I am not dead

The death of the alpha male, a feature i shot for womens health magazine this summer. The story was about how the alpha male is dead, no more hard charging hard drinking hard womanizing men out there anymore, just slacker emo types looking good, dating around, but never really doing much of anything. sounds about right actually. seems women are having a hard time finding mister right. you know, the guy that makes a ton of $$$, looks good in a three piece, and opens car doors. wait! hold on a minute! isnt this exactly what women have been fighting for for the past 40 years?? didnt you guys want to make your own money? open your own car doors? like my dad used to say, watch out what you wish for, because you may just get it.......heres the tears from the mag, and check out the type treatment, beautiful stuff Dunham...

spring broke love

Les Inrockuptibles, a french magazine, is showing the love for Spring Broke in their new issue...I got a call from the editor last month, and while I didn't understand most of what she said, I did understand enough to know that they loved it and wanted to publish a portfolio from it. I got the check (in euros) and an issue in the mail today so i thought i would post it for all you kids that didn't see it when the book was published in 2004 (really i just like how big they made my name). If you like this little taste, the book is still available at amazon.........enjoy.

death and motorcycles

Did a fun but grueling job in Death Valley for Popular Mechanics recently. Allyson Torrisi from PM called and said 4 words: “you, motorcycles, death valley.” I said two: “hell yea.” The assignment was a feature on riding dual sport bikes in death valley. A duel sport is a bike that is an off road moto bike but is still street legal so you can ride it on road. There were going to be 5 riders on this 3 day trip. There were 3 popular mechanics editors, one death valley expert riding guide, and Jaime from Mythbusters, the one with the walrus mustache. Cool guy btw, and always a willing subject for my camera. My assistant Raul and I would be following them in an off road 4x4 and documenting the ride and making it look as cool as it was. These kinds of assignments are always tricky. Theres no real shot list, you’re shooting people on a fun trip so they don’t really want to be bugged with a camera that much, and in this case it was all going to be done in an extremely harsh environment. It was spring, so not 130 but still damn warm, highs in the upper 90’s, and chilly at night. I had a great time as usual but was completely worn out from the long days and the sun and wind. Did lots of climbing up cliffs ahead of them to get them from that angle where they’re small and just overpowered by the massiveness of the terrain. And to think only 5 days earlier I was in Alaska shooting a Field and Stream cover. Crazy cool things this job has taken me to. Tired but couldn’t say no. A huge highlight for me was on the first night, we were walking back to our rooms after dinner, and my assistant looked up and saw the stars like he never has as he hasn’t traveled to a place as remote as DV. The lack of “light pollution” in remote places makes the stars so amazing. It blew him away. I’ve been all over in the middle of nowhere from Alaska to Afghanistan and have seen some pretty amazing stars at night. But I always take it for granted now until I’m brought back down by a reaction like his. All in all the shoot went great, everyone was super nice and helpful, and the pictures looked great because of it. Got Henry a scorpion frozen forever in a block of resin in the gift shop……. On the way out of town on Monday afternoon raul and I encountered a dust storm in the middle of nowhere. The dust diffuses the light, it’s the kind of light photographers and cinematographers spend their whole lives trying to find or recreate. Shadows not too harsh, highlights not blown out. And a warmth from the dust that was luminous. It hit us just as we drove by a cemetery literally in the middle of nowhere with a chain link fence around it. We passed it, didn’t stop as I was downloading cards form the morotrcyle shoot, but it was gnawing at me as I knew it was too perfect and my love of this photography stuff always gets the better of me. After about 5 minutes the guilt and my obsession won out inspite of my exhaustion. “turn around raul”. He didn’t say a word. He knew. We turned around, drove to the cemetery, pulled over and made some pictures for nobody but ourselves, which are always the purest ones you make. Nobody to please, no hurry, no worry. I put the computer away after that and just watched the desert light change and fade away as we drove out. it was truly a great ending to this trip: kinda weird and noire-ish like a david lynch film, and achingly beautiful and lonely, like the California desert.

