This year marks the 12th year of the public art project, a Tribute in Lights, honoring those that fell on 9/11. It is one of the simplest symbols that continues to unite us all. It isn’t guaranteed to always be there as it costs the city over $500,000 each year to display.
So take a moment tonight to find the light – whether it is from a rooftop, bridge, or vantage point.
The Center for Photography at Woodstock is having a super sale- 20% off – on their September workshops! The Discount code is wpw13fall, but act fast as it is only good until this Friday, August 23rd! This would make my Seize the Night Workshop, from September 20-22 under $300! It will be my first year teaching at CPW, and I’m very excited to help you take your night photographs to the next level! We will have lots of lecture time and review your work during the day. At night we have several cool locations in the Catskills that we will capture under the stars. Hope to see you there!
I’m also very honored to have my Ziatype “Quattro Fontane” featured in Jill Enfield’s Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes
And finally, I guess all my traveling is paying off!
B&H just ran a series of articles on Travel Photography, featuring insights from experts in the field, including several National Geographic photographers, and yours truly! My article focused on how to reinterpret cities in a different light by shooting them when the sun goes down. The top image, Moon City, is one of my favorite images that I have taken this year and the inspiration for that blog.
Keep on clicking!
Last Tuesday I gave my Night Photography lecture at the B&H Event Space to a sold out crowd. I’ve been giving a version of this talk for over 5 years, and it blows my mind that I can still pack them in!
David Brommer, founder of the B&H Event Space, gave me an introduction that got me so excited, I felt like I was a football player running out to start the Super Bowl! I engaged the audience right away and played off their energy and curiosity to give one of my best lectures to date!
The evolution of teaching night photography to newbies as well as experienced photographers has been incredible. I have discovered that I absolutely love teaching and sharing my knowledge. I get so jazzed when I take an awesome shot, but I also get just as excited when I watch a student capture and create something totally inspiring.
I’ve been a bad blogger this year – I’ve kept my words to myself. But I’ve been plotting, and I now have some cool announcements and a killer behind the scenes video to show you.
First off – we have been revamping the Ruinism website and a new addition is the Workshop Page. This is the resource to find out where I’ll be teaching hands-on workshops on how to successfully capture and create wonderful night images.
Earlier this year, I taught a weeklong workshop with the Rocky Mountain School of Photography and Tim Cooper called Dusk to Dawn: Vegas to Zion. It was our second year teaching this class and I can’t wait to do it again! The students were awesome and we get to shoot is some fantastic places. At almost every location, I set up a time-lapse capture with the Fujifilm XE1.
Check it out – I hope it inspires you to take a class or at least Carpe Noctem!
The process of poring over your work is full of nostalgia, criticism, angst, and pride. As an artist, you need to spend time with your work to see what sticks. Some images that were important to me last year don’t have nearly the same hold now. We constantly create to inspire and inspire to create. Back in January, Tony Rizzuto, from Photographer’s Breakthrough, asked if he could feature me as their February Breakthrough Artist. I’ve long admired Tony’s imagery and educational work. He started Photographer’s Breakthrough over a year ago with fellow creative Elizabeth Stone. It is an amazing online resource to get feedback, listen to critiques, and gain inspiration.
I can’t remember the last time I was interviewed, and I was definitely a little bit nervous. Luckily they sent me their questions via email and I was given a week to reply! I was asked to submit 40+ images broken into 3 different themes. The 3 themes I chose all had to deal with Time. Night Visions focuses on my fascination with the night sky. Time Exposed explores the movements and magic of the long exposure – with a heavy focus on my pinhole work. Moving Portraits, a new project, hasn’t been featured on ruinism before. This is my take on the smaller snippets of time. I combine these little flip book photos to create mini video vignettes of moments that we might normally pass by. Soon after all the words and pictures were sent off to Photographer’s Breakthrough; another good friend, Eileen Rafferty, asked if she could feature my work in the winter issue of her magazine, Butterflies and Anvils. I met Eileen about the same time I met Tony at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Eileen is an inspirational educator that is very fascinated with the process of creativity. Eileen had recently come to speak at the B&H Event Space as well as be featured on B&H’s Photo’s Real Exposures.
I have been a big fan of Butterflies and Anvils – Eileen’s photographic journal about inspiration and art. I’m proud to say that I have all 8 issues of this quarterly magazine and was honored to have my work featured in the latest issue. Because I had recently subjected myself to this “poring over” process with Photographer’s Breakthrough, I felt an incredible comfort with my work and where I was going. Of course that can change on a daily basis, but once Eileen and I got chatting about my images and the process of photography, you couldn’t shut us up! We talked about various projects, tools, and inspirations for over an hour and a half. Once we had the words, we discussed what photographs would fit best. I’m very interested to get the magazine and to see how Eileen edited the work. She did send over the first page of our interview which can be seen below.
