan's story in this week's Houston Business Journal, the company creates research, "to allow energy companies to reuse more water when drilling in shale formations, which in turn, will reduce companies’ water treatment costs, water purchasing costs and environmental concerns. Energy companies pay $100,000 for an annual membership to the center, which gives them access to research before it is published and allows them to shape the course of the center’s research initiatives."
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New work: August 2012 edition of The Texas Observer
Earlier this month, I was contacted by Kate Iltis of EmDash, the company contracted to design The Texas Observer. I met Kate when she reviewed my portfolio at the Texas Photo Round-up, my first gig that was a direct result of attending the gathering.
I was excited when she contacted me about doing a story in Freeport, Texas, where I had lived for a year as a staff photographer at the local newspaper about ten years ago. The story was about Gulf Chemical, a poorly regulated chemical recycler that was found to have been dumping massive amounts of waste into local waters and the air, among other concerns. Kate really wanted smoke coming out of the stacks, but the company would only go full bore during the cover of night or during rainstorms. Freeport is an hour and ten minutes south of me. I left very early to try and catch smoke emitting from the stacks. However, when I got down there, there was no smoke to be seen. I made do with what was there and then decided to check out the shrimp boat docks that are about a mile away to photograph a shrimper that I knew was half-submerged in the Old Brazos River (I knew this because this same boat has been rotting away in the canal at least since I was a photographer at the local paper ten years ago). As I was working the half-sunken shrimp boat, I saw a yellow fishing boat heading in the opposite direction. I decided to track it and as I spun around, I saw a big plume of yellow, sulfurous smoke come out of one of the stacks. I started hammering away on the shutter, silently muttering prayers of thanks to the photo gods. According to writer Forrest Wilder, "Those brief "puffs" are due to the "rapping" units at Gulf Chem. It's an inherent part of the system there and allowed by TCEQ. A former executive with the company explained it to me."
I've found environmental stories to be some of the most challenging assignments I've had to shoot. Pollution is rarely something that can been seen with the naked eye, so it was a nice surprise.
The only real moment of drama was something that I had halfway expected and something that I'm unfortunately used to from working as an editorial photographer in Houston for the past five years. Whenever I pull over to the side of the road on a public thoroughfare to photograph a chemical or oil refinery, a plant security guard almost always drives out to where I am, parks behind my car, writes down my license plate number, and asks me a lot of questions. Even though what I'm doing is perfectly legal, it's their job to make it as uncomfortable an experience as possible. This time, I did have someone park behind me while I was photographing the plant from a different angle from what's in the tearsheet. However, he never got out and engaged me. It was, after all, drizzling and the air was thick with mosquitos.
I've added a couple of out-takes in the end. One is of a 84 year-old barber who has been cutting hair in the same building since the mid-1950's. He was born next door. Despite being downwind from Gulf Chemical since it's inception, he is completely healthy and has no complaints. The guy repairing nets is Tom, who owns and operates Tom's Net Shop. He spends his days repairing nets used for shrimping. I found it amazing that his job hadn't been replaced by machines.[gallery link="file"]
Tom Wood, Shrimp Net Repairman
I had a recent photo assignment that sent me down to Freeport, Texas, about an hour south of Houston, where I live. While the story I shot for is an important one (and will subsequently will be published this Friday), being back in Freeport brought back memories from ten years ago, when I was a staff photographer at The (Brazosport) Facts. At the time, most of what I shot was newspaper fare: car wrecks, parades, high school athlete portraits. I could sense there was a deeper narrative to the place, basically built from the ground up around World War II to help process magnesium for the war effort. From that industry sprouted dozens of chemical refineries throughout the area. This evolved side by side with the shrimping industry. While photographing the chemical refineries is something that is typically done from the side of the road (and even then, a photographer will be asked questions and have his license plate recorded by a plant security guard), the shrimp dock in Freeport is much more accessible. According to Tom Wood, of Tom's Net Shop, the canal where the shrimp boats dock used to overflow with hundreds of ships. The one shrimp processing facility, I was told, started making drastic cuts for the price it paid for shrimp, and a great deal of the shrimpers eventually started docking elsewhere. Now that there is new ownership at the processing facility, it's thought by Wood that the docks may someday revive to their former glory. I photographed Tom Wood at his net repair shop as well as a few other areas that looked compelling. I used a Hasselblad to force me to slow down and take a closer look at the area. I look forward to returning to the area soon to explore the dock and Freeport soon.
New tearsheet - Harvard Business Review
I was recently contacted by the Harvard Business Review to drive up to New Waverly, Texas to photograph gymnastics coaching legend Bela Karolyi. Few have the reputation for coaching champion gymnasts like Karolyi. I wasn't sure to expect, but in a way, it seemed like a pilgrimage. Many of my favorite Houston-based editorial photographers had, at one time or another, made the same drive out into the woods of the Sam Houston National Forest to document the silver-haired Hungarian. When I got there, a film crew from Yahoo was just wrapping up. The threesome told me they were traveling around the country interviewing athletic greats. Man, what a great gig that is. Then they asked me about living in Houston, and then moved on to wonder out loud why anyone would want to live anywhere other than Los Angeles. Being a media grunt, I could see his point. There is definitely more action on the coasts. But I digress.
I wasn't sure how much time I'd have with Bela, so I made sure to set up with a quickness. To say that the gymnasium was warm would be an understatement. By the time I was finished setting up for the first shot, I was drenched. I let the maintenance guy know I was ready for Bela. Two minutes later, he arrived by golf cart and strode over the padded gymnasium floor and asked me where I'd like him to stand. I didn't really have to give him much direction. I'm sure this was the 1,237th time he'd been photographed. He feel into a relaxed stance, and we got busy. I'm glad I did all the sweating for us.
