I have recently started shooting people I meet in and about the meanderings of our daily lives.  In that spirit, meet Caroline.  She was passing through from Europe where she ran her own art gallery and is now in route to LA via a diversion to Asia. At one point she was playing in the big leagues in the music world and I have this sense she might find her way back to it...in some way a little closer to the pureness of it all.  While she had never made a portrait before, she was really quite amazing in both her range and energy.  It was lovely to meet her and I do hope our paths cross again.  In addition to a few wonderful images, I was fortunate to have my musical horizons expanded a bit :)

My dear friend Heidi from Monterey had been playing host to a French student - Charlotte - for the last several months.  By circumstance of air travel mishaps, I ended up myself playing host for her for a few days until she jetted back to France.  The spirit of the Dinner and a Portrait series is to photograph people I have been fortunate to become close to and call dear friends over this short life journey.  But sometimes, you just gotta go with flow and be open to a little diversion to the intended path.  Charlotte was as much this in that she is one if these wise old souls despite her young age and it was a lovely treat to have crossed paths.  It thus seemed more then appropriate to cook her up a little meal and embark upon a portrait.

Since this was a totally impromptu event, I ended up having to cook something up without recipe or other forms of guidance.  A bit of flying blind.  I kept it simple with a spicy variation of a pasta thing I had flirted with in the past, but this time went with what I had on hand and went at it by gut vs rule.  While her English is not perfect, it was good enough that I think she found the meal worthy of consumption - and helped out with a bottle of wine - I feel I didn't fail completely on going it alone.

How we know each other

Adrienne and I go back 3-4 years and met through our mutual friend Vic.  She is one of those people you meet who instantly strikes you as having this incredible mix of charm and authenticity.  We hit it off from day one and have been good friends ever since.  On my end, I feel that I never get to see enough of her, but when we do get our situation in the same place, it is like we hadn't missed a beat. 

What we chatted about

* Avatar, all that it was and it wasn't
* Catching up since my epicish travel in Asia
* The Crave venture
* The new people in our lives
* Pursuing the things we love

What we cooked

(complete gallery of selects)

The Idea: Thanksgiving is a big thing with my family and each year I trek down to San Diego for the festivities. I usually break out a camera and take a few snaps throughout the day which generally results in me missing the best of the dining and ending up with half baked photos of guests with turkey drooling out of their mouth (there is something fundamentally unappealing about the human specials in mid bite).  This year I figured I would try something different and embarked on doing a portrait of every guest as they arrived hoping to do a bit more of "making" photos then "taking" photos, but most importantly allowing myself to acquire the requisite 4,000 calories for the day.

The Setup: I usually struggle shooting inside of houses as walls, furniture and funky lighting tend to make things cumbersome and complex.  This day was no exception as I tired to find a location I could properly light that also give a some what relevant backdrop (I didn't have the space nor did it seem appropriate to do a seamless gig here).  I ended up shooting through the front door so I could get the lens throw I needed and used as a backdrop the set tables for the day trying to capture some of the t-day ambiance w/o being overly contrived.  The lighting was a bit mixed, with daylight through the windows and halogen from the lights inside (which I turned on for effect). I ended up putting a 1/2 CTO gell on the SB-900 to match the lighting from the lamps and to give a warm glow of the inside of the house.  In the spirit of keeping things simple, I went with just one light which worked reasonable well as I got enough bounce from the opposing wall (and general ambient fill).  I shot the lens wide open so I could abstract the background a bit (which I also underexposed a few stops for similar reasons).  The result was getting a bit of separation of the subject from the background.

The Results:  When I shoot portraits I really like to spend an hour or two with the subject so they can relex and forget about the camera, and when things go well, it is usually because photographer and subject find a connection and go about making a few images together.  Suffice it to say such was not the case for this shoot, in as much as I had maybe 2 minutes with each subject before they either got tired of holding the turkey or the football game called them (the real shooters manage to work this way....alas, I am not there).  That said, everyone seamed to have fun with the little project and I think we ended up with a few images that where a bit better then "snap shots" and one (of my aunt above) that I think enters the portrait realm.  My aunt Edith is a bit of the matriarch of the family and at 94 she has a take no prisoners kinda attitude, but in the most endearing sorta way.  For me, this comes through with her photo.  There is a shot of each guest as well as few group shots in the full gallery here.

