Dish

Form follows function. This is a satalite dish in use by a CATV company . It receives signals from space:  tv, movies, music, words and whatever other information is being sent from outer space.  It is a huge thing. This photograph is not meant to show how large it is but rather its shape against the sky to emphasise what it does.  And this thing looks like what it does, in the Bauhaus tradition.  When I do commercial shoots of industrial locations with big machines or big objects like this dish, I try to photograph the object in way to emphasize it's design.  In this case, the dish was located away from the building near the parking lot.  People walked by this everyday, probably never even looking at it.  This shot was used in company print materials and on their website.  This photograph was also ordered as a large fine art print for corporate headquarters.

GoDaddy

This is a great example of the kind of executive portraits I like to do.  It is environmental, showing a dramatic setting of a computer screen and equipment.  Without knowing anything about who this is, you certainly get a very definite idea about what his business is.
This is a photograph of Bob Parsons aka GoDaddy.  The way I heard the story, he made a zillion bucks in some business, retired, got bored, and started GoDaddy for something to do.  Made another zillion bucks and some great Super Bowl commercials.  An impressive man and a busy guy, I had fifteen minutes to make this photo.  I spotted this equipment in a tiny room, quickly set up a light, sat him down, shot enough to get a good expression and he was gone.  I learned to work quickly from years of experience as a photojournalist shooting features for magazines.

Sky Harbor

This photo was taken in Phoenix, Arizona, where I currently live, the airport is called Sky Harbor International Airport, a great name for an airport in the Desert Southwest.  I was traveling for a commercial shoot in Boston, where I used to live, and was really looking forward to the seafood there, which I think is the best in the world, something about the cold waters of the North Atlantic.  I was not disappointed.

An example:

Grilled scallops prepared at Legal Seafoods Test Kitchen located in Logan International Airport. Wonderful.

Auto Body Paint

This photo was taken in a state of the art painting facility at a Mercedes Benz body shop.  For the life of me, I have no idea what that guy in the red helmut is doing, he is not even watching the other guy applying the paint to the bumper.  He was standing there like that, I passed by, took the picture and he walked away. Later, we set this space up for formal shots of the painting process, but this is my favorite from the session.  When I am on an assignment photographing corporate industrial facilities, I always keep an eye out for interesting places or scenes, even if they are not on the shot list.  I often get shots that the client never thought of and yet end up using.

Wires

There is always the sense of adventure when photographing the unknown.  These wires presented that challenge.  There is color going on here and by lighting this to suggest emergence, it transcends the literal and captures  the electronic message which, in this case, is your televison programs.

Architect

This is an environmental portrait of an architect standing in the foyer of his home which he designed.  I always feel very lucky when someone trusts me and allows me into their private space. One of the things I do is to watch someone in their space, how they fit,  and this foyer was the focal point for the entire house for this man. 

The architect in his home.

Lineman

This shot came about completely by chance.  I was doing extensive work for a CATV company.  They wanted everything shot: buildings, equipment, construction sites where cable was being installed, the corporate offices, the engineers' drafting room, and the administrative offices.  I had complete freedom to shoot whatever I found interesting, I even had a cherry picker at my disposal!

While shooting in the equipment garage, I noticed a pair of climbing spikes laying in the corner.  They looked like they hadn't been used in years.  I recognized them right away because I had an uncle who was a lineman for the telephone company (that's "the telephone company" when there was only one, aka Ma Bell).  I found someone who knew how to use them and we went out, found a pole and made this image.  A mural sized print now hangs in the company's corporate headquarters.

Flowers / Tattoo

This is a little different post.  I took this in New Orleans, in the French Quarter, Bourbon Street if I remember correctly.  I was walking behind the young couple and I was looking at her tattoo.  I liked it, to me if you are going to get a tattoo, go for it, go big.  Then the older couple in the Hawaiian shirts appeared and I just shot. There was only time for one shot, this one.

    This photo was recently included in the Chase Jarvis project in New York City,   Dasein at the Ace Hotel.

Steel

I feel very comfortable in this environment. I wish I could shoot in steel mills more often.  I worked in a steel mill, it was how I earned money to pay for undergraduate school.  I was a millwright and I worked at Bethlehem Steel, Lackawana, New York, Hot Strip #5.  My first day on the job, the foreman gave me my hard hat, it had a number on it, my number.   He said, "If something bad happens, this hat is not to protect your head.  It is to identify your body."

Big steel, long since closed down in Lackawana, except for one thing, the coke furnances are still on and Hot Strip #5 is always freshly painted on the outside when other buildings are left to rust.  I drive by when I am in town.

These images were taken in a smaller mill and are lit entirely from the glow of the molten steel, as hot as I remembered.

I am available for assignments in this environment, in fact, I keep a hard hat in the trunk of my car, just in case.

Skyfire

This is a photograph of the backyard patio of Skyfire, the home of architect Vernon Swabach.  Mr. Swabach studied under the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright who had an architecture school here in Arizona, Taliesin West, a school Mr. Swabach saved from extinction.  Shooting on assignment, I had permission to shoot whatever I wanted and had full access to the property.  The home was simply stunning and perfectly situated on it's lot to take full advantage of it's location in the McDowell Mountains northeast of Phoenix.  This shot was made at dusk using only the patio lights and the natural ambient light.  I was shooting a magazine feature on Mr. Swabach and this photo was used for the cover.

Microphone

This is an old shot, a favorite of mine.  I still show it in my portfolio.  I was shooting in a recording studio,  the assignment was for advertising images for the studio to use in magazines.  This was before the internet and magazine ads were crucial to getting your message out.  This was shot on film, of course.  I had gone through the clients shot list, Polaroids had been approved, and we were packed up and ready to leave.  Then I noticed this microphone set up on a stand in a corner.  I thought it looked great, I asked if it would be alright to shoot some more and the client agreed.  I set this up in front of the piano and lit it.  It turned out that this was a special microphone, expensive and unusual to have at the time.  This photo was the clients clear favorite and they used it in an ad campaign that ran for over a year.