Resourece Magazine Spring 09 by Resource Magazine

$7.99 US/CAN

For the Professional Photo Productionist

www.resourcemagonline.com

Spring 2009

pinned down...

STUNNING DAYLIGHT, BLACKOUT, & CYC STUDIOS NEW FULLY-EQUIPPED DIGITAL DEPARTMENT MODERN FURNITURE & SET WALLS PACKAGE PRICING (STUDIO LIGHTING AND DIGITAL) UNOBSTRUCTED VIEWS OF THE MANHATTAN SKYLINE

PHONE: (212) 367-7590 FAX: (212) 367-8376 EMAIL: MIKE@JACKSTUDIOS.COM 601 W. 26TH STREET, 12TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10001

CALLING ALL YOUNG PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS // ADC Young Guns is a global, cross disciplinary competition that identifies today’s vanguard of young creative professionals. ENTER YOUR PORTFOLIO. GET RECOGNIZED.

WHAT TO SUBMIT: 6-10 pieces of professional and personal work. WHO CAN ENTER? Creative professionals age 30 or under who have been working for at least two years (both full-time and freelance work qualify).

FIFTY NEW ADC YOUNG GUNS WILL BE CHOSEN. Winners are showcased in an exhibition at the ADC Gallery and receive the iconic ADC Young Guns Cube. Their best work is printed in a limited edition volume published exclusively for ADC by Moleskine®. New this year: $1,500 to win in ADC Young Guns Moleskine® Grants!

DEADLINE: May 13, 2009 // FOR DETAILS AND TO ENTER: WWW.ADCYOUNGGUNS.ORG/ENTER

PARTNERS:

ADC Young Guns® and Young Guns® are registered trademarks of The Art Directors Club, Inc.

SPLASHLIGHT SOHO

15,000 SQ. FT. WITH A 3,000 SQ. FT. TERRACE AND A 30 FT. CYCLORAMA

7,500 SQ. FT. ROOFTOP WITH A VIEW OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

7,500 SQ. FT. STUDIO WITH A 24 FT. CYCLORAMA

SPLASHLIGHT AT SKYLIGHT AND SKYLINE COLUMN-FREE. 20 FT. CEILINGS. DRIVE-IN ACCESS. ROOFTOP AREA. AND MORE. CALL US FOR YOUR PRIVATE VIEWING.

TABLE OF CONTENT SPRING 2009

Table of Contents: Find your way in.

Masthead: The Who’s Who of Resource.

Letter from the Editors: Things on our mind.

Letters to the Editors: Things on your mind.

Etiquette: Entertaining Clients. If coke is what they want then… well…

Resource Guide to: Networking. You can’t be successful if no one knows you.

Industry Tale: The “It Girl.” Rise and fall of a starlet.

Trick of the Trade: Make-Up Artist. Beauty is not just skin deep.

SECTION-PHOTO 26

History: John Lee Hooker. Blues singers don’t need Viagra!

Gallery Show: John Delaney. Photos of eagle hunting in Mongolia by a man who lives and breathes B&W.

Photo Deco-Page: Tokyo Multiples. Beauty in repetition.

Technique: How to recreate daylight. Because the sun can be a diva and decide to not show up.

Interview: Martin Schoeller. Portrait of a portraitist.

Mini Feature: The Impossible Project. Don’t throw away your Polaroid camera just yet!

SECTION- CREW 42

How to: Make coffee. A day without coffee is not worth living.

Mission: Propel Energy Drink. Photographer, producer and stylist tell us what it took to get the horses going.

Event: Fashion Week. Stories from the pit.

Interview: Better Being Catering. You are what you eat.

Locations: Diners. Greasy food and great décor. Shoot there.

Mini Feature: Breaking and Entering into the Industry. Pros tell us how they got their foot in the door (and how you can too!).

SECTION- STUDIO/EQ 58

Development: Miami Bathhouse. There’s a new studio under the sun.

Tech, EQ, & Flow: Developing a Proper Digital Workflow. Go with the flow…

Interview: The LA Guys. Smashbox + Quixote = a match made in LA.

Dawn of the Industry: 1973. I have one word for you. Studiorentalestablishmentarianism.

Mini Feature: Extra Love. Coffee, tequila, models, photos… shake well and put some “extra love” to top it off.

SECTION- AGENCY 72

Birth of a Campaign: The NFL and The New York Times. Strange bedfellows make for some cool CGI action.

Interview: The Ad Store. A small ad agency with BIG ideas.

Ad Rocks: Burger King. From creepy mascot to Facebook application, Burger King goes where no other burger has gone before.

Mini Feature: The Soul of Art Buying: Art Buyers are our new heroes.

! e o j i f c ! f xfÖs / t f o f d t ! f i u ! ! ! ! ! !!

k 00 Pac 4 2 o t o Prof ead and with H lector Ref Magnum

ack 2400 P o t o f Pro ead and with H auty Dish e Silver B rame 24x36 F o 216 osc with R ion Diffus

ss Seamle e it h xi 9' W ted Ple s o r F x8 pe (2) 4 er's Ta f f a G Black lf Balls 300 Go

lag rm 24x36 F with A d n a t S Clats x8 V-F 4 2 ) (

DigiTec

ets of (2) S Gloves Boxing

rofoto (2) P d acks an 2400 P eads (4) H k Light for Bac Minolta er et Light M ocket (2) P Sets Wizard s

andbag (6) s

F E AT U R E A R T I C L E S 82

Chasing Duffy. Legendary 60’s photographer talks! To us!!!!

Resource Magazine’s Product Guide. Our favorite 30 reasons to spend money now.

Photo Essay: Boutique Agencies. A peek at where mad ideas are born.

SECTION- REVIEWS 104

Where to Take your Client: Boqueria’s tapas and Jimmy’s No 43’s beers prove that New York is as international as it gets.

106

Movie Review: The Killing Field and Salvador. Because photography is also about documenting reality.

107

Book Review: Make-up Books. Reviewed by people who know make-up.

108

Go-See: Unusual Photography. Fun gadgets so you can be the coolest kid on set.

110

Directory: People we’ve used and re-used and used again.

120

End Page.

Cover and End Images by Simon Biswas - www.simonbsiwas.com

DRIPBOoK PHOTOGRAPHERS, STYLISTS, HAIR + MAKEUP ARTISTS, ILLUSTRATORS, DESIGNERS, GALLERIES, MAGAZINES, AGENCIES, AND MORE. A NEW WAY TO BROWSE ARTISTS WORLDWIDE. A NEW WAY TO PROMOTE YOUR WORK. FIND AND BE FOUND. DRIPBOOK.COM

Spring 2009 Issue EDITORS IN CHIEF Alexandra Niki, Aurelie Jezequel CREATIVE DIRECTORS Alexandra Niki, Aurelie Jezequel ART DIRECTOR Sharon Gamss PHOTO EDITOR Ben Kaufman COPY EDITORS Edine N. James, Sara Roth DESIGN Chris Brody, Sharon Gamss, Dylan Kahler, Pao Lee, Lara Peso, Emil Rivera CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Simon Biswas, Jocelyn Baun, Ivar van Bussel, Daniel Clavero, John Delaney, Vincent Dixon, Duffy, Chris Fanning, Nick Ferrari, Brad Forth, Ted Hartshorn, Blaise Hayward, Ingrid Hertfelder, Elizabeth Leitzell, Jason Lewis, Andrew Macpherson, Tom Medvedich, Eros Messina, Ryan Morris, Blake Sinclair, JJ Sulin, Rico Swartzberg, Michael Waring, Alex Wright, Markian Lozowchuk

from REMAG Inc. 139 Norfolk Street #A, New York, NY 10002 info@resourcemagonline.com Subscriptions: $30 in the US, US$50 in Canada, and US$60 globally. For subscription inquiries, please email info@resourcemagonline.com Special thanks to: Eduardo Citrinblum, Mark Chin, John Engstrom, Stuart Goldstein, Kate Hope, Anthony Rivera and Adam Davids We welcome letters and comments. Please send any correspondence to info@resourcemagonline.com The entire contents of this magazine are © 2009, REMAG Inc. and may not be reproduced, downloaded, republished, or transferred in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. For more info, please visit our website, www.resourcemagonline.com FIND US IN BARNES & NOBLES AND BORDERS BOOKSTORES ACROSS THE COUNTRY!

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Lewis Van Arnam, Sophia Betz, Elis Y EstradaSimpson, Joe Fassler, Charlie Fish, Kamalah Fletcher, Alec Kerr, Marla Lacherza, Elizabeth Leitzell, Jason Lewis, Jonathan Melamed, Ryan Morris, Justin Muschong, Brittany Phillips, Sara Roth, Oleh Sharanevych, Jenny Kate Sherman, Heather Simon, Diane da Silva, Jeff Siti, Stacy Skinner, Feifei Sun, Keri Wirth, Benjamin Wright CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Arlette Espaillat, Dylan Kahler, Emil Rivera INTERNS Katie Iberle, Heami Lee, Elizabeth Leizell, Katherine Lo, Brittany Phillips PUBLISHER REMAG Inc. DISTRIBUTION info@resourcemagonline.com ADVERTISING Alexandra Niki alex@resourcemagonline.com Sara Roth, Marketing Director sroth@resourcemagonline.com

Resource Magazine is a quarterly publication

Photo-Rep Lewis Van Arnam profiled the Art Buying profession in “Keepers of the Gate: The Zen of Art Buying.” If you are interested to know more about Lewis Van Arnam, visit: www.lvarepresents.com

Emil Rivera is a sleepwalker who likes to draw sleepy people on the train. His main love is to design: you can see some of his amazing print and videos work at www.lariverola.com

Oleh Sharanevych helped pioneer the rental photo business in NYC. In 1994, he started TREC Rental andÂ in 2003 acquired Drive In Studios. Early this spring he will open Root Brooklyn, a new rental and studio complex.

Charlie Fish has been writing for Resource since its debut issue. His other work appears in various print and online media. For more, visit www.charliefish.info

Markian Lozowchuk is currently working on a portrait series of villagers & immigrants from the Transcarpathian region bordering Romania and Western Ukraine. See more at www.markianlozowchuk.com

on’t give up! We may in be a recession but we’re all in it together. And is giving up even an option? Use this time to hone your skills and embrace your creativity. The bright side to these dark times can be found within yourself. Your talents can create more beauty and magic than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. So, yeah, it’s is a struggle, but more importantly, it’s a struggle to scrape the bottom of our minds for ideas brilliant enough to move mountains. We all got too comfortable. Life doesn’t blossom out of video games and string cheese. We do need a change. When life is hard we have to change. History will tell you. Music will tell you. Probably your grandma would tell you. Change can be hard but it is necessary to move forward. We hope to give some inspiration to you all. We’ve changed around one of your favorite magazines—for better or worse. We created Resource Magazine for you. Now we’ve decided to fine-tune it. Here’s what’s up.

Resource will now be divided in four main sections: PHOTO, CREW, STUDIO/EQ, and AGENCY. We’ve developed this system to help you better navigate your way through the magazine. Within these sections we have added some new content that enhances the mission of the magazine. In short, we did a little spring cleaning. Let’s all embrace change and the sweet spring air!

Alex and Aurélie

LETTERS TO THE EDITORS:

Things on your mind Dear Resource,

Dear Resource,

It was a pleasure to meet you all at the Resource/Dripbook meet-and-greet at ACE bar last night. Thanks for having this event. I’ve been looking for a chill place where I could meet new people who work in the photo community. There aren’t too many other events where people can just relax and talk about work without having to put on a show. I look forward to the next meet-and-greet, please keep me in the loop!

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for your article on how to properly handle equipment (Etiquette: Equipment Rental, Resource Winter 2009). I work at a rental company and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten equipment back from a shoot that looks like it was hit by a tornado. I WISH it usually looked as good as your “Don’t” photo, let alone as good as the “Do” photo. Photographers, assistants, anyone who handles equipment on a shoot: PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE.

Sincerely, Dan Roberts

Thanks! Randy

Tell us what you think! Email us at info@resourcemagonline.com.

133 West 19th St 133 West 19th St 133 West 19th St ( 6 + 7 th A ve . G ro u n d L e ((66 ++ 77t ht h AA ve roruonudn dL eLve v e. .GG e vl)ve e l l) ) New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10011 (212) 243-7368 (212) 243-7368 (212) 243-7368 www.CSIRENTALS.com www.CSIRENTALS.com www.CSIRENTALS.com

gofof nin g ope the ope ce the oun ce ann oun toann of ase dddto ple ing ase en opnin is the ce un no an to ase ple isisple onn ati on Loc off Loc off Dro p pp and pand k-u pp Pic k-u new our tio ca our Loati off Dro dDro an k-u Pic wPic ne r new ou Brooklyn At At Brooklyn At Brooklyn Morgan Ave. Ground level 195195 Morgan Ave. Ground level 195 Morgan Ave. Ground level Between Stagg & Meadow Between Stagg & Meadow St.St. Between Stagg & Meadow St. Monday-Friday 8:00am-Midnight Monday-Friday 8:00am-Midnight Monday-Friday 8:00am-Midnight Weekends 9:00am-Midnight Weekends 9:00am-Midnight Weekends 9:00am-Midnight

photo assistants

stake your claim to

ame f

Reception & Live Studio Shoot International Call for Entries Compete with assistants from around the world for prizes and recognition. Monthly opportunities for your own full-page showcase ad. One shot at the grand prize. The most talented work will appear in prestigious magazines, with your story featured on websites including ProfotoAssistant.com, Profoto.com, Profoto-USA.com and others. Grand Prize: $10,000 in Profoto Equipment 2nd Prize: $5,000 in Profoto Equipment 3rd Prize: $2,500 in Profoto Equipment Monthly winner receives: > Full page ad in top photography magazine > Internationally featured online > Exposure in all Profoto sites and others > Feature story in the Profoto blog

SIG N U P T O DAY

ProfotoAssistant.com

Profoto-USA.com | 914.347.3300 Distributed by MAC Group

Shoot and break bread with us and fellow assistants. Learn how to create unique images, possible only with the Pro-8a Air. There will be a working studio and unique shooting situations to challenge your skills. > New York, NY > San Francisco, CA > Chicago, IL > Miami, FL > Los Angeles, CA

> Copenhagen, Denmark > Antwerpen and Brussels, Belgium > Toronto and Montreal, Canada > Stockholm, Sweden > Paris, France > Madrid or Barcelona, Spain > London, UK

Etiquette:

Entertaining Clients By Jon Melamed | Photo by Tom Medvedich

producer never punches a time card and heads home after a day of work. Often times their real job doesn’t start until the end of the shoot, when the responsibility of entertaining clients often falls upon them. Although a producer is in no way forced to squire visiting clients and photographers around town, a friendly and sociable producer holds promise to return business on forthcoming photo productions. A good producer should understand people’s personalities like a psychoanalyst, have the partying stamina of a rock star and the social resources of a club promoter. Here is Resource’s guide to managing clients off set and after hours.

Always:

Never:

• Know where to go and how to get in. Be sure to keep good relationships with doormen and managers at all the hot clubs and tasty restaurants in town. Impress foreign clients with a night full of activities and foods they can’t get in their hometowns, and wow local clients with your knowledge of the new, obscure, or opulent night spots.

• Be the drunkest when out with clients. A producer must remain sharp on and off set. Clients, of course, can drink as hard as they like, but the producer, forever the diffuser of tense or sketchy situations, must remain lucid and alert.

• Know when to stop the fun. If you have a 6 a.m. call time and another round of shots has just been ordered at 3 a.m., it may be time for you to step in and be the party pooper. They’ll thank you the next morning when they won’t have to drop Alka-Seltzer into their cappuccinos in order to remain productive. Save the real party for the wrap party. • Tailor your evening plans according to your client’s personality, mood, age, and background. You should not take the eighty-year-old president of marketing for Geritol to a loft party in Williamsburg, just as you wouldn’t take the photo editor of Tiger Beat to an after-hours chess club. • Be ready to stay out late. Nobody wants sleep deprivation to be a major part of his or her job description, but a producer must be ready for long days on set and late nights out on the town.

• Talk politics. Although the majority of photo productionists sway to the left, you never know on which wing your client’s political beliefs lie. To avoid alienating them with your personal political stances, keep the chitchat superficial and friendly, and silently pray that Obama doesn’t blow it. • Forget to define who will cover the bill before sitting down to dinner. Slap your credit card down with confidence, knowing that you have called the ad agency in advance to let them know that dinner will be part of your budget. If you fail to do so, rest assured that in the end, with creative billing, the client always pays. • Lose your principles. If something is requested of you that somehow defies the root of you morals, puts you in danger or is grossly illegal, politely let them know that you do not feel comfortable. It’s okay to have certain connections and to like to party, but it is not mandatory that you accompany your clients or partake in any acts you find vile.

Resource Guide to:

Networking By Justin Muschong

igh-powered business persons—if they are true to stereotype—love to network. The brisk snap of a business card as it is extended forth to a potential partner is an exquisite sound akin to a lover’s sigh. But for artists, networking can feel like extending their neck out for the executioner’s blade. Sure, they tell themselves in private that their artistry is superior to those hacks who get published in bourgeois rags like Vogue, but all confidence magically evaporates once they are put in a position where others can actually judge them. For artists, networking is an invitation to misery.

So how do those who wish to follow their dreams of getting paid for their art gain ground against the cold-blooded Gordon Gekkos? By emerging from those darkrooms and pressing some flesh. It may not be fun, but if you want to get work, you have to know people. Talent alone is not, and never has been, sufficient.

You’ll also need confidence. Think of all those people who do what you do, but are more famous and popular. You’re better than them, aren’t you? Hell yeah! All you need to do to catch up is to meet “those” people. The ones “in the know.” If you need a little social lubricant to befriend random strangers, fine, but don’t go overboard. No one wants to be “that guy/girl.” According to the latest scientific research, the best way to meet people these days is on the Internet. This massive, incorporeal place offers dozens of sites brimming with networking opportunities. Which ones should you join? As many as humanly possible. Here are a few that may be more helpful than others: Facebook—Not just a place to post embarrassing drunk photos anymore! Ever since MySpace became a habitat for garage bands and Tila Tequila-wannabes, Facebook has declared its dominance in the devastating Social Network Wars of the 2000s. The site is great for keeping friends and colleagues up-to-date on the latest developments in your life and career and vice-versa. Someone looking for work can post a status update begging for the mere morsels of a paying gig. Likewise, those in a position to hire can inform their circle of contacts of their latest openings.

But what if you’re brand new to the industry and have no friends, you complete and utter failure? Join a group or subscribe to a page. Many organizations have created their own groups or pages where artists can mingle, chat, and hear the latest news. There are groups for Drive-in Studios, Shoot Digital Studios, or Resource Magazine (ahem!) to name a few. You can even join a cause and fight for something you believe in. If you’d like to save the polaroids, then join SAVE THE POLAROIDS and battle in the cyberspace streets alongside your nostalgic brethren. These sites send you updates anytime something interesting happens, so you stay informed and in the loop. LinkedIn—Unlike Facebook, this site is devoted solely to business, no screwing around. This is a great site for finding jobs because employers can list openings and seek potential employees while candidates can check out the companies and the people who work for them. Plenty of photo businesses are listed on the site. Here’s what to do: register to set up your profile, then snoop around the companies’ pages to see if there’s anyone working there you already know, no matter how tenuous the connection. If there is, all you have to do is tap on their door with hat in hand. But what if you don’t already know anyone? Luckily, LinkedIn is courteous enough to let you know how many connections you are away from that company. Users build up contact networks (like a friends list), and LinkedIn will tell you how far away someone is from your network. If one of your contacts has a contact with someone at the company you are interested in, the company person will be a second-degree connection. All you have to do then is ask your contact to make the introduction, and bam!—you’ve got your foot in the door. A good place

Katherine Lo - www.behance.net/katsoup

Before we take you on a guided tour of the best networking methods this industry has to offer, make sure you have everything you need, starting with a business card. Simple, classy, and descriptive is best; something that screams, “Artistic yet not flaky.” Your name, your talent, your contact information. That’s all that’s necessary. There are plenty of online companies that will make them for you, such as Wizard Graphics and GreenerPrinter, but skip the ones that offer free or reduced price business cards. You may save money, but your card will have an advertisement for an unrelated business on the back, and that will not do.

to start on LinkedIn is the Photography Professionals Group. Dive in and start making friends, and soon you’ll find that anyone and everyone is in your contact network. Dripbook—Whereas Facebook and LinkedIn are general social networking sites for any field, Dripbook is specifically designed for the photo production industry. It’s the ideal place to throw your portfolio up and display it to everyone you drunkenly friend on those nights when it’s just you, your computer, and a bottle of Absolut. This is ideal for anyone whose work is seen on-camera. If your job is to scout and hire talent, you’ll be able to browse portfolios to your heart’s content. Photocrew—Another website devoted to helping the photo production industry meet and embrace new people. This site sets itself apart by providing easily accessible message boards where users can post videos and pimp their products, events, and projects. There’s also a classified section for job postings or beggings. The downside is that the site is just beginning to find its legs, and needs more users to swamp it and generate activity (hint, hint reader). Twitter—Subscribing to someone’s Twitter feed keeps you in the loop on what they’re up to…constantly. It allows users to send out brief messages (annoyingly called “tweets”) from their computer or cell phone to all of their “followers” (the creepiest imaginable term). You’ll be able to instantly keep track of what your contacts are doing as they send out messages promoting upcoming events, requesting services, or wittily discoursing on the latest turn of events on the world stage. However, some people may bombard you with messages that are trivial at best. “My dog just threw up on the floor!!” may be amusing at first, but repeated updates on the dog’s cuteness and state of being will make you want to punch them in the face. Subscribe judiciously. However, you can subscribe to the Resource Twitter without fear: we promise zero crap! By now, you’ve exhausted your online resources and you’ve got leads on actual happenings where people are meeting IN PERSON! It’s time to make an appearance and turn heads the old fashioned way: through an elaborate song and dance sequence. Or, you know, walking up to them and introducing yourself. Both could work.

Attend Events—Say what you want about the industry, but it sure likes to throw parties. They might be disguised under the code names “gallery opening,” “staff show,” or “gala event,” but make no mistakes: they offer a chance to mingle with your fellow artists and industry professionals (and score some free booze while you’re at it). Before attending bashes willy-nilly, however, do your research. Don’t just show up and wander around in a daze. Know exactly what it is you’re attending, what it’s for, and have an opinion about it. Figure out who the VIPs will be and set them in your sights. What should you do at these events? It depends on your personality. If you’re the strong, silent type, stop that. Open your mouth and approach people. Flash that card and let them know what you do. Talk yourself up, but remember to let them talk in return. Anyone can become interesting if you ask enough questions, and you’ll seem like a generous, outgoing person who actually listens. On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who tends to get a bit out of hand, then give everyone a break and pace yourself. If no one can keep up with you when they’re supposed to be relaxing, how can they do it on a professional set? Didn’t think about that, did you? Okay, let’s jump forward in time. You’ve been attending events, scoring free hors d’oeuvres and fusion cocktails, making friends, contacts, and colleagues, and, quite possibly, getting work. What now? It’s time to give back to the community. Throw Your Own Event—Yes, yes, it costs quite a bit of cash, but money spent is money earned. If you’re in a company, all the better—get the boss to foot the bill. If you’re an individual, get corporate sponsors. Companies are desperate to be seen wherever there are people, especially the “hip” types who influence fashion and trends. Wrangle sponsors onto your side by giving their marketing/advertising departments a call and proposing an alliance. If the party is successful, lots of people will show up, fawn over you, drink more booze than you have, and vacuum up the food so fast you’ll wonder why you even got it in the first place. It’s worth it, though, because now YOU are the VIP, and business cards and contacts will be thrown at you like peasants at the royals’ feet. An event is a gambit, but play it right and the world will be yours.

The Follow Up—If all goes well, you’ll have many contacts you’ll need to follow up with. Most likely, you’ll wake up the next morning (maybe in your own bed) and find yourself surrounded by business cards from people you barely recall meeting. What do you do? Treat it like you would any other social situation. Wait a few days—two at least, five at most— and then send these contacts an e-mail. Let them know how much you enjoyed meeting them, how interested you were in what they said, and tell them that if they’d like to check out your work, they can go to your Facebook, Dripbook, etc page or website.

The New Age—Of course, sometimes things don’t work out. Like everything else in your weary life, people grow distant and sometimes disappear. Don’t get choked up. Instead, make an effort to stay in touch. Invite people you haven’t heard from in a while for drinks, coffee, dinner, or at least send them a brief email asking how they’re doing. You can even keep them abreast on the latest developments in your existence through the miracle of chatting. Google, Instant Messenger, iChat, or Facebook bring all the magic and wonder of inane small talk to the new technology age. It may be tedious, it may be shallow, but even a brief “Happy Fourth of July!” can go a long way.

It can be good to end your initial query with a question: Did you enjoy the party? What are you doing now? Is everything going well? Want to grab a coffee? The point is to encourage a response. If you have a neatly summed-up message all about you, there’s nothing for them to respond with except, “I enjoyed meeting you as well. Here’s a link to my stuff. Ciao!” Potential relationship = fail. You must start a dialogue that will keep the lines of communication open. Don’t be afraid to ask for favors and in turn, don’t be afraid to perform them, either. Networking is all about people using each other to get ahead, but in a good way.

