I often get asked about how I work, so here’s a look at how I produced and shot a low budget editorial assignment. The approach is similar to one I’ve used for some corporate assignments. And there’s a surprise ending!
Do it yourself, or call a pro? One of the most used, if least sexy, styles of photography is shooting products on a white background. If you’re selling products on the web or in print catalogs, selling on Amazon, or sending out press releases, you’ll likely need photos of product on white. It seems simple, […]
First, I put the camera on full automatic and took a photo. (First time I’ve ever used full auto, and I can’t think why I’d ever use it except for another similar demo.) I got a photo, and it pretty much dispelled the notion that it’s the camera that makes the picture.To take it a […]
I was finding some shortcomings in the photos I had been taking for the restaurant reviews in the NY Times (don’t tell my editor, OK?) so I revised my methods and gear a bit for a recent assignment, to shoot Kajitsu, a Japanese Buddhist vegetarian restaurant in Murray Hill. (Fair warning: this post may be […]
I was asked to shoot a new restaurant for the local paper, and thought the experience would offer some insight both for photographers new to the restaurant photography scene and photo editors as well. (OK, the first sentence was a bit disingenuous, because my local paper is the NY Times, and the restaurant was the […]
When I did the shoot I wrote about in my last post, I had access to the Jacobson sound blimp, and had heard of, but hadn’t seen, the Aquatech sound blimp. After that shoot came the PhotoPlus Expo, at which I checked out the Aquatech. It looked to me like a vast improvement, so when […]
I’ve photographed a lot of performances and performers over the years, ranging from musicians from folk to rock to classical; theater including experimental, off, off-off and even a radio play; and an issue that keeps coming up is camera noise. Camera noise isn’t much of a problem at a rock concert, but for a chamber […]
I have always done a lot of street photography, starting in my late teens and continuing on to the present. My earliest photographic hero was (of course) Henri Cartier-Bresson, and he remains one of my photo heroes. I’ve shot in the streets with a Contax rangefinder, a Nikon F, Leica M-4 and M-6, a Mamiya […]
Location portraits are a specialty of mine, but as I was covering the Architectural Digest Home Show recently, I came across a frequent problem: how to deal with making interesting portraits in places where you can’t control the light, you don’t have the time or ability to bring in light, and the available light pretty […]
I like making author portraits. I read a lot. I write some. I like spending time with smart people, and if they’re wide-ranging Renaissance types, so much the better. So when I recently had the opportunity to make some publicity and personal photos for two author friends who have that Renaissance scope about them, I […]
