Cleveland Outskirts

I was on a shoot in and around Cleveland and we had a day off in the middle of our scheduled days so my assistant, Robb Reece, www.robbreecephotography.com, and I headed of to do a little shooting in City. Being from Western Colorado, we don't have the opportunity to shoot in this environment very often so like to look around a bit when we have the chance.  The visuals are, as you can see from most of my other work, very different, thus, very interesting. 

The patina on all of the industrial era building told such a great story of that time in America's history during a period of such expansion. The discovery of steel and oil bi-products and the toil of the everyday man trying to provide for his family. Not that there are guarantees in life today I think of how difficult it had to have been back in the early 1900's. The weathering on the old brick buildings reminded me of lichen on a piece of granite in a talus field in the high country.  

I always loved the neatness and order of the little neighborhoods that sprang up around the city to house workers. Each with their ethnic concentrations.  It was from these little townships and streets that the boys went off to fight in the World Wars. From these porches daughters were picked up for their first dates and Dad went of to pull his shift. 

I was impressed by the waterways that are still fully in use that spread our commerce from the Great Lakes. Bridges radiating out from the central part of the city creating access to the industrial areas. All the while we were shooting, we were looking for a spot we could end up shooting from that would give us an elevated perspective for the mandatory unobstructed "skyline" photo.  

So many of these old businesses that were apparently still working and some, under the same name. Texture and contrast everywhere.

Light continued to improve with some very promising clouds as we continued our search for "the spot". Clouds make the day. There was a time when all we wanted to see was wall to wall blue. Now, just the right amount of cloud cover with a small slice of clear on the Western horizon. Just fun to watch if nothing else.

We found our spot. As luck would have it, a transport ship was moving in along the water way. This really helped complete the story of this image. Finding just the right angle took a little time. Just enough of everything to complete the foreground without compromising how the transport ship would look when it came into position.

When I'm out running around with my camera and thinking of what I'd like to find, I always try to be mindful when the light is cooperating like it was this evening.  A cloud scrim can move in so easily and compromise your outcome.  And there's not a darn thing you can do about it other than adjust your approach. 

Bob Cherveny

I was out scouting props and locations for a shoot I had coming up when I stumbled upon this

beautiful 1949 Chrysler Royal sitting in a gravel lot next to an old cinderblock building down in

the industrial part of town. Kinda caught it in my rear-view mirror so decided to circle back 

to locate it's owner in the next day or so. When I returned the Chrysler was gone, but there

seemed to be some life in that old building so I went over and poked my nose inside and found

Bob Cherveny hustling around.  He gave me a friendly greeting and I found out that the '49 was

his. He was glad to allow me to use it in one of my shots, but I realized that the real shots were

right there in his machine shop.

Bob is an automotive machinist and has been working in this building for 35 years.
Technically he's retired, he tells me, but still working. Loves what he does. The long time

accumulation of tools and machinery was a beautiful visual, but what really had my attention

was the smell of grease and metal. Reminded me of my Grandfathers machine shop out back of

his house when I was growing up. Only thing missing was the wonderful smell of cigar smoke.

This kind of photography is the gold standard for me because of the grit and texture, but also

the story of the Americas worker who is actually still making things or provide a service

that people need. My Dad was a grocer when I was growing up and my affinities lie with 

the workers that make this nation work. Always most comfortable in this environment.   

I asked and Bob and he consented to allow me to come by and shoot him and I basically just 

followed him around as he worked and shot using the beautiful north light streaming in from his

well placed windows. A photographers dream. I had to push my ISO a bit to 200 and handheld a     

pretty slow shutter to allow for a bit of depth of field. Probably about a 15th of a second at 

about f-8. I just waited for that lull in his movement and wedged myself into or up against 

something solid to still the camera. I find myself shooting this way quite a bit when I want a bit 

of spontaneity. Especially when I'm imposing myself on someones time and want to be

invisible.

I loved the shots from out in his shop because they rounded out his story, but knew I had to come 

away with something of Bob working at his desk. This was the real story. This was a space

that has been decorated with thirty five years of running his business and if it weren't for the 

answering machine and telephone in the foreground, the setting might have been from 1949 as well.

Truly timeless. 

From this place, Bob has taken care of the needs of his clients, 

 community and his family. And without much ceremony. Just good work for a fair price.

As for the '49 Chrysler Royal ... watch for our next blog.