0 0

ESPN magazine is without a doubt one of my favorite mags to shoot for. In this biz, when you get a call for an assignment from a magazine, you usually want to hear about it before saying yes, so you don’t get roped into something you don’t really want to do. Not the case when I get a call from ESPN. Whenever I get a call from them for a shoot, the answer is always yes. Doesn’t matter what it is, I always know I want to do it. I’ve Never said no to anything that they have offered up. Not only are athletes one of my favorite subjects to shoot, but the magazine itself: the photography editing, the design and photography treatment, and the reporting, are the best in the magazine business. I don’t think anyone in the mag biz would argue otherwise. When I think back to all of the shoots for all the different magazines I’ve done over the years, a lot of my personal favs were for ESPN……... So, my cell phone rings a few weeks ago, and you know, you look at the number. When it starts with 522, you know its coming from time inc.. if it’s 286, it’s conde nast. If its 573, its one of the rodale mags. And if its 515, its ESPN. Now, I love seeing any of those numbers on my phone, that’s the truth. But I get just a little bit giddy when I see 515, cause I know there’s a great assignment photographing an athlete on the other end of the call. I pick up, its Jim Surber, “hey you wanna go down to texas and shoot the Texas Longhorns QB for the cover of the college football preview? His name is Colt McCoy”. I’ve hadn’t heard of Colt McCoy,(although that is a great pornstar name if I ever did hear one), but one search on google tells me he almost won the heisman last year and will probably win it this year. I love shooting athletes because they are that rare photographic subject. They aren’t what we call “real people” because they transcend that genre as they have this super physical talent that you and I don’t have. And they aren’t what we call “celebrity”, because they aren’t actors or in the performing arts. What they are, is an amalgamation of the 2 really. A “real person” with an amazing physical talent and the skill to make it look great on camera. And also the need to “perform” like an actor. And a great body to boot. In short, a photographic goldmine……….Headed down to Austin TX with Jim during the hottest time of year, late july. The shoot took place in the middle of the stadium where they play their home games, and it was hot. 120 degrees according to the groundskeeper with the thermometer. We just wanted to catch Colt like he just got done training in the Texas heat while he flashed that infectious smile. I also put up a huge white backdrop for a more stylized option for the inside image. The shoot went great, Colt was a great subject. Professional athletes (or in this case a college athlete good enough to be on the cover of ESPN) are such a pleasure to photograph. When you catch them as a normal person they are just like you and I and all of the other “real people” out there. Uncomfortable, awkward, and self conscious. But when you put them in their comfort zone, which is as an athlete, they really do come alive and make my job such a pleasure to do. Here’s the cover image and the inside image, as well as some behind the scenes and outtakes. Enjoy.

This little piggy went to market....

