Still Alive… and Kicking!

It’s coming up on two years since I last posted and I am happy to say I am still alive and kicking! Although I have taken some time off from the blog, I have been hard at work in the studio and in the field, and taking on assignments all around the country in addition to teaching photography classes in the community this past year. In the time since my last post in 2013, I am happy to announce I was awarded the Clio Award for the Washington Nationals Advertising campaign and have won a few Picture of the Year International awards!

It has always been a dream of mine to own a photography studio; and finally in 2013, I built a photo studio called Leucadia Photoworks. LPW is not only a studio but also a creative space for photographers in the San Diego area acting as a platform for our collective vision, the development of local talent, and the promotion of the photographic arts. Located just a few short blocks away from the beach in the artist and surf community of Leucadia, our fully-equipped 1,000 sq.ft. studio space, complete with a cyclorama at our disposal is also available for rental (www.leucadiaphotoworks.com).

 

 

 

Leucadia Photoworks was born out of the void I saw not only for affordable studio space for photographers in North County San Diego but also a platform where local photographers could share their vision and foster new young talent. We run workshops, have monthly photography shows and other fun events here! LPW is a photo collective comprised of nine talented photographers I hand picked in the North San Diego Area: founder Donald Miralle, Kristy Walker, Greg Merino, Todd Glaser, Teresa Fae, Tim Eubanks, Matt Wright, Anna Pietrowski, and Mike Lewis. Please follow our events calendar to keep up to date with our photography workshops, member art shows, book sales and other events at our studio and follow us on our instagram handles (@leucadia_photoworks and @donaldmiralle)

 

Golf Digest Shoot with Ricky Fowler

We just did a photo shoot for Golf Digest with Ricky Fowler at Bear Creek Golf Course. It was an instructional for GD, so we went through a myriad of different swing sequences of do’s and don’ts, and ended with a couple portraits. Video was also shot during the session. Ricky was super easy to work with, and it was great to see the Golf Digest crew again. Special thanks to Golf Digest Director of Photography Christian Iooss, Staff Writer Max Adler, lighting assistant Shawn Cullen, and my Rep Jim Lee. The magazine issue isn’t out yet so I can’t put up any of the pictures but they turned out great! Here is a couple of behind the scenes shots for you guys:

DICKS SPORTING GOODS GOLF SHOOT

Last month I had the great opportunity to do a campaign with Dick’s Sporting Goods for their upcoming 2013 Golf Catalogue and commercial imagery. The assignment was in Palm Springs for 7 days where we stayed at La Quinta resort and shot at some beautiful courses including PGA West, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus Private courses. It’s been awhile since I shot at any of these courses (Last in ’99 at the Bob Hope when David Duval shot a record 59), so luckily we took the  first 2 days to scout four courses with the Dick’s Sporting Goods crew. Golf more than many sports is all about the light, and it was a huge advantage being able to see how the sun affected different holes, how the front 9 or back 9 had better natural lighting in the beginning of the day or late afternoon, and what would look better with the talent and brands being shot.

Once we chose our spots and had a schedule set, we prepped the gear and got ready to shoot the next 5 days from 6am to 6 pm. But the long days flew by because we were working hard, the crew was so easy to be around, and every session we stuck to our shotlist but had some creative improvisations as well. Shooting in the desert in the winter can be a mixed bag of weather. You can get screaming light because the sun is so low for most of the day and the air is so clear. But you can also get howling 60 miles/hour wind,rain and  frost which can delay things a bit. Luckily for us we had some awesome weather for the majority of the shoot and only encountered a few showers on the last day.

It was a fantastic experience and pleasure to work with Dick’s Sporting Goods, and look forward to another shoot in the future. Big thanks to Barry Berenson, Scott Lenz, Jody Pfister,  Kim McEniry, Brandon Magnus, Marc Kelly, and Billy Small for all their help. Special thanks to Rep Pat Hugg of Getty Images for making the job come together!!!

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Lance Armstrong Cover

I had the great experience of getting to hang out and shoot Lance Armstrong at his home and the Livestrong Foundation in Austin, Texas for this month’s cover of LAVA Magazine in newstands now. One of the more enjoyable shoots I’ve had in a while and Lance was gracious with his time, letting us shoot him over the course of two days, and he was a pleasure to be around. He even let me go for an accidental swim in his fountain and tweeted Liz Kreutz’s photos to his 3.5 million followers (see picture below). He is obviously an inspirational person because of his 7 Tour De France wins but more importantly for his efforts in the fight against cancer with the Livestrong Foundation. Here’s some outtakes, some behind the scenes by Liz, the cover, and the story layout with great text by Jay Prasuhn…enjoy!

Some Outtakes….

Behind the scenes….

The story layout and cover…

On Assignment for ESPN the Magazine’s Photo Issue

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA- MAY 7:  Steven Kehoe #1 of the Ohio State Buckeyes is mobbed by his teammates as Jeff Menzel #1 of the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos and his teammates walk off during the Buckeyes 3-2 (20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 22-25, 15-9) victory in the 2011 NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship Final at Rec Hall in University Park, Pennsylvania on May 7, 2011. Kehoe was named tournament MVP leading Ohio State to it’s first national title in volleyball.  (Photo by Donald Miralle for ESPN the Magazine) 

1 Day, 9 Countries, 23 Photographers. Great idea by ESPN the Magazine to cover a big day for sports on Saturday, May 7, 2011. My contribution to this kick-ass issue was to cover the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championships at Penn State, PA. Senior Photo Editor Jim Surber gave me an open brief  to shoot the games as creative as possible but with the smart direction to use only a single strobe, lending a nice atmosphere to the photos with falloff and contrast. I used a profoto 7B with a mag reflector and 10 degree grid spot hung directly overhead from the net, coupled with another 7b on a seprate pack from stands, cutting across the subject with a 20 degree grid to give a little separation from the shadows. I shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and used the Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 Canon which allowed me to synch the strobes and freeze action at 1/1000th of a second! If you haven’t got one of these yet go out and do it, you won’t have to use a leaf shutter again to freeze action with strobes.

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I had the luxury of one day to set up and install strobes and remotes, then tweak everything as needed for the second day to fine tune the results. I also hung a remote camera that was also on the same strobe set for the first day, which was nice for tight action shots. But knowing that the winner of the final games was going to give a great reaction probably with jubilation and dejection, I switched the remote to a wider shot on the second day with ambient light to capture the reaction of the winner from the final game without having to depend on the recycle time of the strobes. Again a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105/F4 lens hung from a pretty sketchy catwalk with monfrotto magic arm and enough safety cable to suspend a truck. I was really stoked on this shot of Ohio state mobbing their MVP while the dejected UC Santa Barbara Gauchos walked off, and am sending a copy to the Head Coach of Ohio State Pete Hansen for their team room to commemorate their first NCAA volleyball championship in school history. Below is a little gallery I put together of the photos that didn’t make the magazine, hope you enjoy. Go out and get your issue at the newstands today and you can see the online ESPN photo gallery here.