I’ve been fortunate to have shot a few assignments for FADER magazine over the past year. It’s an honor to be asked to contribute to a publication that utilizes a lot of incredible documentary photographers and uses their photography extremely well. So when the new issue came in the mail the other day I was excited to see that the latest assignment I shot for them about a rapper named Brisco from South Florida was used for the opening of the Gen-F section.
Tropical Storm Fay came at us early this week. For most people is was an excuse to party. They got a couple days off work and didn’t really have to do much to prepare because it wasn’t predicted to be very significant in our area. For others, however, it was a nightmare. Fay dumped about a foot and a half of rain on the area, and while the drainage system handled the water fairly well, there are always spots that get hit hard. Many people said Fay produced worse flooding than four years ago when the area got hit with back-to-back hurricanes.
All-in-all the people I ran into seemed pretty upbeat despite the rough situation. There were a lot of people playing in the flood waters, and a family who got flooded out of their house kept a positive attitude even while they hauled out furniture and tore up their flooring with the help of their friends. But that attitude was also kept out of necessity. I asked the father what his immediate concerns are and he said “keeping the family upbeat.” They had a good group of friends who will help them out and give them a place to stay and food to eat, but what was most important to him was that his young daughters not be devastated by the sight of their destroyed house. Then he thanked me for asking the question. That was the first time that has ever happened to me.
The most shocking photo I think I’ve seen in a while was shot by co-worker Matthew Ratajczak. While driving around looking for photos he found a cemetery where one of the caskets had become dislodged and exposed in a pool of water. It had been buried only weeks earlier. The two people in the photograph are relatives of the deceased and were rightly upset. It was weird to see because just earlier that day I drove past a cemetery that had taken on some water and wondered if something like this could ever happen. My question was answered not an hour later.
Vincent Laforet put it on table with a heavy article on Sportsshooter.com yesterday. It’s a good read from an industry heavyweight, and although it comes off as a lot of doom and gloom, it simply lays out the obstacles that many photographers may face in the future, and calls for innovation and creativity to deal with a changing marketplace.
from Sportsshooter.com…
I’ll leave you with this. If I were 22-years old right out of college looking for a job or a career path, I wouldn’t be focusing on working on x newspaper to get to y newspaper and then eventually z magazine with my 20 image portfolio that contains 2 spot news photos, 4 sports pix, 4 feature photos, and a 10 picture story. That model is dead – to put it bluntly. I’d be thinking big – realizing that I have a chance to be a pioneer in this new world of opportunity. Trying to think up of the next big thing.The next best way that photography and visual journalism can be shared with others and a way of packaging it and delivering it that has yet to exist. I’d be excited. Perhaps I’d consider creating my own web publication, and finding news ways to promote it and to generate income – as opposed to relying on the media giants that rely on the “old world business models” and rights-grabbing contracts. Because the future has never been this wide open and it has never been this easy to reach out to your audience.
On the flip side…sort of…
Matt Eich, a very talented and inspiring photographer, has a great Q&A on the Photoshelter Blog that shares his viewpoint as an emerging professional on a number of topics including the decline of the newspaper industry. He believes strong community can help us wade through the thick waters that Laforet alludes to in his article.
From Photoshelter…
Q. We hear about the decline of the photo industry practically every day. What’s it like to be a newly minted professional, and worrying about making a living from photography? A. I’m no different than any other student about to be thrust out into this changing world, feeling extremely green and largely unprepared for a life of freelance. For the longest time newspapers have been looked at as a safe-haven for those who want job security. So many of my friends have been laid off from their newspaper jobs in recent months, it is really discouraging. I’m very grateful to be surrounded by a group of folks who have managed to make ends meet as photographers and are willing to share their knowledge of how to make it all work. Hopefully if we all pool our knowledge and are willing to help one another out we can all make it through these rough patches in the industry.And hopefully they will just be rough patches. Regardless, both of them hit it on the head. Innovation, creativity and community, hard work and a little luck – and a few weddings to photograph – will get us rolling strong.
I love flying. The smaller the plane the better. There’s something exhilarating and scary as hell about floating around in a two-seated lawnmower with wings, feeling every bump in the air. Did I also say I love the pilots? I love the pilots. They’re the best.
I was fortunate to get to shoot aerials twice last week. I was also fortunate that after the assignment the pilot, Chuck, obliged my request to waste his time and circle around the shore for a while to see what was going on. A few of those photos are below. People look great from 1000 feet.
All Photographs Copyright (c) 2008 Alex Boerner All Rights Reserved
George Steinmetz has some incredible aerials, as does Vincent Laforet who says “You see the world from a different perspective, and you start to appreciate a different dimension,” in an OLD interview on Rob Galbraith’s site.
