Constant dropping wears away a stone

Back to present on of my most labor intensive and dearest hybrid media pieces yet... It started with an assignment to cover our sensei & dojo for a German magazine a while back... You can read about that here.

Now I had some great images of Imaizumi Sensei and our dojo. And I was getting more involved in the multi media aspect of things as well... So I tried to figure out what other ingredients the piece was still missing... I wanted a narrator who was somehow personally connected with the piece. After sensei declined I approached some of our more senior students until I ended up asking Warren Wynshaw for his input. It wasn't that he was low on my list, but I didn't want to bother him with what I felt "unimportant" stuff... Not that it was unimportant to me, but not necessarily important for other people... To my huge surprise he immediately agreed to participate and we ended up recording his voice over just a few weeks later...

The last obstacle was - as usual - in my mind. I started writing the soundtrack early on and there were only minor changes to it over time... One thing that bothered me was the "fake guitar" that I had used to create a measure of grit and earthiness... It was fine, but lacked the authenticity I was looking for... I approached two of my friends (Christian Wilkes and John F. Richards), who after a series of delays delivered their tracks to me within days of each other... So, I ended up with two distinctly different, but cool guitar tracks that I really liked... An embarrassment of riches... It took me quite a while to figure out what to do. Fellow aikidoist, jazz alto saxphonist and friend Richard Tabnik came to the rescue and suggested using both of them in different sections of the piece...

In the end it came together quite beautifully me thinks. And it comes to show that persistence does have its merits after all... I guess the trick is to figure out if there is a message with projects that get stuck... And what that message could be...

Slideshows! Not new, but new for me!

Last summer a friend suggested to play more with the combination of sound and images... Slideshows came to mind as I do not like videos that much... I mean for myself... I am a photographer after all... So, this is the first one of a series of personal slideshow projects on people that I find interesting... I feel that being able to match audio with the images gives the whole piece an added dimension...
It took me quite a while to get comfortable with this new media set up, so please forgive my lack of posts here!
I hope to post these pieces here now more regularly from now on!

I saw Daniel Robinson first when he conducted a fitness boot camp thingy in the gym where I work out... He was visually so perfect for the part of the bad drill instructor that I had to grin wildly... He was not amused! Running into each other in the neighborhood and the gym we started talking at some point... What a kind and generous soul he is! I was very happy when he agreed to take part in this piece about him, a true New York icon... Yes, indeed you can see him training outside pretty regularly... (when there is no snow that is!) ;)

You can get in touch with him via his email: Drmaxtrain@gmail.com

Actor, Firefighter, Muslim... Superman!

This entry is about a shoot I did for the 9-11 issue of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit: A portrait of Muslim firefighter and actor Hisham Tawfiq... He was interviewed about 9-11, being a firefighter on that day, being a Muslim in the US since and so on... Originally our shoot was scheduled very short notice for that evening... But he was tough to get a hold of for me... So I almost had him down as "one of those subjects"... But it turned out that he was actually filming that day and they were running late but not giving out info as freely as one would have hoped for... In any case we decided to shoot the next morning and meet at his station at 7am instead... We got great images (I think!) and I really enjoyed our conversations... Hisham turned out to be really down to earth and a great guy to work with...
I even got invited for a tour of the station later that night... What's not to like? ;) 
Maybe I should explain the title of this entry some more: As I was learning more and more about Hisham through our conversations I became more and more impressed by his story: Living in the Middle East, becoming a Marine, working as a corrections officer then firefighter... And finally breaking into acting... Wow, that truly sounds like a lot of hard work! Good luck making it!



Trying to capture some of a typical New York City feeling...



Love this one... Looks to me like a poster for an action movie!

Sitting on the stoop of an abandoned building in Harlem actually very close by where I live...

Close up time... Same location...

A dog, another dog!

This is another image from the trip to the Baltic Sea... A shot of the young hovawart puppy Atos... My dad's new dog... Really neat when he doesn't try to grab your hand with his teeth... ;)
Anyway, I tried to take his portrait numerous times... But he still has tons of energy, always moving around... So I got him here in the trunk of the car... Really like his attentive look...



I was actually quite surprised how much of the clouds were reflected in here... I don't remember noticing that when shooting... I guess I got lucky again! ;)

Apologies!!! And an image!

