September 25th, 2011
Picking up from my latest newsletter (want to get in on that?
sign up here), fall means football and JLP was busy all summer shooting features and profiles on a variety of college and pro ballers around the country. These few just dropped so I wanted to share some behind the scenes and extra frames.
I'll start with the worst, first... I've only shot at Boston College once now, but that was enough... never again.
ESPN sent me up to do a really interesting story about how BC has a tough time getting exposure and recruiting nationally in such a pro sports-obsessed city like Boston (story included in the All-Boston issue on newsstands now). The players we shot were also cool (featured are RB Montel Harris and LB Luke Kuechly) however, without going into things, we ran into a gross lack of professionalism in the BC sports department and everything suffered. Anywho, here are a couple more...
Next up I spent some sweaty time with Kansas City Chiefs RB Thomas Jones, who
Muscle & Fitness (first time client, hooking up with former
ESPN louper J-Rod at his new digs!) says has the best arms in pro ball. Dude is crazy strong, and I like his tats; plus his mom was a coal miner which is pretty awesome.
This was another weird one (our original location was wall-to-wall soccer moms "exercising" while watching "The View" and drinking Frappuccinos) but we made it work, and then of course finding that awesome Greek statue "fresco" (located in a sweltering stairwell) totally made my day and the magazine found a home for the portrait as well!
Note the weight (400 lbs) that TJ is ripping full sets on here... you start to understand how this man survived a dozen years (RBs average 2-3) in the NFL and gained 10,000 yards in his career.
Last up is another ESPN the Mag. feature on goals that I was happy to shoot a couple of segments of (not able to share the other part yet). I went back down to my beloved
U (University of Miami) to meet DT Marcus Forston whose goals include finishing his classwork and graduating above a 3.0 GPA (he's well above it already) as a criminal justice major. It's pretty cool doing a story on a stud linebacker who is also a smart kid (and a nice guy).
In contrast to BC, the Hurricanes sports department came through and helped me talk our way into shooting for a very brief couple of minutes in the busy library stacks on campus (I was actually hoping to do the whole shoot here but it wasn't going to happen... librarians). Because I know you are wondering, Marcus is holding about 75 lbs of books in the shot below (and not breaking a sweat of course).
Posted in Action, New Work, Portraits | 2 Comments
September 15th, 2011
Sure I am occasionally invited to drink on the job, but rarely am I invited/demanded to sing Johnny Cash (which I'll gladly do especially if we're drinking). That's what I found on a quirky job for
Architect magazine during the summer, photographing an office karaoke party at NYC firm FXFOWLE. Fun group of people even if the party was held in-office just after the close of business (buzz kill). Reportage jobs are rarely this amusing.
Posted in New Work, Reportage | No Comments
September 1st, 2011
Meet the humble, delicious Apalachicola Bay (FL) oyster -
Crassostrea virginica - like its many cousins farmed or caught around the world, one of the most perfect foods you could ever wrap your lips around.
Anyone who knows me will allow that even though my interest in shooting food is recent, my passion for eating is lifelong. Oysters jumped into my mind a few months ago as a mini project idea - it's not a big surprise because oysters (and most shellfish) jump into my mind all of the time. I was interested in shooting oysters with the same attention as I would portraits, and to see if I could shoot them in such a way that the tiny differences between each oyster built the images into almost character studies.
While down in Florida on assignment last month I was hungry for some oysters and it occurred to me that not only would it be a whole lot cheaper buying the oysters in blue collar central FL (rather than NYC), it would also allow me to highlight my native oyster, one which isn't given much respect in serious oyster bars on either coast (even though some believe it to be the finest oyster in the world - mild, sweet/salty, very plump). We picked up a half-bushel and my sister Amy invited over some friends. Beers and oysters on ice (plus all the fixings - my favorite is fresh horseradish + lemon) - what could be more perfect?! As we shucked I pulled out ones that looked interesting to me and shot them in Amy's sun room. The only problem was trying to keep the ice background consistent (it melted fast of course).