Gear Stuff

Camera:  D700
Lens: 80-200mm 2.8 @ 80mm
Exposure: F2.8 @ 1/125sec @ ISO 200
Camera Support: Hand held
White Balance: More less balanced to daylight

(complete gallery of selects)

My friend Roxy designed this really cool Ibis bike and asked if I would do a portrait of her with it as the folks over at Nat Geo want to feature her in some new textbook.  I took the opportunity to play professional photographer for the afternoon to help her out, and came away at the end of the day humbled and reminded that photo guy isn't my day job!

A few "rookie" mistakes I made along the way.

• New Gear:  Trying to create a "studio kit" that gets me close to what is possible to shoot in the studio (w/o having to lug around 50lbs) of gear, I got my hands on two new SB-900 and a set of Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers (smaller and cheaper then Pocket Wizards).  Gear was all good, but trying to sort it all out on a new shoot less so.  Note to self,  get this shit sorted about before you go in the filed.
• Weights:  Turns out that umbrellas make pretty dang good sails and sans a some sand bags to hold them down, they take flight on a typical SF windy day.  I think I sacrificed two of them today but fortunately the SB-900 survived several drops.
• Dark at Night:  Who would have thunk!  Next time best to bring along a few flashlights or something.  Focusing wide angle glass sans light no-worke.  Had to have Roxy hold my iphone as a focusing point.  I think I need to figure out a way build some modeling lights into this rig for this kinda shooting.
• Camera Bag:  If you leave it in the scene you are shooting, it actually shows up in the picture, and..well, looks like a camera bag.

A few things of note.

• 1/2 CTO Rosco Gel:  Need to do more of that.  Rally nice in toning down the halogen backgrounds or just casting a bit of a warmer light on your subject.
• Assistant:  Man, I could have used one. 

In spite of it all, I think we ended up with a few decent shots.  Fully gallery can be seen here.

Vic & how we know each other

So Vic is the Vic I spoke of in the post about Marc.  Also an amazing designer, entrepreneur, and marketing genius.  We also share a soft spot for 911s, which you just can't coach (as a side note  I just decided to sell my Prius and keep my 911...I am sure I will spend time in purgatory for this).  One of the more meaningful insights (at least to me) that I stumbled across a few years ago is that the people you meet in new ventures are as (and often more) life changing and transformative then the ventures themselves.  While I have been fortunate to know some amazing people in my brief journey, Vic and Marc where the first two I really met outside of my circle.  The impact is immeasurable in as much as who they are as individuals and their influence on me as the opening of the eyes that it is a pretty big world outside said circle :-)  While Vic's impact has been significant and multifaceted in my life, perhaps most enduring in it all has been his teachings in the language of Brand.  While I am a long way from mastering the language, he guided me out of the dark cave where I was scribbling on the wall with charcoal!  Thx Vic :-)

Marc & how we know each other

Our first meting was an object lesson for me in keeping yourself open to what the universe has to offer when you are expecting a different path. In the case of Marc, I had met his business partner Vic and was incredibly impressed and excited by our meeting and hired his firm to do work for my new startup Arena and my vision was that Vic himself would be doing most of it. Of course when it was time for our kickoff meeting, he sent Marc along instead of himself. I felt a bit "bait and switched" and was like "dude, why did you send me this hack to work with?" Little did I know then that Marc would emerge as one most extraordinary designers (perhaps *the" most) I have ever had fortune of working with. From our working relationship a treasured friendship emerged and I am a better person for having known him. For those who don't know Marc, if you ever bump into him he will be the guy with as warm a human spirit as you will ever encounter and likely will be telling some story about the time he bottled Grappa in in the nebulous region of Italy with the progenitor of the libation himself....or some such thing :-)