There’s only so much we can tell you about networking before you’ll just have to go out on your own and try it. As long as you’re not a shut-in, it shouldn’t be too hard because every moment you interact with another human being is a form of networking. If you really want to succeed in your business, you just need to learn how to transfer the networking you do in your private life to your professional life. Then, if all goes well, the world will open up for you. If not, at least you tried. And isn’t it at least nice to get out every now and then?

a j p r o d u c t i o n s | n y, i n c pro duc t i on s - c a s t i n g - l oc a t i on s c o utin g

9 1 7 . 2 0 9 . 0 8 2 3 2 1 2 . 9 7 9 . 7 5 85 www.ajproduc tionsny.c om ajprodnyc @mac .com

INDUSTRY TALE:

The “It Girl” By Justin Muschong | Illustration by Arlette Espaillat

was an assistant back then. We were shooting that year’s movie star spread for a high-profile fashion magazine. Hollywood royalty came in soused for their close-ups and screwed anything that wasn’t nailed down in between set ups. Some of them dragged out the attention, lavishing in the camera’s gaze. Some of them just wanted to get in and out and get back to whatever it is the obnoxiously rich and famous do with their time. Nearly all of them, even the pampered ones, remained professional. They were old hands at this sort of thing and took directions well. The starlet came in halfway through and forced us to rearrange the schedule. Up until that point it was a neat and orderly affair, but when she stormed in and insisted we meet her demands, the whole thing went off the rails. She knew we had to accept as it was her year to be the “It Girl”—the one who would occupy everyone’s attention for the next few months—and she was making the most of it. At the time, we were in the middle of rearranging the lights while the actor we were supposed to be shooting, a middle-aged Oscar winner starting to come apart at the seams, had snuck off to the bathroom to snort a few lines of blow. When he came back and saw the starlet, he fell into the Mr. Charm routine and told us to grant her every demand. The photographer already had an idea of what he wanted her to do, but even if she had liked the idea she would have rejected it just to show she could. We ended up having to send out half the crew to gather crepe paper and balloons because the grand image she held in her little noggin was a faux prom scene. “I’m graduating into stardom,” she somehow said with a straight face. She’d even brought a dress. The photographer expressed doubt and looked to the Oscar winner to back him up, but Mr. Charm was so taken with her bounty that all he did was offer to act as her date in the photo. She declined him, although, after the shoot, she took him up on his offer to spirit her way to the latest trendy restaurant. We watched them climb into his roadster and disappear in a cloud of exhaust on a too-bright LA afternoon.

“She turned and looked and I saw it was her. The starlet. The former “It Girl.”

Her photos turned out to be crap, naturally, but fortune smiled upon us when we returned to New York and our newest assistant lost half the prints in a taxicab. When it came time to reshoot, the magazine had second-guessed itself and chose someone else to be the annual “It Girl.” The second one was much more modest and obliging to our suggestions. Maybe she’d heard what had happened to the first. I quickly forgot about the whole thing. I eventually struck out on my own, opened a studio, and put out my shingle. A producer came to town looking for a technical advisor on a movie he wanted to film in the city—some cheap melodrama centered around the photo industry that had somehow managed to get major talent attached to it, blowing up the budget into absurd proportions. I didn’t care much for the script, but the price was right so I volunteered my services as the lead actor’s official photography coach. They nearly canned me on my first day. I saw the lead actor using a Minolta and told him real photographers used Nikons. He refused to use anything else after that. Unfortunately, the producer had already promised Minolta the film would exclusively feature their hardware, and Minolta had already promised a million dollars in return. But the actor wouldn’t see the reason in that argument, and the production lost a bit of its scratch. I thought I’d done a good job for the day until the producer took me into a corner and quietly asked me to shut the hell up before I got any more bright ideas. I stayed in the background until my former mentor, the same photographer I’d worked with in LA, showed up on set. He’d been hired to take the main character’s photographs, the ones that would eventually appear in the movie. The lead actor put up another hissy fit at this news, wanting it to be his pictures so he could go the whole Method. The producer told me to put the fear of God into him, and I took him out for a couple of beers and quietly explained the humiliation he would suffer if his amateurish work ended up plastered on screens and posters across the country. The next day he acquiesced as if it had been his idea the whole time.

Apparently her career had not taken off quite as expected, and had been on a slow decline until she had ended up as an unaccredited, anonymous model, briefly glimpsed in a flopto-be. My mentor and I exchanged a glance, telepathically sharing our memory, and I saw a smile in his eye when he said, “Hello, darling. Can you do me a favor and lie down for us?” It was bare, unsheltered concrete, but she followed his instructions without uttering a word. Very carefully, very deliberately, we set up the camera, framed the shot, and measured the light. My mentor frowned and shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ll have to wait for the sun to hit just the right spot. Stay where you are, okay? Don’t move,” he called down to her. She waved a hand in acknowledgment. “How long do you think it will be?” I asked him. He shrugged. “A half hour or so, maybe. Want to split a six pack?” When I came back with the beer, the starlet asked, “Can I wait inside?” My mentor responded, “No, no, no, we have everything set up perfect, we’re just waiting for the sun. If you move, you’ll ruin everything, and then I’m afraid we won’t be able to pay you.” I sat down and handed him a bottle. We clinked and enjoyed the long afternoon. It was two hours before the light was right. Once it was, we got the picture in one shot. The starlet and I shared an elevator as I was taking the equipment downstairs. I wasn’t sure if she’d recognized me. We had the typical elevator awkward silence, and then she broke it with, “I’m doing it as a favor. As a cameo.” I nodded and said that was very nice of her. As I loaded up the van, she strolled off down Central Park West without a look back.

When I wasn’t busy on set, I helped out on the photo shoots for the movie. For one shot, we were sitting on the edge of a roof, looking down at a balcony two stories below. As we were setting up, the model stepped onto the balcony dressed in a bikini and glanced around. “Up here,” I said, and she turned and looked and I saw it was her. The starlet. The former “It Girl.”

Arlette Espaillat - artlette.blogspot.com

TRICKS OF THE TRADE:

Make-Up Artist By Jenny Kate Sherman | Photo by Daniel Clavero Most little girls have the desire to play with their mother’s make-up. While most children make messes of their faces rather than masterpieces, some grow up to be a make-up artist like Pascale Poma. Poma works with models and celebrities on photo shoots, combining her artistic passion and personal instinct for fashion with her unique talent for make-up artistry to make the world a little more beautiful. Here is the low down on make-up from the guru herself.

of training at a trauma center that treated people who had been in an accident or had cancer. After that experience, anything else—people with attitude, PMS, bad breath, pimples, etc—is a piece of cake. You just concentrate on making that person as beautiful as you can and shut down your personal feelings. I enjoy working with men and women, but sometimes with a man, a hint of powder reveals something that you couldn’t see before.” ABC, it’s as easy as 123.

Where did you come from? Where did you go?

Did you ever know that you’re my hero? If anyone ever has doubts about the impact make-up artists have in films, magazines, and fashion shows, Pascale Poma sets the record straight. “Try to imagine any model or actress going anywhere without their make-up done. Some make-up artists are behind great looks that give models or celebrities their identities. Change them and you will see a huge difference in these famous faces. You might not even recognize some of them!” Crayons, eyeliner, tomato, to-mah-to! “My favorite brands?” Pascale says, “It all depends on what I need to get in terms of effect. But all in all, I love the stuff done by L’Oréal. What they do for Armani Cosmetics is fabulous. I studied Science when I was in high school and I had lots of chemistry and biology classes. I am still interested in these subjects. Cosmetic chemistry—the more scientific part of the cosmetic business—is fascinating to me. Today’s make-up is about great technology and scientific breakthroughs.” Step back, you’re dancing kind of close. “The first thing I do when I begin putting make-up on a person is to clean my hands and throw a piece of gum into my mouth. Then I moisturize the skin to plump it and smooth its texture. I paint as a hobby, so I do see the skin like a canvas. Just like a linen canvas, the human canvas has to be flawless before the first stroke of ‘paint’ to make it capture the light and let it radiate through.” Can’t we all just get along? “When I was in make-up school in Brussels, Belgium, we had a week

“To me, the hardest part of the job is having to cope with models who can’t get over themselves and don’t accept the virtual persona we are creating for the sake of the picture. I don’t like hearing some of them going, ‘This is not me, I never wear lipstick.’ The other problem is when everyone, stylists, hair stylists, and photographers, are working on their own and not collaborating with one another to get a coherent image. The best jobs are when all of the above doesn’t happen and the magic can therefore freely operate. It sometimes really takes my breath away.” Wax on, Wax off. “I don’t get frustrated that at the end of the day my work gets washed off,” Pascale Poma says. “Most of the time it is captured by the camera, for eternity and for all of the world to see. What can be frustrating at times is when the photographers miss capturing it properly. You know, when the lighting or angle is not right.” Little box of tricks. The most important tool to a make-up artist? “Besides my hands? My pencils. Not long ago, someone stole all of my brushes. I literally felt crippled. Some of those brushes had been with me since the very beginning. They were an extension of my fingers!” Which came first, the chicken or the egg? “Before studying make-up, I studied and graduated from a fashion design school in Belgium. So for me, everything starts with the clothes. When shooting a fashion editorial, I will discuss with the photographer or the art director to know what their vision is. But ultimately what helps me get the right make-up direction are the clothes and the story we are going to tell. I just don’t get how some people never even look at the clothes and come up with hair and make-up ‘creations’ that have nothing to do with what the clothes have to say. Fashion is a serious business and the harmony and accuracy of all the elements in the final image are crucial to me. The wrong styling can ruin a story. The wrong make-up has definitely the same power. Now, if we are talking about working with an actress, I will look at her face first and make her look her best by enhancing her strongest features. The dress she is going to wear should beautify what she already has; it acts like another layer of make-up. There is nothing worse to me than seeing all of these women having the same kind of make-up, hair, style, etc. What works for one person doesn’t always work for another. Make-up is here to enhances their personality. What is still true is that beauty sells. No doubt about that.”

Daniel Clavero - www.danielclavero.com / Pascale Poma - www.pascalepoma.com

“When I was eight, I got my first Barbie doll and a bag of fabric ends from Madame Seccaris, the old lady next door. I would spend hours cutting and sewing clothes for my doll. I would change her hair, put on her some of my father’s anti-wrinkle cream and some of the makeup my mother had. When I got more Barbie dolls I would have them present the clothes I made for them. The dining table was the catwalk! Later, as a teenager, I would experiment in making creams for my mother with whatever I could put my hands on in the kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to put on any make-up, but I often used some brown shoeshine cream as blush and some drops of Mercurochrome mixed with Vaseline to tint my lips.”

Try to imagine any of the models and actresses going anywhere without their makeup done. Some makeup artists are behind great looks that just give the models or celebrities their identity. Change them and you will see a huge difference in the actressesâ&#x20AC;Śyou wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even recognize some of them!

By Charlie Fish - Photo by Paul Natkin 1998, Arlington Park, Illinois

History:

John Lee Hooker Arguably the most prolific electric-blues singer of his time, John Lee Hooker’s sixty-year career spawned over a hundred albums, countless singles, and had a lasting influence over a multitude of blues and rock singers. Known by many as the “King of the Boogie,” John Lee Hooker’s story is especially triumphant given that he remained illiterate his entire life. Still, his mastery of the blues style was evident by his improvisational approach to guitar playing and his sorrowful, growling voice.

ooker is said to have changed the beat of his songs to keep up with the tempo when playing live, making it difficult for other musicians unaccustomed to his vibe to accompany him. Despite this fact, many legendary musicians have shared the stage (and studio) with the Boogie Man, including Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, and Bonnie Raitt. Even though John Lee Hooker received a tribute concert in his honor, was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and is known as one of the musicians with the most recorded songs in history, he never stopped working and continued to play live for his numerous fans until just a few days before his death in 2001. Despite his withered, aging body and his stiffened, arthritic hands, the critics remained floored by the prowess, fluidity, and soul of Hooker’s guitar playing. Three years before his death, John Lee Hooker performed at a music festival in Illinois, where renowned photographer Paul Natkin shot this famous image. Resource chatted with Natkin to hear about one of Hooker’s most famous portraits and found out just how much the King of the Boogie liked to “get down.”

On working on spec: Most of what I do is on spec, which means that I’ll call a musician agent and say, ‘Hey you’ve got so-and-so coming into town, can I get five minutes with him?’ My job after that is to figure out how to sell those pictures to earn a living. On the idea: There was a big show at the Arlington Park Racetrack in the suburbs, sponsored by Guinness. It was called the Guinness Fleadh Festival. There were four stages and ten bands per stage. Van Morrison was on the bill, Wilco was too. The list of people was phenomenal! And, of course, John Lee was here. The entrance to the Arlington Park Racetrack was really beautifully landscaped. My idea was to take John Lee, get a chair, and have him sitting in the bushes, or in the greenery. On John Lee’s condition: He was very frail. His camp told me, ‘We’d love for you to photograph him, but we can’t move him. If we move him out to where you’re planning to shoot, he’ll be too tired to do the show.’ He could only walk one time a day.

They said, ‘Can you shoot him in his dressing room?’ Which was really depressing because it was one half of a trailer. There were a bunch of trailers each divided in half, and each one of those halves was a dressing room for an artist. So I’m thinking, ‘Well, there goes my really great idea down the drain. But it’s John Lee Hooker, so I’ve gotta shoot him.’ On set: The room was eight feet by eight feet. There wasn’t any room for anybody else; it was just John Lee and myself. I walk into this little room and he was just sitting there, sunglasses on, the whole deal. The first thing I noticed were his socks. I set up a light, just one light. I was basically laying on the floor against the far wall in that room, with a wide-angle lens on a Hasselblad two and a quarter camera. It was the only angle I could get. And then I realized that because I was on the floor his socks were prominently displayed. It was kind of by accident, but I think it was one of the coolest shots I’d taken in years. So I just laid down on the floor and started shooting.

On interacting with John Lee Hooker: There was very little if any communication that time. I think I might’ve said ‘Hi’ to him. To this day I have a sneaking suspicion that he didn’t even know I was there. I’m not even sure if he knew what was going on. I would hope that he did, but I couldn’t guarantee that one way or the other. I shot three rolls, got up and said, ‘Thank you,’ took my lights outside, packed them up and that was the end of it. On the shot: I had met him before a bunch of times. At that point, I had shot him maybe twenty times, so it was just me having more pictures of John Lee Hooker. People started complimenting me on how great the shot was, and it’s one of my favorite shots I’ve ever taken. There was a biography about him that used a color version of the same shot. Then a label in California did a box set, and they ended up using several pictures from that session. On John Lee Hooker at The Guinness Fleadh Festival: I started out being a live photographer, then I went into portraits and now I do both. I never pass up an opportunity to shoot live concerts; that’s where you see the real essence of people. Even as old and frail as John Lee was, he was so good performing live. But I didn’t stick around after he played because he was a hard act to follow.

On his favorite John Lee Hooker moment: It was at a tribute to him at Madison Square Garden in the 90s. It was a pretty amazing lineup: Bonnie Raitt, Greg Allman, and Mick Fleetwood were on the bill. Bonnie Raitt is a really good friend of mine. At one point, I was standing around backstage, and she grabbed me and said, ‘You gotta come back to John Lee’s dressing room and check this out.’ I walked in and he’s sitting on the couch with two women who were both twenty-one years old. They were both beautiful, blonde with big, giant hairdos. At the time he was about seventy-five, hanging out with these twenty-one year old women. It’s really amazing, but with these blues guys, it’s all about sex. Whenever you listen to them singing about it, as old as they may be, you know they’re still getting it. On John Lee Hooker’s sex life: I was once with John Lee Hooker, BB King, and Willie Dixon in the garden of the Sunset Marquis Hotel in LA. The three of them just talked about sex the whole time, and they weren’t talking about it like it’d happened twenty years ago. That’s pretty impressive! It gives me hope for the future.

Resource’s recommended listening: “Boogie Chillen” “Boom Boom” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”

Your Original New York Penthouse Location- Inside, Outside, and More...

Gallery Show:

John Delaney By Sophia Betz - Artwork courtesy of the artist and the Farmani Gallery

hen John Delaney set out to photograph nomadic Golden Eagle hunters in a remote region of Mongolia, he brought with him a respectful determination. “I wanted to capture their uniqueness, but also their humanity. I hope I accomplished that in a small way.” The modest Delaney has accomplished that in a big way–capturing stunning portraiture that is at once fastidious and spontaneous, and landscapes that are simultaneously breathtaking and humbling. It is this remarkable series, “Golden Eagle Hunters of Mongolia,” that earned him a Lucie Award for 2008 Discovery of the Year this past October. The Lucie Awards are the brainchild of the Farmani Group, which curates shows in its Brooklyn, NY, gallery to showcase the photographers it works with. “If the work is great we want to exhibit it–no matter what genre you photograph,” says Elizabeth Barragan, the Farmani Gallery Director. The most interesting part of her job, she says, is working with the artists to find the best way to showcase their images. “We want exhibits that create curiosity and inspire, be it through subject matter or the technique used. The best will use both.” Delaney’s show certainly fell into the ‘both’ category. “For so long I’ve lived with this body of work as contact sheets and work prints,” he says. “To finally see them framed and presented in a beautiful gallery is wonderful.” Photographing his subjects during two trips, ten years apart, Delaney stresses the necessity of trust between subject and photographer. “If I can’t cross that barrier,” he says, “then any

depth of emotional connection in a photograph won’t be possible. We would first always sit to share milk tea or goat cheese, and try to learn a bit about each other. Only then would I feel comfortable to set up my equipment.” During the gallery opening, Barragan stops to study a photo–one she’s surely looked at dozens of times while setting up the show–of a young man in a fur hat, posing for the camera. She gazes intently, as if coming across the portrait for the first time. “You can see the landscapes on their faces,” she says, speaking with equal admiration for the hunter’s story as for Delaney’s uncanny ability to capture it. Delaney’s win of a Lucie Award in the non-professional category surprised some as he has substantial experience in the field. He explains, “I work in professional photography, but as a Master Printer. I had never been paid for my own photographs.” When he landed a job assisting and printing for photographer Richard Avedon, Delaney knew this was the first big moment of his career. Since then, he’s had what he calls the “privilege [and] thrill” of working closely with the likes of Bruce Davidson, Patrick Demarchelier, Steven Klein, Annie Leibovitz and Irving Penn. When asked how he settled upon the black and white portrait aesthetic he chose for much of the Golden Eagle Hunters series, he presents it as an almost instinctive decision: Avedon and Penn’s portraiture style was simply “hard-wired somewhere in my brain.” Delaney’s work is infused with what Barragan calls a “quiet

The time he spent with the Kazakh families included eating and talking and, “endless shots of vodka at night around the fire. I never refused a thing! Which lead to some very hard mornings.”

confidence” and a sense of adventure. As the tradition of eagle hunting is in decline, many of the hunters were eager to be photographed by an artist as curious and respectful as Delaney, who threw himself into the experience without hesitation. The time he spent with the Kazakh families included eating and talking and, “endless shots of vodka at night around the fire. I never refused a thing! Which lead to some very hard mornings.” After witnessing the hunters at work, Delaney was eager to get in front of the camera and be photographed with an eagle himself. This experiment proved to be “great in theory, but bad in execution. I mishandled a fox pelt I was using as a lure and the eagle I was trying to hold ended up attacking my hand. I can vouch not only for the handling skills of these nomadic hunters, but also for the authenticity of the eagles’ talons! I still have the scars.” The relationships Delaney developed with the people he photographed definitely rubs off when looking at his work. The ease with which Delaney interacted with his subjects–across cultures, through translators–is apparent. This accessibility is a trademark throughout all of his work. Upon meeting Delaney, a soft-spoken man with welcoming eyes, it becomes abundantly clear how he was able to integrate himself into what some would view as an impenetrably different culture. In his photography, he skillfully acknowledges that the people we see are “unconventional to our Western eyes,” but he does not make them a spectacle. Delaney did, after all, spend five

weeks with the people he photographed, and the images clearly show the personal connection they shared. After seeing a documentary film about the Kazakh eagle nomads, Delaney knew immediately he wanted to meet them and document their lives. It may seem like an unusual choice but Delaney learned early on to follow his passions. “Bruce Davidson once advised me to just do what I love, but then to also grow a thick skin. If I get too caught up in too much of what the industry needs or wants I would drift away from what I love. I create for myself first.”

Farmani Gallery - 111 Front St. #212, Brooklyn, NY 718.578.4478 - www.farmanigallery.com John Delany- www.johndelaney.net

TOKYO Multiples

ultiplesM OYKOT TOKYO Multiples TOKYO Multiples photo deco-page:

Photos by Jason Lewis

ultiplesM OYKOT

lthough I’m a portrait and lifestyle photographer, I’ve always had a great fondness for design and architecture. And while I’ve never spent a single day in any type of design class, my closest friends are extremely talented graphic designers and artists, and I constantly immerse myself in design books. It influences the way I see and shoot. Living in New York for half of my life must be an influence as well. This city is a mecca of lines and angles, symmetry and asymmetry, organization and simultaneous chaos. I was drawn to that chaos at first but soon became interested in minimalism, clean graphics, and the repetition of lines and objects. I think it’s readily apparent in my portraiture, since locations manage to play an essential part in them for both aesthetic and thematic reasons. I’ve been shooting “Multiples” for the past couple of years, but it didn’t present itself as a series until I spent a few weeks in Tokyo at the end of 2008. Ahh, Tokyo. Nothing in the world is like it, and I can’t wait to go back. I was especially influenced by the Japanese attention to detail, and I found an overwhelming amount of subjects, both animate and inanimate, to shoot. At the end of the day, it’s the perfect destination for multiples, because there’s just way so much going on! JASON LEWIS - www.jasonglewis.com

TECHNIQUE:

Blaise Hayward on How to Recreate Daylight

The goal of this lighting was to enhance the pre-existing daylight. Bouncing and gelling the light blue creates the feel of indirect (overcast) light. Use gold bounce fills to warm up the subject’s skin for a healthy glow.

White bead board rigged horizontally and angled at about 45 degrees

Bed

By Lizzie Leitzell

Window

Subject

Why recreate daylight? “Daylight in a studio is something I think every photographer should know how to create because it is such a pleasant light and you can’t always count on being able to get real sunlight all the time. If a client is spending money on a crew and studio, and you have deadlines, and a certain amount of shots need to get done—what are you going to do, sit around and wait for the sun to come out of the clouds?”

The set up: The location was very dark: it had only one big window and it was an overcast day. Hayward used one Pro7A pack with a magnum reflector with _ CTB rigged below the window and aimed up at a bed board to bounce back into the scene. Inside the room, he had one gold flex fill placed in front of the subject at the foot of the bed, and one to the side to create fill light on the side of the subject’s face (see diagram).

