Herman Leonard with his photograph of Dexter Gordon at the Royal Roost 1948
The work of Herman Leonard has had a great impact on the world of photography. Herman had a unique perspective and a thirst for technical perfection. Although his work was recorded in still photographs, his images often gave you a sense of sound. He will be missed dearly. Please pay him a tribute by viewing his work http://www.hermanleonard.com/
On the bottom of his Polaroid portrait he wrote, “It was early 1948 at the Royal Roost in New York. An afternoon rehearsal gave me a unique opportunity to photograph many giants of jazz with my trusty 4×5 Speed Graphic. What a great career! To do what you love and be entertained at the same time!”
Here is a double page spread from GOLF this month. Steve is an amazing man that invented many golf items long before we heard of them. I love his 5 1/2 Iron, I want to get one for my bag!
Steve came up with a smaller set of clubs including 1/2 irons
Today is the release of Madden 11 featuring my photography of Drew Brees. Last night I received an email with these photos of a Limited Edition Xbox 360 that was made for the release. Guessing Drew is getting one of these!
Here is the release tv spot that ran during last weekends Hall of Fame Game.
We have been working hard the past few months and one of the projects we can now talk about is our shoot with Wayne Gretzky for NHL Slapshot. We photographed Wayne and a couple of his kids for the game box and packaging. This new Wii game from EA comes with a hockey stick that holds the “Wiimote”. Although I didn’t get to challenge Wayne myself during the shoot, it was fun watching him checking the kids and zigging in a few slapshots. For some reason, I don’t think I would have had a chance!
A special thanks to my assistants Alisal and Andrew who not only drove the gear from San Diego to LA for the shoot with Wayne, but drove that evening to Vegas for a shoot with Randy Couture the next day.
I will be giving a webinar on with Photoshelter tomorrow titled: Focus on Your Passion: Finding Yourself in Photography. It should run about an hour and I will discuss some of the details of my personal project, Behind Photographs, shot on 20×24 Polaroid. In addition, I plan on giving some insight on how shooting personal work can help you to create a unique brand in this ever changing industry. Please check out the details at https://www.photoshelter.com/about/webinar/
I am happy to announce my latest project with for EA Sports. I had the unique opportunity to shoot Randy Couture in Las Vegas and then travel to Stary Oskol, Russia to photograph Fedor Emelianenko. Both fighters were amazing to work with and provided us with some great content. Along with fellow Brooks Institute graduate, Jeff Wiant, we shot video for the game release trailer which was announced this week at E3. Jeff edited the piece complete with a custom soundtrack by Chris Hoffee. I have to say the Canon 7D and Mark IV HD video was a blast to shoot. I will be able to release more details from the shoot soon and include some behind the scenes footage and stills. Thanks for reading.
It is sad to see another participant from my Behind Photographs Project pass away, but I am very thankful to have shared time with so many of these great photographers. Marty Lederhandler was a legendary AP photographer who had a career which spanned 66 years. I was introduced to Marty by Paul Waldman, founder of The Living American Masters Photographers Project, just over a year ago and was able to photograph him in New York. Paul has documented photographers for about 15 years and we first met when he came to interview and photograph Dean Collins around 1993. At the time, I was Dean’s studio manager. In addition to Paul shooting portraits of photographers, he has also been recording them to create an oral history of the photo industry. Please take time to listen to Marty’s famous pigeon story from D-Day that Paul shared with us and visit his site at www.thelampp.org. Pigeon Story
When I was a student at Brooks Institute, I vividly remember when Charles Moore came to be a guest speaker. His haunting and powerful images will be forever etched in my mind. Charles Moore used his camera to change the world. Last week Charles passed away at age 79. I had the chance to reconnect with him not long ago in New York when he sat for a portrait for my Behind Photographs project. Please take a the time to view this documentary on Charles, he deserves a small portion of your day in exchange for his lifetime of work.
Thank you Charles for your time, your images and the love you have shared. You will be dearly missed.
Congrats to Zach Parise for scoring one of the most clutch goals ever in yesterdays Gold Medal game with 24 seconds left. But it was the Canadian Team that pulled it out in OT to win the gold, in what (in my opinion), was the highlight of the winter games.
Tech Note (For Photo Geeks): Profoto head with Mola overhead on boom arm. Single strobe head on background. Canon Mark II DS, 85mm.