From the get go I knew I wanted to eventually get 12 (+1) good oysters shot -- and call it the Dirty Dozen. I think I ended up shooting three dozen before Amy yelled at me for shooting more than shucking. Ultimately I'm really happy with how it turned out... simple idea, great subject, personal connection, fun results. You can see the
whole series on my website here.
Posted in Food, New Work, Projects | No Comments
August 30th, 2011
One of the consequences of Hurricane Irene keeping me inside for about 36 hours last weekend was a continuation of thinking about photographing food (more on that soon). Because the lines at convenience stores, grocery stores, discount stores and basically anywhere else were insane in NYC (congrats first timers, I guess, on getting through a rain storm!), we decided to just order some extra delivery.
Above: Chicken Tikka Masala, below: Beef with Broccoli
Posted in Food, New Work | 2 Comments
August 30th, 2011
Clearly I haven't been paying as much attention to the "real" blog this year. But if you are interested in seeing a bit more about what I've been up to the best way has lately been on
InstaGram, an iPhone app/image community. Of course I also can be followed on
Twitter and
Tumblr (which has replaced this blog for small updates, new personal projects, travel snaps, etc.)
Back to InstaGram (these grids were shot/shared over InstaGram - make sure to click to see them larger - and represent some favorites from 2011 thus far), there is a growing group of interesting people using it and if you are glued to your iPhone as much as the rest of us you should really check it out. I'm definitely not the guy who is looking for more ways to fragment my attention/audience/content/life, but InstaGram might get you using the very decent iPhone camera to jumpstart your creativity, which is a pretty cool thing. And if you're already addicted you should check out
Gramfeed, which is a great way to check in on your feed while on a desktop.
This blog is going to stick around and I'm hoping to share a bunch of new stuff over the next couple of weeks, but InstaGram/Twitter/Tumblr have been much a much better tool for how I've wanted to share content over the last year. I don't want to think about what every step I take means/is... sometimes I just want to send a new idea out into the world and see what it bounces off of and sort of take it's temperature.
Posted in Creativity, Gallery, Promotion | No Comments
Picking up from my latest newsletter (want to get in on that? sign up here), fall means football and JLP was busy all summer shooting features and profiles on a variety of college and pro ballers around the country. These few just dropped so I wanted to share some behind the scenes and extra frames.
I'll start with the worst, first... I've only shot at Boston College once now, but that was enough... never again. ESPN sent me up to do a really interesting story about how BC has a tough time getting exposure and recruiting nationally in such a pro sports-obsessed city like Boston (story included in the All-Boston issue on newsstands now). The players we shot were also cool (featured are RB Montel Harris and LB Luke Kuechly) however, without going into things, we ran into a gross lack of professionalism in the BC sports department and everything suffered. Anywho, here are a couple more...
Next up I spent some sweaty time with Kansas City Chiefs RB Thomas Jones, who Muscle & Fitness (first time client, hooking up with former ESPN louper J-Rod at his new digs!) says has the best arms in pro ball. Dude is crazy strong, and I like his tats; plus his mom was a coal miner which is pretty awesome.
This was another weird one (our original location was wall-to-wall soccer moms "exercising" while watching "The View" and drinking Frappuccinos) but we made it work, and then of course finding that awesome Greek statue "fresco" (located in a sweltering stairwell) totally made my day and the magazine found a home for the portrait as well!
Note the weight (400 lbs) that TJ is ripping full sets on here... you start to understand how this man survived a dozen years (RBs average 2-3) in the NFL and gained 10,000 yards in his career.
Last up is another ESPN the Mag. feature on goals that I was happy to shoot a couple of segments of (not able to share the other part yet). I went back down to my beloved U (University of Miami) to meet DT Marcus Forston whose goals include finishing his classwork and graduating above a 3.0 GPA (he's well above it already) as a criminal justice major. It's pretty cool doing a story on a stud linebacker who is also a smart kid (and a nice guy).
In contrast to BC, the Hurricanes sports department came through and helped me talk our way into shooting for a very brief couple of minutes in the busy library stacks on campus (I was actually hoping to do the whole shoot here but it wasn't going to happen... librarians). Because I know you are wondering, Marcus is holding about 75 lbs of books in the shot below (and not breaking a sweat of course).
