Les Miserables

How much fun was this ?

I had an unusual opportunity, yesterday, to shoot "in studio" with the cast, in costume and makeup, from the Hight Desert Opera's "Les Miserables". It gave me an opportunity to use some lighting techniques that I use quite a bit on location, minus the wind and elements we usually experience there. I really can't remember when I've laughed so much on a photo shoot.

Thanks to Terri Schafer from Showtime Productions Inc. for putting it all together for us.

Scipio

Once the Holidays were over and done with, once and for all, I realized the snow on the ground was sticking around for a while so I decided it was time to hit the road for a few days and decided to head West. I wanted to find the most deserted road I could think of. Nevada's Highway 50 ("The Loneliest Road in America") immediately came to mind because I had driven all the way across to Reno and beyond three times in the past 8 years, but always on my way to meet up with a client in California.  Never have I had the time to stop and shoot photos along the way.  This time, I asked my assistant, Robb Reece, if he wanted to come with me and hunt down a few new and unusual photos.  At the start of our trip I wanted to take Robb through Scipio, Utah to catch I-15 and button-hook  over to Hwy 50. I knew Robb would love Scipio because of it's "texture" which is always a lure for us button-pushers. Especially me.

 This is where I happened on to Gary Hudson. 

When we found a logical place to pull the truck over and Robb stepped out and started zinning on all of the Americana abounding around him, I plodded over to what appeared to be a small establishment that was actually open for business. I poked my nose inside and found Gary coming out of  the back of the shop drying his hands on a dish towel. We immediately started talking and I asked him if anyone in town would mind if we wandered around a poached a few photos. Gary informed me that there would be no problem with that because he owned everything...at least along the main street.  I love knowing about people and started to probe him with questions. I learned that he a spent a good part of his life in the Yukon Territory, mining silver and gold. Because I had photographed the old gas station up the street on one of my previous trips and I was particularly interested in what he knew about it... 

   turns out he owns that too.

I can't speak for all photographers, but I'm pretty sure that most of us love wandering around and shooting this kind of timeless stuff.  When Gary arrived in Scipio 11 years earlier, he bought up a bunch of the property with the intention of making sure that it stayed "the same". As I wandered around looking for something interesting to capture I started wondering, as I so often do, about the generations of people that had lived there and what Scipio was like in it's heyday. At it's zenith.  Mostly a ranching community, because, as Gary told me, it was too cold in the winter to farm.  

  Guess that makes sense.  

There was a sort of purity about the place.  No trash. No plastic tarps. Nothing too give away the fact that it was "when it was". Now...2014. Usually when shooting around an old town's ruins I am always plagued by artifacts that give the current date away. But somehow, Scipio, or at least Gary's Scipio, has been frozen in about 1960. I can't really explain it other than that was where it seemed that things had stopped. I don't know the year of this school bus, but once it was ready to be retired, this is where it was laid to rest. And it seemingly hasn't been bothered since. 

The house that this old gate belonged to was no longer there, and I wondered what it must have been like. Who had lived there.  What their lives were like. Their big days and their small days. I don't know it for a fact, but think that in it's prime, Scipio was a thriving Mormon town with an interlocked and intertwined Mormon community.  This gate slammed open and slammed shut whenever the kids came home from school and Mom went out to get the mail.  And what was in the mail. 

             I could easily go on.

Absolutely void of litter and preserved as if frozen in time.  Gary would like to keep it this way.  really didn't understand what he meant by this when he first said it, but once I started looking around, I was able to see what his vision was. Conspicuous in its simplicity. Beautiful in its silence.

Cecylia and Code Red-7

I'm finally getting around to posting on an evening climb shoot I was able to do this

fall with Robert Pizem and Cecylia Dembreski on Code Red-7 in Unaweep Canyon here in

Colorado.  This is a 5:13 route of about 3-400 feet of granite.    

It is late fall and very back lit with sun setting down the valley. Although it gave 

everything a nice "rim lit" glow, in order to maintain the shadows it slowed things down

significantly. I wanted to be extremely mobile so needed to hand hold

a long zoom lens. I didn't want to artifact my shadows so only increased the ISO one

stop and held my breath and tried to pick key points in the action.  For the most part, other

than this first shot, and the last two, with a wider lens, I shot long & wide open and was as

  slow as 1/60th of a second at times. Critical to say the least.

   

Cecylia was a strong female climber and I couldn't have casted her look better out of Central

Casting. When shooting climbing, as well as many other sports, the level of ability and

talent always trumps everything else.  It's very hard to fake climbing as well as skiing, running,

and most other intense sports like this. It's a plus to be able to shoot someone like CC that

fits the look of the sport so well. This shot is at about 300mm hand held at about a 125th of

a second so I needed to stabilize myself in a position where I could steady my camera and 

traverse my lens smoothly waiting for these lulls in movement in her body.  Small things,

like the flip in her hair, portray movement. Everything else needs to be crisp, especially 

her eyes and face. 

     As an anchor photo in this sequence I need this shot to establish scale and to convey the committment of the climber. I see a lot of great climbing photography done by the best climbing 

photographers. I also see lots of photography shot from the ground up and that doesn't show

how much distance there is from the belayer. We had ebbing light and I really needed to get things

right, so I made sure to station myself above.  having said this, and as I was moving around

the rock above CC, I need to make sure I was paying attention to myself. It would have been so

easy, in the heat of the moment with camera in hand to have misjudged the edge. 

I was impressed with CC's absolute determination. She encountered at least 2 obstacles on this pitch 

that fully pushed her limits and strength and she had to release. As you can see from the length

of her belay, this was about 6 to 8 foot fall. She started her fall up by that upper carabiner. With cold hands and feet. She would regroup and try again and iron out the problem. It's hard to see in this shot, but there is quite a bit of movement in her hands, feet and hair tipping off the slow shutter.

A very strong female athlete, indeed. 

As I was rounding out the story of CC's climb I wanted to do something to show her at the 

top.  Something different.  My light was all but gone so I laid on the ground to grab a

low perspective of her skinned shin, rope and climbing shoe. Robert, who was her belayer

made a good compositional element to offset the back ground. Shot nearly wide open

wit focus set on her war wound.

I wouldn't have been doing my job if I hadn't gotten an environmental portrait of "the Piz".  

Robert Pizem is a nationally ranked climber and I can't say enough about him so I won't try 

other that it's been fun getting to know and shooting with him.

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).