Camera used: Canon 1ds mark III

Camera

Gold flex fills

1 pro7a pack with a magnum reflector with 1/4 ctb rigged below the window and aimed up at the bead board to bounce back into the scene

Words of wisdom for photographers who want to recreate daylight: “One thing I’d stress to assistants and aspiring photographers is that it’s a process. It’s never right the first time. It takes time to get the light where you want it, and then you still need to fine tune it. You’ve got to have a pre-light day if it’s a big job and you’re not sure how you’re going to light it. That’s crucial to starting the shooting day off on the right foot. If you have twelve shots to do and you don’t have a pre-light day, you better get there really early or go over the set up with your assistants the day before so that you literally hit the ground running.” “I ask myself, ’If this was daylight, where would the light be coming from?’ And you simulate that. You can’t have sunlight coming in from both sides, because where are you, in a skinny room with windows on both sides? My first questions to myself are: Do I believe it? Does it make sense to me? Is it authentic?” “Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate everything. There is only one light source in real life and that’s the sun. I always remind my assistants of that. ‘Guys, there’s only one sun, so how many light sources do we really need here?’ The key is bouncing light in with either flex fills or cards, or flagging light off with black cards, black flex fills, nets or flags.” Blaise Hayward - www.blaisehaywardstudio.com

shoot on location? we do.

visit www.shootdigital.com for more information 23 east fourth street, new york, new york 10003 tel +1 212 353-3330 fax +1 212 353-0367

INTERVIEW:

Martin Schoeller By Charlie Fish - Photo by Markian Lozowchuk

Martin Schoeller’s TriBeCa studio is in the same building as culinary staple Nobu. If that isn’t enough to give you an indication as to his status, hanging just to the right of his studio entrance is an enlarged portrait of a female bodybuilder. Her hardened muscles protrude through her taut, spray-tanned skin. She presides over the communal area of the studio, her hyper-focused eyes keeping diligent watch over her creator’s domain. Then there’s Martin himself who, though dressed down in jeans and sporting thin dreadlocks, maintains an alert and seemingly cautious face throughout our entire conversation. It’s enough to unnerve anyone who might set foot in his workplace. And if these same happenstances were applied to any other world-renowned photographer, they just might have. But the truth behind Martin Schoeller’s persona, and ultimately his success, is all in the details. Instead of a frigid and frantic environment, with phones clamoring for attention or the click-clack of hurried heels attending to some minute task, Schoeller’s studio is—by the looks of the donuts on the common table, or the music that’s playing in the background, or the many assistants and interns who individually greet me with wide grins—an open, inviting look into the personality of one of our generation’s greatest photographers. But don’t take my word for it. Martin himself would likely advise against taking anything at face value. Instead, he’d encourage you to look for the clues, to dig deeper for the particulars. Martin recalls how he came to be a sought-after, respected celebrity photographer. As a teen, he worked odd jobs in Frankfurt, Germany, because he didn’t know what career he wanted to pursue. For a while, Schoeller worked with a handicapped man who was suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. It has been a long, dedicated road for Schoeller, from signing up for photography school in 1989 on a lark (and upon a friend’s suggestion), to having his work appear in GQ, National Geographic and The New Yorker, photographing Bill Clinton, Jack Nicholson, Colin Powell, Angelina Jolie and Barack Obama along the way. Schoeller moved to New York in 1993 and landed an assisting job with Annie Leibovitz. He labored industriously for the celebrity photographer, always keeping his eyes open, adding real world practice to his photography school theory knowledge. Martin says that Leibovitz “didn’t teach her assistants. You just did your job. She didn’t even care what kind of pictures her assistants took. I learned by just watching her.” The lessons she inadvertently taught him were many, but can best be summed up by Martin’s own words: “If you’re going to take a picture, really try to make it the best picture you’ve ever taken, every time. Always strive for the best you can do.” This level of professionalism requires that you live, breathe and eat photography, and that every step along the way is executed with great attention to—what else—the details. “If you want to be a

If you want to be a photographer , be a photographer ten hours a day instead of spending five hours retouching some half-ass picture

you don’t like in the first place . photographer,” he advises, “Be a photographer ten hours a day instead of spending five hours retouching some half-ass picture you don’t like in the first place.” His most recognized work is probably from his “Close Up” series, wherein subjects are all photographed under the same set up (including a medium format; Schoeller still prefers film) and in the exact same style, so as to create what Martin calls “a democratic platform. This approach allows you to compare and to juxtapose people from different walks of life with each other.” In other words, if everyone’s photographed the same way, you can spot the flaws, the scars, the eyes, the hair, the smiles, the wrinkles, the determination, the struggles, the nuances (the details) that make each person different, yet similar. In his world of close ups, Barack Obama and a Brazilian tribesman both offer a unique portrait to examine carefully and compare. Inspired in part by fellow German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, Schoeller’s “Close Up” series involves an intricate set up and demands full cooperation from his subjects. When asked how he put his subjects—many of whom included temperamental actors—at ease, Schoeller reveals, “If you want to do portraits, you have to be outgoing and be able to engage people. I always say a third is photography, a third is diplomacy, and a third is politics. By doing a lot of research and finding out what they have done in the recent past I know where their mind is at. I’m able to engage them in a conversation so they forget for a moment that they’re being photographed.” While this may be common practice to many photographers, Schoeller’s research manifests itself in another way. “I always play music that I think they might like, or remind them of their childhood. We always have a little stereo with us.” In one of his favorite assignments, he brought his “little stereo” to the White House during the Clinton administration for an assignment from The New Yorker. As Schoeller played Miles Davis on his stereo, President Clinton was curious as to what he was listening to. “No, that’s not Miles Davis,” said Clinton during the time. “Yes, Mr. President. It’s Miles Davis,” Schoeller countered. “No, no, no. I don’t believe it,” Clinton asserted. “I didn’t want to disagree with him anymore,” Martin laughs, “So I was like, ‘OK’ and moved on,” Schoeller tells me. But it wouldn’t be long before he was correcting the President again. “Clinton kept on doing the three-quarter turn with the smile, where he knows he looks good. So I constantly had to correct him. ‘OK, Mr. President, nose to me, chin

up, look straight into camera, a little more serious, not too much of a smile.’ At some point I was like, ‘I can’t keep telling the President what to do over and over again,’ and really aggressively too, because he just wouldn’t listen and kept doing his own thing. That was nerve-wracking.” Needless to say, it takes a lot of passion for your craft to be aggressive enough to give directives to the Commander in Chief. Martin Schoeller (unknowingly) did it twice. (He played Al Green for Barack Obama in 2004.)

Markian Lozowchuk - www.markianlozowchuk.com

Martin’s current series of photographs are jarring portraits of female bodybuilders. It’s a touchy subject for the world at large to handle, as is evidenced by the very few fans of female bodybuilding, the little money involved for the women who practice it, and the social stigmas that arise when a woman undergoes such an extreme body transformation. “I think nowadays everybody is so streamlined into looking the same,” Martin explains, discussing what drew him to spending close to three years observing these women and capturing the striking images. “As soon as you’re a little bit different you’re kind of an outcast. That’s why I had a lot of sympathy for the women bodybuilders, for just having the courage to be different.” The resulting portraits rightfully lack any indication that they were done by a photographer looking to exploit a subculture or niche. Indeed, Martin Schoeller grew to know these women and their often-heartbreaking stories. When Schoeller does his research, he immerses himself in that world. It’s evident in the way he speaks of his subjects: “By the time the women go onstage, they’re basically starving. They look for the right point before the muscle tissue gets too eaten up for energy by the body. They just have to find that fine balance so they know exactly how many calories they need to eat to keep their brain functioning. Sometimes they under-eat, so often times they’re spaced out, or they start to get slightly delirious or have a hard time speaking during competitions. The brain only needs 140 calories a day to operate, so according to that, they eat two, three, maybe 400 calories a day for the last couple of weeks before a competition. They have, sometimes, 1% body fat, which is completely unhealthy. You get

liver, kidney failure from it. And they’re completely dehydrated on top of it! Then they sometimes take laxatives to get rid of the last food from their body, or they spit in buckets like boxers to get rid of more body fluid. These extremes are what drew me in. They think it’s feminine; they think it’s beautiful while everybody else thinks it’s ugly. That discrepancy is fascinating.” What makes Martin Schoeller a great photographer is not just that he picks up a camera and documents life, whether it is a celebrity, a politician, or a tribe in an undeveloped country. It is fair to say Schoeller is more an astute observer who meticulously captures the intricacies behind the subject’s story. Undoubtedly, others recognize his level of professionalism and unique style. This year marks Schoeller’s tenth year of working with The New Yorker. When asked what it is that drives him to continue to deliver such high-caliber work, he replies, “Sometimes I ask myself the same question. I guess it is the fear of failing and coming back to a magazine with a bad picture.” Yes, even Schoeller—with his TriBeCa studio, ten-year magazine stint and worldwide acclaim—second-guesses himself. “I’m always nervous,” he says about shoots. “There are always so many things that can go wrong. Often times, as soon as the subject leaves I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Shit! I should have done this or that.’ You’re always on hyper alert and a bit nervous. At least I am.” And therein lays the secret to Martin Schoeller’s success: he is as determined to produce extraordinary work as he is attentive to his subjects. Along the way, he has retained humility, a trait that someone of his stature could easily have discarded. At the end of our meeting, I thank him for his time and he says,“That’s it? That was painless.” He moves to a stack of books in his office and scribbles something in one of them. He hands me a copy of his latest book, Female Bodybuilders. The inscription, though short, is still appreciative. “To Charlie: Thanks! Best, Martin Schoeller.” Martin Schoeller - www.martinschoeller.com

epublicans will tell you to never set a timetable. The element of surprise is of particular significance in times of war, and it is weakened when plans and strategies are telegraphed to the enemy. Lives will be lost, borders will be compromised, gays will run amok in the streets getting married and insured, and terrorists with funny names will be elected to high office. The country will spin out of control and crash into the side of a mountain somewhere just south-east of the Bay Area, where married gays will dance around the flaming wreckage like wild natives. Such is the nature of timetables in America. Set a timetable, and before you know it, cannibals will enslave your children in that Gomorrah they call San Francisco.

The Impossible Project

By Jeff Siti

Luckily for people like us in the photo production industry, we’re not at war and we don’t want to kidnap anybody. We are primarily peaceful people, and all we want is to be able to use our Polaroid cameras without fear of ever running out of film for as long as we all shall live. That’s specifically why Impossible b.v., as the project team is known, got together in Enschede, Netherlands. They hope to come up within the next twelve months with a new recipe for integral film, and therefore save instant film technology from extinction. They call it “The Impossible Project.” Let’s hope timetables aren’t as destructive in the Netherlands as they are in the States. After filing for a little Chapter 11 action in 2001, and nearly a decade of financial trouble and controversy, Polaroid effectively put a steak knife through the heart of all instant film enthusiasts in June of 2008 by ceasing production of all instant film. That’s right, Polaroid film, the revolutionary American classic, was gone. Analog factories in Mexico and the Netherlands were closed as Polaroid focused on digitizing and uploading itself onto the new digital world. While the Mexico facility has already been destroyed and lays in smoldering ruin, the factory in Enschede, Netherlands, and all of its operational equipment has been taken over by Impossible b.v. and its team of technicians, scientists, and Polaroid ex-patriots. Their website quotes Edwin Land, who invented instant film over sixty years ago, as declaring that one should never undertake a project unless it is nearly impossible. No one would disagree that Mr. Land’s words are dramatic and inspirational, certainly worthy of being translated into all of Earth’s many beautiful languages. To the small group of true believers in Enschede however, The Impossible Project doesn’t really seem all that impossible. Florian Kaps, Executive Director of Marketing and Business Development, explained that when he asked technicians working on the project how long it would take to come up with a new version of integral film, they reported that all they needed was six months. Not entirely convinced, he gave them a year and a fully operational factory to get things done.

Artwork courtesy of The Impossible Project

To the small group of true believers in enschede, however, The Impossible Project doesn’t really seem all that impossible. ---------------------------

Integral film, which consists of roughly twenty components, has been made exactly the same way since 1972. Polaroid had finally landed on a trusted recipe, and without the membrane, pod, battery, pull-tab, and skirt, (not to mention the other fifteen or so ingredients that no one outside of Enschede could explain or identify), all you’ve got is a big piece of plastic nothing. The problem here is that some of these ingredients are no longer available and will need to be replaced from scratch. Recent experimentation has shown that pre-existing film components, as well some new ones, can be adapted and used to not only re-invent instant film, but to make it better than its predecessor—a revelation that set The Impossible Project in motion. Impossible b.v. was lucky, Kaps says, as they were able to get their hands on the factory and equipment. The team, including outside investors, had for some time been interested in acquiring the facility, but was never able to make a deal. Last year, as Polaroid announced its plans and the shedding of several factories, things fell into place. Impossible b.v. was able to secure a ten-year lease on the Enschede facility, including all of its equipment. The project officially started in January of 2009 (note the ticking clock on its website), and if the next year of research and development is successful, by 2010 they will be the only producer of integral film on the planet for at least the next decade. Then we won’t have to bury our Polaroid cameras in the backyard next to the dog who, ironically, lives on through the magic of instant film on the refrigerator’s door. But this is no small commitment, and nothing is certain at this point. With an original price tag of around one hundred million euros for the facility and machinery, money weighed heavily in setting the twelve-month deadline. However, Kaps says that, while they only have enough money to sustain the project for one year, it was not the only factor. “No one thought the show was over, but to keep instant film alive we need to act quick.” Given too long, he said, even just two years, and people may start to forget. Technology is moving too fast these days, and a two-year absence could be irreparably devastating. For this resurrection to happen, it has to happen now.

Though instant film technology i s a n y t h i n g b u t n e w, i t s v i n t a g e cachet has attracted the squinted eyeballs of a significant worldwide cult.And its fans will always exist. ---------------------------------

Since 2001, Kaps has been working on keeping the analog film world alive, most notably through his work with the Lomographic Society, Polanoid.net, and several other sites dedicated to the art form where legions of instant film junkies from all over the world can log on and show us just how amazing they really are. But Kaps is not the only team member with experience in the instant film field—far from it. Impossible b.v. claims that they have recruited the most experienced team of integral film experts in the world, and their résumés seem to verify this assertion. The core group, which consists of twelve members, has significant experience in different aspects of the process, and most of the people worked directly for Polaroid in the past. Engineers, film technicians, machine operators, and a chemist will be working toward the goal of producing an updated and upgraded version of instant film. Some have balked at the idea, calling it a dead technology. Medically speaking, these people are known as zombies: vacant, worthless beings, most of whom have no soul. But some will argue zombies are necessary to the social fabric and their claims aren’t entirely without merit. To be sure, digital photography, with all of its convenience and simplicity, is only going to grow. Still, there will always be those who prefer the typewriter, the record player, and the Polaroid. And for those old souls, Impossible b.v. is one of their last good hopes. Though instant film technology is anything but new, its vintage cachet has attracted the squinted eyeballs of a significant worldwide cult, and its fans will always exist. Integral film will never make the digital world nervous, but there will always be a market for it.

Find more info at www.the-impossible-project.com.

Currently, there is no name for this new product. Kaps says you have to know whether your baby is a girl or a boy before you name it, and it’s simply too early to have that discussion. That will be the fun part, he says, but there is still too much work to be done. As for when this nameless mystery product will be available, no one knows. The ticker hits zero next January. Until then, check the site for updates and practice conservation. You never know. One thing we do know is that there are going to be a lot of empty Polaroid cameras out there in the future, and someone needs to put film in them. Fingers crossed, indeed.

HOW TO:

Make Coffee By Jeff Siti I Additional information by Blake Sinclair and Marla Lacherza I Photos by Blake Sinclair

e’ve all stood there listening to a photographer berating an utterly defeated production assistant over the mishandling of their idiotically complex coffee order, which always includes terms like latte, mocha, frappe, grande, and other nonsense that has perfectly suitable English equivalents. Apparently you’re not a mysterious recluse of an artist if you use words like milk. Oh well. Generally, you pull for the little guy in this situation. The underdog. You want to see assistants leap viciously toward their tormentors and bleed them like starving vampires, but it never happens. They turn like dogs, nervous and unsure, questioning every choice they’ve ever made in life as they silently repeat the order over and over as if it’s actually important.

Ex p r e s s o & C a pp u c c i n o : 1. The grind is key to a good espresso. It’s all about finding the perfect setting for that day, and only you know what kind of day you want to have. Each day the beans age, your grind will need to be tighter, so you will have to set the grinder accordingly. A good espresso grinder will have stepless adjustments, for infinite grind settings. Never use a blade grinder. 2. Warm up the machine and portafilter by running water through to the cup. This should take roughly 10-15 seconds, but possibly as many as 25. Stay focused. Put the hot water in the cup to keep it warm until you’re ready to pull your shot.

So, if you’re lucky enough to find yourself amongst the nonessential peasantry, making coffee runs or steaming your face off with intricate German machinery, we’ve come to save your life. Let’s begin with the basic, aka drip coffee.

3. Take the portafilter out of the machine and dry that little sucker with a clean towel. This is supremely important. If the portafilter is wet when you put the grinds in, it will cause uneven brewing, bitterness, and no one will like you.

Drip Coffee:

4. Fill the portafilter basket with the finely ground grinds.

1. Grind the coffee beans. Pulverize them. Destroy them.

Decimate them. Drip coffee really requires a fine grind.

2. Depending on the darkness of the roast, put 1 tbsp grinds per 2 cups. If you’re making 8 cups, put 4 tbsp of grinds in the filter. 3. Put the grinds in the machine, pour the water into the

back, close the lid, and turn the machine on.

4. Get exited as you smell the coffee begin to brew, listen to the exotic ticks and grunts of the Chinese-made coffee maker. Imagine the possibilities. Pour and enjoy. Now that you’re a black belt in brewing a pot of coffee, forget everything you just learned. You’re never going to be that lucky. No one will ever ask you for a coffee with a little sugar. They’re going to throw Latin and Spanish and Portuguese at you, and laugh to themselves as you saunter off like a beagle. Always remember, revenge is a marathon, not a sprint. Bide your time. Your day will come. For now, let’s look at expresso and cappucinno.

5. Swipe the top of the basket with your finger, or a fingerlike tool, to evenly disperse the grinds. Some do a clock-wise circle swipe. Some go north, south, west, finishing with east. Go to the town hardware store for a compass. The important thing is to have an even, clean swipe so the grinds aren't chunky. Avoiding chunky grind is job number two. 6. You want the tamp to be as even as possible, so it’s good form to start with your wrist straight, and your forearm at a perfect 90 degree angle, perpendicular to the tabletop. In one, steady motion, apply about 5 pounds of pressure (about the same amount of pressure necessary to knock over a small child), then knock the side of the portafilter with the back of the tamper to loosen up any stray grinds. Next, apply 30 pounds of pressure. Then polish off any stray grinds on the handle, basket rim, and locking notches. Step 6 is a notoriously tricky step involving math, angles, and human anatomy. Don’t worry if you are completely confused right now, or looking around to see if anyone is watching you. Keep reading. 7. Insert the portafilter into the machine, dump the water out of the cup, and place it under the portafilter. Are you ready? If so, start your shot.

No one will ever ask you for just a coffee with a little sugar. 7a. The first shot is typically a test. 90% of the time it’s perfectly drinkable, but if you want to perfect your craft, learn from that first shot and alter the next. The espresso extraction should take about 20-25 seconds, and produce a 2 oz. shot. If the espresso flows too fast and runny, your grind is too coarse. If the espresso barely flows at all, and is more like a drippy black oil slag-like sludge, then your grind is too fine. The espresso should be black with a red-ish hint and a golden "crema" on top. 7b. Another good way to analyze how your shot went is to look at the spent grinds in the portafilter basket. They should be relatively dry, with no holes or cracks. If you see holes, that means your swipe/tamp technique needs work. The holes are called "channeling" and they cause uneven extraction and bitterness. 8. Steam the milk. Bleed the steam wand by turning it on and getting all the water out. You want hot, dry steam. Insert the wand in the milk (or soy milk if the party concerned has woman-ish intestines that cannot digest lactose), and find the sweet spot. If the wand is too high, you'll get large bubbles. If it’s too deep, you will only get hot milk. The goal is to achieve a micro-foam, which is silky frothed milk with tiny bubbles. To get this, you'll want to "stretch" the milk by creating foam until it reaches 100 degrees. Next, bring the wand deeper and let the milk blend the bottom milk, with the top foam, creating a uniform micro-foam throughout the pitcher. 9. Knock the pitcher against the table top to pop any large bubbles. Don’t be afraid to really give it a good whack. Next, go nuts and swirl the pitcher around to really mix the content up. Start your pour at the front, and work your way around the back, then bring the pitcher spout toward the front with a back and forth sweeping motion. Pouring a cappuccino is an art in itself, so get creative. 10. Clean up. Coffee leaves behind oils that will build up in

the group head and portafilter. It’s important to clean that goo out, so you must run the machine and wipe it up good. The steam wand will also create a build-up of milk froth, which is gross, so wipe that up as well. That was great. And healthy. Now take a deep breathe, hold it, release. We’re almost home. Imagine the depth of winter. It’s freezing, snowing, and people are dying in the street. This is the day everyone decides they need Starbucks. You may feel like a loser writing everything down, but you must. You have to. It’s less about getting the order right and more about you having to do less work. No mistakes means you’re not going back outside, and if life on Earth is about anything, it’s about doing the least amount of work possible. That’s the secret, and now you know it. Come up with a secret coffee shorthand language if necessary, but write down everything. It’s the only way to turn the tables on these freaks.

St a r b u c k s & Th e B a s i c s : Sizes in real people terms Tall- a small 12 ounce cup. Grande- a medium 16 ounce cup. Venti (which means “twenty” in Italian)- a large 20 ounce cup. How to order a regular drip coffee: You need to keep in mind that when people say “regular coffee,” there is always some sort of specification. Find out if they want a bold or mild brew, and if they take milk or cream. There is an assortment of milks that vary from half and half, non-fat, whole, and soy. If the bossman says “light,” you know to add a lot of milk. Ask what kind of sugar they take: raw sugar (brown non-granulated sugar), white granulated sugar, Splenda, Equal, and Sweet & Low. Be sure to ask how much they would like in their drink, then grab extra packets so they can add more.

Te r m i n o l o g y : A Latte means “milk.” When ordering it hot, the drink is composed of steamed milk, espresso, and a dollop of light foam on top. When iced, it combines milk, espresso, and ice. A Cappuccino is similar to a Latte because it has the same ingredients. However, the main difference is that there is much less steamed milk and much more foam. A cappuccino makes for a stronger espresso drink because the foam doesn’t absorb the shots so the caffeine is not diluted. A Macchiato really means “espresso stain” or “marked with milk.” In laymen’s terms, it means the espresso shots rest on top of steamed milk and foam as opposed to a latte and cappuccino where the espresso shots are poured in first. If you really want to piss the barista off, ask for an espresso with milk. Just do it. Do it every time. A Café Americano only combines espresso shots and water. Other popular Starbucks nonsensical coffee terms include Misto, which is half coffee and half steamed milk; Solo, which is one shot of espresso; Doppio, two shots of espresso; Triple, three shots; and Quad, four shots.

Mission:

Propel Energy Drink By Elizabeth Leitzell - Artwork courtesy of Vincent Dixon

Mission: To shoot galloping horses and a female runner on a city street. Were the horses really galloping in the street? It’s really difficult to find a street in New York or Los Angeles that you can block off to run horses. We shot at the Paramount Studios in LA, on their “New York Street” set. These back lots are mostly used by the movie or TV commercial industry. Shooting there allows us to get shots that we would never be able to do in a “real” location. On a studio set you can shoot at any height you want, have the lights at any height you want, etc… How many takes were needed? It was difficult to light for both dark and light horses, so it took some time to get it right. Because of the complications with the lights, we had basically one shot per run. We ended with twenty shots of the horses. We shot the girl running about thirty to forty times, with a couple of costume changes. She was a long distance runner, which helped. She was shot separately as she couldn’t run with the horses due to safety issues. How were you able to shoot galloping horses? We’ve shot a lot of animals previously so our crew knows that they need to keep the talking and loud noises to an absolute minimum. This is key—with animals and children, there really needs to be only one voice guiding them at any time, and that voice is normally the trainer or the photographer’s. The street ended to the right of the frame, so we had to shoot the horses as they ran quickly and then stop them suddenly. The horses were running down the street of an active studio and on harsh pavement (their wrangler put rubber horseshoes on all of them to help with traction). The last thing we’d want to have happened was for one of these beautiful horses to slip and fall. The biggest issue we faced with the animals was their performance. It wasn’t made clear at the beginning of the day that they would only be able to run back and forth eight or ten times before they became exhausted.

We thought they could run all day, while the trainers presumed we’d only need them to run a few times. By the time we got our lighting set and were happy with the way everything looked, the horses were exhausted. When reviewing the files, we soon realized that the best shots were the first few, where the horses were fired up and raring to go. We didn’t have enough images so we decided to go to the ranch on another day and shoot some more. This time we were well prepared for what was to happen. We set up our light to match the lighting at the studio and did some testing with just one horse, which we didn’t make run, lesson learned! Once we were set, we had all the horses run individually until we had plenty of images of fired up, galloping horses. What was the camera position? We had first tried to get multiple cameras so we could get different angles, but we couldn’t sync the cameras as we were shooting at high speeds. We then switched to working from one angle with the camera position on ground level. What was the mix of on-camera elements and post-production? Although we’re shooting for one photo, we end up taking different elements from various frames. But we always work to make the final image realistic and seamless rather than like an illustration. We had three to four days of post-production work on this job. Different horses would be good in different photos, and we added in buildings from Downtown LA that we had shot separately. Photographer: Vincent Dixon – www.vincentdixon.com Ad Agency: Element 79 / Chicago Art Director: Derrick Ho Producer: David Safian / Brite Productions - www.briteproductions.net Stylist: Christina Kretschmer – www.christinakrestchmer.com Horse Wrangler: Sled Reynolds / Gentle Jungle - www.gentlejungle.net

www.bathhousestudios.com

BathHouseStudios 212.388.1111 • 540 East 11th St. NYC

Studio A

4,000 sq ft • 20ft ceilings • 26x30 ft cyc with 14 ft grid above • street level load-in • drive-in access • client area

Studio B

Introducing

1,800 sq ft • 15x15 ft cyc • street level load-in • hair/makeup area w/shower • wardrobe room • cafe w/full kitchen

www.bathhousemiami.com

BathH useMiami 541 Jefferson Ave Miami Beach FL • 305.538.7767

EVENT:

Fashion Week By Brittany Phillips | Photos by Brad Forth Thousands of flashbulbs firing, booming club music, and strikingly gorgeous girls in haute couture are just part of the pomp and circumstance that is Fashion Week. What many don’t comprehend is the exhausting effort it takes to properly capture a designer’s latest creations. While journalists, editors, buyers, celebrities, and social types watch this fascinating extravaganza from their assigned seating, the photographers are the “unseen,” doing the dirty work in their jeans and t-shirts, fending for themselves in the overcrowded and chaotic pit. Although Fashion Week may leave a photographer completely worn out and in need of a strong drink, it is something Fashion Week photographer, Brad Forth, believes all emerging photographers need to experience. Forth says that shooting Fashion Week is “A good way to get to know the business and how it’s run.” That is, if you can survive the pit. While the pit is built for sixty photographers, there are about 160 trying to get in. Watch your footing while you’re in there, because you might accidentally step on a determined photographer, lying on the floor, trying to get his perfect shot. Although the pit is a disordered free-for-all, everyone understands and has respect for one another. Photographers are willing to help each other find a spot and shift around to accommodate each other’s needs. The pit may seem like an untamed brothel, but everyone is still trying to get along. Forth describes the photographers as cattle being herded into a corral. Before they even get to the pit, they are led into roped off areas where they stand and wait for hours until finally escorted into the trenches. While the spectators coo over the models’ stunning apparel and become entranced by this exhilarating event, the photographers are working like dogs, trying to get their best shot and becoming increasingly exhausted in the process. The intensity of fashion show photography not only takes place in the pit. While jammed into a small arena like a pack of farm animals, the photographers try to get the perfect image. Backstage, they are free to become a bit more creative with their shots. Behind the scenes of a fashion show, you’ll find photographers dashing about, getting models to pose in a hectic jumble of ten thousand dollar dresses. The energy at an apex as stylists frantically bombard models to finish last minute re-touching before they emerge onto the runway. Although shooting fashion week is akin to entering into battle, if a photographer survives, he emerges victorious, with great shots, new friends and contacts, and a newfound sense of invincibility. This year’s New York City Fashion Week, sponsored by Mercedes Benz, took place in Bryant Park from February 13-20, 2009, and featured collections from designers such as Maggie Norris, Diane von Furstenberg, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Carlos Miele, Ralph Lauren, L’wren Scott, Chado Ralph Rucci, Calvin Klein, Isaac Mizrahi, Zac Posen, and Vera Wang.