Did a cool story for mens health magazine about the other white meat, pork. When I got the call from Lila, it was basically, “some of the best chefs in the city have a whole pig (dead), and a master butcher that is going to cut him up as only a master butcher can. We want you to document the butchering process. Then a couple of days later they’re all gonna get together and cook their favorite dish and sit down family style for a pork feast. We want you there for that too.” Cool. The task was going to go down in the kitchen of one of the best digs in the city, The Gramercy Tavern. This was one of those stories I was so excited to do because I wanted to hear all about the best parts of the pig from the butcher and the chefs who were all there as well. Not so much morbid curiosity but culinary quizitiveness. One of those stories where I learn a ton and am asking questions as I’m shooting. The thing about meat, whether it be fish or mammal, is it’s an animal. SO many people in the world, and especially the USA, and especially especially NYC, have a total disconnect with the bacon they had for breakfast or the steak or chicken for dinner. They think meat comes from plastic packs. Guess what. It don’t. I hunt and fish so I know it doesn’t come from plastic packs. I get the death part of eating meat and wish everyone got it as well. Its basic responsibility, knowledge and decision making. Your actions have consequences. Eat a steak, kill an animal. Very simple equation really and rock solid. Whenever I’m out and someone starts badmouthing hunting as killing innocent animals I ask them what they had for dinner that week. Guess what they usually say. You got it, chicken, steak, fish. Its then that I inform them that they too kill animals, they just pay some guy 7 bucks an hour at a farm somewhere to do it for them so they don’t have to see it or deal with it. When you hunt and fish, its hard to explain, but you feel connected to the whole life cycle, especially your own, and understand the universe and your place in it just a little bit better. The people that answer my question that they are vegetarian are actually the ones I truly respect. They have an argument. They made a decision not to eat meat because they don’t agree with the idea of killing animals for food. I get that. Don’t agree but do get. Ok enough of that. So we get to the gramercy tavern (beautiful place) and go down to the basement where the big walk in cooler is, and there she is, a 200lb pig hanging by her hooves. When everyone gets there, we pull her out and put her on the butcher block. I’m thinking a great opener would be 2 chefs and the butcher holding her horizontally, a portrait really of three guys holding a dead pig. Shes heavy and hard to hold, but we get it, great shot. Then back on the butcher block she goes and the butcher gets to work. He grabs a saw, and cuts her head off. Yikes. Then starts hacking away at her with various knives and cleavers to quarter her up. Meanwhile I’m thinking “does mens health have any idea how visceral a butchering is? Theres no way in hell they’re going to run any of this.” But Matt (writer) assures me they will run the story, maybe just not the most graphic images. The butchering goes off with out a hitch, got great pics, and hoping the magazine would run them. Truly an amazing educational experience. The story was being written by Matt Goulding, food editor over there at MH, and he was writing it from a first person perspective, where he delivers parts of the pig to all the chefs all over town so they can concoct their mastery with the meat. So to illustrate that point, we went out on the street with the pigs head to get a cab and photograph matt getting in like hes delivering it to a chef. The great thing about ny cabbies is first of all most of them are from the middle east, east Africa, or Haiti, and have slaughtered a goat or two in their day and secondly, nothing, and I mean nothing can upset a nyc cabbie (except another cabbie, or even worse a livery cab, driving like shit and cutting him off, then watch out, as all bets are off. But all cabbies drive like this In nyc so I’m always amazed when they start screaming at the car that just cut them off because he did the same thing to another guy 5 blocks back). So me flagging down a cabbie and asking him to just stay there for 10 minutes for $20 while my friend got in and out of the back with a pig head while I took pictures didn’t faze him. In fact, I remember him eating a sandwich and reading the paper while we worked. I don’t think he looked back more than once and I doubt he even mentioned it to anyone, just another day in nyc as a hack. A few people on the street walking by, however, had a totally different take. I remember some people saying stuff like “is that head real” and some drunk kids walking by laughing. And a couple of grosses as well. Matt was a good sport as it was freezing and this was a spring issue so while the rest of us had parkas on he had a lightweight on. Great fun and shots looked great. Done for the night. Fast forward a week later, we’re all set to meet at super chic it spot restaurant Eletaria at 11pm after the restaurant closes for all the chefs to finish preparing their dishes and having a feast. Matt got the night off to a good start by showing up with a bottle of really good bourbon that he “infused”” with bacon. I asked him how he did it, he tried to tell me, but either I got bored or he got long winded and I never really figured that one out. Sounds funky and weird at best and gross at worst but tasted damn good, especially on top of the oxycontin I took for the bruised ribs I sustained in my soccer game two days earlier. Chefs are a great fraternity. I’ve shot a lot of them, wolf puck, bobby flay, Mario batali, alain ducase, Anthony bourdain, and tons more. They all have a love for food and taste, and the best love to share it. They also are all obviously in competition with eachother, especially a place like nyc where food is king, but they love talking with eachother and sharing with eachother. I’ve seen it time and time again, chefs seem to have no secretes when it comes to their craft around their peers, or maybe the just like to brag. I pre lit the whole kitchen well before everyone arrived as I knew it was going to be a bit of frenetic dance with 6 great chefs moving around each other doing their thang, and I would be moving seamlessly in and out of them too, so the lighting had to be done before hand. It was like a ballet. But no primas here, just scruffy dudes in whites. When the shit is going down in the kitchen, the only voice a chef hears is his/her own. Its beautiful to watch them in their zone. I get there, too, when I’m shooting. I only hear the left side of my brain talking to my right side. Had fun dancing around this picture for about 30 minutes telling the story with my camera, and trying to get all the chefs in one shot. Then all the final dishes were plated, brought out to the table, the wine was opened, the glasses clinked, and the eating was on. It was kinda like that movie “Big Night”. If you’ve seen it you know what I mean, if not, rent it, its on the short list. It was joyous, uplifting, just good living and good company. The chefs all sampling each others fare, and sharing techniques and ideas. I could see them all scratching their heads when they tasted something they really liked trying to savor and figure it out. I only shot the meal for about 4 or 5 minutes, just 20 frames (I knew I had the shot!). Then I put down my camera and joined them. I felt I owed it to them. for putting up with me and my strobes for so long in the kitchen, and to enjoy this meal with new friends and old without a camera and flashes in their face. I also felt I owed it to the pig. She was the reason we were all there, and if theres one thing that I was sure of that night, its that everyone in the room knew exactly where the meal came from and were as thankful as I was.