Gateway Canyons Resort

I was recently working on a project in Southern Colorado for

 Noble House Hotels www.noblehousehotels.com 

and had an enjoyable experience working 

along side one of their principals, Scott Colee, on a project for

Gateway Canyons Resort www.gatewaycanyons.com, 

not too far from my home base. As you can see from this 

photograph, shot from their Eurocopter, this is an unbelievably unique and beautiful

setting so as we were shooting, the location possibilities were almost overwhelming.

 A good problem to have.  Gateway Canyons is owned by John Hendricks, 

who also owns The Discovery Channel dsc.discovery.com. John spent a couple 

of days with us while we shot and I enjoyed his warmth and genuine interest in 

photography. An excellent photographer in his own right. 

Gateway Canyons is a very first class destination with beautiful grounds and 

accommodations, food and amenities.  

Check it out.

This shoot was sort if a dream because I was able to use a wide range of skills with lifestyle,

automotive, landscape and architectural requirements on our shot list.  Although we did 

not shoot it, there is a world class automotive museum on site at Gateway, installed there

for the guests.  It houses more than 50 significant, restored cars dating back to the early 1900's.

Part of the amenity offering is a "Driven Experiences" where you have an opportunity

to drive any of a number of high performance cars on a spectacular highway winding

South to Telluride.  For me, certainly not a hard thing to shoot.

We hit a window of spectacular weather for this shoot when they had been getting 

quite a bit of inclement weather.  We would shoot with the cars at dawn and dusk

and the rains came every day, but almost always during our down times.

We were using quite a bit of supplemental lighting, as usual, on our lifestyle 

 shooting during the day so weren't quite as concerned about the ambient conditions

with this as with the car photography. Mornings dawned beautiful and the evening's 

 were ,well, "desert stunning".

As a destination retreat, Gateway will pick you up when you bring your corporate or

personal plane into the airport, about an hour away, in one of their Bentleys. Shooting a

plane isn't much different than shooting a car so stacking these together worked out

pretty well.  Pre-planning the set was the most important part of getting this shot.  We 

ended up with a clear sunset, so decided to add the appropriate clouds to enhance the 

final shot and to give it it's vertical crop. 

Any photographer will tell you that kids and dogs are the "bane of their existence" and 

that's really true, pending the attention spans, respectively.  Once you add in a horse, you 

know you have trouble on your hands.  As you can see, that was where we were on this shot.

With the help of my cowboy talent, Paul McLean, www.radicalartistsagency.com 

we were able to pull off about 4-5 captures that seemed to work before

the dog ran off, one of the kids chased him and the horse in the background lost interest  

and retreated permanently into his stall. 

I thought this was one of the better shots to come out of this shoot.

We used some primary supplemental lighting on our foreground scene in this shot

blending with all of the ambient light sources to give things a natural look.  Truth be

known, it started raining the minute we wrapped this up. Lucky, lucky.

My thanks to our team, Hope Carlton and her assistant Jolynn Garcia (stylists), 

 Gina Bishop (interior stylist), Robb Reece (assistant), Scott Colee (Noble House),

Elizabeth Hendricks North & Healey McBride (art direction).

Robert Pizem

I'm not sure exactly how, but I got hooked up with Piz.  Robert Pizem, actually. He invited me out to shoot a little rock climbing, something I hadn't done in a while and I was honored to do so with him. Piz brandishes climbing industry sponsors like SCARPA, Arcteryx, Sterling Ropes, WindXtreme and Camp-USA and is a 5.14 sport and crack climber, specializing in big wall free climbs and traditional climbing.  For their websites, visit Piz's blog at http://pizem.blogspot.com.  Robert and his climbing partner Mike Brumbaugh, www.avonventuresports.com Robb Reece, www.robbreecephotography.com (my sometimes assistant, sometimes biz partner) and I hooked up for 2 sessions. I tried to shoot the story line w/ some big views, portraits and the always important detail shots in the limited time I had.  All went well and I was amazed with the ease these guys moved around the rock. They were as "at home" as most people are their living room.

Rock Climbing is a photographic subject that has so many unique subject opportunities and presents an array of approaches. The athletes are uniquely fit and make great portrait subjects in a landscape setting.  I have always tried to shoot with the very best rock and ice climbers in my past, for obvious reasons, visually, for sure, but also because of the level of professionalism and safety. I would advise everyone else who does this to do the same. It was Warren Miller who said that when a camera is introduced into the situation, the subjects IQ drops by 60 points.

I would never want an injury (or worse) to happen on my watch, as the photographer who "introduced the camera into the situation". Here I added split supplemental lighting and a little layering to control spill, for a more stylized approach.

