Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

2009, Best of

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

The year that was… looking back it’s a blur. There were lots of portraits I’m pretty sure, a bit of travel, some strange little bits I shot for myself, several compelling stories and failed experiments, some work on personal projects, and yeah a bunch of portraits, of athletes and authors, executives and educators, scientists and seniors, divas and the indebted.

Last year I spent a lot of time thinking and looking at scale and felt very strongly that I wanted to incorporate a more removed, grander, almost reverant/classical perspective to serve as a counter point to my portraiture. This year my portfolio has several pieces that definitely are moving in that direction, either in landscape or numbers, and it’s been a really nice challenge and motivation.

In portraiture this year I think that I found a rhythm and method to my lighting style, though that was completely left behind or stripped back when it didn’t fit a particular subject. In some ways I was going at two opposite directions, using a more direct approach with a lot less that had “fingerprints” all over it, and then also building up a whole lot more to create some sort of unmasked ideal. God love my subjects this year who all endured 30-50% more set-ups than I might have insisted upon in years past… I definitely threw more spaghetti/ideas at the wall, which will continue and expand in 2010.

Here then are my (released) favorites, several of which you may have seen:

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Hatching

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

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I’ve been down in Florida over the past week doing a few shoots (Southern Living, Forbes) and spending some time with my family in celebration of big milestones for my younger siblings. My FL home is sea turtle central this time of the year and my dad has become very passionate about tracking and helping out the mothers and babies. There are lists of the nesting sites and dates, lots of conjecture on possible birthing nights, and multiple daily walks on the beach to check the progress. Last night (I was dead tired and so missed it) Dad found some babies hatching in a transplanted nest and help rescue a few turtles who had gone the wrong way (towards the condos).

Walking on the beach at night is one of the main reasons for anyone to endure the many annoyances of south Florida. On a walk a few nights ago there were storms in the distance to the east, west and north but the air was completely still and silent but for the pounding of the waves. People like my dad who walk on the beach everyday can feel the way that the waves shape and reshape the sand under their feet. They become friends with the birds who claim a spot as their own. It’s very rewarding and beautiful in the faint light, briefly illuminated by distant lightning and the stewarding beacon of a lighthouse.

Also along our stretch a beach I’ve been trying to add a few snaps to my project Moving Pictures which is still trying to find its way. Here is one from this week… I’m not sure what genre movie I envision there yet… if you don’t remember, Moving Pictures is a personal collection of images that scout locations in the Miami night for a movie that will never be made. The project is about potential and emptiness, and the strange voodoo of my birth city (the Magic City) that reveals itself once the sun sets.

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Fourth

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

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So happy birthday America! We celebrated it in true NYC fashion… with an open bottle on a friend’s rooftop (thanks Chris & Jess!). Here are a couple from the occasion… fireworks implied but not seen.

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Dominoes

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

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Our 2-week-iversary in the Apple was celebrated last Friday with a revered newbie tradition, e.g. taking the free water taxi to IKEA in Brooklyn to buy a bunch of bargain Nordic home accessories. And over the weekend I banished the last of the boxes and finished organizing my office and the super sized closet (clothes, photo/lighting gear, tools, laundry hamper, luggage). So I guess officially we are settled, though it still feels pretty dam new to be living in NYC.

Sitting in my office (in my new sick chair) it’s easy to lose track of being here. But then I turn around and find the city vibrating just outside the living room window… the ability to walk out the door into a whole world within easy reach is so incredibly satisfying and just right. And I guess maybe that is what life-long New Yorkers just can’t shake when they move on and produces that attitude or almost total amazement that everywhere else doesn’t want to feel the same.

JLP’s first flirtation with working in NYC (or more precisely out of it… 2 shoots last week in Florida) have been fine if a bit tense. I had this idea from afar that I just need to learn all of the tricks and then I would see that its not such a big deal. I thought I’d get handed that golden manual that would make hauling gear, organizing logistics, and moving swiftly and efficiently around the city a piece of cake… but now I’m starting to understand that the manual only has one page in it, and all it says in really big, bold letters is: “GET IT DONE.” Get as much help as possible, don’t stress about the process being stressful (because it will be), and just start pushing.

Emotionally in the first 2 weeks there have been a lot of great things and a few really annoying bits, but so much has happened that it almost feels like life is a huge line of dominoes tumbling one into the next. If you laid them out correctly good things create more good things, leading into infinite until the last tile drops. Here’s to hoping.

And speaking of dominoes… these images are from a recent feature on Miami’s Little Havana and Calle Ocho districts for United Airline’s Hemispheres magazine, which has just been relaunched and redesigned. Photographing the old school Cuban exiles playing dominoes everyday in Maximo Gomez (Domino) Park on SW 8th St is sort of a rite of passage… everyone has done it (my friends Ben Lowy, Carolyn Drake, and just about anyone else who has ever worked professionally in south Florida). These guys are so used to cameras that they don’t give a fuck what you do, or even if you stand on top of the table while they play.

Despite a ridiculously tight budget for the feature I made an appointment to head back on my own time and do a proper portrait of Padron Cigars founder and one of the original godfathers of Little Havana Jose Orlando Padron (below). An alternate frame was used as the opener, but I really liked this one because the smoke sort of shows Padron to be lost in time between coming to America 5 decades earlier and being given a hammer which he used to create the savings which allowed him to open a cigar brand which today has won numerous cigar of the year titles. Thanks to the Padron family for giving me access and to Ink Publishing photo editor Erin Giunta for making me a part of the first revamped issue.

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New Work: Machu Picchu

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

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From Galapagos we returned back to mainland Ecuador and then into Peru via Lima and Cusco before taking the train down the mountain and through the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu. Though I was certain we would find something unique and magical in the Galapagos, I felt a little less sure about Machu Picchu and was trying to lower our expectations after the amazing first half of our trip when we arrived into the clouds and fog to promptly have our breathes taken away on the switchbacks up the mountain.

Machu Picchu, even with the tourist hoards arriving later each morning, is truly magnificent and beautifully fickle in its shape and texture. You can look at it for hours, and then turn away for 15 seconds, and when you look back its new again; a new personality, tone, vibrance.

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The real Machu Picchu experience is only available to those who spend the night and then wake up early the next morning to rescale the sacred site hours before the thousands of visitors. Though the sunrise is basically never seen, you can watch the light fight the mist and suddenly the shapes of the mountains emerge from all sides with rivers as ribbons raging below, while hiking up to the Sun Gate (or if you are really hardcore then up to Huayna Picchu). You can check out all of my selects from the trip at the JLP Archive.

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