New Jesse James poster

part of my 15 minutes...

Todd Palin. Alaska. Esquire.

Todd Palin. Alaska. Esquire. Words I heard through the phone from Michael Norseng over at Esquire. He wanted to know if I wanted to go to Alaska to hang out with Todd Palin for a feature for Esquire’s “American male “ issue (out now). Ridiculous. Like I or anyone else could possibly say no to an assignment like that. He laid it out like this: you and your assistant will fly to Alaska and hang out with Todd for a few days and show the world what it’s like to be him. This kind of assignment is why I take pictures for a living, hanging out with Todd Palin in Alaska. If there is one name that was as dividing as it was uniting last year, it was Palin. Michael wanted a slice of life look at Todd. Get intimate. The story was this; here’s this guy, a mans man, hunter, fisher, snowmobile racer, oil field worker. But also a father and a stay at home dad. Truly a renaissance man for the 21st century. Oh yea, his wife is pretty interesting too. This is the new American male. I really wanted to look at not so much what it’s like to be him, but look at what it means to be him. We spent a few days there in Wasilla, just checking into his world every day and seeing what its like. Snowmobile stuff, hanging out at home with the kids (Sarah was off in Juneau for the week), doing some snowmobiling. Just cool stuff. One connection I did have with him was fishing. We both are pretty serious fisherman and our families have both relied on commercial fishing for a living. My brother is a commercial fisherman in Florida and I fished with him commercially way back when and still do on occasion now when I’m home in Florida and time permits. Todd and I are pretty passionate about our finned friends. He showed me pics of his fishing exploits and we talked about the common bond all fisherman have. I showed him a few pics I keep on my iphone of big fish I’ve caught, he dug it. I never get bored talking fish. We talked fish conservation. We both really want our kids to be able to go out and catch and eat wild caught fish. (sidebar: don’t eat farmed fish. very bad for the environment, you, and most importantly wild fish. go here: http://www.annieappleseedproject.org/salfarprob.html) It was a really cool week hanging with and getting to know him. After a few days of taking pictures I talked to Michael and basically told him “getting great stuff, lots of cool pictures, but he looks like a single dad as Sarah hasn’t been home all week.” She was getting home Sunday, but I was supposed to leave Sunday morning, so we scheduled one more day so we could get a shot of the fam at home. Unfortunately she’s has been lying kinda low after the whole VP thing, and it was touchy getting that scheduled and shot. She did it grudgingly but we got a shot, kinda. They thought the story was going to be focused on her, they even hinted at that. Todd even said to me “the only reason you guys are doing this on me is because of her.” Yea, that true, I agreed with him. She is the draw initially, but the story really was about him. It’s funny because all my friends want to know about her. My liberal and conservative friends all want to know what she’s like. It’s a strange phenom, she’s really a polarizing figure. From the most die-hard conservative to my totally left liberal friends, they all want to know about her. Is she nice? Is she dumb? Did you like her? Is she pretty? Yes, no, yes, yes. I did like them. I like all Alaskans though. Something about that place. I get it. Been there several times and I understand why they try and keep it a secret. Flew home on Monday morning and had a nice look at the cold white snowscape while listening to mick and the boys on exile on main street…tumbling dice will always remind me of this gig now… My favorite picture by far is the last one in this post, the shot of "i love you daddy" on the toolbox. Todd told me Piper wrote that one day. Just hanging in the garage one day with him, saw it and new it was a great shot, summed up the whole story. The one thing I will never forget is watching Todd and Trigg. Besides fishing, the thing we talked about a lot was our babies. My little Henry and his Trigg. Our universes are parallel on those two things, fishing and our babies. He adored that baby so much, and Trigg really lit up for him. It was the only time Todd was totally calm and not uncomfortable or antsy, when he was holding Trigg.