I’m hoping to get to a chance to look through Richard Misrach’s latest LARGE book, On The Beach in which he uses an aerial perspective to explore our relationship with the environment (discussed here).
In it, Misrach writes:
The photographs that appear in On the Beach were made between January 2002 and November 2005. I was drawn to the frailty and grace of the human figure in the landscape. My thinking about this work was influenced by the events of 9/11, particularly by the images of individuals and couples falling from the World Trade Towers, as well as by the 1950’s Cold War novel and film, On The Beach. Paradise has become an uneasy dwelling place; the sublime sea frames our vulnerability, the precarious nature of life itself.
This is the final photo of the high school all-area spring season portraits. It features pitcher T.J. Mullins, a graduating senior at John Carroll High School in Fort Pierce, FL.
It was cross-lit with two beauty dishes, the one on the right being a stop hotter than the left. There was also a Nikon SB-800dx in his glove connected to a Pocket Wizard transceiver to light his face, and a damn fine south Florida sunset.
Copyright (c) 2007 Alex Boerner All Rights Reserved
I used to work Sundays at the newspaper, which were typically pretty slow. We’d usually get one assignment, MAYBE two, sometimes none. The nice thing about those light weekend days is that we could actually spend a good amount of time at one assignment. On most Sundays I’d try to change things up a bit by taking a camera with a 300 mm lens and shooting an assignment only with that setup. For me it was a good way to be forced to look at things a little differently, and sometimes it would help shake me out of one of those ruts where I felt like every photo I shot looked the same.
I haven’t done that in a while, but I tried it again at a graduation ceremony last night. We had an early deadline, but we only needed one photo so I figured it was alright to give it another shot.
I’ve been shooting all the all-area athlete portraits lately (one more to go). It’s been good practice. Most of the time I’m not completely happy with the results, and I find some little things I wish I had done differently, but I like how this portrait of Lincoln Park Academy hurdler Andrew Robinson turned out. It was done with two 22-inch beauty dishes, one up high and one down low. 1/200 sec at F16, ISO 50.
Last Friday we had a memorial service in Veteran’s Memorial Park in Stuart. A field of 2150 Crucifixes and Stars of David was set up and adorned with dog tags and flags.
Prior to the service we got word that members of the Westboro Baptist Church, in Topeka, Kansas were going to show up to protest. That drew the interest of about a THOUSAND bikers who vowed to show up and created a human wall in between the protesters and the memorial service.
Everyone showed up.
The protest lasted about 40 minutes. It was uneventful and finished before the memorial service began. There was definitely some shouting, name calling and revving of motorcycle engines when the protesters began singing their version of God Bless America (God Hates America), and some of the bikers approached the protesters with their own signs, but they were quickly escorted away by the city police.
During the protest I made a photo of two members of the Vietnam Veteran’s Motorcycle Club kissing with the protesters in the background. It happened in a split second and they were definitely not doing it to antagonize the protesters, it was just how they greeted each other.
Frozen in a photograph however, it could be misunderstood, especially if it was plastered on the front page of the paper. So I talked to them and explained the photograph and asked if it was alright with them if we publish the picture if we decide we want to use it. Their response was very uplifting. This is the caption..
Niko Lorris, left, a Vietnam Veteran known as Recon, greets fellow Vietnam Veteran’s Motorcycle club member, T-Bone, with a kiss, after T-Bone and Tamara Moyer, right, were escorted across the street because they went into the area designated for the protesters from the Westboro Baptish Church Friday afternoon at Veteran’s Memorial Park in Stuart. Recon and T-Bone consider themselves brothers. “We fought together. We bled together, and when we meet, we show our love for each other,” said Recon. “We fought for their right to do this,” he added, talking about the protestors. ”We have to listen to them, so they should have to listen to us.”
We ended up not using the photo in print, but we put it on the web. We lead with the photo below, and used a secondary image of the one below that with T-Bone being pulled away from the protesters.
Jerry Rupe, of Palm City, is overcome with emotion while sitting in the field of crosses set up in Veteran’s Memorial Park for the memorail service Friday afternoon in Stuart. Rupe, a Vietnam Veteran who was in the U.S. Army said he often gets emotional. “I should take it easier, but it’s hard. I have PTSD. I saw too many die, but I know it was worth it,” he said.
Here are a couple more from the day.
I went to another memorial the week before. It was very emotional, especially the part when the color guard did roll call and announced that their son had completed his duty. It was at that point that the mother leaned into her husband. It was very sad, but the parents, and everyone at the memorial, were very proud.
Remote set-ups are nothing new, but they’re new to me. Yesterday I shot my first photo utilizing a remote, so I thought I’d compliment that event by posting that photo in my very first blog entry.