Interview:

Better Being Catering By Keri Wirth | Photos by JJ Sulin

very day that begins with blue and green speckled china, brimming with the irresistible flavors of a vibrant seven-course feast, a Better Being is born. Washko plowed her way through art school working as a waitress, dishwasher, and manager. “You name a job in the restaurant industry and I did it. I was like a sponge. I just cooked for fun,” MK reveals. She majored in fine art at Kent State University with the intentions of becoming a painter. “MK loves painting abstract mixed media,” says Drewett. “Her mediums before she became a chef included acrylics, water colors, wax, and pastels.” Her art school experience clearly translates to the plate, as each dish is bursting with color. In 1994, Washko started her business with one client in a tiny SoHo kitchen. Continuous word of mouth propelled her onewoman-show into the five-star culinary tour de force that it is now. Drewett recalls, “After a year, she was so successful she asked me to join her, and we have been working together ever since.” The momentum of their success was inevitable.

JJ Sulin - www.jjsulin.com

Seizing each day with a vigorous rally comes naturally to Shari Drewett and MK Washko, owners of Better Being Catering. Drewett recalls, “I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes to find MK in the kitchen, like a mad scientist in her lab, concocting new recipes.” Recipes such as Teriyaki Mako Burger “sliders” on Sesame mini buns and Roasted Chicken with Dill Dumpling Soup are imagined from scratch utilizing fresh organic produce. Washko contends: “Your eyes taste the food first. I have to make sure everything looks beautiful and make sure the taste of the food meets the expectation of the visual.” She holds herself to the highest standards and doesn’t leave any room for error. “Criticism is painful and I take it personally,” Washko acknowledges. Drewett explains, “MK is a worrier and I have the innate belief that everything is going to work out.” Washko is the sensitive artist and Drewett is the motivator and risk-taker.

Better Being Catering often receives kudos in the form of letters or emails from satisfied clients—statements of approval that find their way onto a positive morale booster called the “Happy Board.” Sometimes, just a small reminder that all of their hard work is paying off in smiles is enough to motivate the staff for the day. One of the letters gushes, “Seems like you guys really like people!” Liking the client is just one of the many ingredients that make this business successful. Better Being Catering is made up of fourteen employees who work together for the common good

“Better Being isn’t just the name of our business, it’s the goal of our experience on this planet.” Shari Drewett and are not interested in being superstars. They truly are an egalitarian team. This ego-less kitchen has daily demands to get multiple breakfasts, lunches, and dinner parties delivered hot all at the same moment. A pressure-cooker of a situation, no doubt! Imagine forty seven-course meals heading from their headquarters in downtown Manhattan to Brooklyn and Uptown by 6 a.m. Wilson, manager, organizer, and official Youth Vibe, calls this “renegade catering.“ Since the different call times and locations do not allow for the convenience of an one-stop delivery, the delivery staff has to go on four separate vans. No client would ever imagine the madness of all this. The fanatical part of the business is concealed. The food always shows up looking like it just came out of the kitchen, perfect, and ready to eat. All the hassle and fuss is left behind. Wilson states, “It’s like magic.” Performing this magical act takes methodic and systematic planning. The intensity rises to a new level as special requests are made for different palates, such as vegan, vegetarian and/ or celebrity. No worries! Better Being is nothing if not flexible. Their goal is to make sure every single person on set is wellfed and happy—no small task with the seen-it-all set. The present economic climate promotes being resourcefully thrifty. Washko has been extremely inventive with funds. “I am not going to sacrifice the quality of food for money. I am still going to pick the freshest produce and create what in-

spires me,” she declares. “The economy has helped to refocus our energy and tighten up in the right places,” Drewett adds. They have created the Better Being Budget Buster, which is a reduced menu option. Instead of sevencourses per person, clients can choose a six-course menu for significantly less money, but the quality of the fare goes unaffected by the evolving market. Washko’s work ethic is so intense that she has trouble delegating responsibility, even though she trusts everyone she works with to the utmost degree. Releasing accountability has unfortunately been forced upon her. Washko has been recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She is facing the challenge of slowing down, and for the overachiever, learning how to relax has been rougher then the diagnosis. She is learning to let go of the rush part of the job and allow herself more time to create. This way, she can encourage and oversee her capable team carry out her progressive, tasty designs to perfection. Inspiring each individual with a unique zest and quality of service is the natural essence of Better Being Catering. Their passion and creativity have been the recipes to their success. The proof is in the quality of the food.

Better Being Catering www.betterbeing.net

The mouth-watering smell of hamburgers, French fries, and apple pie evokes instant nostalgia as you cross the threshold of a classic American diner and rediscover one of the most significant aspects of a culture—its food. Originating in the 1920s as rail dining cars for factory employees, diners had become iconic by the 1950s, crystallizing what is inescapably and quintessentially American. Resource has searched through New York City to bring you some of these ageless institutions of Americana. Not only are diners a great place to kick back, relax and get some grub after a long night of shooting, they also make perfect shoot locations themselves. Their iconic décor create a unique setting for photo shoots. Each diner has its own style, and there is always something distinctive to capture, as well as something delicious to eat!

Locations:

Diners By Elis Estrada - Photos by Jocelyn Baun

Big Daddy’s Diner Gramercy Park - 239 Park Ave. South - New York, NY - 212.477.1500 - www.bigdaddysnyc.com

Remedy Diner - 245 Houston St. - New York, NY 10002 - 212.677.5110

www.jocelynbaun.com

Empire Diner - 210 10th Ave. - New York, NY 10011 - 212.243.2736 - www.empire-diner.com

53 Relish - 225 Wythe Ave. - Brooklyn, NY 11211 - 718.963.4546 - www.relish.com

By Feifei Sun Photos by Ingrid Hertfelder

As Frank Sinatra sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere!” The ‘there’ he was talking about was, of course, New York City. Each year, a new group of eager young photographers, producers, stylists, and other creatives come to the city to pursue their respective photo careers. But newcomers in the Big Apple’s fast-moving, highly competitive photo world aren’t really thinking about it making it big just yet. Many are just trying to break in. How did the big names get their first break? What’s their advice to the industry’s novices? What does it take to land that dream job? We posed these questions to six industry experts. Here, they share their stories and advice, proving that no one bypasses the grunt work—but that it truly does pay off.

While working in advertising at Doyle Dane Bernbach, Peter got a call from his friend Fred Hughes, who was Andy Warhol’s business manager at the time. “Fred said, ‘Look, we need to shoot Isabella Rossellini for the cover of Interview,’” Peter says. “I didn’t even know who the fuck she was, but I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’” Peter would go on to shoot more than twenty covers for the magazine and develop close relationships with the artists at the Factory. At Interview he met Robert Hayes, then the magazine’s managing editor, who introduced his brother Tom to Peter. Tom got Peter a job at Spotty Dog, a photo production company in New York. “It was one of the first production companies on the scene,” Peter recalls. “Now there’s a million of them, but I’d say there were less than six when I started.” “It’s increasingly difficult because there’s more and more competition for less and less jobs,” Peter says. But networking is the still the first step. “Intern for somebody in the industry you respect. Do your time. When you feel you know enough, move on,” Peter says. At Photo Group, Peter looks for people who are flexible. “Photo production is creative, but it’s very much a business too.” That means employees need to know how to manage a budget, draw up invoices that are simple to comprehend, keep track of receipts, and act like basic accountants. “People think it’s all glamour, hanging out with models, and going on set. That’s part of it. It’s not to be denied. But when you cut away all the bullshit, producing is really managing a small business that’s very intense for a compact period of time.”

“I had an interest in photography as a kid because of the chemistry and mechanics it involved,” Hirsch recalls. “I remember going into the dark room with my dad at the dentist’s to see how he developed extras.” After taking several photo classes in college, Hirsch graduated and began shooting as a freelance photographer. One day, when he walked into Fishkin Bros., a photo equipment store Hirsch frequented in New Jersey, the owner offered him a weekend job. Weekends soon turned into full-time, and by 1990, Hirsch bought into Foto Care and became President of his own company. “I love my job because I get to continue learning,” Hirsch says. “Photographers come to us with all sorts of questions, and we help them solve their problems, but they also teach us so much.” “If we put the economy aside, there are more possibilities than ever before. When I was starting out, there were only a few ways to break into the photo industry—pay your dues as an assistant or do it cold turkey and go on your own.” For newcomers in a digital age where SLR cameras and Adobe Photoshop can make anyone an amateur photographer, Hirsch emphasizes the importance of consistency. “You don’t have to be the greatest,” he says. “There’s only room at the top for the few greats of that time, but there’s plenty of room for someone who is consistent and does a good job. Clients aren’t looking for a masterpiece each time. Most times, they’re hiring you to do something they saw in your work that you can already do.”

RIGHT HAND

After working in human resources for most of her career, relocating to New York changed the path of Gilmore’s life. She began working as a studio manager for a photographer she met through her husband, and quickly started juggling other photo production responsibilities. Five years ago, she joined Planet PrePro NY as a Casting Director and Producer. Although she’s in a different industry now, Gilmore still uses the lessons she learned from her earlier career. “The skills that I had when I was in the human resources world were very much about communicating with people, being organized, interviewing and sizing people up, coaching them and helping them be successful. In casting, it’s really the same stuff,” Gilmore says. “You’ve got to communicate well to understand who you’re looking for, and once you cast those people, you want them to be fantastic—so you do what you can to help them be successful.” Gilmore is the first one to admit that it takes a lot of perseverance to make it in such a competitive city. To score that first job or contact, she suggests keeping an open mind. “First, get your foot in the door in some aspect of the industry that may not be what you want to ultimately do,” she says. “It’s just getting that foot in the door so you are working with people who are ‘in the know.’ Everybody knows somebody, and something as simple as helping out on a photo shoot and then telling everyone you meet what your goals are, can help. It’s a lot about networking.” And with the Internet, it’s easier than ever to do just that. “Look up photographers you like. It’s hard, but I would then make a cold call to a company I admire and say, ‘Hey, this is a business I’m really interested in. Can we get together and have a cup of coffee? I’d love to pick your brain,’” Gilmore advises. “You don’t just want to ask for a job because the answer will be, ‘No.’”

RIGHT HAND Simultaneous Impressions R. Thumb Four Fingers

Mills’s love for fashion began when she was a little girl. “I used to sit in my grandma’s living room and read all her Mirabella magazines when I was four or five years old,” she recalls. “I’d tear out the fashion pages and carry them around with me because I loved them so much.” In college, Mills interned at Boston Magazine, where she helped the Fashion Director on various photo shoots. After graduating from Boston College, Mills and her husband moved to the Big Apple. “I came to New York without any connections, but I knew I had to be here,” she says. After a tough job hunt (Mills arrived in the city two days before September 11, 2001), she found an internship at Glamour with Executive Fashion Editor at Large, Suze Yalof Schwartz. Later, she’d go on to work as Elle Style Director Isabel Dupré’s assistant. Mills spent six years at the magazine, working her way up to Style Editor. These days, Mills works as a freelance stylist on projects ranging from advertising campaigns to celebrity styling. Though she’s worked with fashion’s top magazines and Hollywood’s A-List celebrities, Mills can’t say enough about her early years. “I really feel that I worked so hard as an assistant,” she says. “Getting back from Tahiti at midnight and then unpacking twelve trunks of clothes and getting them into the office early the next morning… it’s those experiences that brought me to where I am.” This strong work ethic is her biggest advice to newcomers in the industry. “My main point to put out to students in this awful economy is that you can’t give up, and you have to be ready to work your tail off and just do anything asked of you,” she says. “Really be willing to work hard because that’s what it takes. Any intern will tell you that it’s hard. The ones who come in early and stay late and do everything with a smile are the ones who make it.”

LEFT HAND Simultaneous Impressions Four Fingers L. Thumb

Kist broke into the industry on the academia side, beginning her career at Christie’s fine art photography department in London. After seven years there, Kist relocated to Toronto, where her academic experience wasn’t as high in demand. She decided to pursue a more commercial route and began working in advertising. “I had to push my academic experience to the bottom of my résumé and instead highlight my customer relations skills more,” Kist says. Despite the shift in focus, Kist knew she always wanted to hold onto her artistic side. “I wasn’t working with fine art anymore, but I knew I’d always do something creative.” Four years ago she joined Schawk!. There, she works closely with the company’s creative director in securing photographers for various clients’ campaigns.

In a fast-moving, ever-changing industry like photography, an up-for-anything attitude and strong work ethic are imperative for newcomers. “You have to be flexible. There are a lot of tasks to juggle,” Kist says. “But at the same time, you have to be very detail-oriented.” Kist advises novices that many photography jobs require teamwork, and working with others can make your experiences incredibly memorable—or incredibly painful. “When you respect the people on your team and really appreciate working with them, the work can be quite pleasurable,” she says. “But when you have a bad attitude, it’s unpleasant for everyone involved.”

Anderson Hopkins Inc. 63 Greene Street #604 New York NY 10012 212-431-5517 www.andersonhopkins.com Becoming a photographer’s representative was never something Hopkins set out to do. He assumed the position naturally after working in several different capacities within the photography world. “Working in the industry, I feel like you almost emerge as a representative,” he says. After starting out as a photo assistant, Hopkins worked in photo production, and eventually started Anderson Hopkins in 1999 with his partner, Stephanie. As a rep, he balances photographers’ needs and clients’ expectations. “It’s important to let photographers know what’s happening out there,” Hopkins says. “My job is about finding out what clients are doing, what they’re interested in, and then bringing that thinking back to the photographers.”

There isn’t a clear-cut path to making it as a photographer’s representative, but Hopkins advises those interested to have a true passion for the industry. “If you’re surrounded by photographers and art directors, and going to galleries and seeing images, and so on and so forth, it almost seems that the notion to represent someone comes to you,” he says. “It ends up being that you just kind of percolate out of a group of individuals as having that role.”

Developments:

Bathhouse Miami By Kamalah Fletcher | Artwork provided by Bathhouse Miami

Combine the superb quality and reputation of Bathhouse Studios in New York with the industry know-how of partners John Marin and Edgar Urbina, and you get Bathhouse Miami. Unlike the New York location, Bathhouse Miami is a bathhouse in name alone. Set in a former Southern Bell office and tucked in a quaint space that shares a parking lot with a neighboring U-Haul installation, Bathhouse Miami offers one-stop shopping for your location shooting needs. Open since November 2008, they are still mainly focused on equipment rental. The space is a work in progress, but plans are underway for a wet studio and a rooftop studio, which will give clients year-round access to Miami’s amazing climate and sun.

It would not be out of the question to be met at the airport and handed keys to a rental car that has already been packed with your equipment, including the sync cord and transmitter that your assistant forgot to request. If they do not have the equipment you need, they will get it for you. Photographers could show up at the studio with the clothes on their back and a thin leggy girl, and go home with

a finished product. When they say “one-stop shop” they mean it. If you need a Magenta colored SUV, they will get it for you. If you need assistants, they will find them for you. Do you need an antique swing? They will make it for you. That’s right, make. Not find, not buy….MAKE! Nestled on Jefferson and 5th Street, Bathhouse Miami is a studio and rental house tied together with rays of Florida sunshine. Bathhouse Miami - www.bathhousestudios.com

Bathhouse Miami offers a studio perfect for shootings, casting calls, meetings, and events. Anyone who has visited Miami Beach knows that parking is about as abundant as money on the street, so clients will be happy to find a huge parking lot at their disposal. Bathhouse Miami stands apart from other studios thanks to the level of service they offer. They go above and beyond normal expectations: clients are catered to from the time they arrive at the airport and throughout the shooting processes. No matter how unusual or obscure the request, the word “no” does not exist here. With over twenty years in the business combined, these guys have experienced everything and are able to do problem solving before you realize you have the problem.

TECH, EQ & FLOW:

Developing a Proper Digital Workflow By Ryan Morris I Photos by Ryan Morris

hen starting any Digital Tech job, the most important thing to know is the application of the desired image. Despite what you might think, the client you are working for does not necessarily want the highest resolution image you can produce, or even RAW files for that matter. Some jobs may require you to just drop a card into a desired folder for each shot, while other gigs will require you to use specialized applications and perform color correction, curve adjustments, cropping, sharpening, masking, minor retouching, and processing of desired file formats and sizes. This article will give you a basic guideline to get you started on any potential job in an organized manner, and teach you how to preserve the original files and present the final product in a cohesive and straight-forward fashion.

Pre-Pro: Be Prepared Before you even get on set you should make sure you have the proper tools. If possible, always test out all the equipment to make sure it’s communicating and has all the latest updates. If testing is not possible due to rental or personal restrictions, bring your own gear. You never know what you might be walking into and what is or isn’t available from the client or location. Always make sure you have the latest software, USB or FW cables, card readers, batteries, and cards. Chances are the photographer will not forget the camera, but everything else is fair game.

Step 1: Know the Product The first step is always the hardest. Even though it’s not your camera, take it away from the photographer. He is probably used to doing things his own way, but you have to make sure you know his way as well. You have plenty of time to set up while everyone else is working on the subject of the shoot.

Step 2: Camera Make sure the camera is clean from dust on the lens and on the sensor. Set the desired format, whether it is S-M-L-RAW or a mix. Note the Program Mode: P-Av-Tv-M. Set the appropriate color temperature for the key light. Note the focusing settings, coverage, drive, and metering. Any custom functions can be reset unless specified by the image-maker. Keep in mind that some people can be annoyed by the image popping up on the LCD during shooting, and remember that clearing the settings will undo any parameters you have already set. Note the ambient conditions. Will the photographer be shooting into the light? De-saturation is usually caused by flair.

Step 3: Computer

Step 5: Who is your client?

A: To Card Now it’s time to set up the computer. If you’re shooting to card, “Drag and Drop” will be your motto. This will prevent you from deleting any files before they are downloaded. It’s important that you set up a workspace folder at this time as well as one to two back-ups for use while shooting. B: To Computer If you are working tethered, an automated system will get you started by selecting a destination folder in the preferences or tools drop-down in the programs menu. This will also be followed by a naming and numbering system to keep track of images as they come in.

Always remember that on a shoot, that the photographer you are working for is your first and only client. Any input you have is for his ears only. The stylists, creatives, producers, and models are not a priority. You should only cater to their needs when requested to do so by the photographer. It is digital dogma that the photographer gets the first look at images before they are presented to his client. Follow this—it will save you from having too many chefs in the kitchen!

Step 4: Capture Once images have been taken from camera to computer, checks and balances begin. The shoot is progressing and changing as more images flood the system, but it is your job to look back and decide with your client when you have all your bases covered and are able to move on. Every image should be fixed and checked via Cc, exposure, focus, and process. Specifically: Cc: After you have set-up a destination for your files as well as a space for backing up, you will need to take an exposure for the current lighting environment with a quick proof card. Color balance for your machine using the eye dropper in your curves/levels/CC menu and save the settings for future exposures. Exposure: Next, check out the histogram and make sure you have full coverage from black with detail to white with detail. In some cases you may have to stretch the curve placing your black and white manually at the end of a visible gamut. The important part is that you have peaks and valleys, or “Mountains in the Middle,” of the exposure data. Focus: This is key if you’re shooting with natural light, and focus is one of the most overlooked duties of a digital tech. I recommend when working with 35mm digital not to shoot slower than 1/60sec, and not slower than 1/125sec when using medium format. Blow the image up to 100% using eye and highlights to check the tact of the image. Most cameras have a tendency to back focus, especially on auto settings. Process: While you are working, it’s always good to process small jpegs to allow for quick editing at the end of the shoot. This will allow you to make contact sheets for print, compare images, and choose selects without slowing down your computer with large image formats.

Step 6: Back-Up Back-up, back-up, back-up! I recommend three copies of everything you are working on so that no image gets misplaced or corrupted. The easiest way to check if a back-up is complete is to (Command + I) it, and make sure the files are of an equivalent size and number. Images often get corrupted when they are transferred while other tasks are being performed. The only way to overcome this is with more RAM and an organized back-up system through programs, external, and internal hard drives. If you have nothing to do you should be backing up. Trust me!

Step 7: Editing A rough edit should always be done on set, preferably after every shot, to establish the direction that the creative process is heading and to identify any problems before it’s too late to recreate a desired effect. If low-resolution jpegs have been batched, this job will be more efficient, allowing you to edit faster. Prints and proofs are the optimum way to edit because they free up computer space and give your client options and comparisons in an analog format. Create a folder to separate the selects so you can view the story as a whole when working on larger projects.

Step 8: Delivery As a Digital Tech and the photographer’s righthand man, you are expected to be the first on set everyday as well as the last to leave. If a camera doesn’t work it could cost the shoot. As the person responsible for the camera and the images it produces, your assistance is vital. For this reason you should expect to get paid well, but expect to work after the set has broken to package the final product. Keep it free from dust and make sure it’s tack sharp, color corrected, and sized to the clients standards. If you complete this goal and are able to communicate with a client outlining a time frame and negotiating delivery criteria, you will not only have a happy customer, but one who will come back to you again and again.

INTERVIEW:

The LA Guys By Heather Simon | Photographs by Andrew Macpherson

Over a game of golf Mikel Elliot proposed an idea to Dean Factor that would make their rival production studios Los Angeles’s next Shaq and Kobe Dream Team. Dean and Davis Factor’s prestigious production facility, Smashbox, dominated West LA and Culver City with its idyllic photo studios, in-house model and talent agency, and booming cosmetic line. Meanwhile, mounting competitor Elliott and Jordan Kitaen’s Quixote Studio offered spacious accommodations in West Hollywood with a gamut of luxury production motor-homes. While Quixote now thrives under the name Smashbox, it remains notorious for facilitating the upper echelons of photography, commercials and music videos, not to mention hosting some of LA’s most talked about parties. How did you get started in the entertainment industry? I got into this business through my stepfather. He was a grip, and had connections to producers in the industry. They were the first people I targeted our motor-homes to, and the business grew from there. Weren’t you an English major at UCLA? Yeah, I was an English Lit major, but I always wanted to do something in the entertainment business. My goal was to write, produce, and direct. The production motor-home business was a way to get out there, meet people, and get a little money to finance this desire to make movies. What distinguished your motor-homes from the competition? The designs were smarter and the aesthetics superior. At that point people only had folding card tables and these little make-up mirrors—not even a permanent installation. They were very basic. We professionally designed the room, gutted the interiors of the motor-homes, and made much more sense of the space. How did you make the decision to open your first studio? I always felt we could manage a studio because my print producer friends who rented my motor-homes were also booking studios. It was just me at this point, and then on my third motor-home I brought in my partner Jordan Kitaen. That’s when we started to take the business really seriously. I gave up on the dream of making movies because we felt we could really make a run at this. We opened our first photo studio in 1996. At that time there was only Smashbox in town and we felt we could compete with them. What were some of your first commercial gigs? Marilyn Manson’s Animals cover was one of the first shoots we had. It was nuts: they were partying all night for two nights straight and one of the assistants stole the film. After a tense period, the photographer ended up getting the film back.