Mens Health bad food...

I finally got a copy of this story I did for Mens Health last fall. Always hard it seems to get copies of stories I've shot. Mostly I just forget about it as too busy to remember. The story was called "the worst food for kids", and it was about all the crap that people feed their kids. We decided to take it a little over the top and do photo illustrations really, with the kids interacting with the food to make the point. Shot in the studio, good times, good kids, and I must admit, I did eat some of the food that we were shooting and it was tasty. Besides, I'm not a kid, so it's not as bad for me. Here's the tear sheets from the story, and a couple of my favorite out takes that didnt get used....

Where your car goes to die...

I actually shot this 2 years ago, but came across the tear sheets last week and wanted to post them. It's kinda the perfect metaphor for the US auto industry....dead....I shot it for Allyson Torrisi at Popular Mechanics, I think she knew I would get it and bring home the bacon. The story was a story about what happens to all the cars when they die, as all cars do die eventually. The short answer is they get recycled. Very cool too the way its done. The cars are first crushed flat like a pancake in a big press, then they are picked up by a crane, dropped onto a conveyer belt. The belt slowly brings them up and into the shredder. This machine literally takes a whole car, and rips it into quarter sized pieces. No shit, so cool. When the machine was off, they let me look inside its guts, but i couldn't photograph it because it's proprietary. Basically its a bunch of huge hammers that tear the car apart. Very loud and Edward Scissorhands-ish. They also have some pretty ingenious ways to separate all the different materials that make up a car. Think about it, rubber, plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, copper. Pretty much every kind of material you can think of, a real pain to separate for recycling. They do it pretty well though. It goes through a magnet which picks up magnetic metals, then through water where all the rubber and plastic that floats gets pulled off, until everything is sorted and sent to the recycle place. It's actually pretty big biz. I went to an alimunum smelter and got to hang with the guys there making aluminum ingots out of old cars, that was pretty cool too. Have a look. When i saw these I wanted to post them because of the dying car biz, and also because I was a bit nostalgic, as I shot 4x5 film for this one and havent shot film in over a year now. I miss it, but when i really thought about it, it wasnt really the film shooting that i missed, but just the time and the story that I missed. Whenever I look at a picture I've taken, whether it was Dustin Hoffman in LA in 1999, or this car crushing story 1n 2007, I remember the time perfectly and I just miss the time. I still get to do great stories, do cool things, and take great pictures though, it's just done without film now.....

Western Star Tucks

Just got some new layouts of the Western Star campaign I’ve been working on this past year. Shot in Maine last fall in a logging camp and then we shot in Little Rock this winter some over the road truckin’. For those of you that don’t know, Western Star is the Mercedes of trucks. They’re owned by Freightliner, the biggest semi truck manufacturer, but it’s their flagship brand, Western Star, that they’re most proud of. More expensive, better built. Ask any trucker and he will tell you about them. Because they have such a stellar reputation as the best built and toughest trucks, the logging industry uses them because logging trucks are beat to hell pulling 100,000 pounds of logs out of the woods over dirt, mud, and gravel roads. Over the road truckers use them too, but it’s in the woods that these trucks really excel and stand out. When I talked to the creative director, Jeff Nichols, he was very passionate about how these trucks should be portrayed. Emotional. Rugged. Not scared of anything. We wanted to show them in a non-traditional way for the trucking industry. Not the standard 3/4 beautiful sunset shots of the trucks, but down and dirty and ready to do anything. No washing or detailing them, just honest. He sold the concept to the client by showing them my hummer stuff from Alaska, my monster truck and NASCAR work, and the Jesse James book. They loved it and loved the concept. We decided to head to the northwest woods of Maine where lots of logging takes place. Beautiful country indeed. Usually there’s some sort of shot list on a job like this, but we didn’t have one. Just ideas of how the shots should look. Dirty. Rugged. The hero of the woods. Its great to work like this, but very hard too. It takes a lot of trust from the client and creative director to just turn you loose as they cross their fingers and hope you produce and all the stars align without a clear shot list….our base camp in Maine was Pelletier brothers logging company in a little town called Herman. The Pelletier brothers own about 15 Western Stars, so our idea was to hang around the lumber yard as guys came in to offload, meet them, shoot them and the truck as they worked, and hop into the cab with them as they drove back out into the woods so we could shoot out there too. Sounds like a pretty sketchy plan, but it worked out believe it or not. Truckers are a pretty crusty bunch, but so are photographers, so we all got along pretty well as my jeans are just as dirty as theirs. Saw a moose calf one day as we were cruising along through the woods, I think we scared the hell out of him. The logging road is gravel and goes about 70 miles through the woods. We went about 40 miles in to various logging camps where we would just kind of watch as trees were cut down, hauled out of the woods, and loaded onto the trucks. Take pictures of the trucks in action. Pretty cool stuff. A forestry officer is there and goes through ahead of the loggers and marks trees to cut. That way there’s no clear cutting and he knows which trees to take for the lowest impact on the forest and the critters that live there, as we all love critters and want to take care of their home. I know I keep saying it over and over, but the best part of this job is the education I get about the world. I get these intense little vignettes about a part of the world and a way of life that I would never get as just a casual traveler. Taking pictures on a job like this is really just exploring my curiosity. The camera is just the vehicle to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, and hungry I am..…. here’s a few of the layouts he finally sent me last week, and a few of my favorite images as well. Enjoy