Issue 9 Winter 2013 of Butterfly and Anvils will also feature more visions, creative writing, seasonal flavors, and general musings on the artistic path from Eileen and her friends. Issues are printed on demand through HP’s MagCloud and cost $20. HP uses a heavy stock paper and the quality of the journal is very high. Once you order Butterflies and Anvils, it typically takes 7-10 days to get in the mail. I should have mine next week! So please check out Photographer’s Breakthrough and Butterflies and Anvils and let me know what you think. If you are a Creative, don’t forget take some time to really go through your work. Make some prints, share them online, hang them on the wall and live with them. Look at what you did 10 years ago, 5 years, last year, and last month. What images still resonate? Keep poring and keep creating.
I was incredibly fortunate to have my first “work” trip of the new year be a Linblad/Nat Geo week-long Expedition to the Baja Peninsula. I soon discovered that the Sea of Cortez is an amazing place to set up a cubicle! My good friend, David Brommer, and I were sent down to showcase a ton of gear to the lucky 60+ guests of the tour, plus teach alongside famous Nat Geo/Traveler photographers Bob Krist, Michael Melford, and Ralph Lee Hopkins.
We flew into Cabo San Lucas, and after joining the rest of the tour, we took a 3 hour bus ride to the very remote and exclusive Las Cruces resort. First overwhelming impressions – the constant crashing of the waves along the shore and the bazillion stars shining brilliantly in the sky. Even though I was exhausted after a full days worth of traveling, the night sky drew me out to shoot some long exposures on the Fujifilm XE-1 and X Pro 1.
This first shot was taken along an old breaker/dock area that wasn’t doing a great job of stopping the waves from spilling over. I reluctantly left that camera to burn an hour long exposure and then set up the other rig just out of the picture in the upper left frame.
The area is called Las Cruces, because when Cortez landed here in 1535 he placed 3 crosses to commemerate his arrival in the land of supposed gold, but really lots of pearly oysters.
I’m torn between the celestial and the hour long star trail shot for which I like best. No moon was out and the sky was riddled with stars and satellites from the water to the mountains on the other side
What really sucked about this week was that I had to get up for the sunrise over some epic landscapes every morning. I’m not a 6am kinda guy…but work demanded it, so I showed up. I really loved this in between moment when the warm morning sun shared the same time and space as the cool night sky. This magic moment was fleeting as the sun quickly began it’s domination of the day-time.
Bob Krist was talking a lot about creating moments that include people for storytelling and scale. I just love how the three philosophers are each pointing their camera in a different direction with the brilliant sunrise silhouetting them.
We had set up a Canon 1dx with a 300mm 2.8 lens and a 2x teleconverter for people to use on a tripod and gimbal head. Here I caught some interesting wildlife – one of my favorite students Leonard, who tried every piece of gear we brought with us! This was almost the last siting of Leonard before he was swept to sea…luckily we were able to recover the Canon 8-15mm lens!
The Expedition was a Land and Sea Adventure. We started on land and shot the sunrise, ate breakfast, and then had several photography lectures through the high sun hours. The classes covered the basics to inspiration. I gave a talk on night photography and then led the students out on several night shoots. Here is a shot of Ralph giving his presentation and a sampling of all the gear that was available for the guests to use.
On the 4th day we left the land for the sea. We boarded Linblad’s Seabird in La Paz and got our sea legs ready. We were incredibly fortunate as we did not have to go far before we were able to witness whale sharks feeding! I’m still working on that underwater video footage but if that riding with whale sharks wasn’t enough, for desert we witnessed two humpback whales breaching as the sun set along the horizon!
The next day, after a brilliant sunrise and breakfast, we raced herds of dolphins as they performed many acrobatic tricks around us! I’ve really never shot “wildlife” before and it is really tricky! Ralph called out camera settings, shutters blazed away and we tried to anticipate where the dolphin would break through the sea. Sometimes you just had to set the camera down, breathe, and take in all the beauty. Then fire away again! We photographed the dolphins for maybe 20 minutes and I ended up with over 700 shots! I had to do a quick edit afterwards, immediately deleting 250 missed shots. I probably ended up with 3 dolphin images that I could be proud of.
Another 6:30 wake up call, another beautiful day in the Sea of Cortez.
Part of the reason I was asked to join this expedition was to teach the night photography segment of the workshop. Most of the students were new to creating night scapes and we got 3 moonless evenings to experiment capturing stars and the trails that follow. Below is a 1 hour exposure on with the Fujifilm X E1. The Fuji X E1, X Pro 1, and X100 are the most capable cameras of creating 1 hour exposures without the need for stacking or long exposure noise reduction.
And then my coworker, good friend, co-teacher, and bunkmate – David Brommer and I, in our quarters! I’d like to thank David for working hard on the relationship with B&H and Linblad/Nat Geo. This was one of the coolest gigs that I have ever worked! After swimming with the sea lions, I have now adapted them as my new spiritual animal!
But in all seriousness, it was an epic adventure. We became great friends with the 65+ guests who signed up for the trip. They were so thankful to have B&H reps on board and help them try out all the latest lenses – from 4.5mm to 500mm. It was an honor to teach alongside with Bob, Michael, and Ralph. And I have a newfound love and respect for wildlife and expeditions. Linblad is one of the most professional organizations that I have ever dealt with. The adventure starts when the sun rises and there are tons of opportunities for you to take advantage of the day. Whether it be snorkeling with sea lions, kayaking, zodiac cruises, or just chilling at the beach.