Are there many late night stories since you merged with Smashbox? Not so much anymore—too much at stake now. Who brought up the idea to merge the companies? I did. I felt there was an opportunity there. My wife Darrin and I were at a sea side café at the Four Seasons on the Big Island in Hawaii when I saw Dean Factor from Smashbox. I had met him a couple times, but I was not sure if I should talk to him or not. We were competitors: he was the number one guy and I was the number two. But Quixote was more focused on the studio business and I knew Dean was spending more time on the cosmetic business. I have to give credit to my wife. She made me get out of my chair and go talk to him. So I walked up to him and said, “Hey, Dean. How’s it going? I’m Mikel from Quixote Studios.” He said, “Yeah, I thought it was you.” We saw him at brunch the next morning. I knew that he was a golfer, so I invited him out to golf. I’m a bit of a hack at golf, good enough to not entirely embarrass myself, but we played together. He had a daughter the same age as mine so we ended up hanging out the next three-four days and plotting on how to put the two companies together. He didn’t need more time to think it over? No, he was really receptive to the idea. How long after the trip to Hawaii did it take to make the merge happen? About a year and a half. There is a certain honeymoon period while working on a deal, but after that you just get tired and bored with the legal aspects and you just want to forget it, say it’s not worth it and move on. The deal was too compelling to deny. So we saw it to the end. The cost savings were there, and so were the possibilities to do things together that we couldn’t do separately. How did the two companies complement each other? Bringing Smashbox to Hollywood was a big deal. Quixote had a location in West Hollywood, and Smashbox was in the Westside

It was nuts: they were partying all night for two nights straight and one of the assistants stole the film.

and Culver City. They have smaller daylight spaces while we have bigger ones where you can bring cars in, elephants, entire casts. The mix is very complementary so there wasn’t a lot duplication of size and type of studio. We were also able to eliminate some redundancies and balance the equipment between the two locations. We’ve been able to go to clients with better deals. We go to the Conde Nast and Hearst and say, ”If you’re coming to LA, we have ten studios now—from big, to super big, to super private daylight, from Westside to Hollywood.” The latest thing is our V.I.P. services program. When a job gets booked from GQ, Vanity Fair, or wherever, our concierge department will call the editor and say, “I see you’re booked here next week. Can I help you with a car service from airport to hotel or hotel to studio? Do you need any reservations? Do you need help with entertainment while in town? What does your talent need, can we set that up for you?” We take off the burden of coming to LA. We basically simplify a producer’s life while making them look good. Have you had any memorable incidents with clients? The cast of all the Oceans (10, 11, 12, 13 or whatever the number is) have shot all their promos here. They’re always really cool and take over the common area, playing ping-pong and shooting pool. Madonna requests us for all her shoots. There is a total lock down when that happens. Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller come in here always goofing around. The paparazzi can be very frustrating at times. They seem to come in droves when the Jonas Brothers or the Hills Girls are here. But most of the time it’s really private. Celebrities come in the backdoor and they leave through the backdoor. We just did a recent Marie Claire cover with Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts but you hardly saw them: they’re in and out. Are you now doing more TV work than photography? No, still a lot of both. Quixote had a reputation that was more film-oriented and Smashbox had one that was more print-orient-

ed. So we get a lot of photographers who are crossing over. If a photographer is working on a L’Oréal commercial and also doing the print portion, it’s easy to rollover and accommodate both settings. Clients want their campaign to be consistent, so a lot of time they use the same guy to shoot it. It’s no longer about just the still studio. It doesn’t matter if it’s print or motion, we understand both markets really well. You have to be able to produce and facilitate the short films for the Internet, the bowl of cereal for the Kellogg print ad, and the fashion shoot. We accommodate all these types of productions. How are you dealing with the troubled economy? We are adding more services and trying to increase revenue per client visit. Editorial and advertising clients are asking for deals so we are looking at ways to maximize each client visit. Are you the one doing the strategizing? Yes, me and my partner Jordan Kitaen. I’m the CEO, he’s the President. And I have a CFO and a Board of Directors. I also have some talented people who help advise on direction. When a client comes through our studio we try to understand more of their needs and go beyond equipment, catering and studio rental. Can we offer creative services for them? Can we provide art direction? Graphic design? Production? What’s your strongest asset? Our ability to completely facilitate all aspects of a photo shoot. We also have these absolutely green celebrity motor-homes. The Verde is the only all green motor-home targeted at the print industry. They run on 100% bio-diesel. They have recycled carpet, bamboo curtains, tables made from recycled glass and stone. And the interiors look like something Phillip Stark designed. It’s all about the client’s experience. If they are coming in from out of town, they want to feel like, “Wow it’s a thing to shoot at Smashbox!” So we make it as special as we can.

Dawn of the INDUSTRY:

1973 By Oleh Sharanevych | Illustration by Dylan Kahler

he studio/rental market was started in the late seventies by two Ukrainians, Danny Wetuk and myself. Danny was an ex-Kodak tech rep and was hired by a new innovative French company called Balcar to repair their studio flash lighting system. The owner of Balcar, Dick Bally, introduced the use of umbrellas to flash lighting. There was no real understanding of the physics of light, just a search for a light that would flatter models. Danny began working at Balcar as a repairman but was soon promoted to showroom manager. He found great interest and customer excitement in the new French flash, but sales were very anemic due to the impending recession and the high price of the lighting system. The Balcar showroom had a huge amount of space and Danny set up a studio environment where photographers could try out the various reflectors and umbrellas and run lighting tests. In the late seventies the majority of photographers owned their own studios and the idea of renting equipment was, at best, foreign. But then things began to change due to multiple pressures. In 1979, we had Jimmy Carter as President, the Iran hostage nightmare, home mortgage interest rates at 18%, increasing rents in New York City, and the beginning of a severe recession.

I had come to New York in 1973 to become a fashion photographer and things were not going so well. I was running out of money and I needed to find other work besides photography. I remember looking in The New York Times classifieds and seeing a job opening for a camera salesman at a company named Olden Camera. I applied and was hired. I was a natural-born salesman, and I took an immediate interest in studio strobe lighting. Lighting came easy for me and I began teaching lighting classes in the evening at the International Center of Photography. But I was not happy. I wanted to be a photographer, not a salesman. My sister, Lydia Sharanevych, was the Fashion Director at Henri Bendel, and she was friendly with a lot of photographers. She suggested that I become a photo assistant and she got me my first job at Rebecca Blake’s studio. I assisted mostly fashion photographers and specialized in doing lighting, which allowed me to charge more for my services. In 1975, I was getting $175 for a nine-hour day. By the spring of 1979, I had made more contacts and was able to start shooting for myself and no longer assist. Wow, life was good; I was finally making it as a photographer in the Big Apple! Then, the floor fell out from under me. The recession had come to New York City. Within two months all my accounts

In the late seventies the majority of photographers owned their own studios and the idea of renting equipment was, at best, foreign. Danny started getting calls from photographers asking him if they could borrow the space and lights. Danny was blessed with the gift of common sense, and a light bulb light lit up in his head. He had all of this unsold Balcar lighting that everyone wanted and lusted for but no one could afford to buy. He began offering the showroom for rent on a daily basis and it slowly became a success. Photographers were giving up the overhead of owning and staffing their own studios and the timing was right. Less became more. Dick Bally, however, was not happy about what Danny had done. That was until he started to see $40,000 worth of monthly rental income statements. Danny kept pushing Dick Bally to rent more space in the building and to open more studios, but Balcar wanted to sell lighting— not rent it. Danny left Balcar in 1979 and for the next year worked on opening the first real photo studio in New York. It was named Photo Tekniques and had four studios located between two locations at 560 and 568 Broadway.

were gone, I had no work and my first child was born. I realized that my career as a photographer was coming to an end. I got a call from a manager who had worked for my past employer, Olden Camera. He was starting a new photographic retail business on West 31st Street and wanted me to join him. It was 1980 and I was back in the photographic retail business. In 1981, I was approached by Peter Bradshaw, who was introducing a new Swedish flash system called Profoto to the American market. I immediately fell in love with it. First off, it was beautiful looking, quite stylish really. Secondly, and most importantly, it produced a warm creamy light. Peter and I began to sell and promote this new Swedish lighting system; its chief competitor at that time was Balcar. Profoto sales quickly began to grow. To be continued… Oleh Sharanevych owns TREC Rental, Drive In 24 Studios, and the new Root Capture Studios In Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Q U I T E S I M P LY T H E B E S T R E N TA L S T U D I O I N B RO O K LY N .

27’ WIDE CYC WITH FLYING FLAT • 17’ CEILINGS • GROUND FLOOR DRIVE IN ACCESS • PRIVATE PARKING WWW.JEWELSTREETSTUDIOS.COM • 212.967.1029

& i^iaZ

Atelier

PROPS. SETS. WARDROBE

Styling services. www.ateliertwelve.com

Photos by Ted Hartshorn Michael Waring Chris Fanning Rico Swartzberg

extra love? You’re on shot thirty-seven of forty-five when you decide you need a pick-me-up. One cappuccino please! In the most caring of tones, the larger Ecuadorian barista asks, “You want some extra love?” Before your mind wanders too far, you realize he’s foaming the milk for your coffee drink and you answer, “Sure.” He hands you the most beautiful cup of coffee you’ve ever seen, you thank him and head boldly back to the set for shot thirtyeight.

one are the five-shot-a day-jobs and unlimited budgets, but at one East Village studio the idea of a few perks is still alive. Besides excellent caffeinated beverages, those lucky enough to be shooting at Shoot Digital on Friday, get to witness the barista, Hector Tirado trade the espresso machine for a blender to help the staff and clients unwind before heading out for the weekend. This little tradition has come to be known as “Margarita Friday.” If it has been an especially taxing week, Hector gives you a little “extra love”—in this case, an extra shot of tequila. But that was before the t-shirts. Sara Morrisson, the studio booker, was working on Shoot Digital’s new promotional piece, and started to experiment with a silk screener. Thus, the “Extra Love?” tee was born; complete with Hector in an almost Che

Guevara-like representation. “Extra Love?” now has its own Facebook group where photographers, stylists, and art directors share the love. But the story doesn’t stop there. After fashion photographer Michael Waring shot Hector wearing an “Extra Love” t-shirt, other photographers wanted to get in on the action. Today, Hector’s “portfolio” completely covers the Shoot Digital coffee bar. What do t-shirts, margaritas, and silly pictures of models posing with a barista have to do with commercial photography? Whether you’re a producer, photographer, make-up artist, or set builder, you know the answer: everything. We’re all creative and social people who got into the photo production industry because we wanted to make a living doing something we love. Which is why, after shot forty-five, we hang around with our co-worker-come-friends, have a drink and, even after a long day’s work, take more pictures. Thank you Hector-—we all need some Extra Love!

This little tradition has come to be known as “Margarita Friday.”

BIRTH OF A CAMPAIGN:

The NFL and The New York Times By Feifei Sun | Artwork courtesy of The New York Times and Splashlight Creative Client: The New York Times Art Director: Wayne Kamidoi, Sports section Creative Director: Joe Zeff, Splashlight Creative www.splashlightcreative.com Head of CGI: Ed Gabel, Splashlight Creative www.splashlightcreative.com

ou don’t have to work in advertising to know what Super Bowl Sunday means to members of the industry. Each year, advertising agencies across the country fight for a coveted slot during the season’s final game. Arguably the best ads of the year, these commercials feature A-list actors, pop idols, beautiful cinematography, and other elements to raise brand awareness and drive sales for their respective clients. Not wanting to get lost in the mix this year, The New York Times turned to Splashlight Creative, a graphic and CGI outfit affiliated with Splashlight Studios. Splashlight’s creative director, Joe Zeff, breaks down the artistic process and explains how the Time’s Superbowl campaign was developed— from concept to production.

Brainstorming In a time when newspapers are struggling to keep pace with up-to-the-minute blogs and websites, Zeff turned to computer-generated imagery (CGI) to put the Times ahead. “They needed a visual piece that they could run in the newspaper for two weeks,” Zeff explains. “We created something that could be used in print and on the web, and also be animated to leverage the power of CGI.” It all started with a phone conversation between Zeff and the art director of Time’s Sports section, Wayne Kamidoi. Zeff came up with the idea to produce an image featuring the helmets from each team with the Vince Lombardi trophy in the background. The NFL usually takes a similar shoot at a much later date, when the two final teams are known for certain, but the newspaper didn’t have the luxury of time. “CGI gave the Times the ability to not have to wait for that photo shoot to happen, to not have to find physical helmets to photograph. Moreover, getting your hands on the Vince Lombardi trophy would have been next to impossible,” Zeff says with a laugh.

Research and Design After deciding on a composition, Zeff’s creative team produced a wire frame model of the two helmets and trophy in a program called Light Wave. Once it became clear which teams were playing in the Super Bowl, the designers were able to quickly put the correct logos onto the helmets. “It’s the flexibility of CGI that allows us to make those kinds of changes on the fly,” Zeff says. With CGI, designers can change colors, luminosity, texture, and more, with just a click of the mouse. “We’re basically able to digitally create anything that the art director wants to convey.” Splashlight Creative made sure to research the logo for each team. The Arizona Cardinals changed theirs two years ago, so the designers took note of the differences. Having grown up in Pittsburgh, Zeff was well aware that the Steelers only have their emblem on the right side of their helmets. “When you’re working for The New York Times, it’s critical to be accurate,” Zeff says. “The NFL logo that’s on the trophy changed just this year, so we had to be very aware of the accuracy of the various elements.”

Production Knowing his team had to produce something for the print newspaper, Zeff used CGI to create an image big enough so that none of the details and finishing touches were lost when viewers saw it in the Times. “We’re able to create print images that require very little retouching because we address these issues on the front end,” Zeff explains.

An Extended Campaign In previous years, Splashlight Creative had produced only a print piece for the Times. This year, however, the Gray Lady wanted more. “The image we created ended up not only running as a static image on the web, but it was also part of a flash animation,” Zeff says. “Leveraging some of the flexibility we have with CGI, we could render some items independent of others.” When the Steelers won the Super Bowl, the Splashlight creative team expanded on their original image. “We had the ability—on the dime—to take the existing items and create other illustrations from the original set,” Zeff says. To take it one step farther, Splashlight created a short animation using the same elements that they started with. It’s a request that Zeff finds clients making more often. “Clients really like the idea of creating one asset and then being able to use it in different ways,” he explains. “Particularly in advertising, a lot of agencies are confronted with declining budgets and smaller staffs. We’re giving them tools that enable them to do more with less. We’re giving them a way to produce the same quality images but for a quarter of the budget.”

CGI vs. Photography With CGI making campaign production cheaper and simpler, is photography losing its role in the world of advertising? Not at all, Zeff says. “Photography has its place and it always will—particularly with items that can’t be done in CGI. People. Nature. Food. Those three elements are very challenging to make look real. As a result, it’s efficient to use photography instead.” CMYK

Nxxx,2009-01-29,B,013,Bs-BK,E3

ØØN

B13

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009

XLIII

STEELERS vs. CARDINALS

4th

6 p.m. Sunday

THE ILLUSTRATION BY SPLASHLIGHT

DIMENSION

First Woman To Call N.F.L. Play-by-Play, And the Last

A quirky and unconventional player, Okeafor rotates from defensive end to linebacker, roaming all over the field and supplying Arizona with energy. By GREG BISHOP

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

It was the mid-1980s and Mike Weisman, then the executive producer of NBC Sports, wanted a woman to call an N.F.L. game. “I wanted to break that glass ceiling,” he said. For a few years, he had been holding onto a tape of Gayle Sierens, a sportscaster turned news anchor at a Tampa, Fla., television station. She had a husky voice (as a child, she was called Froggy), a love of football and experience calling soccer and equestrian events on TV and radio. “I can’t let this fail,” Weisman said he told her. “I’ll assign you to Marty Glickman and you’ll do a bunch of practice games first.” At the time, Glickman, a former Olympic sprinter and renowned sportscaster, was coaching NBC’s on-air talent. Sierens went to Kansas City, Mo., to call a Seahawks-Chiefs game, alongside the analyst Dave Rowe, on the final Sunday of the 1987 regular season. On the pregame show, Bob Costas asked her about assertions by critics that her hiring was a publicity stunt. “It will be proved a gimmick if I come out and fail terribly today,” she said. As she worked the game, she said she worried that she was not projecting enough energy and feared she was speaking in monotone. She recalled misidentifying the return man on the opening kickoff. “Oh, jeez,” she remembered thinking, “let the barroom conversations begin: ‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’” But she received generally good reviews. Sierens, 54, never called another game even though Weisman offered her six more game opportunities for the next season. And in the ensuing 22 seasons, a woman has not called a single N.F.L. game. “I used to say that I kicked down the door, but no one else came in,” Sierens said by telephone last week. “But I think that day is nearing. I really do.” She said the management at her local NBC station did not want her to call more games the next season. They made it clear that she had a choice: work for NBC, essentially part time, or continue as a full-time news anchor. Her boss did not even want her one N.F.L. game for NBC to be shown in Tam Continued on Page B14

Chike Okeafor wears a medallion to fend off chaos, performs yoga and believes in herbal remedies.

TAMPA, Fla. — When Chike Okeafor played for the Seattle Seahawks, he used to skip down the sideline after games, arms extended, flapping off the field. Now with the Arizona Cardinals, on the eve of his first Super Bowl, Okeafor continues to strike teammates as a different sort of bird — refreshing, unconventional, even a little cuckoo. Among his unusual practices, Okeafor wears a medallion embedded with a copper coin to fend off chaotic energy. He performs yoga during stretching and meditates during games. He studies wing chun kung fu and believes in herbal remedies for injuries. “Everybody looks at him like, ‘Oh, now that’s the weird guy,’” his teammate Bryan Robinson said. “But you know what? There’s a lot to Chike, a lot of substance to him. Have a conversation with him. It will be one of the better ones you ever had.” At media day Tuesday, Okeafor preferred to soak in the chaotic energy rather than talk about it. Wary of the reaction to his idiosyncrasies, he said they were not easily explained, that he was not some sort of sideshow. Okeafor takes exception to those who suggest those methods work for him, suggesting that “for him” is unnecessary. “It’s not even a search, dog,” he said. “It’s what happens. I

guess I’m kind of inventive. It takes a little creativity to be able to switch it up. It just comes. I don’t ask questions.” Now in his 10th season, Okeafor, 32, is lighter and older and feeling healthier than at any point during his career. This stems from his preparation during the off-season, when he adjusts his training methods to shock the body and reinvent himself while focusing on efficiency. Okeafor’s process is natural and constantly evolving. Like visiting an iridologist, who examined his iris in search of vulnerable body parts. Or ingesting herbs. Or studying the physics of football. Or punching a heavy bag. Or wearing the chaos medallion, which he once told a newspaper operates “in the fourth dimension.” These are not changes made for the sake of change, he said. For proof, he said a holistic doctor cured a bad back that doctors believed would bother him forever. Teammates described Okeafor as in tune with body and earth (cornerback Eric Green) and on a whole ’nother level (linebacker Karlos Dansby). But it was Brock Spack, his defensive coordinator at Purdue, who summarized Okeafor best. “Very cerebral,” Spack said. “A little different. Very smart. Kind of like an artist. Introspective. I Continued on Page B15

Steelers’ Secondary Is Primary Concern Ike Taylor (24), Troy Polamalu and the rest of the Steelers’ secondary have their toughest test of the season awaiting, according to the former Pittsburgh great Rod Woodson. And Woodson doesn’t think the Steelers will win. Page B15.

STREETER LECKA/GETTY IMAGES

Looking for a Leader

NBC

Gayle Sierens during the pregame show of the one N.F.L. game she called for NBC on the final Sunday of the 1987 season.

LISA BLUMENFELD/GETTY IMAGES

Gene Upshaw’s death in August has left a void in the leadership of the N.F.L. players union, and his absence is noticeable in Tampa. William C. Rhoden, Page B15.

When It Comes to Torre, Jeter’s Not Talking WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. Derek Jeter would have been the envy of any man, not just Alex Rodriguez, as many of his friends in fame rolled into the Saddlebrook Resort on Wednesday night for the kickoff party to his sixth annual celebrity golf classic to support his highly regarded Turn 2 Foundation. From the Yankees family there were Jorge Posada, Tino SPORTS Martinez and others to say all the OF THE TIMES captain ever has to do is call. The new Yankee C. C. Sabathia was flying in later in the night. Familiar football names like Harry Carson, Richard Dent and Bruce Smith made their way up from Tampa. The tennis player James Blake arrived jet-lagged, off the plane from Australia on Tuesday night. Michael Jordan was expected, fashionably late, in time for Thursday morning’s first tee. There was, of course, no A-Rod sighting, just a sigh and a wry smile from Jeter when the

HARVEY ARATON

WILLIAMS REACHES AUSTRALIAN FINAL Second-seeded Serena Williams advanced to the final of the Australian Open, beating fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva in straight sets. Page B14.

Joe Torre book question that had to be asked was lobbed across the celebrity rope line. Was Jeter surprised and/or disturbed by the Torre/Tom Verducci assertion in “The Yankee Years” that Rodriguez has a “Single White Female” obsession with him? “Ah, it gets to the point where it just seems like we’re always talking about the same things, you know?” he said. “It seems like every year it’s about the same thing.” Without trying to read too much into the answer, it was open to interpretation. Was Jeter dismissing the charge as an overblown controversy that’s been beaten like a sore-armed pitching staff? Was he suggesting that “it’s about the same thing” because A-Rod’s insecurities are a problem year after year and have come to weigh too heavily on him and the team? Jeter has never been a staunch clubhouse defender of the man called A-Fraud by teammates, according to Torre. Jeter, more than most, has the knack of choosing his words carefully, but when he wishes to convey nothing that can be misunderstood, he will not even go near the fence, much less straddle it. So, not surprisingly, that was his position on Torre, and the question of whether a manager should be telling tales out of school, or the clubhouse he benevolently controlled for 12 years. “To be quite honest with you, people had all the excerpts on TV and reports on this and that,” he said. “To be fair to everyone, I think you have to wait to see what’s in it first, and then give Mr. T an opportunity to address it.”

Chances are, if and when Jeter gets around to the 477-page Torre tome, he will remain loyal to Mr. T, who surely never uttered or recorded a bad word about him. Likewise, Posada, another Torre favorite, came out to parrot Jeter, to wait for his autographed copy to come in the mail. Martinez said he was surprised that Torre wrote the book but would also reserve judgment. Don Zimmer, Torre’s beloved bench coach until he had his own falling out with the Steinbrenners, said of Torre, “He might have said some things — that’s what sells the book.” Zimmer ought to know. His first book, “A Baseball Life,” published in 2001, didn’t burn any bridges but was a best-seller. Perhaps the most credible source on the subject was Buck Showalter, though it wouldn’t be a stretch to wonder about his motivation. Had he hung on another year in the Bronx, not vacated the office Torre was given, Showalter might have managed four championship teams in five years and written a controversial book. Or not. “What was it my mother once told me — be careful telling truths that hurt innocent people,” he said. “I’ve tried to stick by that.” He called the manager’s office “a privilege that comes with a covenant.” Having made himself clear on Torre, Showalter proceeded to call Jeter “the ultimate team player.” However true, he won’t sell many books with that. E-mail: hjaraton@nytimes.com

Point-Counterpoint

The sports editor Tom Jolly says Arizona will win Sunday. The night sports editor Carl Nelson tells Jolly why he is wrong in a video debate at nytimes.com/sports.

RADIO DAYS AT YANKS’ COMPLEX TAMPA, Fla. — All seemed quiet on the Yankees’ Florida front Tuesday, with one blaring exception: a sports-radio broadcast from speakers perched on a table under a white tent outside George Steinbrenner Field. Midafternoon, an interview could be heard with none other than David Wells, below right — the subject being books, accountability and trust. “I took a lot of heat on my book,” he said, referring to his 2003 autobiography, “Perfect I’m Not,” lamenting that he should have paid more attention to what his co-author put in it. Referring to Joe Torre’s new book — “The Yankee Years” — which was written with Tom Verducci and has drawn attention for criticism of Alex Rodriguez and othCHANG W. LEE ers, he said, “If he’s going to be derogatory, then some of these guys are going to be hurt by it.” Other than Wells’s booming voice, not much was happening at the Steinbrenner complex. A few workers tidied up. An occasional employee pulled into or out of the parking lot. A fan emerged from the team store carrying a souvenir. At the minor league complex across Dale Mabry Highway, the parking lot attendant said Derek Jeter had been in for a quick workout early in the morning, but that no other veterans had come around. “Nothing going on,” he said. “At least not yet.” HARVEY ARATON

Don’t be left behind while your friends get ahead! Stay updated with: -EVENTS-NEWS-INFORMATION-OTHER ESSENTIALS-

Join our networks! FACEBOOK LINKED IN MYSPACE TWITTER RESOURCE BLOG DRIPBOOK PHOTOCREW WORKBOOK

www.resourcemagonline.com

Interview:

The Ad Store By Justin Muschong I Photos by Eros Messina

n sixteen years, The Ad Store has become one of New York City’s premier independent advertising agencies. With the economy currently in the tank, Resource Magazine decided to pay a visit with company CEO Paul Cappelli and President Brian Flatow to find out how they’ve lasted so long, what the future holds, and can they please hook us up with a job? How did The Ad Store come about? Paul Cappelli: I had been fired by my employer at the time, with a nice severance package, and a former client from Coca- Cola asked me why I didn’t open up my own agency. I had never thought about it, and I wouldn’t do it unless I was going to do something different. I wanted an agency that would do project work for big companies and also accept work from any size client—big, medium, small—and that didn’t exist at the time

the name out to either existing small agencies or people who have experience in the advertising industry and want to start their own agency. They usually contact us in order to be affiliated with an international network without being part of a big holding company and losing their autonomy. Now we have, I believe, fifteen offices around the world, and we are getting ready to spread like weeds through the Middle East. BF: So while we’re licensing the name and the identity of The Ad Store, it’s also people buying into a philosophy of flat organization, no bureaucracy, doing project work, speed, creativity...

