Belize Sky 2
Belize Sky 1
I have been lucky to shoot some stories that I care very deeply about, and this week’s NY Times Magazine cover story on Monk Seal killings is no exception. This story was a tremendous challenge, because I had to photograph around the core of the story, meeting people and visiting places related to the seal controversy. Added to that was the task of shooting the very rare seals, which sleep soundly all day and while asleep resemble nothing so much as a waterlogged carpet.
After a hectic stint on Kauai, I flew to the relatively wild island of Molokai. On my last shoot day, I took a dawn hike with Walter Ritte along the wild northwest coast of the island. Along the way we saw many seals. Finally, perched dramatically on some rocks in the morning light, we found L13. She wasn’t too concerned about our approach, and I took the shot that became the opener.
There are a lot of outtakes from this shoot, and I’ll post some in the coming weeks.
Here is another shot from the alligators & treadmill story, which was published in Wired’s Release Notes.
This is one of many vats full of juvenile alligators. The first thing I saw when I entered the room is a tiny alligator scurrying across the floor. I pointed this out to Tomasz, and he shooed me out of the room so he could round up the escapee. When I approached these vats to photograph them, they turned into thrashing pits full of alligators.
But what I really didn’t expect about that room was the smell….
Also out in April was my first shoot for Wired, featuring alligators on a treadmill! I shot researcher Tomasz Owerkowicz and his gators as he exercised them on a custom wooden treadmill. I was expecting some kind of space-age lab with team of white-coat researchers wrestling a 15 foot gator into a glass pod….in reality the lab was a bit more like a disused high school chemistry lab, but Tomasz has a great sense of humor and the gators were fascinating. Check out a video I shot here for more gator wrangling.
A major story I shot on Endangered Monk Seals is coming out in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It’s excellent and I urge you to read it. This was an epic shoot, shot immediately after the landscape architecture story. More later when the print is out.
Here is a story I shot for the New York Times Magazine (out April 7th….kinda late on posting this one) on landscape architect Lisa Gimmy. It was a quiet, beautiful, contemplative story, and it was great to see it splashed across four pages (and a section opener!).
The first house had an enormous agave that I completely fell in love with, and I was very happy to see it be featured so prominently. The bottom house was in my neighborhood, and I spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool with the owners. All in all a nice counterpoint to more chaotic shoots that followed….
One year ago today. Oakland for the NYTM.
Paris Photo Los Angeles
The French are coming and they’re bringing a good dose of irony with them. The annual art fair, Paris Photo, installed its first Los Angeles spring edition on Paramount Pictures Studios’ New York Street backlot, a historic replica of the city, but not one show by a New York gallery will appear there. In fact, only four New York galleries are participating in the fair, out of some 60 galleries total, making way for fresh new curatorial perspectives on historical and contemporary photography from galleries in cities like Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, Tucson, Vancouver, as well as Los Angeles, Paris and well beyond. Paris Photo Los Angeles opens on Friday April 26 running through April 28.
For more information, visit: http://www.parisphoto.com