The only restrictions I had were knowing that the final image would be black and white, and that the designer needed about 1/3 of the frame available for text. Being able to control the light indoors was a plus. We were the only people in there so I had all the lights turned off and could actually use my modeling lights, which I'm almost never able to do. Another plus was Karolyi's silver hair and mustache, which I knew if I lit well, would draw the eye right to his face.
Bela stood calmly while I sweated and worked the first set up. We eventually moved to a second set-up, the uneven bars, where I made a few more pictures. My personal favorite is the shot by the uneven bars. HBR liked the vertical shot.
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Carol Paul and the Ron Paul Cookbook
About a month ago, I received a phone call from my good pal Brandon Thibodeaux, a regular contributing photographer for The Wall Street Journal. He wanted to know if I wanted to shoot the video segment for a Wall Street Journal feature story on Carol Paul and the Ron Paul Cookbook. Having a chance to produce a video for The Wall Street Journal sounded like a great opportunity, so I accepted the challenge. The shoot took most of the day, with WSJ reporter Elizabeth Williamson talking with and helping Carol Paul make a couple of recipes in Paul's new kitchen. Mrs. Paul was very gracious and a real character. She was a real pleasure to interact with and record. The editing took about a month, mostly due to being slammed with other work. The fine editors at the WSJ were okay with it, though. In fact, they were instrumental in providing feedback with my edit. It was almost like getting paid to learn.
I also made a lot of progress in finding my way around Final Cut Pro X, Apple's newest version of their non-linear video editing program. It's completely different from Final Cut Pro 7, sometimes in good ways. Other times, in not so good ways. So there was a learning curve there.
Bring your appetites and check out the video below.
The Eagle Ford Shale
I took a trip last week through the Eagle Ford Shale drilling area of south Texas. I wanted to see the oil and gas boom in action and first hand. I met a few interesting folks along the way, including the two men I met in a Carrizo Springs, Texas barbecue joint - Wes Baucom, left, and Terry Vaughn. Both are from other towns in Texas and have been working in the oil fields for many years. 
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Christians, tattoos and Lent all wrapped up into one picture
From a fun portrait shoot I did a couple of days ago...
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Typewriter repairman - Ross Herdejurgen
The adventures of photographing typewriter repairmen continues with Ross Herdejurgen, 83, who has been repairing typewriters since 1947. He has been in his current shop since 1973. He poses next to a pre-1948 Royal manual typewriter. This image was shot on chrome, which I can only get processed locally. The C-41 batch should arrive next week. Stay tuned..
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Tea Party - Better Late Than Never
During a massive cleaning of my office, I rediscovered some negatives from a self-assigned shoot to photograph a Tea Party rally in the summer of 2009 (I think) at a race track in Bay Town, Texas. Wanting to try something different, I rented a Hasselblad medium format camera and made the trek out to the rally. I seem to be attracted to the overt patriotism: flags and people dressed up as figures from American history, as well as a sense of the paranoia of a dystopian, socialist future that seems to drive much of the conversation at these events. Also to note: I shot a couple of different film stocks. One is chrome and the other was an expired batch of porta left over from grad school.[gallery]
"The Suburbs" wins a Grammy for best recording package
Most excellent designer Caroline Roberts won tonight's Grammy awards for her design of the recording package for Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" deluxe package released in 2011. Kudos to Caroline and I thank her for her kind acknowledgment. Thanks also to the band and their associates for the opportunity to work with them. I look forward to the next time!
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Bus stop slumber
After a portfolio review in Austin last week and hearing great feedback all around, but especially from Will Chau regarding a quirky-ness in my work I hadn't really defined before, I've decided to post some recent work I made with my Hasselblad. I've also been on a cleaning jag as of late and in the process discovered a bunch of uncut, unscanned negs that I'm going to give a second look. I also have one more roll of black and white film I shot on the way home from Austin that I still need to develop.
As for the review itself, I must say that I really need to step it up and attend these gatherings more often. It's hard to get honest feedback as a freelancer. We're kind of out here on our own and the opportunity to hear reactions to our work from professionals in the visual communication industry is priceless.
On a whim, I also went out to photograph a typewriter repair man after reading about him in the local paper. There is something anachronistic about someone who still makes a living repairing old technology. The experience has sparked some ideas about what I might focus on next. We'll see!
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Segregation's Doors
I'm very happy with the photo play of a portrait I made for the Houston Chronicle's Sunday Star section front. A great story about how brass doors from a Houston movie theatre that had segregated seating now adorn the front entrance of a Baptist church that serves the African-American community.
A couple of new images
Here are a couple of recent images I like. The first is from my project on the Karen refugee community in Houston. I brought along my Hasselblad and some Tri-X film and shot a couple of rolls. The camera takes some getting used to and is unforgivable with fine focus at wide open apertures. It'll definitely force me to shoot differently. I've also found that taking the time to process the film at home pays off in two ways. The first is that processing film is very meditative. It's not something you can drift off from. You have to pay attention to agitation, development times, and temperatures. Because this all takes time, it'll force me to become more selective and careful when I'm making images because I know that every shot will have to count.
The second images is a favorite from a shoot I did for Purina last week of two champion bird dogs in Cypress, Texas. The dogs were great because once they found a scent of a quail, they stood like statues.
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October and November portraits
October and November were thankfully busy months. Below are the results of some of my favorite portraits from the last two months.[gallery]