WWE Backstage!

I shot a WHOLE ISSUE of WWE Magazine, a special Backstage Issue. Of course, growing up in florida in the 70's and 80's Dusty Rhodes and Hacksaw Jim Duggan were idols of mine. I wasn't much of a Hulkamaniac though....anyway, i thought it would be cool to do this job. The assignment was a backstage special issue, all the WWE superstars backstage hanging out, getting taped up, working out, etc.. I ended up going to 13 different shows all over the country over the course of a couple of months, lots of traveling. At first, I got the stink eye alot from the wrestlers as I was new and they didnt know who this guy was sticking a camera in their faces. These guys are all pretty intense inspite of the shows being basically entertainment. But by about half way through I was just part of the crew and had a good time. Got a couple of stare downs from Vince Mcmahon a couple of times though, the "get that F-ing camera away from me" look, so I gave him lots of space. The highlight of the whole job for me was getting to see Dusty Rhodes a few times. He doesnt wrestle anymore, but his sons do, and he's there backstage alot as a manager in the WWE family. I was too much of a wimp to ask him to do his signature move on me, the "bionic elbow"......Thanks to Christine Reilly for a superb edit and Brant Louck for treating the pics so beautifully, we did good guys...

SKI magazine story in Steamboat

This is out now in the March/April SKI Magazine. I got a call from Sarah Lavigne over at SKI Magazine asking if i would be interested in going to Steamboat in Colorado to do a story about the NASTAR ski championship being held there. Of course I had never heard of NASTAR as I'm not super duper skier dude, but I do ski so it piqued my interest. She told me NASTAR racing is a program where recreational skiers of all abilities can test their skills on a course with gates just like the pros and "we want that Nathaniel Welch take on a slightly kooky event without being ironic or mean". Sounded like my perfect assignment. The key words are "skiers of all levels" and "kooky" because thats who shows up, skiers of all levels, shapes, ages, sizes and abilities there to test their abilities, meet new peeps, maybe win a medal, and drink lots and lots at the parties at night. Sounded like a fun story as it was about the people and the overall atmosphere of the event, not the actual skiing. I really had a blast on this one, as once again I got to meet so many interesting characters and hang out on a mountain for a few days (and drink lots and lots at night). It was challenging for my assistant and I as we had to shoot pretty much all over the mountain at the different courses and had to lug around the cameras and a profoto 7b (those of who know about the profoto 7b know its a 40 pound beast) all on skis just the 2 of us. There were definatley times when we looked at eachother and thought "do we really need to go to that course on the other side of the mountain"? But of course I had to be the general and rally the troops (promises of a great dinner and whiskey). It was great though as the weather was perfect, the people were great, and we stayed an extra 2 days just to ski and enjoy the mountain without the gear. Although, the best part of the whole deal for me was my contributor picture, as Henry made his print debut to the world. In that snapshot we were on our cruise this xmas and we were playing Lawrence of Arabia.........

