I received a wonderful email from Tom Zimberoff this week that included several images he shot back in the 70′s of a few of the photographers in Behind Photographs. I photographed Tom in San Francisco with his fantastic photograph of Indian Larry, just weeks prior to his accidental death. I asked Tom if it would be OK to share these images on my blog and he gladly agreed. He even shared a portrait of himself shot by Douglas Kirkland in the 70′s as well. Enjoy!
It has been a long year and long wait, but the books finally arrived last week, all 6 pallets of them! We have been busy moving the 4,500 pounds around the studio and getting books signed and shipped for the holidays. If you would like to order a signed book, you can purchase books direct from the studio at:
I was blown away with the group that showed up at Ogilvy to support the release of Behind Photographs. It was great to reconnect with 29 of the photographers that are in the book and a couple hundred other supporters that braved the rain and wind. Here are a few pics from the party. I should have books in San Diego soon and will be posting info on book events in San Diego, LA and San Francisco. Thanks again to everyone that has supported and encouraged me over the past five years to see this project through to publication.
JIll Enfield, Douglas Kirkland, Barbara Bordnick, Guido Karp, Greg Watermann and Dan Kramer
Roxanne Lowitt and Tim Mantoani look over a wall of images
Keith Green with his portrait
John Iacono and John Dominis
Douglas Kirkland signing books while designer Mark Murphy and Sandro catch up.
Douglas Dubler signed books
Lois Greenfield and Ryszard Horowitz
May Pang and Tim Mantoani
Guido Karp made the trip from Germany!
Thom Mangelsen checking out Al Wertheimer and "The Kiss"
I have started an effort on Kickstarter to get some positive pre-sales rolling for my book which is due out soon. Please take a look. Books are priced with shipping at the same cost as retail + shipping, plus there are some other special offerings. This book has taken five years to shoot and get published. Thanks for taking a look. Click here to give me a “kickstart”!
A few months back I spent the day in Northern California with Zach Parise and Mike Cammalleri as they toured Easton Bell and got to see how helmets are made. Here are a few screen grabs from the new website. Both of these guys are great to work with.
It was very sad news last week to hear of the passing of Lou Capozzola, a great SI shooter and a great guy. I had the pleasure of shooting along side of Lou at several Upper Deck shoots and was always a fan of his amazing eye. Please take a moment to pay tribute and view his gallery on SI.com.
Last year, I set up a private signing with Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins to autograph 33, 30×30 prints as promotions for my business. I have listed one of these prints on Ebay as a benefit to raise money for one of my freelance assistants who was seriously injured on the 4th of July. You can read about Kevin and his accident here, http://kevinyoungdonation.com
I did some portraits for Sports Illustrated back at Spring Training at the Diamondbacks new facility. J.J. was great to work with and gave us enough time to shoot some portraits on the mound and also in the pen.
Keep an eye out for a 4 part series running on ESPNU that shows the making of the NCAA 12 video game. The trailers appear have some footage of our photos shot for EA as well and some imagery from the cover shoots.
Congrats to Abby Wambach and the USA team, great finish yesterday! Here are a couple of frames I shot of her at The Home Depot Center for Backpacker Magazine.
EA Sports trusted us again to create the cover image for Madden 12. This is the third year running we have shot the cover art. There was a big twist to the shoot this year than in the past. In prior years, the subject matter of the cover was top secret and not revealed until months after the shoot, just prior to the game hitting stores. However, this year EA held a voting contest on ESPN allowing, for the first time, the fans to choose the cover athlete. After 12.7 million votes, it came down to Michael Vick and Peyton Hillis as the final two. Since the winner would not be announced until the night prior to the shoot, we had to prep for both athletes, having their complete uniforms in hand. In the end, the Cleveland fans prevailed giving Hillis honors.
To further the fan involvement, unlike our prior shoots that were closed sets, EA chose to shoot the cover in a public venue the day prior to the NFL Draft in New York. Working closely with the NFL, Diversified Production Service and HG Producers, we had a small football field built on Military Island in Times Square where the shoot took place. Beginning at 11:30 PM, the night prior to the shoot, construction began for our 9:00 a.m. shoot, the following day.
Here is a time-lapse of the production, it’s not everyday your photo shoot is projected live on the Jumbo Tron in Times Square!
I will be teaching and speaking at The Sports Shooter Academy Lighting Luau on April 22nd. Joining me is Robert Beck, a super talented Sports Illustrated shooter and inspirational speaker. Please join us at the Crowne Plaza Orange County Airport Hotel from 7:30-10:00 for the evening lecture. Robert and I will each speak for about a hour and half. The daytime workshop is sold out, but there is still room for the evening. Tickets and info at http://www.samys.com/index/page/product/product_id/48579. A special thanks to Samy’s for supporting this event and to Robert Hanashiro for the invite.
I also will be participating in PechaKucha night, Volume 11, in San Diego on April 20th at the W Hotel. There will be 7 guest speakers, from a wide range of professions, for this unique event hosted by the San Diego Architectural Foundation. PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in 2003 as an event for young designers to meet and show their work. It has spread around the globe and is now thriving in San Diego. The name comes from the sound for “chit chat” and the presentation format is simple: each speaker shows 20 images for 20 seconds each. I will be presenting 20 images from my personal project, Behind Photographs. You can find out more here, http://www.pecha-kucha.org/night/san-diego/11. This evening is more of a social event with a lecture in the mix!
We had an great shoot a few weeks back for Turkish Airlines photographing Kobe Bryant. I first photographed Kobe back when he was a rookie in 1997 for Directv. We both have a little less hair now! In addition to the shoot, we handled oversight of the retouching. Here is a peek at the ad in Time Magazine and an ad at LAX that was sent to me by fellow photographer Michael Collopy.
Below is another ad that is popping up in a few of the travel magazines. All images were shot with our new medium format digital back and I have to say these giant files look amazing.
Take a peek at the Behind the Scenes video for the TV spot. You get a quick glimpse of my bald head at :26.
EA announced today that the cover of NCAA 12 will be determined by vote on Facebook. We were supposed to shoot all four players in Dallas just prior to Super Bowl, but that freak storm that hit the state kept a couple guys from making it out and caused us to pick up an additional day in LA the following week. All four players were great to work with and very enthusiastic about their shot at being on the cover.
In addition to portraits of each player, we shot action photos for the game box that will be revealed with the announcement of the winner. I hope to have a behind the scenes video of the shoot up soon.
LeRoy Grannis is known for taking some of the most iconic surfing images of the 1960s and 70s. I photographed “Granny” at a retirement home in Carlsbad with his picture of Dewey Weber at 22nd Street in Hermosa Beach. This was one of two 20×24 Polaroids we shot. The room had a very low ceiling, so I had to pop out one of the ceiling tiles so the dark slide could come all the way up. Thanks Granny for your inspiration and your images, we will miss you.
I was asked to shoot some new film for the Impossible Project last month for a show “Facing the Impossible”, currently up in New York at The Impossible Project Gallery. I tested out the PUSH film on the SX-70 and the PX600 on my Polaroid 680. Both films are very fun and bring some analog soul to the party. Here is a button they made with one of my images. You can get them at