Brian, how did you get involved? Brian Flatow: I came along, as Paul likes to say, with my suit that didn’t fit... PC: No, just the shirt. BF: Oh, the shirt that didn’t fit—looking for a job because I had heard Paul was starting this thing and I was just out of school. I had a degree in journalism from Northeastern with a concentration in copywriting, which prepared me for absolutely nothing in advertising. I showed up at the door and said, “Look, I would really like to be involved in this, I like the entrepreneurial aspect of it. I’ll empty trash cans, ashtrays, sweep up, whatever, but I would like to be a copywriter.”

How have you seen the Internet affect your work? BF: We’ve always created work that gets talked about. Now with the Internet—and really the advent of social media—our work can get talked about a lot more and it gives our clients an opportunity to actually talk back to people. PC: The Internet also gives you a lot more venues of getting your message out there. Pretty much for free as opposed to most traditional media.

Your company follows a “Populist” philosophy. What is that? PC: Everything that we do, from the way we deal with each other, the way we deal with clients, and even the work itself, has this tone and sensibility which is very much a common man, down to earth, plain-speak kind of dialogue—hopefully a very honest approach that is accessible to anyone. Probably the best examples would be our Jet Blue work. One of the ads took a perceived negative about the airline, which was the fact that they had no first class seats, and turned it into a populist positive: “No First Class Seats, No Second Class Citizens.” We decided to not solely talk about the airline as a product, but to give an insight into the philosophy of the brand itself. The Ad Store has two US locations and ten others around the world. Are you guys franchising? PC: Yeah, we have Sabrette stands. [laughter] No, it’s not really franchising; it’s licensing. We license

What media does The Ad Store work particularly well in? BF: The big answer to that is: we like to come up with an idea first and see where it fits and where it’s most appropriate for the client that we’re working for. But we do like working in

television, and it’s something that we do very well. The Internet has given us more opportunities now to expand what we do with television. And it’s also challenged us to come up with new ways of producing film or broadcast, because what works online isn’t always what works in a TV thirty-second spot. PC: Also, when you look at billboards, you realize how many clients and agencies just don’t get it right. The ads are too busy, there are too many words, there’s not one clear succinct message, which is a total waste of time for outdoor space. When we worked on Jet Blue and Alitalia, we were always very good at getting a clear succinct quick message on billboards for our clients to help build their brands. What past ads have stood out or received a lot of attention? PC: Without a doubt the GoDaddy commercial that we did for the 2005 Super Bowl. It became the most notorious spot that we had done.

Eros Messina - www.fizzphoto.com

It was a little controversial. Did you guys get any heat from that? PC: I got a lot of conservative hate mail, as did the CEO of GoDaddy. That ad was very, very controversial, and probably even scared off some potential clients, because they thought maybe that was the only kind of work that we did. But to this day, it’s still one of the most talked-about spots ever on the Super Bowl. Are there certain boundaries that an ad shouldn’t cross? BF: There are definitely boundaries of good taste that any kind of communication shouldn’t cross, but good advertising is polarizing. If it sometimes creates controversy, that’s good in my opinion. We are always looking to do work that gets talked about. A lot of our clients are not spending the kind of money that their competitors are spending relatively speaking. Any work that we do really has to stand out and get talked about. PC: I personally don’t think that there are any limits that should be imposed upon us by anyone from outside, in the sense that a client and his or her agency are free to do what they want, within the limits of the law, obviously. But they have to be able to either suffer the consequences or reap the rewards of what they’ve done. What we do, as often as possible,

is to provoke, because provocation is an action, whereas controversy really isn’t. Controversy is a passive thing where people discuss something after the fact, but provocation is like prodding people to act, to do something, and I think that’s what good advertising should do. Look at what Benetton was doing years ago. Those were provocative ads that created controversy, but it brought them from nowhere to the most talked about advertising campaign. Same thing with GoDaddy, which was number four and unheard of before the 2005 Super Bowl, and overnight went to number one.

What can we expect from the advertising industry in the future? BF: Agencies right now are taking a really close look at what business they’re in, the services they offer to their clients, and I think you’ll see that a lot of small to mid-size agencies are trying to create their own brands, which is something that we’re very interested in doing. PC: I think that agencies in the future will be better off if they pare down, if they don’t have all the media buying and research integrated. Agencies hopefully will get back to the task of creating communications for clients and brands, which I think they’ve gotten away from.

Anything you’d like to say to potential clients who might be reading this? PC: Hire us. BF: Pay us more money [laughter]. One thing we tell everybody is that we’re really good at identifying a brand’s voice and communicating it to people. That voice isn’t something we create: it’s something that we identify, that comes out of the brand and company’s culture. PC: We’re really the most viable alternative to the big agencies. Just because we’re perceived to be smaller doesn’t mean that the thinking is smaller or that the work we do is smaller. And if a client believes, as we do, that if you add gut to brains you come out with insight, then we’re the kind of place that clients should look for. The Ad Store - 220 12th Ave. - NY NY, 10001 www.the-adstore.com

AD ROCKS:

The Whopper Sacrifice By Benjamin Wright | Illustration by Dylan Kahler

“Facebook has disabled Whopper Sacrifice after your love for the

Whopper Sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friends.”

he idea was brutal in its simplicity, and like other things that are brutally simple—hurricanes, tornados, floods—it demands a certain kind of dumbfounded reverence; not admiration exactly, but a kind of grudging respect. And perhaps it’s a testament to the strength of the idea that it seems simultaneously revolutionary and inevitable. In a nutshell: Facebook users were asked to install an application that allowed them to remove—or in the parlance of the campaign, “sacrifice”—ten people from their Friends List. In exchange, they received a coupon for a free hamburger. People responded in the way you’d expect—greedily and hungrily—and almost a quarter of a million people were de-friended before Facebook got nervous and disabled the application, much to the chagrin of the poor saps who’d only sacrificed eight or nine friends before they could cash in on their free burger. It is, in the words of one user, “a bastard idea,” but that’s largely the point. Advertising is after all, full of, even built on, bastard ideas. Open up a magazine, turn on the television or ride the subway, and you’re brought face to face with the bastard idea that you’re too fat, or your breath stinks, or you don’t drive a nice enough car. Naturally this is a tough pill to swallow so the trick is to make it appealing. Add some young people, big smiles, some tits and ass, product logo. Rinse, repeat. Companies like McDonalds and Coca-Cola, the established Number Ones, never stray far from this formula. Replace every Coke in those kids’ hands with a Big Mac and no one would ever know the difference. And that’s the point. Of course it won’t do to simply churn out more commercials. We are a generation that teethed on television and the Internet. We have been bombarded with ads of every

stripe since childhood, and this has left us with a remarkable sensitivity to, and impatience with, advertising. For all of our shredded attention span and all-consuming desire for entertainment and distraction, our generation has developed a fairly sophisticated apparatus for the consumption of media. If nothing else, we know when we’re being sold to. And we’ve become very good at ignoring commercials. It falls to Burger King, then, like fellow perennial Number Two Pepsi, to find new ways to garner the attention of an audience that, for all intents and purposes, can buy the same meat sandwich or caffeine delivery system from the other guy. When they rolled out the new version of their old mascot—the bobble-headed, appropriately named Creepy King—the message was clear: Mascots are weird. We KNOW they’re weird. Buy our burgers! The ads spawned their own Internet meme, and the King appeared on everything from The Simpsons to The Tonight Show to his own Xbox game. If the Creepy King demonstrated the first steps toward a new kind of advertising, then Whopper Sacrifice represents, for better or worse, a quantum leap: it eschews television altogether. Both campaigns follow the recent trend that forgoes the great lengths to which most commercials go to disguise the fact that they’re commercials, and instead posit themselves as winking parodies of commercials. We’re trying to sell you stuff, you know we’re trying to sell you stuff, and we know you know we’re trying to sell you stuff. And you know we know. Buy our burgers! What makes the Whopper Sacrifice campaign so remarkable then, is not only the fact that it strips away the pretense and basks in the ugliness of its message—”Fuck your friends, have a burger”—but that it seemed to fail by

3 design. A campaign that fosters an environment of anger and hurt feelings is destined to be short-lived, and it stands to reason that the vocal and profanity-laden backlash on the now-defunct application’s message board attest to what, on the surface, seems to be a gross miscalculation. But then again, articles on the brouhaha appeared in The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune and on hundreds

of blogs. It made the news. Creepy King and the ubiquitous Whopper Virgins campaign merely spawned Internet memes and predictably lazy sketch on Saturday Night Live, but the Whopper Sacrifice—and more importantly, its fallout— made the news. It’s the old huckster’s lesson, relearned: Get people talking, no matter what. And if this doesn’t represent the triumph of the bastard idea, what does?

Crispin Porter + Bogusky - www.cpbgroup.com

Whopper Sacrifice: Co-Executive Creative Directors: Andrew Keller / Rob Reilly VP Interactive Executive Creative Director: Jeff Benjamin VP Creative Directors: Bill Wright / James Dawson-Hollis Associate Creative Directors: Nuno Ferreira / Neil Heymann Interactive Design Director: Pelun Chen Interactive Designer: John Whitmore Copywriter: Joel Kaplan Programmer: Jimmy Pino / Robert Christ Art Director: Saman Rahmanian Flash Designer: Andrew Kennedy

Whopper Virgins: Co-Executive Creative Directors: Andrew Keller / Rob Reilly VP Interactive Executive Creative Director: Jeff Benjamin VP Creative Directors: Bill Wright / James Dawson-Hollis Associate Creative Directors: Nuno Ferreira / Neil Heymann Copywriter: Andrew Ure Art Director: David Swartz

THE

KEEPERS OF THE GATE: CONTAINING THE

SOUL OF ART BUYING SOMEWHERE, RIGHT NOW, A PHONE VIBRATES AND BLURTS A SNIPPET OF DAVID BYRNE: “AND YOU MAY ASK YOURSELF…. HOW DID I GET HERE?”

ello dear. Hi Mom. Guess what? I’ve decided to become an Art Buyer!……….Hello? Mom?

Oops…awkward silence…not good. Looks like this mom could use some help. Fortunately, I think I can shed a little light on this docu-drama. You see, what this mom doesn’t know is that Art Buying is part of the unique and extraordinary business of advertising photography production. I can attest to these accolades because, as a Photographer’s Agent, I’m part of it too. Today’s Art Buyers, Service Buyers and Art Producers (or whatever title happens to apply) are an essential component to the elaborate photo-execution process. In the frenzied advertising world, where normal business expectations of predictability and repetition are taboo, one concept remains indisputable: the soul is in the details. And the details, in this case, define the eminence of the Art Buyer. Oh, honey, can you afford that?... Okay, I can see this is going to be an adventure. Listen up, mom! There’s an intersection in advertising where the conceptual abstractions of the creative team must begin the assent to actualization, and it’s a very busy place. Creating imagebased advertising campaigns is a rigorous process. Following multiple levels of approval and intense analysis, projects are channeled to the Art Buyers who adopt the creative vision and take control of legal technicalities, contract analysis, bidding, cost consultants, budget control, copyright issues, talent indexing, multicultural awareness, shoot management, postproduction and, to top it off, considerable internal politics.

And that describes an isolated account! In fact, Art Buyers consistently juggle numerous projects, all in different stages of development. Their vast knowledge and connections are invaluable to both the creative and account teams of the agency. And the stakes are high. Big budgets and complex requirements bring pressure to the equation. The buyers continuously update their resource pool and keep a close watch on the pulse of the industry. From photography choice to final presentation, the Art Buyer’s contributions are integral to the success of every project. Is it dangerous? Are there bad people? Wow. Danger? Of course not. But, pressure? Definitely. Bad people? Well, not really. But, intense people? Absolutely. You see, there’s an element called “talent selection” (this is my favorite part!): though the Buyers are not responsible for final decisions on creative assignments, their edited recommendations lead the creative team, and client, to a viable choice. This process, and all it entails, is a dominant part of their job and could easily become overwhelming, if it were allowed to. With consuming intensity the Art Buyers are inundated with promotional hype from the freelance world of Photographers, Photo Reps, Model Agencies, Talent Agencies, and a sea of service providers including the most recent arrival, the Digital Retoucher. The Art Buyer holds the key to the way in, and “in” is the goal of this huge talent pool that hovers nearby. The fervor of this promo-blitz is truly remarkable and the rewards of success great enough to fuel it to a relentless pitch.

GUEST WRITER: LEWIS VAN ARNAM

Art Buyers accept the encroachment of the freelance world as both a blessing and a curse. They know that the interdependency of the corporate and freelance worlds is undeniable. Ultimately it’s their true passion for creativity and artistry that softens the promotional din. As it was aptly put by one of my Art Buyer friends, “We all need each other.” Elegant as this statement is, there’s an expanded view. An entire sub-industry is built on the development of identity awareness, and its full attention is squarely on the Art Buyer. The objective is how to be noticed, remembered, and, most importantly, considered. As the “keeper of the gate,” Art Buyers must act as both the welcoming presence and the impenetrable barrier. In this simple concept lies the genesis of an incredible expenditure of time, money, and energy from the freelance contingency. Art Buyers are very aware of the power their influence brings and are careful to remain objective and impartial. When it comes to promotion, Art Buyers caution us to keep expectations realistic. One simple directive is: “Do your homework.” It’s not that hard in today’s techno-environment. The broad-stroke approach creates an unfortunate atmosphere in which Art Buyers become stressed by sheer volume,

and subsequently everyone’s efforts suffer. A Buyer friend recounted a story of a photographer’s appointment that was soooo far off that she became suspicious of being punk’d. Hilarious!... and tragic. Fortunately Art Buyers maintain a healthy attitude, tempered with patience, understanding, and a sense of humor. As one astute Buyer pointed out, “The good work rises to the top.” So true, but a question remains… How? Art Buyers all have individual preferences regarding promotional styles and although this question of “how” has no absolute answer, some favorable conditions stand out. First and foremost is the validation that accompanies published work. Editorial, ad campaigns, and even gallery shows are huge credibility factors in establishing a confidence zone. But less tangible criteria such as artistic vision, or a powerful recommendation from a respected peer, can also enter the equation. And don’t overlook the efforts of the Photo Reps! The traditional portfolio presentation, whether tactile or digital, is a strong communicator. The following list characterizes some promotional tactics, rated by Art Buyers.

-Mailers: Good, if simple. Forget the elaborate presentation. In fact, forget the envelope. It’s rare for an assignment to be given based exclusively on a mailer, but I’m told it has happened. A more realistic expectation is increased name/brand recognition. -Emailed link: Good, when accompanied by an image or small group of images. Categorize in the subject line. When possible, call ahead to give the email a better chance of being viewed. -Email update: Great! Small synopsis of recent activity with attached images. Include a PDF that can be saved for future reference. (Remember to title the PDF) -Phone call to “check in” with no agenda other than to remind the Art Buyer of your existence: Not popular. Viewed as a waste of everyone’s time. -Source book: Effective, but not usually the first point of attack. Great reference tool for locating phone numbers and website addresses. -Trade show: Mixed reviews. Enjoyable, but overwhelming. New York-based Buyers don’t have to leave their offices to know who’s out there. That being said, they welcome an opportunity to break away from their daily routine and to re-connect with Buyer friends. Good benefit for out of-town Buyers. -And finally, the photographer’s appointment: Potentially great. There’s no doubt that photographers can speak most effectively about their experiences and creative vision, but the advice is to check the rhetoric at the door. The exchange can be extremely valuable when there is a constructive dialogue. On the flip side, the internal process of talent recommendation can place the Art Buyer’s reputation on the line. It’s imperative that the Buyers maintain credibility with their creative teams and, in an ironic twist of role reversal, often end up “selling” their choices. So this is a real job you’re talking about?..... Hmmm…Maybe a little background will help. Art Buying is a relatively new component in the modern era of advertising. It emerged in the late 1960s and its growth hinged on one particular event: the passing of the 1976 Copyright Act. The new law confirmed a photographer’s automatic copyright protection from the moment of creation. Amazingly, this technicality was totally overlooked by creative departments across the country, which continued to use images without obtaining proper authorization. Within the next few years infringement lawsuits littered the advertising landscape and it became apparent that a dedicated position was needed to address copyright issues. Subsequently the Art Buying community quickly ballooned and began its remarkable assent to the compelling presence that we see today. Although the profession evolved to address business technicalities, Art Buying is not purely a business position. And though the field is

robust with art-trained individuals, in some cases legitimate artists and photographers, neither is it purely creative. In the resulting axis lives a special symmetry, formed by spin. The required flex to embrace art, business and the marketing sciences presents the Art Buyers with a vortex of challenges that, to their credit, they enter with an open mind, and heart. Since there is no formal training or degree required (although all have degrees in a variety of areas), the points of entry inevitably reveal a circuitous path that echoes, ironically, the freelance side of the industry. Art Buying is a unique area in the corporate domain, where nonlinear careers also exist, and this synchronicity does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. In fact, such a tight parallel exists between the functions of Art Buyers, Photo Reps, and Producers that an interchangeability of roles is often observed. During project collaborations these participants have reciprocal exchanges that inadvertently educate each to the other’s skill set. The resulting career morphing is a noteworthy phenomenon. At any moment a Buyer can be dealing with an ex-Buyer who knows the ropes, or conversely, a Photo Rep must suddenly negotiate with an ex-Rep with whom they previously competed. Pros and cons notwithstanding, all the resulting scenarios integrate with surprising ease, consistent with the coveted free-range nature of the industry. Determination, resourcefulness, ambition, fortitude and a touch of happenstance, are ingredients that lead Art Buyers into the field. All have a deep appreciation for a process where professional osmosis is the path to success. Art Buyers consistently refer to the presence of a mentor in their early development, and the complexion of their knowledge base, and professional demeanor, is directly attributable to the influence of that individual. Each Buyer also speaks of their personal network of industry peers, where they both offer and solicit support. Sharing information is an integral component in the Buyers’ growth process and daily routine. In the personal evolution of each individual we see a microcosm of Art Buying’s tenacious growth. And so we come full circle in confirming the unique and extraordinary status of advertising photography production. Here exists a special bond for the insiders who truly understand the quirks of a business that speaks its own language and prides itself on living off the grid. We’re a diverse community that celebrates the simple pleasures of accomplishment, however complicated the process. And rising above the myriad of crucial roles, we see a prominent centerpiece with unfaltering dedication and implicit province. Here stands our esteemed subject: the Art Buyer. So, let’s try this again: Hi Mom. Guess what, I’ve decided to become an Art Buyer! That’s wonderful, dear! Your father and I are so proud!

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING ART BUYERS WHO GENEROUSLY GAVE THEIR TIME AND KNOWLEDGE: WINI BARRON, MICHELLE CHANT, HEATHER CHURCH, ALI COHEN, RAY DI PIETRO, BEV DON, VICTORIA FRAZIER, LINDSAY HILL, ANDREA KAYE, TERESA RAD, KAREN ROSSITER, AMY SALZMAN, MARISOL VARGAS, PATTY WIDYN.

E<N PFIB

G?FKF 8N8I;J

)''0 Af`e k_\ E\n Pfib G_fkf =\jk`mXc DXp (*k_ $ (.k_

JLD9@K EFN K_\ E\n Pfib G_fkf 8nXi[j :\i\dfep n`cc kXb\ gcXZ\ fe DXp (,k_

The Future of Contemporary Photography

nnn%e\npfibg_fkfXnXi[j%Zfd

by Joe Fassler

here was a time when Duffy was everywhere. His photographs were a key part of the visual culture of the 1960s and 1970s. He was the go-to photographer in London, Paris, and New York, and he worked with everyone who was anyone. Then, Duffy disappeared. Shut down his studio. Quit the industry cold. There were rumors, even, that he had destroyed his workâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; burned it all. No one knew for sure. When Duffy agreed to give Resource an interview, we finally got a chance to go behind the lens and contemplate the legacy of this brilliant, enigmatic pioneer. So, who is Duffy? The answer, it turns out, is as illuminating and paradoxical as photography itself.

Ask Brian Duffy what he was thinking when he took one of his photographs. An early one maybe, when he was still a young man from tough East London, filling in for Irving Penn at Vogue with a borrowed camera. Or one of the many sixties images that took female sexuality out of the apron. You could even pick a portrait—there’s a long and incandescent list of icons to choose from—or ask about a fashion spread or glossy ad from the later period, when he was a go-to photographer in London, New York and Paris. Ask and he might lay the whole thing out for you. He might. More likely, he’ll tell you what he told me: a baseball outfielder comes from nowhere to field a skew line drive, dives for a spectacular, game-saving catch, and then heaves the ball back to second for a double play. Afterward, everyone will shove microphones at him, asking, “How did you do it? How? “ He will then go into a diatribe of explanation, Duffy says, “Which is actually rubbish. But he has to post-rationalize it because you sound like a mug saying, I don’t know!” And Duffy would know. “Art?” he scoffs, “None of that ever entered my head! Though when questioned, I had hundreds of answers.” There is wisdom in this oblique, analogical answer: Duffy refuses to narrate his process in hindsight because it is impossible to do so truthfully. He was on autopilot, guided by an artist’s instinct and chance. So how does a great photograph come into being? “Just do it,” he tells me. “Trust your luck.” Not that Duffy can’t speak eloquently about his work. He can go on all day about technique but despite his mastery, at bottom, he’s unimpressed and shrinks all the technical

There were rumors, work—burned it all— stuff down to size with one deflating hypothetical. “If you were to give me a trumpet,” he says, “maybe I could blow a note. Maybe I couldn’t. But give one of my grandchildren a camera and there is a possibility that they could take a seminal photograph.” The implication is that no one will ever play a Wynton Marsalis’ solo on the first blow. This is why a wizard like Duffy, someone who has devoted decades of thought and effort to his work, can say that deep-down photography is “not understandable.” The art of capturing

Pictures are understood emotionally, but their construction is fundamentally mysterious.

moments is not something that can be explained or reproduced. Pictures are understood emotionally, but their construction remains fundamentally mysterious. “One of the great problems with photography,” he adds, “is that, because you’re always trying to pretend you know what it is about, you, the photographer, rationalizes it with words and think you can do it again and again.” He laughs. “But every time I’ve taken a photograph I’ve not known what the hell I was doing!” The artist can set precise conditions or leave it all to chance, but he can never truly know in advance what the camera will see. And so a photographer straddles the horizons of a moment. A photo cannot be foreseen, and once it’s taken, a photographer cannot look back and tell again this truth. Can the process ever be free from this ghostly evanescence? “No way,” Duffy insists. “It has this metaphysical strangeness.”

could. “Because I realized I was on limited time, I was ferocious in my interest. I spent twenty-five hours a day trying to learn about photography.” After a year and a half, Duffy felt he had learned a good deal and decided to try to take the next step. “I went to the Sunday Times in London,” he recalls, “and a wonderful fashion editor there gave me my very first job.” Duffy had only borrowed equipment, and the light blew up within the first twenty seconds of the shoot. The editor found the pictures dreadful and refused to print any of them. Somehow Duffy survived to shoot another day. Duffy’s early career had some minor triumphs—he was able to put enough of a portfolio together to snag a job at Vogue—but most of it is full of horror stories. “I was a total outsider,” he says. “I can remember being put down for the way I spoke. This was a time when the receptionist at Vogue could almost have been a debutante. And oinks like me seemed awfully, you know, common.” It didn’t help that Duffy was still relatively inexperienced and that things were always going wrong. He was once asked to fill in for Irving Penn and take a portrait of Otto Van Klemperer, one of the great conductors of the 20th-century. Van Klemperer insisted that a Leica be used, so Duffy had to borrow one, although he was inexperienced with rangefinder cameras. Duffy recalls, “At the end of the session, I said ‘Thank you maestro.’ He got up and walked to the door, turned round and said, ‘Mr. Photographer, is it normal that when you take zee photograph, you leave zee lens cap on?’” Duffy knew he’d blown it utterly. If the studio hadn’t blamed the lab he might have lost his job at Vogue. Many of Duffy’s early stories have this feel—all con-artistry, cliff-hangers and hair-breadth escapes.

even, that he destroyed his but no one knew for sure. Duffy didn’t begin as a photographer. He went to art school in London and started working as a clothes designer and fashion illustrator. Later on, he felt this background gave him a huge advantage. “I knew how clothes were meant to look,” he explains. While working as a fashion illustrator for Harper’s Bazaar, an art director showed him a contact sheet. He remembers thinking that the images were all the same until the art director pointed out the minute differences between them. There’s still a mischievousness in Duffy’s voice as he tells the story. “I said, ‘Oh yes, the model moved a little in each frame.’ And I thought to myself, ‘My God! This is much easier than being a fashion illustrator!’” Getting started was not easy. Duffy had no technical experience and no equipment of his own. “What I did,” he remembers, “was set myself up as a gopher. I went to different studios, and eventually someone gave me a job.” That person was the English film director Ken Russell, who let Duffy sweep the studio floor. Duffy would work at a new studio every three or four weeks, trying to absorb all he

“The sixties started in the late fifties,” Duffy tells me, “and it was an incredible time, and I was there.” I was there— again, the humility, the relinquishment of self, as if all he did was stand there with a camera while great things went on around him. I ask Duffy what was responsible for the excitement and upheaval of this period, and he has an immediate, emphatic answer: “The pill! That was a total revolution. It changed everything, subconsciously, between

“It changed the dynamics of the female figure. men and women.” He adds, “Also, one-piece pantyhose allowed dresses to be shorter, skirts to go all the way up. That produced a look that hadn’t been possible before. It changed the dynamics of the female figure. And that, of course, changed sexuality.” Duffy came of age as an artist at a time when there were many revolutions going on, and he was on the forefront in combining two of them: the visual and the sexual. He can’t remember the exact moment he met Terrence Donovan or David Bailey who, with Duffy, became known as the “Terrible Three”: the holy trinity of London sixties-era sexed-up photography. All three of them shared a similar background and a love for photography and jazz. Chris Duffy, his son and assistant, tells me, “David Bailey and Terry Donovan were his best mates and were always around. I remember them talking and discussing photography passionately.” Chris feels he’s never again seen anything like the passion displayed by those three during that time. The Terrible Three are often credited with infusing fashion photography with a new level of sexuality. Similar to how the New Journalists were injecting themselves into their work, Duffy and his contemporaries were bringing themselves into their photographs. This was often done in the form of sexual interplay between the male photographer and female model. A model is not a clotheshorse they felt—a model is a woman. And they photographed them that way. It’s hard to underestimate the impact Bailey, Donovan, and Duffy had

on the fashion world. They were total outsiders—they grew up in East London, a world full of dockers and boxers, far away from Vogue. When they brought their East End attitudes into the studio, it shook things up forever. Duffy perfectly expresses the culture shock they wreaked in the business with this often-quoted description: “Before 1960, fashion photographers were tall, thin, and camp, but we three were different: short, fat, and heterosexual!” The work speaks for itself. Look at the photographs he took for the 1965 edition of the Pirelli calendar. The images are saturated, up-close, and tactile; a love song to both the female form and photography. There is the sense that the camera has brought us spontaneity on a platter and captured the essence of a moment. And yet you wonder if this glorious “realness” is staged.