First off: Thank you to those who have expressed that they want to see new installments here! It really helps to get feedback like that when contemplating of posting images or not... Luckily I have been busy with assignments recently and will hopefully be able to post some of those images soon... Here is one image of an assignment I did last week... I was invited to Atlanta and met Sherlock there... A small dog with a big personality and loads of talents! I don't think my recollections will do him justice, so I will wait for his mum to chime in if she wants to...

PS: I somehow forgot the apology: Sorry for not posting more recently! I'll try to improve the frequency of my posts!



I really like this image of Sherlock. He looks very smart and alert especially considering his age...
He definitely made me change my mind about small dogs! This image was originally taken to show Sherlock in relationship to his mum, that's why I actually like him partly obscuring her leg as if to guard her... Thank you both for opening up and sharing your life with me!

Sunday eve's double portrait

I took today's image on Sunday after having dinner with friends...
Dan and Sarah showed us their Aspen... The light in the restaurant was beautiful and I asked if I could take their picture... This frame is my favorite... It happened when they stopped paying attention to me... I love how it shows their relationship as newlyweds!

A strange name for great dog

Here are my images from a recent assignment for the German magazine Junger Soldat (I would love to give you a link, but they don't really have a website). In Salem we met with Geoff Ames (a veteran with PTSD) and his service dog Oprah. The dog was trained and provided to him by Puppies Behind Bars. Apparently Oprah Winfrey is supporting the cause and so the dog was named after her... Asides from this slightly strange naming practice it was an honor to invited into Mr. Ames and witness his story. Although Oprah is a service dog, she was still a lab and a young one at that...



We took a walk through their neighborhood. Love the colors. And the sense of abandonment.



Oprah is ready for her close up! Next image: Her service manual.



Oprah looking attentive while guarding Goeff. A drawer full of meds...



Here you can see that Oprah is still quite young... Details and Geoff's close up.

I liked doing this story although it was a more complex setup... But seeing the two together and how that makes a difference for both of them was really rewarding!

Finally: People and the subway!

What could be more exciting? I was taking a break from this series as I was sick and needed to change things up... I see this project as a portrait of New York City subway, but so far most of the images have been without people in them... But of course what is the subway for if not to transport people... Looking at a lot of street photography recently I thought about going more into that direction... But trying to find people, convince them to let me take their picture and then have them be relaxed enough again to get natural looking images was a challenge that I felt not ready for... Just shoot and run is not really my style either... Then a friend offered to pose for me in the subway... This started a whole new line of possibilities...



Mona Eltahawy kindly allowed me to take her portrait while riding the subway...
The tough part for me is to show enough of the surrounding at least at this stage of the project...
I love this image... There is such a depth in her view...



Next up was my friend Gustavo Marx, a fellow photographer whose work I deeply admire... Returning from a photo gathering I waited with them for their local downtown train to arrive at 125 St station when he offered to pose for me... Luckily I had my camera with me... I like how the alertness is showing, but not in a negative way...

Lucky day!!!

When I was tasked to do a head shot for Kyle, I suspected that I actually might get a good shot out of it... This is a return to a more studio like setting (which I had eliminated from my portfolio a while ago to not confuse the viewers), but still keeping the narrow focus of my newer work... I shot this at home with a mix of HMIs and daylight... It was a fairly quick set up of maybe 35 minutes...

I absolutely love this image. There is so much in this image for me. To me it shows a lot of qualities of growing up... Partly still being a child, part being a man already... Strong features and a lot of attitude top it all off... Thank you, Kyle!

Taking portraits further...

A few days ago I received two copies of this beautiful German magazine Dogs.
I might be biased though... They had found the cover image (taken by yours truly) via the stock site trunk archive. I am super happy about the cover: The printing looks great and the magazine gives lots of play to photos in general.

About the image: It was taken a while ago... In photo school I had been taught that portraiture is about the image of a human. After years I wanted to see what else could be done inside or outside those parameters... I mean for me it was always more about trying to capture the characteristics of who I encountered than just reproducing the outward shapes of what was presented. I was trying to transport my emotions as well. After I felt that this was possible in the normal settings, I tried to see where else I could take this... Dogs to me show a lot emotion and characteristics on the faces. So they were my first targets...

I like this image because it touches me. Yes, it might be just my imagination or interpretation, but to me there is a lot of stuff going on there!