Here with natural light, a little more of a select focus and an adjustment in visual approach.

Big views and small climbers. This photograph would have stood up just fine as a static landscape, but when the drama of an accomplished climber is added, additional value is created to an otherwise "walk up and shoot" image.  Really not too bad either way. We placed the Piz-man on the shady side of this rock in this bouldering situation and needed a smidgen of supplemental light to add depth and to open him up a little bit.  I placed one light "deep" so it would be coming from the direction of the main primary light source, the sky in the far field.

They say that if you choose something you love to do as your career you'll never work a day of your life.  I also get to wear flip flops to work. Every day. Happy shooting.

I wanted to take a moment to mention that we recently have lost another hero of Americas Greatest Generation.  Art Gilbert, born in 1921, was man who's story was so typical of so many boys who grew up in depression era America. He rode a milk cow to school each day in his youth and later, after WWII built his house, brick by brick, from the rubble salvaged from a demolition of his Methodist church down town. As an Army Engineer, he landed in the second wave, D-Day (June 6th, 1944) on Omaha Beach.  He and his gun crew, who miraculously made it ashore, were cited for actions resulting in the destruction of a German heavy gun battery that had decimated Army Rangers in the first wave landing.  Art Gilbert was a member of America's Greatest Generation that, quite literally, saved the world from the brink of destruction. Just in case you're wondering why Garth Brooks doesn't sing in German (or Japanese) today.

I would also like to honor the loss of my Father-in-law,  John Nicholas Simpson,  in August of 2011, who also served on the sands of the South Pacific in our conflict with the Empire of Japan.  John was an rifleman in an infantry unit seeing action in the Battle of Makin Atoll, Quagilene, Saipan and Okinawa.

I miss him.

Honor a Veteran or a member of our Military Forces Today. 

This is a photographers "short story" that could easily be a novel.

A call came in from Dena Stroje, (Assistant Art Buyer, Brunner, Pittsburgh) asking about availability for an up coming project for Cub Cadet Lawn & Garden Tractors and we threw our hat in the ring with   a preliminary estimate.  We knew we presenting against 3 or 4 other photographers including one that had shot the previous year so that gave us about a 20% chance of being named to the shoot.  As events would play out, we were called in, but really were not fully of the moving parts on this shoot.  I was thinking "how difficult can it be". We were so lucky to be working with an agency who truly wanted to empower us to prevail and we were guided step by step by their art buyer, Dani Caruso and Creative Director, Steve Farrar.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, location was very important, and grass was even more so, so once we decided where, geographically, we were shooting, we sent out our location scouts.  Nailing down suitable locations that fit the specific needs of the respective equipment we were photographing cycled for 2 weeks prior to departure time. We received nightly scouting reports and location scouting carried on well into the actual shoot.  It had been very dry in the Pittsburgh area and although there were a ton of beautiful places to shoot, we needed perfect grass.  Preferably under irrigation.  Unlike where we're based, not everyone with a big lawn in Pittsburgh has a lawn irrigation system.

As we started selecting our shoot sites and securing permissions, we pulled in our "greensman", Greg Jones.  Gregs' sole pre-shoot job was to start watering and fertilizing our grass.  Once on the shoot with us he cared for grass, planted bushes, pruned, sodded, and planted (and pulled) schrubs and bushes.  Greg has many feature films to his credit, so his job with us was not a big deal for him. He told us that he had once turned a street in the Pittsburgh area into a street in Iraq. I, on the other hand, kinda liked having my very own gardner on hand.

I have had the pleasure of working with a producer who is based in Asheville, NC, Kevin Gregory and wanted to pull him in to be our Den Mother.  Kevin is an "attention to detail" guy who has been in the business for a while and always thinks of things that don't even cross my mind.  Once this project was turned over to him, my pre-shoot responsibilities consisted of dissemination of information to the agency and acting as over-seer.  Once on the shoot, Kevin was always at least two steps ahead of us. It didn't matter what we needed, he led the bird perfectly.  We rarely saw Kev, but there were no less than 20 people on set ant any give time.  A veritable ocean of clients, agency, talent, assistants, stylists, equipment wrangler, props, wardrobe, trucks, trailers, lawn and garden equipage.  Kevin was the omnipresent over seer.  The Den Mother.

In the final analysis, I've never work with such a large group of people who played so well together. So many moving parts, so little tension.  I was really surprised at how the home owners opened up their properties to our relative "circus" and thank the folks at Brunner for their complete support for a successful result.  They had been through this seven times before. I'm excited to see how things look when they come out of post at Brunner.