WIP it Good

I am pleased to announce some of my personal work has been featured in WIP8, starting on page 45 and is available for download here.

Sneak peak at the top secret iPhone 5 prototype

Retro is in!

Abridged

My “slideshow” Bridging the Gap did not make the cut for the SLPS IV, although my Caesar salad seemed to go over quite nicely. You can see my effort on the theme of Bridges below.

Further proof that I have the ability to travel forward and backward in time, as long as I stay in the Astor Place IRT station

And if you really want to know, the fare in 2044 is $12.

Mission Impossible?

A not so cheery “portrait” of the current state of the professional (and amateur) assignment and stock photography business here at the New York Times. Nothing we haven’t heard, experienced or feared, but it does show how forces of technology, the economy and human nature have all created a perfect storm that threatens to destroy our livelihood.

Pretty much anyone can take an occasional decent picture that is good enough for many stock uses, given enough time and some luck. But, if professional photography as a career falls by the wayside, who will clients call when they need an assignment done that requires experience, and lots of it?

As the entry point for creating decent images has dropped, and continues to drop, we as professional image makers really need to sell ourselves not on our abilities to get sharp well exposed images, as most point & shoot cameras can do that, not as the cheapest way to get images (although in the long run hiring a professional can often be the most cost effective), but on the strength and individuality of our visions, and on our professionalism and experience in getting jobs done on schedule, on budget (or under), and under the worst of conditions & circumstances.

Perhaps our only hope is to all become amateurs. Unfortunately, we will of course need to work another job or two just to support our new “hobby”!

Mission Improbable

Today the Impossible Project is releasing the first in its' new line of instant integral processing films, PX film (when’s the last time you typed the word film?), a sepia toned black & white pack that will fit into folding SLR Polaroid models, like the SX-70. Supposedly the film is able to be manipulated, like the classic SX-70 or Time Zero films were, and a color version will be introduced this summer. You can read more details here.
Then there is this, on the Impossible Project site, a special film pack made with expired chemicals, called SX-70 Fadetoblack Film that “…shortly after taking the photo drifts through different colour schemes before it finally turns to blackness after 24 hours”- I am not sure if this is an early April fool’s gag, or if I should call Jim Phelps.

What I did on my spring break

I recently shot an ad for long time client GMHC- the final ad will have a New York City scene striped in behind the models, so look for it at a bus shelter near you.