Here is my cover and a shot from the new issue of Dirtsports Magazine. I was given this assignment based on a photo I took about 15 years ago of Ivan “The Ironman” Stewart that was shot for No Fear. Back then (in the days of Photoshop verson 1, which I didn’t even own), I made a giant No Fear logo that was cut out and placed backward on the face of a large diffusion flat. This large flat was lit with strobes to create a large light source which I used to light the portrait. I then shot the portrait of Ivan using a 4×5 view camera and in his eyes you could read the words, No Fear.
The editor of Dirtsports Magazine has followed my work for years and was familiar with this image. For this years Driver of the Year issue, he asked me to create a similar image of Andy McMillin with the iconic McMillin “M” logo in Andy’s eyes. So I pulled the old trick out of my bag and made a giant “M” logo, filled it in with some blue gels and it worked like a charm. Sure these days you could do this in Photoshop, but it was fun to do it in camera. It made for a more interesting photoshoot and certainly got the crew at the shop talking. Andy is an amazing driver and a great kid, I think we have just begun to see him on the podium. To check out more pics of Andy and see some footage of him behind the wheel, check out http://www.andymcmillin.com.
Here are some pics from fun shoot for Harlingwood Equity Partners. They were looking to update their website with fresh images that better represented their progressive staff and work environment.
I received a request from a magazine today to pull files of all the players I had shot portraits of that are playing this weekend. Here is what I came up with. Should be great weekend of football.
Here is a peek at the Russian edition of Esquire Magazine that I have to say is full of amazing design and photography. They ran a series of my photographer portraits this month. Be sure to check out the contributor pic! Who is that handsome Cyborg?
My photos are the on the gamebox for EA Active, More Workouts, in stores today. We shot the images in my studio a few months back. If you haven’t had the chance to try EA Active, it is a killer. You have been warned about the lunges! The first time I did the workout, I figured a Wii workout couldn’t be that difficult. I was seriously wrong. EA Active totally kicked my ass! Nice to see the product has done so well and the new add-on game is out for the holidays.
This Friday Eve is the opening of my show in Brooklyn. It is one of the official events of Lucie Week! Thanks to The Farmani Gallery and the folks at The Lucie Foundation who have been supporters of my project and getting the word out. The show will feature 20×24 Polaroid images of 18 Lucie Lifetime Achievement winner and over 100 8×10 images. I will also be shooting more 20×24 Polaroids for the project from the 19-23. Please join us on the 16th if you are in NY.
At the beginning of the year, I enrolled in a wetplate collodion workshop with Will Dunniway (www.collodion-artist.com) in Corona, California. The class, which lasted two days, was a crash course on the basics of making tintypes and glass negatives. This process was invented by Fredrick Scott Archer and dates back to 1851. For the life of me, I can’t believe he figured out how to make this process work. It is a time consuming process that requires you to sensitize, shoot, develop and fix the plate while it is still wet. A bit toxic, but the uncertainty of it all is magic.
I went back to work with Will again to see how I could create some tintypes of my athlete portraits and to shoot some tintypes of some model cars for a book project. Here are a few images we created.
Tomorrow I will be the guest blogger at www.scottkelby.com. There have been some amazing and inspirational posts here in the past month, so check it out. If you haven’t seen the post/film that Zach Arias posted there as the guest blogger, take the time to view it. Thanks Scott and Brad for the invite, I appreciate the opportunity.
When I was a student at Brooks Institute, I vividly remember when Charles Moore came to be a guest speaker. His haunting and powerful images will be forever etched in my mind. Charles Moore used his camera to change the world. Last week Charles passed away at age 79. I had the chance to reconnect with him not long ago in New York when he sat for a portrait for my Behind Photographs project. Please take a the time to view this documentary on Charles, he deserves a small portion of your day in exchange for his lifetime of work.
Here is my cover and a shot from the new issue of Dirtsports Magazine. I was given this assignment based on a photo I took about 15 years ago of Ivan “The Ironman” Stewart that was shot for No Fear. Back then (in the days of Photoshop verson 1, which I didn’t even own), I made a giant No Fear logo that was cut out and placed backward on the face of a large diffusion flat. This large flat was lit with strobes to create a large light source which I used to light the portrait. I then shot the portrait of Ivan using a 4×5 view camera and in his eyes you could read the words, No Fear.
Here are some pics from fun shoot for Harlingwood Equity Partners. They were looking to update their website with fresh images that better represented their progressive staff and work environment.
I received a request from a magazine today to pull files of all the players I had shot portraits of that are playing this weekend. Here is what I came up with. Should be great weekend of football.
Keep an eye out for a few of my billboards around town. Always rewarding to see your work BIG!
I will also be shooting more 20×24 Polaroids for the project from the 19-23. Please join us on the 16th if you are in NY.
