Spike Lee

The times they are a changing. More and more my role as a photographer is transforming and this assignment is proof. I was originally hired to photograph Spike Lee, for Nokia’s new website www.nokiaproductions.com, but from the initial conversations the job grew to include a video portion and a collateral ad campaign. In the morning we did a traditional still shoot and in the afternoon we shot the accompanying video. Being involved on different levels really adds a nice synergy to the whole project. I must say it was daunting to direct a director, but Spike made it easy.

The impetus of the above clip was brunch. My good friend, editor and visual renaissance man Brendan Colthurst, of Disposable Television, and I were discussing the editing and matting of the shoot when we decided to do a sample for the client, DDB Tribal, and we got carried away in a wonderful manner. The above clip started off just being a test to get the levels and the green screen matting right, but then we just kept going. This is truly the essence of Spike.

General Odierno

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of good stories that have come out of the war in Iraq, but this is one of them. I was sent to High Point Regional High School, in Sussex New Jersey, to Photograph Lt. General Ray Odierno with a class of special education students. As their annual philanthropy project, the class had chosen to raise money to buy and send phone cards to soldiers in Iraq. The class’s teacher, Joan Smith, could not find an Army contact to send the cards to and then she remembered that the General’s niece was a teacher at the school. She decided to go straight to the top. In addition to all of his other duties, General Odierno became the point person for the cards to be sent to and made sure that they were distributed. This was the first of many things that impressed me about General Odierno; after thirty months in Iraq he took time away from his leave to attend the shoot, signed every autograph, answered every question, spoke one on one with a student considering a career in the military, posed for every picture and seemed to be ready for the job from hard learned experience and not the view from a desk.

Until recently General Odierno was the commanding general in Iraq under General Petraeus and was awaiting senate confirmation hearings for his next post as Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army. In an about face, It was announced today, that General Odierno will now be heading back to Iraq to take over command from General Patraeus. Regardless of how you feel about the war, I am happy to report that from my brief experience with General Odierno, we are sending our best officer for the job.

Matt Lauer

Going in there were a few obstacles to a successful shoot. We were scheduled to photograph on the set of the Today Show immediately following a taping, the shoot was Matt’s last obligation before leaving for a much deserved vacation and because we were shooting on the set of the Today Show we were at the mercy of the stage hand’s union. None of this mattered because Matt is an alumni Ohio University and I had the honor of starting my higher education there also. If you have ever spent any time at O.U. you will understand that there was much fodder for conversation and we hit it off. This is the classic example of just setting the right mood and the pictures will follow.

Oscar Picks

I could not be happier with the results from last nights Academy Awards. Two of my all time favorite subjects won: Tilda Swinton and Glen Hansard. I was smitten with Tilda the moment I met her. The first time I photographed her, she told me about this great new unknown British band; Coldplay. A year later we stood in line together waiting to get into a Sigur Rós show and then just last month I had the opportunity to photograph her again and we laughed about being early Coldplay adopters. Glen is just a wonderful guy; he let me play his beloved Takamine guitar while John Carney, the director of Once, shared his Peanut M&M’s. Once renews hope that if you have a wonderful story, great performances and a director with a vision you do not need a lot of money to make a special movie. Congratulations to all!

Vegas Vs. The World

I have now been to Las Vegas three times. My first two visits were almost fifteen years ago and my third last week. In the interim Vegas has become a one-stop shop to see the world. New York, Paris and Venice are there just to name a few. New York without sirens, Paris with wall-to-wall carpet and Venice without trash is just not the same. Soon Rat Pack era Vegas will be so long gone that someone will rebuild the Sands as a Vegas themed casino.

Vote For Me

Recently, I entered the Alternative Pick, Alt Pick Awards Contest. There are two types of awards for the contest; one juried and one people’s choice. The images I entered are selected from a ten part series I did for AARP. Photographed in ten cities over two weeks, from Alaska to Puerto Rico, fifteen planes, eight rental cars, king crab to chili relleno, countless cups of coffee, amazing people and amazing stories. This was the first assignment where a parka shared space in my backpack with flip flops and produced some of the best photographs of my career.

The voting is open to anyone so vote for me, tell all of your friends to vote for me and coerce your friends and family to do the same.

head to:

http://awards.altpick.com/

Register, log in, go to the "series" section, look for the above image titled: Financial Makeover and vote. In the interest of fairness the entries appear in random order, mine could be first or last.

Thank you in advance and spread the word.

The No Longer Big Easy

Almost two years ago I was sent on assignment to New Orleans, one month after hurricane Katrina. It was my first trip there and I could not help but thinking what a grand place it must have been and would be again. I thought again would be sooner than two years and honestly it may still be sometime in the future. The French Quarter was shockingly unscathed. It was the first few days that people were allowed back to their homes and a few bars and strip clubs were already open. Two years later the same is true. If you go straight from the airport to your hotel in the French Quarter, you would think that the recovery is complete. Disappointingly, the true pace of the recovery can only be seen when you leave the tourist centers. It is subtle at first, a pile of debris in front of a house, then a FEMA trailer on the lawn, followed by a whole parking lot of trailers and then once you hit the Lower Ninth Ward it’s just empty lots with a sporadic house; total destruction. Unfortunately, that is where I was sent to photograph Gwen Adams, her house had survived the flooding, was salvageable and she had just applied for a building permit, when the second phase of the disaster hit. Without notifying the Adams the city deemed the house uninhabitable and with all but a few exceptions raised the whole neighborhood without notifying anyone. Gwen found out that her house was gone from a neighbor who had come by to cut the grass to keep from being fined by the city. So now Gwen is paying a mortgage, taxes and cutting the grass at a home that is gone.

Wendy

When I was growing up my first photographic role models were my brother Rebel (it’s his nickname) and my cousin Wendy. Reb (the nickname of his nickname) and Wendy are 14 years older than I am. When I was six they were in film school and photo school respectively. They would come home from college with their latest projects and I was enamored; Reb made an incredible short film with tennis balls and Tang and Wendy used an early color Xerox machine to make images of flowers that she combined into a tapestry. Even then I would run around saying that I wanted to be a photographer and follow it up with the statement that I would not shoot weddings or bar mitzvahs, So it was a treat to come full circle and photograph Wendy. I would not be writing this if it were not for both of them.

In addition Wendy has the greatest collection af salt and pepper shakers I have ever seen!

Apples In China

Normally, when one of my images is used without permission, it is a headache. In this case, I was elated. This is my first Chinese magazine cover! Even better news was that the cover shot contributed to the Apples In Stereo being invited to perform at the Modern Sky Festival, with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in Beijing this October.

JJL

It was fourteen years ago when I first “met” Jennifer Jason Leigh. I say, “met” in quotation marks, because at the time we met I was a lowly, all black wearing, photo assistant. Even though I was strongly discouraged from entering into discourse with the subjects, I got the impression that Jennifer was a really nice person and an incredible actress. Fast forward to the present. I now have confirmation that Jennifer is very nice and a joy to photograph. I’ve never liked to work with models because they, model. True actors are such a treat to photograph, because they have such control over their bodies and emotions.