One sweet ride ....

There are a lot of things I like about this image. Beginning with my wife ... continuing to the magnificent 1960 FLXIBLE ... no that's how it's spelled. This particular one was built and customized for Mr. Ray Charles. Someone at Krispy knew what they were doing both in finding arguably the best example of a motorhome or RV ever made and hiring one of the best to bring it back. They are hard to find and very expensive to bring back to this level of new.

Secondly we bought an old Airstream earlier this year and hope one day to show it off in all it's renovated glory. One day. One of the most recognizable images from the old Airstream days is on one of their ads from the early sixties showing a woman "touching up her lips". When Liisa and I were at the Williams Brice Stadium shooting for a client we saw this and both ran towards it .... 

Unfortunately the other "thing" I like about the image is that I must admit it ... I am a donut guy I always have been ..... used to go to the YMCA just so I could run over to Taylor Street to get a dozen. 

Running into Old Friends

We had a project in DC ... Washington ... decided taking the family was a good idea. The Wife decided the Annual Science Fair was also a good idea ... so we went . You never know who you are going to run into and you should always dress accordingly.

I will tell you in case you have not seen them in a while ...  that they look marvelous - especially for single and double centurions. In truth it was such an extraordinary thing ... coming face to face with 2 of the most important people ever ..... what a strange feeling to talk to them ...... I kept looking around for Michael J Fox.

Ben said "how do you like YOUR glasses" and I said "great, thank you" .... Al said  "it's all relative you know" ... boy what an afternoon. 

You always remember your First ....

I remember this New York excursion so well .... what an incredible trip. My wife and I had just returned from a whirlwind tour of places. 2001 was a great year. We had been to London - Paris ( no we did not see anyones privies ) .... Boston - Phoenix ... I had also just been to Sante Fe on another week long Architectural photographers workshop . 

Our trip was to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. We got up the next morning to grab a cab outside the hotel and there stood one of my best friends Clark Ellefson and a friend who were staying at the same hotel and were headed out to the ICFF together . Small world.

Oh !  I almost forgot the one of the best parts ...... this image is the one of the first images I shot with a digital camera. This is a little swivel body Nikon 990 ..... my first. I was still shooting professionally with what every AP shot with back then ... a 4x5 "one sheet at a time" view camera ... like the camera Matthew Brady shot the Civil War with .... almost. 

This camera was a preview to what we enjoy today .... it changed everything.

WHICH FISH ?

How do you choose a photographer? Boy this should be interesting...... hmmm. Of course I am going to be biased but I'll try to be objective here.

I think the first item should be to evaluate the work. Then the style, the kind of person you will be working with "personality wise" and then the budget. OK - budget first ... are you getting what you paid for ? It's not the price you pay it's what you get for the price 'cause if you get 10 pictures instead of 3 photographs you didn't do very well. 

Hire a professional. Hire a specialist - don't ask a wedding photographer to shoot your 5 star food shots ... this is a general rule .. .there are exceptions .... your mileage may vary. I would NOT shoot a wedding, I have been asked and I paid the person not to ask me again. They are very different disciplines. In Design photography we continue our education in equipment and processes as well as different styles and techniques constantly. We attend National shows and also workshops by photographers working everywhere in the world who are willing to share their experience.

We subscribe to dozens of DESIGN Pubs. to keep up with trends and styles. For us it is about Design ... would you let any photographer re-arrange the furniture in your design ? It's necessary and they had better be good at it ... I am - my mom taught me how ... using Eames, Drexel, Knoll and others. She was the best ... our dad would come home from work and place his drink on air ..... where the cocktail table "was" when he left that morning for work.

If you hire us you will be hiring 30 years of design experience, 20 years of photographic experience ... ( they overlap ). And don't worry, we have been working with difficult people for a long time and we know and understand DESIGN and the "Design mindset". We also are "old school" in the people department "the customer is almost always right" and we are "new school" when it comes to equipment and processes. Yes, that was a "run-on" sentence but you get the point ... 

We like developing relationships with clients to help them show their design intent and present their work in the best possible .... "light" .... sorry.  Puntended. Call us to discuss a project or Heck ... call us to schedule something to shoot. We aren't happy with the completed project until you are.... and we are competitive. We love what we do .... to photograph Design and to design Photographs... Oh ! and we like that yellow one towards the top.

HAIREAL

It is amazing what a grown man will do for fun and due compensation. Hang out of a perfectly good ( albeit really old ) airplane and take pictures. Someone said "what about drones?"

Well, for one thing the FAA is still deciding what to do with commerce and drones and we don't want to be on the wrong side of that discussion so presently we are relying on the good old airframe, barnstormer and Kodak to get the shot.

We are watching the FAA and the Drone market as the cost comes down and the quality goes "up". We have a very simple Drone presently but before we upgrade we are waiting. This week I read that the FAA wants commercial use of a drone to be piloted by a pilot with a license .... a private pilots license. 

A couple months ago Ethan ( my second assistant ) and I flew to shoot a construction site and on the way the Cessna 152 began to "hick up" we'll call it ...  Reid our pilot looked over without emotion and said ... " we may just head back to the airstrip " ...... damn was that a good idea ! .... Ethan - in the back seat took it all in stride as well .... youthful bliss. Ye ha ... after almost returning to base our pilot said " I believe she's all right now ..... little water in the gas maybe  .... what do you want to do ? "  My first thought was yeah  here's the camera - drop us off and we'll see you when you get back. Then my second thought was      D  R  O  N  E  !

I then realized I had to get the photos for the client or come back again ... so we returned to the work site and everything was fine ...on the way back we always look for opportunities for something else to shoot .... below is what I found on that faithful day ...... 

I leaned out to get this shot and thought .... ' after all we've been thru today and I could fall out and have an inexpensive funeral and burial all in one.        However ... we got the shots for the client and got home safe. A good day.