For Duffy, photography is “a great treacherous liar. You fundamentally think it’s telling the truth, and yet it also contains lies. Every photograph is packed with lies. It’s devoid of so many things—taste, smell, noise—and yet we tend to believe it! But the other thing about photographs is that they tell the truth. Even a fake photograph tells a truth.” The line between truth and fiction is much more blurred today, in the age of digital manipulation, than it ever was in the era of what Duffy calls “steam-driven photography.” Movies like Ben-Hur and Gladiator exemplify this phenomenon. In the older movie, the chariot accidents are

And that, of course, changed sexuality.” “real,” even if they’re staged. When you watch a crash, it is a crash that physically occurred at a real point in time. In the more recent movie, everything is slippery. “The crowds don’t exist,” says Duffy, “and none of the accidents are real! It’s a non-real reality. And that touches photography. You believe less in images today than you ever did.” Of course, the world of fashion photography has never used images straightforwardly, and it was no different in Duffy’s day. He says, “I can remember models looking at covers and saying ‘Gosh, I never realized I looked that good!’ And they didn’t! They’d been touched, re-touched, rebuilt.” Still, everything was much more raw. “Even in New York, there was no such thing as make-up artists, and hairdressers didn’t turn up on shoots. The model did it. She did her make-up. She did her hair. Nowadays they just sit in their chair and read Vogue.” Yet, the most important difference, according to Duffy, happened to the photographer’s role. The photographer has become deprived of his own ability to choose his fate, even his right to put himself at risk. Things that were once his responsibility have been delegated to others. Even though he’s at the wheel, his role is now greatly minimized, almost a token. “Someone takes a photograph,” Duffy says, “and everyone, including the hairdresser, the model, the editor, everyone, puts their mouth into gear. In the process, they rationalize what’s happening and make it common. So you get very, very high quality mediocrity.” Blandness through democracy and shared responsibility. I can tell Duffy misses

the days when he could be at the helm, making hard choices under pressure—and taking responsibility for them. “I love the idea,” he tells me fiercely,” that when I got to the end of the session, I’d turn to my assistant and say, ‘I wonder if things will come out?’”

Chris Duffy assisted his father during his last years in the business from 1974 to 1979 or 1980, before Duffy left photography for good. He began the way his father began—sweeping floors—but he gradually honed his skills and moved up to being an assistant. “In that period,” Chris Duffy tells me, “photographers like Duffy were what I would call GPs—general practitioners. We did everything, every genre of photography, in every format. You couldn’t ask for a better apprenticeship.” Duffy himself puts a different spin on it. “I worked in commercial photography,” he says, “and like a whore, I would work for anybody who’d pay for a photograph. From the very beginning I’d adopted that attitude. I didn’t give a sot whether it was for a magazine, or an advertisement, or a passport. If you want it, you’ve got it, you pay for it, good night. I just wanted to get paid. It was never about principles or art.” And yet, listening to Duffy, I don’t think he solely sees his work as sheer commerce or that he’s unbothered by the often-crass consumerism of the magazine industry. At times, he suggests his line of work helps create a cultural

lust for the impossible that spawns materialism. “Capitalism is driven by creating inadequacies in culture,” he tells me. “You don’t need Ray-Ban sunglasses but you’re made to feel inadequate if you don’t have them. Technology drives capitalism to create inadequacies. And photography is the tool.” If so, Duffy’s fostered a good deal of feelings of inadequacy. He’s created photographs of the world’s most beautiful people and shot ads for the most expensive products. Yet it’s clear that the commoditization of photography played a role in driving Duffy from the business. He’s dismayed with the way art directors and photographers can be at cross-purposes. “Of all of the art directors I’ve worked with over the years,” he laments, “I think I only met two who could read a photograph.” According to Duffy, art directors only “want to talk a photograph. Design, plan, and work it out.” He sees this as pointless. “A photograph A photograph only exists in future time, prior to taking it. How can you really know what a photograph will be before it is?” The very essence of this art is its spontaneity.

“A photograph only When an image is stripped of its mystery, what does it become? Commerce? Propaganda? It’s unclear, but Duffy seems to know what the photographer can become when viewed as incidental. “Art directors really wonder, ‘Why am I paying this man so much money? If I could afford that camera and his assistants, I could do that. All he does is press the tit on the end of a shuttle!’”

Duffy did burn his work, about fifty percent of his archives, he thinks. His frustration with the industry, with the process, had grown to be insurmountable and he decided he didn’t want to go on.

The images are saturated, up-close, and tactile; a love song to both the female form and photography.

When prodded to explain more, he says, “It’s quite a crazy story.” And then, slyly adds, “I’m not sure how true it is though.” This innocuous insertion screams out like a gunshot, as if he’s saying, Everything I’m about to tell you may or may not be true. I’m giving you a snapshot in time, and it will contain truth, and it will contain lies. The original moment, whatever it was, is lost now, and what remains is something evocative, vivid, based on reality, but fundamentally a myth, much like a photograph. “I came to work one morning and one of my assistants told me, ‘We haven’t got any toilet paper.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘We don’t have any toilet paper.’ Now as I said the second what, I was about to smack him. Trying to control my temper, I asked him, ‘What did you say to me?’ and he repeated, ‘We don’t have any toilet paper.’ And I thought, ‘My God Almighty, we’ve ended up where I’m in charge of toilet paper!’ It was enough to blow me out of the water. At that moment I thought ‘I’m not going to go on.’ It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” He pauses, and there is perfect silence for a moment, before he laughs, and says, “Surreal, no?” Yes, it is surreal, and whether this is a faithful retelling of one of the worst days in modern photography, or a myth that

tells an anecdotal truth about Duffy’s frustration with the minutiae and pettiness that came to encroach upon his work, it is certainly a powerful story. No matter what happened, a lot of work did leave the earth in flames. “I had a bonfire. A massive bonfire,” he tells me. “The work that’s left,” I ask him, “Is it just luck?” “Total luck,” he says. “It just wasn’t around that day?” “Sure.”

Duffy, it seems, has never looked back. His past life as one of the Terrible Three had all but absconded. It may have stayed that way if it hadn’t been for his son. Chris tells me, “Duffy didn’t think about photography, or look at any of it, for many, many years. Bailey and Donovan were in the limelight, while Duffy really dropped out. But he’d been a legend. He was the man in London. I kept telling to him he needed to do a book. A couple of years ago, I went down to

You must have notebooks that you’ve just written down two lines in and then put away. Years later you look at them and think, ‘Good Lord! How interesting!’ And you somehow have a revelation about you.” Going through these photographs has been quite an experience for Duffy. “Now that I see them again, I wonder why I took a particular photograph. Something was triggered in me to take it, but I don’t understand what.” Duffy continually emphasizes the unknown, and the workings of effaced selfhood, of a vanished time, with which he can no longer relate. Things that were lost, if you will, in the fire. Yet Chris tells a completely different story. “As we go through photographs, there are hours-long conversations about the people, the situation. He’s so good at putting things into context—politically, socially. It’s a fascinating process, and it’s very, very, exciting.” Which of these stories captures Duffy best? Both, of course, and at the same time, neither. The exhibition, I’m sure, will deliver both the man we all know, as well as a stranger.

exists in future time—prior to taking it” his cottage in the country and I started looking through old contact sheets. I said, “Dad, you’ve really got to show this.’” David Bailey pulled six boxes of Duffy’s negatives from the Vogue archives, and he and Chris started going through them. Duffy had forgotten about them completely. “It’s just amazing stuff,” says Chris says, “and he finally came around to the idea that we should do something with it.” A retrospective of his work will begin at the London Chris Beetles Art Gallery in mid-September 2009. The exhibition should be fantastic. There’s a wide range of material, and all of it is enticing. The images in the show have not been seen since they came out in print. Some alternate versions of famous Duffy’s works will probably be featured, however, Chris estimates that fifty percent of the images have never been published in any form. Much of the material was never intended to be published, as the exhibition will contain photographs taken by Duffy on his own time, not on an assignment, and not for money. Images that were never talked through, and never intended to be read. The inclusion of this material is what seems to interest Duffy most about the exhibition. He says animatedly, “I’ve never done anything with these images. Moreover, I’ve never been published outside the ads or editorials I shot so in that sense, I’m a virgin!” After London, the exhibition will go on the road. Negotiations are in the works with galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. What will the show be like? Will these never seen before images add up to a man, to an artist, or to an era? Together, will they construct a story?

Photographs, as Duffy has said, are always forward-looking—they take place in future time. And so a retrospective of photographic work is in a sense, a bizarre thing. It’s a current collection of past images of what had once been future instants. The moments are lost; the reasoning behind them has been erased by time. We can no longer determine what truth they held, and what lies. And yet, if we can read them, they will tell us so much. I think this may be why Duffy speaks so often in analogies. He is keenly aware of the slippery nature of experience: the way that past experiences, even entire past selves, can half-vanish and become something we do not remember or no longer recognize. He never wants to say what “is”—he only wants to suggest what may be. There is truth in that. That’s what a photograph is.

For the extended version of this article please visit www.resourcemagonline.com CHRIS BEETLES ART GALLERY 8 & 10 Ryder St. - St Jame’s London SW1Y 6QB - UK Go to www.chrisbeetles.com to find final schedule. Brian Duffy www.duffyphotographer.com

I ask Duffy to describe his photographs, the ones he took for himself. What are they like? He says, “You’re a writer.

presents:

By Sara Roth and Brittany Phillips

A photographer walks into a shoot, not just alone, not just with his camera. He is surrounded by assistants lugging lights, lenses, modifiers, adapters, computers, software, hardware, you name it. Often times it looks like the mothership has landed. Who is he shooting, God? Some people wonder why photographers are loaded with all this extraordinary gear. While it may be true that compelling photographs come from inspiration, not equipment, the right lens can still make all the difference. Equipment is a necessary tool that allows artists to capture the best image possible. A painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s paintbrushes do not create the illustration for him, but having a great set of brushes will only further enhance his creative capabilities. The artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye, patience, and skill do make an image, but in this technological age, there are many tools available to maximize artistic performance. Resource has researched the newest, most innovative products available, and we have compiled a guide of essential gear that will help every photographer maximize his workflow, improve his images, and get his vision into focus.

EIZO ColorEdge222W

Leica Super-Elmar-M 18 mm f/3.8 ASPH Lens and Leica Bright Line Finder M for 18 mm Lenses

Tenba Messenger

Hensel Honeycombs for octaforms 4luv120

Profoto Pro-8a Air Leica SF 58

Sekonic L-758DR

Hensel - F-Spot 3390

PocketWizard Mini/Flex System

Hensel Parabolic Umbrella 1140

2 Olympus M-1

www.olympusamerica.com This compact camera features a 3.2-inch LCD monitor and shoots HD video. It also comes with a rather short-ranged but removable 12-45mm lens, so you can still attach a 45-150mm lens when you desire to take longer-distance shots.

3 Nikon – AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8 G

Leica Super-Elmar-M 18 mm f/3.8 ASPH Lens and Leica Bright Line Finder M for 18 mm Lenses

www.leica.com Leica’s new compact wide-angle lens has the same focal length of a 24mm, so it can be used on both the digital M series as well as analog cameras. Leica has also made its rangefinder system accessories more comprehensive by adding the new Bright Line Finder M 18mm, which can be used with the new lens for successful framing. Leica’s new 18mm lens is perfect for everything from expansive reportage images to landscapes and architectural photography.

www.nikon.com Nikon’s fastest lens to date! If you are looking for first-rate image quality and still want the artistic capacity and flexibility of a classic 50mm focal lens, this is for you. The AF-S DX lens is perfect for low-light conditions, travel, natural portraits and general photography. Its weightlessness, compactness, and affordability will surely make it a fast favorite among photographers at any stage in their career.

4 Olympus E-620 DSLR with In-Camera Creative Functions

www.olympusamerica.com This user-friendly DSLR has Art Filters, Multiple Exposures, and Multi-Aspect Control. It’s also the smallest DSLR with built-in image stabilization. Get the effects you want without all the post-production work.

Sinar - arTec

www.sinarbron.com This revolutionary camera system is specifically designed for digital architectural photography. It offers easy workflow and superlative flexibility. Photographers can fully focus on creativity with this camera to easily achieve exceptional image quality.

CAMERAS & LENSES Sinarback eMotion75

www.sinarbron.com This digital camera back is great for one-shot exposures using all types of light sources. If you are a creative photographer who wants unrestricted mobility and the very best image quality, this camera back is for you.

Sinar - Hy6 65

www.sinarbron.com This 31.6 mega pixel camera integrates everything a photographer needs to create a perfect image. It combines maximum workflow with superior image quality and is perfect for action shots.

Tenba Messenger

M-Rock McKinley 526

www.tenba.com On the train, in a cab (when you can get one), or block after block on foot, you’re constantly in motion. Carry your stuff with minimal bulk and maximum access. And with this bag, it won’t look like you’re carrying a giant “steal me” sign on your shoulder.

www.m-rock.com M-Rock’s camera bags are all about the detail. The McKinley 526 includes a lens-changing bag that becomes a weather jacket. It also contains a lens cloth, a wire port for MP3 player headphones, and a snap hook for your car keys. The rear compartment holds your laptop and there are many additional storage pockets and sleeves, along with a light tri-pod mount to the front.

Lumiquest Quick Bounce

CAMERA ACCESSORIES Sekonic L-758DR

www.lumiquest.com This light modifier is designed for use with or without a ceiling to soften the light, and it transitions from the horizontal to vertical format effortlessly. If you shoot events, this is your righthand man—it will enable you to bounce light whether you are in a club with a low black ceiling or in St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Lensbaby The Composer Lens

www.lensbaby.com The Composer Lens is based on a ball and socket configuration that brings forth smooth selective focus photography with matchless ease. Instead of compressing the lens to focus, you simply tilt the lens to a desired angle and then focus with a manual-focusing ring. This is looking to be the most popular Lensbaby lens yet.

www.sekonic.com The Sekonic L-758DR DigitalMaster is simply the most dynamic light meter you can own. Record incident or 1-degree spotreadings under ambient and/or strobe lighting down to a tenth-stop in accuracy. It’s also the only meter that can be calibrated to read light the way the sensor in your particular camera reads light.

Lensbaby The Control Freak Lens

www.lensbaby.com For the photographer with a step-by-step approach, the Control Freak works best. An update on the Lensbaby 3G, this lens also has the Optic Swap System—so you can change out the lens for another Lensbaby at your heart’s desire.

Lensbaby The Muse Lens

11 Photo Gizzmo - Horseman LD

www.photogizzmo.com Add full bellows functions to your digital single lens reflex! It comes in two models, so whether you’re a Nikon or a Canon person, the Horseman LD has you covered.

www.lensbaby.com For photographers who shoot fast and loose, the Muse is for you. Replacing the original Lensbaby and Lensbaby 2.0, the Muse has added the new Lensbaby Optic Swap System. Versatility, right on!

Leica SF 58

www.leica.com Leica’s new flash unit integrates the highest performance and system compatibility and offers a zoom range of 24–105 mm, as well as an incorporated wide-angle diffuser. The SF 58 facilitates high light output and its fully swiveling reflector offers supreme opportunities for indirect flash illumination.

PocketWizard Mini/Flex System

Profoto Pro-8a Air

www.profoto.com Profoto Pro-8a Air offers you unmatched product performance in terms of flash duration (1/12,000 s), recycling time at 2400 Ws of 0.9 s, power control and versatility. Generate up to 20 flashes per second, or up to 1000 full power flashes per hour, with flash-toflash precision of output and color balance.

Hensel - Parabolic Umbrella 1140

www.henselusa.com This is a new type of reflex umbrella with a deep drawn parabolic form that is accountable for directed light, compared to standard umbrellas, which provide softer, even lighting. Hensel’s new umbrella is ideal for fast light applications like portraits, fashion and event photography.

www.pocketwizard.com Whether you’re firing a remote camera mounted on an airplane wing, using TTL flash for a event, or working a fashion shoot, PocketWizard’s wireless triggering systems make it possible. Now with TTL capability, the new MiniTT1™ and FlexTT5™ radio slaves make taking off-camera flash photos as effortless as slide-in, turn-on and shoot.

Hensel – Honeycombs for octaforms 4luv60 4luv 90 4luv120

www.henselusa.com Want narrow-angled light but minimal loss of power? Hensel’s new honeycombs are your ideal accessories. These honeycombs give more directional light and harsher shadows, allowing for a crisper image.

LIGHTING ACCESSORIES Hensel - F-Spot 3390

www.henselusa.com Need a sunny atmosphere on your shoot? The Hensel F-Spot 3360 is your perfect companion. This light is great for all applications where direct, crisp, sunlight is needed, such as fashion, furniture, and still life photography. It offers light with very sharp shadows and is ideal for color reproduction.

22 Photo Gizzmo - Ray Flash: The Ring Flash Adapter

www.photogizzmo.com A unique adapter for your hot-shoe flash unit designed to replicate the lighting effect produced by traditional, expensive, and heavy powered studio ring flash units. It can create a unique 'shadow-wrapped' look.

24 GigaPan Epic

EIZO ColorEdge222W

25 Nanovision and

DisplayLink 7” USB LCD

www.displaylink.com This portable screen with USB graphics productivity, powered by Displaylinks technology, will increase your visual workspace and protect your wallet. Keep your favorite apps in sight!

27 Witech - Dual USB Video Card

www.eizo.com Wide gamut monitor ideal for highend graphics work such as pre-press and digital photography. Features 12 bit hardware calibration and uniform brightness across the screen. * 1680 x 1050 native resolution * 800:1 contrast ratio * 200 cd/m2 brightness * 178° viewing angles * Dual DVI-I inputs

www.gigapansystems.com This fun and easy robotic camera mount is compatible with most point and shoot cameras to create multi-gigapixel panoramas. The Epic allows your camera to take thousands of detailed images and works impeccably with the GigaPan Stitcher. Then you can go to www. GigaPan.org to view and share the incredible detail of your panoramas.

COMPUTER HARDWARE

28 BenQ’s GPI Palm - Top Projector

www.benq.us Among the huge lineup of tiny projectors recently released, BenQ’s palm-top projector is the only one that supports USB media playback on the go. This projector weighs twice as much as the Dell model, but it offers double the amount of lumens then that of Dell's projector. On top of this, the USB projector's LCD engine has a lamp lifespan of 20,000 hours!

www.witech.it If two monitors aren’t enough for you, you workaholic, you’ll love this Dual USB Video Card. It’s got two standard D-sub VGA ports for each of the screens and two USB-A ports to daisy-chain more Multi-I adapters.

NEC - 26-inch MultiSync® LCD2690W2-BK-SV and 30-inch LCD3090W-BK-SV

www.necdisplay.com Both of these new wide screen LCD displays come packaged with the SpectraView color calibration sensor and software. They have in-plane switching (IPS) module technology, which offers better color reproduction and brightness consistency.

SOFTWARE onOne Software - Photo Tools

www.ononesoftware.com PhotoTools is a plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop® that utilizes the power of Photoshop Actions to provide a range of imaging effects in a full-featured interface.

30 OnOne Software - Genuine Fractals 6

www.ononesoftware.com Genuine Fractals 6 is the industry standard for resizing images. If you have ever resized an image and been unhappy with the results, you’ll love this software. It allows you to enlarge an image to any size or resolution, while still maintaining all the fine details.

Size doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter:

Boutique Agencies with big ideas

Guy Frasseto

Feb. 5th 1937- Jan. 21th 2009

bonne nuit Guy...love

NIKI

PRODUCTIONS com

By Benjamin Wright | Photos by Tom Medvedich

Boqueria/Jimmy’s

WHERE TO TAKE YOUR CLIENT out:

104

ucked away in a below-ground corner of the East Village, Jimmy’s No 43 is easy to lose among the other sights and sounds of the neighborhood—the flash-and-bang of NYU students toiling loudly on St. Mark’s to the north and the practiced ennui of L.E.S. clove-smoking trendsetters to the south. But make your way down the steps into the beer-hall style interior and you will find yourself transported, if not to another world, then at least to a place that embodies the best of hip-young-and-affluent New York while the rest march past in oblivion. Jimmy’s No 43 is, in the words of owner Jimmy Carbone, “Where wine lovers come to drink beer.” A quick glance at the extensive and fussed-over beer menu shows that this is no canned response. Jimmy’s serves no cocktails or hard alcohol, but the constantly shifting selection of draft and bottled beer cuts a wide path across the spectrum of taste. It includes everything, from a $6 non-alcoholic Einbecker for your designated driver, to a $22 Grado Plato for those who lucked into an expense account. For beer lovers who come to drink wine, the assortment is less extensive but still satisfying. Order a glass of Côte du Rhone ($8) to go with your client’s beer of

choice, maybe a Chimay Red ($12), and just like that, you’ve got something to talk about. Those looking to do some eating with their drinking and deal-making will find the $10 gruyère gougère appetizer (cheese and pastry puffs, if you must) a good place to start, and the seared salmon entrée ($18) is light, uncomplicated and delicious–an oddly resonant match to Jimmy’s no-frills bierhall vibe. The pulled pork ($18) was not as tender as it should have been, but it paired surprisingly well with the accompanying pecans and mashed potatoes. Cozy but not contrived, Jimmy’s exudes a democratic and comfortable vibe, with beer casks and mounted antlers dominating a stylishly dark interior that feels like a clubhouse without ever coming off as snotty or exclusionary. Whether you’re a people-watcher or an elbow-rubber, a beer drinker or a wine sipper; whether you came to talk business or to unwind after a long day of shooting, Jimmy’s No 43 takes all comers and sends them home a little happier than when they walked in.

Jimmy’s No 43 43 E 7th St, btwn 2nd and 3rd Avenues New York, NY 10003 212.982.3006‎ www.jimmysno43.com

Price $$$ Food ***1/2 Ambiance ***

he very words “tapas bar” may send some people’s eyes rolling as they wander across Manhattan in search of the next bandwagon to jump on. The fact is that when tapas are done right–as they are at Boqueria–you’re too busy wondering what to order next to realize that this is why the bandwagon is so jumped-on in the first place.

Tom Medvedich - www.tommedvedich.com

As the sister location to Boqueria Flatiron, Boqueria SoHo has the benefit of bringing a menu of established big-hitters, including cojonudo (quail eggs and lamb chorizo on toast, $6), deites con beicon (bacon-wrapped dates, $7), and the excellent pintxos morunos (marinated lamb skewers, $8). All are courtesy of Chef Seamus Mullen, who also has a free hand with daily specials like the croquetas de verduras (roasted squash and beet croquettes, $5), and the back-of-beyond beicon de cordero (an inch-and-a-half thick slab of housemade lamb bacon that is so delicious it may very well cure blindness, $13). Don’t let the chef’s Scottish name fool you–the breezy Spanish being spoken by the pre-rush regulars lets you know that this is the real deal.

