Behind The Scenes With The Property Brothers
A People Magazine video showing the behind the scenes of my recent book cover shoot with Drew and Jonathan Scott.
Having worked with Drew and Jonathan Scott many times for HGTV, I was hired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to shoot the cover of their upcoming book. Here's a video that was made for People Magazine that shows a behind the scenes look from the shoot. You can find the original video here.
I haven't seen the book myself but here's the cover that's being marketed. It's currently available to pre-order on Amazon.
Men's Book Cover & Feature Story
Images from a recent cover and feature story I shot for Men's Book.
I recently had a two day shoot with Men's Book for their Auto & Entertainment Issue. We were granted full access to the Fox Theater here in Atlanta which was the perfect backdrop for this series.
One of the main reasons I love editorial work is the people I get to meet on shoots like this. In two half days of shooting I was able to meet and work with six amazing people working in the entertainment industry here in Atlanta.
A big thank you to the editorial and design team at Men's Book for giving my photos a lot of real estate on the printed page. Y'all always do such a great job. Thanks!
Dan Rosenfelt :: President of Operations for Third Rail Studios
Jamie Bendall : Lawyer, Comedian, & co-owner of The Punchline Comedy Club
Mark E. Swinton : Producer with Tyler Perry Studios
Chase D'Arnaud : Atlanta Brave and Songwriter
Brian Clowdus : Artistic Director of Serenbe Playhouse
Christopher Hicks : Director for the Mayor's Office of Film & Entertainment
Ludacris For Jezebel Magazine
Images from a recent shoot with Ludacris for Jezebel Magazine
Had the recent pleasure to photograph Ludacris for the cover and inside feature of Jezebel Magazine. We were granted permission to shoot inside of the brand spanking new SunTrust Park that is the new home for the Atlanta Braves.
Luda is into photography and he had a lot of questions about the Phase One I was shooting with. In return for sharing some photography hints and tricks with him he taught me a great technique that I have now used on about six more shoots.
When we started with our first look he told me that I didn't have to worry about getting a good smile out of him or natural looks because he keeps a playlist of his favorite comedians on his phone and that keeps him smiling and looking engaged. He was playing it on his phone speakers so I pulled out a small bluetooth speaker I always travel with and it was amazing. The entire crew was laughing and it made for such a great shoot. I typically play music on set but I've been playing more and more stand up for those times I need someone happy and upbeat.
Obsession With Water Portraits
Some recent water portraits from my personal work.
I started shooting personal work again thanks to a quote from Chuck Close. I had reached a point in my photographic life that I only picked up a camera for client work and, honestly, I was ready to hang up the cameras for good. Depression is a demon I have fought most of my life but it was just about to win this time around.
I've pointed so many people to this Chuck Close quote when they were struggling but I never listened to it myself until a year or so ago. In my lowest valley it finally came home to roost in my own life. The short form of the quote many of you may know is this...
“Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work.”
There's more to that quote though that finally seeped into my brain and woke me up from my sleep.
“Inspiration is for amateurs — the rest of us just show up and get to work. And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’ And the belief that process, in a sense, is liberating and that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today, you know what you’ll do, you could be doing what you were doing yesterday, and tomorrow you are gonna do what you did today, and at least for a certain period of time you can just work. If you hang in there, you will get somewhere.”
Then I found this quote...
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
When these two quotes settled in I simply said to myself, "I need to get the fuck to work."
I had no idea what I was going to shoot but I had to get shooting. Inspiration was going to come out of doing the work. Sitting around and staring at my naval was doing nothing for me. In fact, it was just making me more depressed.
I put out a call on my social media channels looking for subjects to shoot. Erin, pictured above, agreed to shoot with me. We've known each other for years now and I have so much respect for her. She's a single mom of four and a kick ass producer and stylist here in Atlanta. I never have a plan for these personal shoots. I let them go where ever they will go and I wanted to shoot something of Erin that showed her being strong despite the difficulties of life. I set this shot up...
We moved from that set up to this...
The next day I was going through the images and I zoomed in on this one. Erin looked like how I felt. I felt like I have been drowning but with being a dad and running a business I can't just let it take me. I started crying when I looked closer at this image.
There it is. The inspiration was coming out of the work. I loved this so much I started shooting more water based portraits like this. The next subject was Lindsay. This one was so haunting.
I'm not sure when I'll be over these. As long as I continue to get willing subjects I'm going to keep shooting these until I either have THE water shot that nails it or I have a series of them. I've shot a few men for this project but they have requested I not show their images publicly.
Emma And The Sand Storm
A selection of images of Emma in a sand storm.
There's a great quote by Joe Mcnally that goes something like, "Pray for bad weather. It makes for great photographs."Emma and I headed out to the desert for an afternoon of shooting and sight seeing. The day started calm enough but a sandstorm came out of nowhere. I had a trunk load of gear and decided to keep with one camera and one lens. You don't want to be taking gear apart in a sandstorm. It was a great risk to keep shooting but the Phase One XF100 survived.
Death Becomes Her
On a recent trip to LA for HGTV I put a call out for portrait subjects. Dani hit me up on one of my social media channels and we set up a shoot with she and her partner, Natalia. I love this new series of portraits because I show up at someone's home, typically someone I am meeting for the first time, and we hang out and make portraits. I rarely, if ever, have any idea what I'm going to be shooting when I arrive. As the old saying goes, "Photography is 1% inspiration and 99% moving furniture." That's exactly how this shoot went.
