Author Archive

A couple of indispensable blogs were posted this week. First, John Loengard’s guest blog on Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider. This I would suggest as a must read for photographers and picture editors alike. Tremendous economic pressures over time have fractured and adversely affected the historic and important relationship good picture editors have with the photographers...
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I get notions, and they stay with me. One has been, for a while now, to come up with a decent portrait of Russell Brown, the wonderfully mad genius of Photoshop. Dr. Brown, as he is sometimes called, is a visual guru who combines the madcap energy of The Absent Minded Professor with an...
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LIFE is strange, right? And wonderful.  It is, “Life Its Own Self,” as Dan Jenkins once famously wrote. I shot my first job for the venerable picture magazine that was once everybody’s TV in 1984. Became a staff photographer in 1994. Last one in a series of 90 staffers. Now, 26 years after my...
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Hey gang…couple of questions from yesterday. The combo of the 600 plus TC1.7 was, frankly, all about, uh, size. Bigger lens, bigger moon. The above is shot with a straight up six. Below, I’m at about 170 zoom on a 70-200.Figured we’re all up here in north country, howlin’ at the moon, so might...
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There were a bunch of really good questions from yesterday’s post, so I’ll do my best here…. Dick Wood says: on August 23, 2010 at 5:57 am Joe: Great how to. but I have one small question. Where do you aim the speedlights in the V-flats? the ceiling , into the flats, of bounce them off of the...
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First off, to be square, I swiped this technique from Gilles Bensimon, the legendary fashion shooter. I was invited onto his set in Paris years ago, when I was shooting my first cover for National Geographic. It was an amazing adventure, a story on sight. Can you imagine? It was like being given a...
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Heading north. Following the, uh, light:-) Actually, it’s great weather up there now in Iceland, and heading for my first visit to a country that has been on the bucket list for a long time. You can check out the specifics here. It’ll be fun. I’m always jazzed by a new place, and will be...
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Happily, I was in Donald’s company last week in Santa Fe, when a storm came up. Wind was rattling through the old penitentiary, speaking in tongues, maybe in the voices of those who died so viciously there. I looked outside, and looked at the sky. Then I went looking for Donald. Donald and I go...
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In the midst of all this stuff about flash, digital, and color, harking back to available light… Got a call not too long ago from Carly Simon’s folks. We worked together once, long time ago. I was still a pup, basically, shooting for People Magazine, and just starting my journeys for LIFE. The idea of...
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Just flew Frontier Airlines for the first time. They did a good job. Counter agent was very nice and didn’t even give me the evil eye when I approached laden with 8 pieces to check and just me traveling. Everything was pretty smooth, though, as is typical of every airline, a little tight in...
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