The cuisine pairs well with the selection of regional Spanish wines on hand, available by the bottle or the glass. Prices range from $8 for a glass of Ònix 2007, for those looking for a smooth Rioja, to $335 for a bottle of Payva Crianza 2002, for those looking to impress whoever they came with. Follow it all up with something from the dessert menu ($7), such as a flan like abuelita used to make, a tarta de fruta, or the mindbending chocolate mousse made with olive oil instead of cream, served with a blood orange reduction and sprinkled with sea salt. The décor is Nouveaux SoHo, with clean lines and light wood inside a warmly-lit, wide-open space that affords everybody a view of everybody else; and on a busy night, that feels like half of SoHo. However, the friendly and attentive waitstaff makes sure you don’t get lost in the mix. While never raucous, this may not be the place to grab a quiet drink and talk shop–but that’s not what you came here for. Save the talking for another day, champ. Come to Boqueria SoHo to eat.

Boqueria Soho 171 Spring St, btwn W Broadway and Thompson New York, NY 10012 (212) 343-4255 boquerianyc.com

Price $$$ Food ***1/2 Ambiance ***

106

MOVIE REVIEW:

The Killing Fields-Salvador By Alec Kerr | Illustration by Emil Rivera

ung-ho patriotic war movies were all the rage in the 1980s. Movies like Rambo: First Blood Part 2 and Missing In Action were cartoonish fantasies that fed off of America’s insecurities about the Vietnam War. But among the mindless action flicks were films that attempted a serious, thoughtful, and realistic depiction of global conflicts from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Killing Fields and Salvador are both noteworthy for their portrayal of the personal accounts of journalists in war-torn Cambodia and El Salvador. Photojournalist Richard Boyle and Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times foreign correspondent Sydney Schanberg couldn’t be more different in style and personality, but both, at least as portrayed by James Woods and Sam Watterson, had an unwavering integrity to seek the truth. Salvador director, Oliver Stone, gives a sobering depiction of a “dawn patrol,” a trip to photograph a seemingly endless pile of dead bodies. Woods’ Boyle, joined by a fellow photographer played by John Savage, stalks hills covered in death, with a shocking detachment from the gruesomeness around them. Savage’s John Cassady notes, “You’ve got to get close to get the truth–you get too close, you die.” Cassidy, even more so than Boyle, is obsessed with getting the perfect shot that will capture “the nobility of human suffering.” This idea of total detachment from the subject surfaces also in The Killing Fields, with John Malkovich’s Alan Rockoff. During most of Malkovich’s screen time he is seen with multiple cameras dangling from his neck, which he grabs in a moment’s notice. This occurs, most startlingly, after a bomb goes off just feet away from him. Rockoff immediately enters photographer mode and begins to feverishly snap photos of a mangled body on the street. There is a complete disconnect between him and the horrific events that are unfolding around him.

"You gotta get close to get the truth. You get too close, you die." John Cassady - Salvador Ultimately, both films depict how the protagonists can no longer remain passively removed from the terrible acts of inhumanity they are documenting. Boyle tries to sneak his girlfriend out of El Salvador, and Schanberg attempt to do the same for his translator and assistant, Dith Pran (Academy Award winner Haing S. Ngor). A failed scheme to get Pran out of Cambodia involves the forgery of a passport and the creation of a makeshift darkroom in a bathroom. Never has the development of a photo been so nerve-racking in a film.

The Killing Fields was directed by Roland Joffé, who had a background in documentaries. Although the film doesn’t adopt a pseudo-documentary style, it has stark realism and images that stay with you, such as the one of a child crying during a bombing. Stone brought a similar sense of reality to Salvador, which was released the same year as his more praised Platoon. The film is uncompromisingly grimy and doesn’t pull away from uncomfortable imagery. Joffé and Stone, much like the journalists of their films, capture a truth that others were too quick to sugarcoat. Salvador Release Date: April 23, 1986 Director: Oliver Stone Writers: Oliver Stone & Rick Boyle Main Actors: James Woods, James Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage Producer: John Daly

The Killing Fields Release Date: November 2, 1984 Director: Roland Joffé Writers: Bruce Robinson Main Actors: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Spalding Gray Producer: David Puttnam (producer), Iain Smith (associate producer)

BOOK REVIEW:

107

Makeup Books Photos by Nick Ferrari

by bobbI brown

grand central publishing/hachette book group Review by Diane da Silva

Geared toward both the lipgloss novice and the aspiring professional, provides a paint-by-numbers guide to her makeup application techniques. The book's matter-of-factness and juicy photography will make it a favorite amongst makeup junkies, but professional makeup artists might get a bit dizzied by its redundancy. The first half showcases a relatively comprehensive guide to "the basics" but only tiptoes into advanced techniques. There were no revelations here. I was looking forward to Bobbi shedding some light on false lash application, but the section fell short with its tutorial focusing on individual lashes versus the more difficult full strip. The techniques are mostly a reinforcement of what you've already learned from beauty columns and slumber parties over the years. The looks in the also support a particularly ‘90s aesthetic, paying special attention to keeping the skin matte, always "basing" eye shadows with white, and topping it all off with a sculpted brow. For the most part, the rules are constricting, with little regard to experimentation and trend. Bobbi’s book does redeem itself when it segues into advice for aspiring makeup artists. She includes networking resources and agency contacts, and pays tribute to some of the more recognizable names in makeup artistry. High five for that! Bobbi also offers sensible counsel on breaking into the business and helps unravel the mysteries of this nutty industry that even the most weathered have difficulty understanding at times.

gretchen davis + mindy hall

Review by Stacy Skinner

So you want to be a makeup artist? First—Find a "real" makeup school to attend. Second—Buy this book. is a much needed, updated and well-organized resource, which allows you to look behind the curtain without showing the green behind your ears. Gretchen Davis and Mindy Hall describe the technical and practical elements of makeup artistry, and cover the ever neglected subject of etiquette in the chapter “How to Be A Pro.” This section will serve you better than your pending skills or your uncle who works for the studio. The book will help you become familiar with valuable terms and techniques such as Subtractive Color Mixing (I will personally be returning to this one), and Blending, as in, “Blend, blend...blend, dear ones.” You'll get experienced spot-on suggestions on subjects like how to stock your various kits. A huge chapter is dedicated to Airbrushing and will tell you all you need to know about this important technique. Plus, “Pro Tips” boxes are found throughout the book and are fascinating. explains the daunting color wheel, has drawing lessons, and shows you how practicing its various tutorials will give you the foundations you need to heighten your talent. Now all you need to do is practice, practice, practice!

GO SEE:

Unusual Photography Photos by Nick Ferrari

Gorilla Pod $49.95 www.bhphotovideo.com

Eye-Fi Explore $129.95 www.pictureline.com

Bottle Cap Tripod $10.99 www.semsons.com

Underwater Digital Camera Mask $99.95 www.liquidimageco.com

Pinhole Camera $24.95 www.notedco.com

Nick Ferrari - www.nferrari.com

Krab LCA Underwater Housing $45.00 LC-A + Camera $185.00 www.lomography.com

EAST COAST MIAMI PHOTO LABS Industrial Color* 650 W Ave. - #1211 Miami, FL 33139 305.695.0001 info@industrialcolor.com www.industrialcolor.com PROP RENTALS Ace Props* 297 NE 59th Terrace Miami, FL 33137 800.745.9172 aceprops@bellsouth.net www.propshopmiami.com STUDIO RENTALS Bathhouse Miami* 541 Jefferson Ave. Miami Beach FL 33139 305.538.7767 info@bathhousemiami.com www.bathhousemiami.com

Big Time Productions* 550 Washington Ave. Miami Beach FL 33139 305.672.5117 www.big-time.com Blink Studios* 521 Michigan Ave Miami Beach, FL 33139 305.532.7525 sandro@theblinkstudios.com www.theblinkstudios.com Carousel Studios* 3700 NE First Court Miami, FL 33137 305.576.3686 atmphoto@carouselstudios.com www.carouselstudios.com Glass Haus Studios* 8000 Biscayne Blvd Miami FL 33138 305.759.9904 daylightmiami@bellsouth.net www.daylightmiami.com

green

catering

Little River Studios* 300 NE 71st St. Miami, FL 33138 305.632.1581 info@littleriverstudios.com www.littleriverstudios.com MAPS Studio* 212 Collins Ave. Miami Beach, FL 33139 305.532.7880 info@mapsproduction.com www.mapsproduction.com Once Source Studio* 6440 NE 4th Court Miami, FL 33138 305.751.2556 Andrew@onesourcestudios.com www.onesourcestudios.com Photopia Studios* 360 NE 62nd St. Miami FL 33138 305.534.0290 phototopia@bellsouth.net www.phototopia-studios.com

café

épicerie

catering

212 254 9825

www.greenbrownorange.com

Directory 111 101

Picture Perfect* 8000 Biscayne Blvd - 2nd Fl Miami FL 33138 561.687.4656 www.pictureperfectmiami.com Splashlight Studios* 167 NE 26th St. Miami FL 33137 305.672.9669 infomiami@splashlight.com www.splashlight.com PHOTO EQUIPMENT Aperture* 1330 18th St. Miami, FL 33139 305.673.4327 info@aperturepro.com www.aperturepro.com WorldWide Photo* 5040 Biscayne Blvd

Miami FL 33137-3248 305.756.1744 wwfoto@yahoo.com www.worldwidefoto.com

NEW YORK, NY ARTIFICIAL FOLIAGE American Foliage & Design Group* 122 W 22nd St. New York, NY 10011 212.741.5555 afdesigngr@aol.com www.americanfoliagedesign.com BACKDROPS Broderson Backdrops* 873 Broadway - #603 New York, NY 10003 212.925.9392 info@brodersonbackdrops.com www.brodersonbackdrops.com

CATERING Better Being Catering 55 Leroy St. - #B New York, NY 10014 212.353.1986 betterbeing@gmail.com www.betterbeing.net Green Catering 61 Hester St. New York, NY 10002 212.254.9825 www.greenbrownorange.com/green DIRECTORY PhotoCrew.com 310.855.0345 www.photocrew.com Production Paradise 646-344-1005 www.productionparadise.com

112

PHOTO EQUIPMENT Adorama* 42 W 18th St. - 6th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.741.0052 info@adorama.com www.adorama.com Calumet* 22 W 22nd St. New York, NY 10010 212.989.8500 800.453.2550 website@calumetphoto.com www.calumetphoto.com CSI Rental 133 W 19th St. - Ground Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.243.7368 www.csirentals.com Foto Care* 136 W 21st St. New York, NY 10011 212.741.2990 info@fotocare.com www.fotocare.com RGH Lighting* 236 W 30th St. New York, NY 10001 212.647.1114 info@rghlighting.com www.rghlighting.com

Scheimpflug* 236 W 30th St. New York, NY 10001 212.244.8300 www.scheimpflug.net

PHOTO-SHARING WEBSITE

TREC RENTAL* 127 W 24th St. New York, NY 10011 212.727.1941 info@trecrental.com www.trecrental.com

PORTFOLIO WEBSITE

PHOTO LABS Duggal* 29 W 23rd St. New York, NY 10010 212.924.8100 info@duggal.com www.duggal.com Manhattan Color Lab* 4 W 20th St. New York, NY 10011 212.807.7373 Primary Photographic* 195 Chrystie St. - North Store New York, NY 10002 212.529.5609 www.primaryphotographic.com

Fotki 866.268.3991 www.fotki.com

Dripbook PO Box 220-295 Greenpoint Station Brooklyn, NY 11222 contact@dripbook.com www.dripbook.com PRODUCTION SERVICES ajproductionsny, inc. 212.979.7585 917.209.0823 ajprodnyc@mac.com www.ajproductionsny.com Blair-Schmidt + Turks & Caicos 212.987.4233 www.blair-schmidtproductions.com www.turksandcaicosproductions.com PROP RENTALS Arenson Prop Center* 396 10th Ave. New York, NY 10001 212.564.8383 www.aof.com/props/index.html

113

Eclectic Encore* 620 W 26th St. - 4th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.645.8880 props@eclecticprops.com www.eclecticprops.com Good Light Props* 450 W 31st St. - #9B New York, NY 10001 212.629.3326 info@goodlightprops.com www.goodlightprops.com Props For Today* 330 W 34th St. - 12th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.244.9600 info@propsfortoday.com www.propsfortoday.com Props NYC* 509 W 34th St. - 2nd Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.352.0101 www.gotprops.com The Prop Company* 111 W 19th St. - 8th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.691.7767 propcompany@aol.com

RENTAL STUDIOS 2 Stops Brighter* 231 W 29th St. - 10th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.868.5555 info@2stopsbrighter.com www.2stopsbrighter.com 20x24 Studio* 75 Murray St. - #3 New York, NY 10017 212.925.1403 mail@jennifertrausch.com www.20x24studio.com 320 Studios* 320 W 37th St. New York, NY 10018 212.967.9909 info@320studiosnyc.com www.320studiosnyc.com 3rd Ward* 195 Morgan Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11237 718.715.4961 info@3rdward.com www.3rdward.com 723 Washington* 723 Washington St. New York, NY 10014 646.485.0920 booking@bennetmediastudio.com www.723washington.com

Above Studio* 23 E 31st St. at Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 212.545.0550 ext. 3 info@abovestudiorental.com www.abovestudiorental.com Atelier 34* 34 W 28th St. - 6th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.532.7727 studio@atelier34studio.com www.atelier34studio.com Bathhouse Studios New York* 540 E 11th St. New York, NY 10009 212.388.1111 manager@bathhousestudios.com www.bathhousestudios.com Biwa inc.* 214 W 29th St. - #1105 New York, NY 10001 212.924.8483 info@biwainc.com www.biwainc.com

114

Brooklyn Studios* 211 Meserole Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11222 718.392.1007 brooklynstudios@verizon.net www.brooklynstudios.net

Drive-In 24* 443 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 212.64.2244 info@driveinstudios.com www.driveinstudios.com

Greenpoint Studios* 190 West St. - Unit 11 Brooklyn, NY 11222 212.741.6864 info@greenpointstudios.com www.greenpointstudios.com

Camart Studios* 6 W 20th St. - 4th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.691.8840 rentals@camart.com www.camart.com

Eagles Nest Studio* 259 W 30th St., 13th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212-736-6221 eaglesnestnyc@yahoo.com www.eaglesnestnyc.com

Home Studios* 873 Broadway - #301 New York, NY 10003 212.475.4663 info@homestudiosinc.com www.homestudiosinc.com

Capsule Studios* 873 Broadway - #204 New York, NY 10003 212.777.8027 info@capsulestudios.com www.capsulestudio.com

Fast Ashleys Studios* 95 N. 10th St. Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-782-9300 shelly@fastashleysstudios.com www.fastashleysstudios.com

Industria Superstudio* 775 Washington St. New York, NY 10014 212.366.1114 kslayton@industrianyc.com www.industrianyc.com

Cinema World Studios* 220 Dupont St. Greenpoint, NY 11222 718.389.9800 cinemaworldfd@verizon.net www.cinemaworldstudios.com

Gary’s Manhattan Penthouse Loft* 28 W 36th St. - PH New York, NY 10018 917.837.2420 gary@garysloft.com www.garysloft.com

Jack Studios* 601 W 26th St. - 12th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.367.7590 mike@jackstudios.com www.jackstudios.com

Dakota Studios* 78 Fifth Ave. - 8th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.691.2197 dakotastudios@yahoo.com www.dakotastudio.com

Gary’s Loft* 470 Flushing Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11205 718.858.4702 gary@garysloft.com www.garysloft.com

L Gallery Studio* 104 Reade St. New York, NY 10013 212.227.7883 info@lgallerystudio.net www.lgallerystudio.net

Daylight Studio* 450 W 31st St. - 8th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.967.2000 info@daylightstudio.com www.daylightstudio.com

Go Studios* 245 W 29th St. New York, NY 10001 212.564.4084 info@go-studios.com www.go-studios.com

Location 05* 200 Hudson St. - 9th Fl. New York, NY 10013 212.219.2144 info@location05.com www.location05.com

Divine Studio* 21 E 4th St. New York, NY 10003 212.387.9655 alex@divinestudio.com www.divinestudio.com

Good Light Studio* 450 W 31st St. - #9C New York, NY 10001 212.629.3764 goodlightstudio@gmail.com www.goodlightstudio.com

Neo Studios* 628 Broadway - #302 New York, NY 10012 212.533.4195 mail@neostudiosnyc.com www.neostudiosnyc.com

115

NoHo Productions* 636 Broadway - #302 New York, NY 10012 212.228.4068 info@nohoproductions.com www.nohoproductions.com

Pochron Studios* 20 Jay St. - #1100 Brooklyn, NY 11201 718.237.1332 info@pochronstudios.com www.pochronstudios.com

Ramscale Productions* 55 Bethune St. - Penthouse New York, NY 10014 212.206.6580 info@ramscale.com www.ramscale.com

Parlay Studios 930 Newark Ave. - 6th Fl. Jersey City, NJ 07306 201.459.9044 Studio@parlaystudios.com www.parlaystudios.com

Primus Studio* 64 Wooster St. - #3E New York, NY 10012 212.966.3803 info@primusnyc.com www.primusnyc.com

Root Capture 131 N 14th St. Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-349-2543 www.rootcapture.com

Picture Ray Studio* 245 W 18th St. New York, NY 10011 212.929.6370 bookings@pictureraystudio.com www.pictureraystudio.com

Pure Space* 601 W 26th St. - #1225 New York, NY 10001 212.937.6041 rida@purespacenyc.com frank@purespacenyc.com www.purespacenyc.com

Pier 59 Studios* Chelsea Piers #59 - 2nd Level New York, NY 10011 212.691.5959 info@pier59studios.com www.pier59studios.com

Lo w fo Cos t r Pr Ph of ot es o si In on su al ra Ph nc ot e og ra p

Shoot Digital* 23 E 4th St. New York, NY 10003 212.353.3330 Sara@shootdigital.com www.shootdigital.com

866-977-4725 www.packagechoice.com

116

Shop Studios* 442 W 49th St. New York, NY 10019 212.245.6154 Jacques@shopstudios.com www.shopstudios.com Silver Cup Studios* 42-22 22nd St. Long Island City, NY 11101 718.906.3000 silvercup@silvercupstudios.com www.silvercupstudios.com SoHo Soleil* 136 Grand St. - #5-WF New York, NY 10013 212.431.8824 info@sohosoleil.com www.sohosoleil.com

SoHo Studios* 13-17 Laight St. - 4th Fl. New York, NY 10013 212.226.1100 sohostudios@hotmail.com Some Studio 150 W 28th St. - #1602 New York, NY 10001 212.691.7663 somebody@somestudio.com www.somestudio.com Southlight Studio* 214 W 29th St. - #1404 New York, NY 10001 212.465.9466 info@southlightstudio.com www.southlightstudio.com

Splashlight Studios SoHo* 75 Varick St. - 3rd Fl. New York, NY 10013 212.268.7247 info@splashlightstudios.com www.splashlightstudios.com Studio 225 Chelsea* 225 W 28th St. - #2 New York, NY 10001 917.882.3724 james@jamesweberstudio.com www.studio225chelsea.com Studio 450* 450 W 31st St. - 12th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.871.0940 www.loft11.com

549 West 26th St. Bet. 10th & 11th Aves. New York

VANS & TRUCKS - ALL SIZES & TYPES RENTAL & FULL SERVICE LEASING Passenger Vans z Liftgate Cubes z Refrigerated Trucks

www.chelsearental.com

(212) 546-9555

Zoom Studios* 20 Vandam St. - 4th Fl. New York, NY 10013 212.243.9663 zoomstudios@yahoo.com www.zoomstudios.net

Sun Studios* 628 Broadway New York, NY 10012 212.387.7777 sunproductions@sunnyc.com www.sunstudios.com

VANS & TRUCK RENTAL

Taz Studios* 873 Broadway - #605 New York, NY 10003 212.533.4999 dwhite@tazstudios.com www.tazstudio.com The Bridge Studio* 315 Berry St. - #202 Brooklyn, NY 11211 917.676.0425 sander@bridgestudionyc.com www.bridgestudionyc.com The Space* 425 W 15th St. - 6th Fl. New York, NY 10011 212.929.2442 info@thespaceinc.com www.thespaceinc.com Tribeca Skyline Studios* 205 Hudson St. - #1201 New York, NY 10013 212.226.6200 www.tribecaskylinestudios.com

SET BUILDING Ready Set* 663 Morgan Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11222 718.609.0605 info@readysetinc.com www.readysetinc.com STYLIST - PROPS, SET, WARDROBE

studio galadriel galadriel geva.ny@gmail.com sharon@galadrielstudio.com 646.678.2836 646.678.2836

Atelier Twelve 718.624.5744 spazticdog@aol.com www.ateliertwelve.com Niki Productions 917.974.3212 studio@nikiproductions.com www.nikiproductions.com WARDROBE RENTALS RRRentals* 245 W 29th St. - #11 New York, NY 10001 212.242.6127 info@rrrentals.com www.rrrentalsny.com WARDROBE SUPPLY Manhattan Wardrobe Supply* 245 W 29th St. - 8th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.268.9993 info@wardrobesupplies.com www.wardrobesupplies.com

photo by www.craigwatters.com

Sun West* 450 W 31st St. - 10th Fl. New York, NY 10001 212.330.9900 sunwestevents@sunnyc.com www.sunnyc.com

Chelsea Rental Corp 549 W 26th St. New York, NYÂ 10001 212.564.9555 www.chelsearental.com chelsearental@verizon.net

retouching

Suite 201* 526 W 26th St. - #201 New York, NY 10001 212.741.0155 info@suite201.com www.suite201.com

118

WEST COAST LOS ANGELES, CA PROP RENTALS House of Props* 1117 N. Gower St. Hollywood , CA 90038 323.463.3166 info@houseofpropsinc.com www.houseofpropsinc.com The Hand Prop Room* 5700 Venice Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90019 323.931.1534 info@hpr.com www.hpr.com PHOTO LABS The Icon* 5450 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90036 323.933.1666 icon@iconla.com www.iconla.com PHOTO EQUIPMENT Pix* 217 South La Brea Los Angeles Ca. 90036 323.936.8488 rentals@pixcamera.com sales@pixcamera.com www.pixcamera.com Calumet* 1135 N. Highland Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038 323.466.1238 website@calumetphoto.com www.calumetphoto.com Castex Rentals* 1044 Cole Ave. Hollywood, CA 90038 323.462.1468 www.castexrentals.com

STYLISTS AGENCY Cloutier Agency* 1026 Montana Ave. Santa Monica, CA 90403 310.394.8813 www.cloutieragency.com RENTAL STUDIOS Belle Varado Studio* 2107 Bellevue Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90026 213.413.9611 andrea@bellevaradostudios.com www.bellevaradostudios.com Quixote/ Griffith Parkâ&#x20AC;? 4585 Electronics Place Los Angeles, CA 90039 323.957.9933 qp@quixote.com www.quixote.com Smashbox Hollywood* 1011 N Fuller Ave. Hollywood, CA90046 323.851.5030 sb@smashboxstudios.com www.smashboxstudios.com Smashbox Culver City* 8549 Higuera St. Culver City, CA 90323 323.851.5030 sb@smashboxstudios.com www.smashboxstudios.com The LA Lofts* 6442 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 323.462.5880 thelalofts@hotmail.com www.thelalofts.com The Studio* 6442 Santa Monica Blvd - #202 Los Angeles, CA 90038 323.791.7757 jewely@thestudiola.com www.thestudiola.com

5th & Sunset* 12322 Exposition Blvd West Lost Angeles, CA 90064 310.979.0212 keith@5thandsunsetla.com www.5thandsunsetla.com 8443 Studios* 8443 Warner Drive Culver City, CA 90232 310.202.9044 studio@8443warner.com www.8443warner.com Lightbox Studio* 7122 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036 323.933.2080 Info@lightboxstudio.com www.lightboxstudio.com Miauhaus* 1201 South La Brea Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90019 323.933.6180 mail@miauhaus.com www.miauhaus.com Pier 59 Studio West* 2415 Michigan Ave. Santa Monica, CA 90404 310.829.5959 erika@pier59studios.com www.pier59studios.com Siren Studios* 6063 W. Sunset Blvd Hollywood, CA 90028 323.467.3559 Monica@sirenstudios.com www.sirenstudios.com

*Distribution sites.

!!!qvti!pvs cvuupot/

“…HEY, it’s me again!! I just emailed you three pages for a last minute equipment order. We need this estimate yesterday! I also need you to prepare a carnet with serial numbers, replacement value, etc.” “Please pack to fly, all cases under 50 lbs, triple check everything and send spares as usual, and anything else you think I’ve forgotten… Make sure you include Fedex return labels and tie wraps.” “We need this delivered in two hours. I'll give you a call back with the address.” “Can you recommend a good Tech? Our regular guy is not available.” “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot! I’m also including a list of items we need to buy. Please send the purchases along with the order. That’s all for now. You guys rock! By the way, this is an editorial. There’s hardly any budget…”

...by the night

Six fully equipped digital still life studios. Each with lighting, grip, digital workstation, tools & supplies to provide a smooth workflow for a still life shoot.

A simpler way to shoot still life in a rental studio...

All-inclusive flat rate packages. One price covers it all. Use everything in your studio and enjoy full access to the Noho equipment room. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all included in the flat rate, like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

NOHO PRODUCTIONS