more WTA Super Heros Campaign

Been in Palm Springs this week working on the Womens Tennis Association SUPER HEROS campaign again. I started shooting this campaign back in the spring of last year in Rome, and then again in NYC during the US open. Now we're shooting more of the girls here at the Indian Wells tournament in California. I really love working on this campaign, as I get to shoot some really beautiful women and some really world class athletes all at the same time. So far I've shot most of the best, including Serena and Venus, Sharapova, and Ivanovic, and most of the up and comers and almost retired. I love coming to Palm Springs, I've worked here a couple of times before and fell in love with it here (but only in the winter). One of my fondest memories is of a day I spent with Tammy Faye Baker here back in 1999. It was a surreal experience for sure hanging out with her here. A kitshy, surreal place and a kitshy, surreal subject; they really were made for each other and it made perfect sense once I met her. Spent all day with her in her condo on the golf course. I ended up shooting her in her bathtub, although it was a tight portrait of her face, I used the bathtub because the bathtub walls truly were the only surface in the house that was clean, all the walls in the house were full of pictures and bad paintings. Another reason I love Palm Springs is the thrift stores. Some of the best I've been to, lots of stylish old men leaving their white loafers and brass button coats in the areas thrift stores. I've got a leather shirt I bought here way back when that I still adore and wear from time to time. I need to dig up that old photo of tammy faye and put it up here... heres a few behind the scene snaps my assistant took, an image of Ivanovic and one of Lisicki, and a layout from the campaign being used now. There's a Times Square billboard up now too, I need to get a shot of it!

GLAMOUR magazine 2...

Here's the opening spread to the GLAMOUR magazine piece on abortion, as well as a related story I shot last year for MORE magazine. The MORE shoot was about abortion also, but was a feature on Leslee Unruh, the ultra right wing abortion foe. She has been trying to outlaw abortion in her state, South Dakota. Go HERE to read a full bio of her. I think the press hammers her pretty hard, as this story did, but she seems to not mind as long as she can be heard. I actually liked her and enjoyed our shoot and time together. I love the midwest too, and Sodak is a pretty cool place. The best part of my job is scouting. I scouted for this location the day before, it was in a city park on the edge of town. I get so see alot of cool places that i normally wouldnt get to see when i scout. Didnt have time to get a permit so just winged it, which is risky but in editorial photography sometimes its better to ask forgiveness than permission. Anyway, found a great location, god gave me the perfect sky for the story, and the stars all aligned to make a great picture. hope you like it....nw

Jesse James shoot

Shot Jesse James again last week in LA. He's got a new tv show coming out on SPIKE tv soon. It's called JESSE JAMES IS A DEAD MAN. Not sure what its about except Jesse doing some crazy shit. I've been shooting Jesse for a long time now. The first time was for GQ back in 2000 when he was inventing the whole motorcycle/gear head TV show genre. He was the first, now there's dozens of others. Of course my best work with him was the book, JESSE JAMES AND HIS BEAUTIFUL MACHINES. Truly one of my proudest pieces of work. Anyway, it's nice shooting him these days because he trusts me, and that is the hardest thing to get from a subject. He's also a pretty good photographer himself. He's got a mark 3 1ds and a Hasselblad H1 with a leaf back. Serious cameras. He shoots alot of the stuff for the WCC website and catalogues. The picture I posted here is one of my fav's, but the finished product will have a background dropped in by SPIKE of fire and wrecked cars and stuff, I'll put that up when i get it. The other pics are behind the scene stuff that one of my assistants shot....

GLAMOUR magazine this month...

Got a big feature in Glamour magazine this month. I spent some time on a really great story, but a really hard, delicate one too. The story was about abortion, and the assignment was to photograph women that have had them for a first person, testimonial sort of piece for the magazine. Really tell the story of having an abortion, what it's like, what regrets they may or may not have had, etc.. I liked the piece because it was fair to both sides of the issue in that it didnt treat having an abortion as something you do without alot of thought and introspection. Conversely it didnt treat having an abortion as some sort of whimsy, where you flip a coin to decide what to do. These were real stories from real women that have had them. honest. poignant. emotional. I also went to an abortion clinic in seattle to photograph the clinic, and also women coming in to have one, but without showing their faces. tough. "hello, I'm a photographer for Glamour magazine. Do you mind if I stick my camera in your face while you're in the waiting room waiting to go in and have an abortion?" It was definatley grad school for being sensitive and able to read a situation on a shoot. Of course i had the clinic backing me up and letting them know I was legit, but still hard as hell. Here's a link to the story on Glamour.com. They only used 1 pic online, but it's a good read so have a look. erLike most good stories I shoot, I learned so much more about an issue from being in the thick of it than i could ever learn from school or reading the paper. This job is great. Here's some of my favorite pictures from the various shoots, i hope you enjoy them...

Womens Tennis Campaign...

Italy-May 2008
I went to rome in the middle of may to shoot the new “superheros” ad campaign for the Womens Tennis Association. I got a call from the creative director, Tina Lauffer, asking if I would be interested in going to rome to photograph 20 of the top womens tennis stars today. Rome? Spring? Tennis? Yes! It made perfect sense to phototgraph the best tennis players in the world in the birthplace of competitive sport, rome. The campaign is built around the idea that the ladies are normal people living everyday glamorous lives, and every now and then they transform into the super athletes that we know them as. Think charlies angels meets wonder woman. I was to photograph them in their tennis gear in 2 scenarios. One was a strong, cocky, heroic portrait, and the other was an action shot. The portrait was fairly straightforward and easy to get. We had great hair and makeup, a fan, and a stage so I could shoot from a really low angle. The action shot was a bit more difficult to get, as we were in the studio and space was limited. The big surprise to me though was how great the girls were at nailing the action shot. They were very comfortable making these short, intense moves up on my stage. Here’s a couple of early layouts for ads, and of course yours truly couldn’t resist getting in front of the camera for a couple of snaps!

Shoot for Porfolio magazine

I got a call last Monday from portfolio magazine, asking if i could do a shoot for them on Thursday for a new section in the back of the book. The section is called "transitions" or "moving on" or something like that. It's a profile/q and a/photo of a business person that is moving on to another job. This assignment was to shoot David Neeleman, the CEO of Jet Blue airlines. David is leaving Jet Blue next month to start a new low cost airline in Brazil, much in the same model as Jet Blue. Last winter during a blizzard, Jet Blue left some planes on the tarmac at JFK for 9 hours! It was and is a huge story and led directly to some passengers rights laws being written. Jet Blue really took it hard, and David was the the management that was hung out to dry. The real irony is that Jet Blue is truly the only airline that I'm at all loyal to, and the only airline i will remotely stick up for. In fact, I'm flying them again this Wednesday. I have hated all of the airlines for as long as i can remember. When Jet Blue came along it was a breath of fresh air. I even have pet names for all of the airlines, northworst, us scareways, etc.. I decided to do it because I didn't have to travel, and I had shot David 3 times in the past for other magazines and had a relationship with him. I shot him for Fortune Small Business magazine over the years, and David and I always got along and the pictures always looks good. I even had given him a print from one of the shoots as a gift. Anyway, i went out to JFK on Tuesday to scout the location, which was the jet Blue corporate office out by JFK. Of course there weren't many options to take the picture, but as always, I had to find something to make it work. I looked at his office (he had the 11x14 print i had given him framed on the wall) and I also looked outside on the plaza on the side of the building. The photo editor, Louisa Anderson, mentioned that they would love a picture with a blue sky background, as the picture needed to run full page with text on it. After scouting, we decided to shoot on the plaza first and then try another shot in his office. We also hired a prop stylist to get some vintage suitcases, (get it, moving on) and make it look a little more stylized. I was told I would have 45 minutes with David, but knowing David, he would lose focus after about 20 minutes. He has (admittedly) ADD and he has talked about it a lot in interviews and how how won't medicate himself to help with it because he doesn't want to lose his edge, and it really does define who he is as a CEO in a lot of ways. The shoot went off pretty smoothly, David was in good spirits and had fun with it, here's a couple from the shoot. Here's a couple of my favorites....

my baby boy

here's a picture me and my little boy, Henry Nathaniel Welch. He was born august 19th, 2007, and it was the light bulb moment that you hear about. I finally "get it" now. Why we're here, what our path should be. I love watching him learn about the world, because the irony truly is that i learn so much more from him than he could ever learn from me....

finally a blog head!

finally decided to join the blog world. now i share everything i do with all of my fans!