Brandon Boyd, Hanna-Barbera and Mark Murphy

I have been working with the amazingly talented Mark Murphy, www.murphydesign.com, on a few books. Mark is a kid who actively archives living artists, as well as designs incredible art and coffee table books. It is interesting how he assembles collections and how he needs the support of photography to assist in the story telling.


First is "From the Murks of the Sultry Abyss," featuring a collection journals, paintings, photographs and drawings by Brandon Boyd. If you are an Incubus fan, this is a must see. Working along with Mark, creatively photographed Brandon's art work in the studio. Mark and I manipulated the painting featured on the cover of Brandon's new book to enhance the contrast so that specialty printing techniques and typography could be easily identified. The book turned out great and Incubus fans will not want to miss.


The second book is The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, published by Insight Editions, an imprint of the Palace Publishing Group. Mark and I worked together photographing a private collection of Hanna-Barbera collectibles. It was a trip, as we were somewhere, in a warehouse, filled with Batmobiles, Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers, and piles and piles of Hanna-Barbera artifacts. Mark worked on this project for over 7 months, and we were given one day to photograph over 120 artifacts. The book was presented like a scrapbook and there were over 20 collectible artifacts featured within the book. It is a great assembly of unique cartoon favorites including: the Flinstones, Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, Spaceghost, Atom Ant, Huckleberry Hound and hundreds of others.

Behind Photographs in New York

I was back in New York working on my personal project, “Behind Photographs.” I have been photographing well known photographers holding one of their favorite or most famous images on a 20" x 24" Polaroid. On my most recent trip back to New York, I had the amazing opportunity to photograph Bill Epperidge, Eric Meola, Pete Turner, Carl Fisher, Walter Iooss, Daniel Kramer and Neil Leifer.


My goal is to publish a book and have an exhibit of this work and find this work extremely important, as it celebrates the "living legends" of photography. It is fascinating to me to hear the personal stories behind each of the photographer's photos. It is really an honor to celebrate their accomplishments and create portraits that extend beyond my portfolio of work.

I will be shooting again later in the year in both New York and California and have recently purchased a 20x24 Wisner with a Polaroid system that will enable me to travel and capture more photographers on location.

There is a very limited window of time while Polaroid will continue to have film for this camera, so if you have a special project you are an art director or photo editor and have always wanted to shoot in this format, give me a ring. It is truly a magical medium.

NFL Rookie Photo Shoot : Los Angeles

I spent the day shooting at The NFL Rookie Premiere. The day is set up so trading card companies can build a library of images for card sets prior to the next NFL season. I was one of 6 photographers shooting, each photographer has a completely different set-up so the client ends up with a variety of looks. Chris Covatta had the set next to me that included a snow machine for a winter scene. His snow kept drifting onto my set, nothing like a little winter in Southern California.


Over the course of the day we photographed 30+ rookies. The day is challenging since you have limited time with each player and need to get a variety of looks. I worked with three simple lighting set-ups and a variety of colored backgrounds that we had painted for a shoot at the NFL Pro Bowl a few years back. Since the players are running from set to set, they get a bit tired of the whole thing by the end of the day. I would show them several images so they would get a feel for the shots and see that they were looking good. Once they got a feel for what I was after, they seemed to get into a bit more and be more animated.

Tony Gwynn : Sports Illustrated Cover

I came back from a shoot in central California photographing wineries, to find a package from Sports Illustrated. I was fired up to see my photograph of Tony Gwynn on the cover for their special S.I. Presents, Hall of Fame issue. This image of Tony is from Spring Training in Arizona in 1997 and was shot with a 4x5 view camera. There is also one of my images of Tony with his silver bats on the inside. We did the “bats” photo in my studio for No Fear years ago. At the time, Tony had 6 batting titles.


Tony Gwynn could only hold 3 bats in his hands and had to add the rest in Photoshop. We added them each time he won a new title.The reflection of the baseball in the tops of the silver bats was created in camera. I photographed a baseball in the studio and made a large, 3x3 foot, backlit print. This print was placed over a large light source in the studio and reflected into the bats. The ends of the bats are cropped out in this issue of S.I., but here is the uncropped version which appears in the Sports Illustrated Baseball Book.

By the way if you like Vino, check out Peachy Canyon, Linne Calodo, Firestone, Sterling and Via Creek. I had the chance to photograph these wine makers in Paso Robles and they are making some tasty stuff.

Triathlete Magazine : Swimsuit Issue

Check out the June, Swimsuit Issue of Triathlete Magazine. We shot the cover and a 39-page feature on the South Coast of Jamaica. Our models included actress Maxine Bahns and the latest Bachelor, Andy Baldwin. I had the pleasure of working with Max and Andy a few years back on the same shoot in Moorea, they are both great people to work with and amazing on camera.


Tara Kulikov, Hannah Cornett and Kristin Zimmerman were our other models that did an amazing job. It is always great working with the actual triathletes because they’re used to training long hours--getting them up for sunrise is never an issue. The shoot took place over three days, and as you might imagine, there was plenty of photographs being taken.


If you are heading to Jamaica, I highly recommend staying a Jake’s. It is a two-hour ride from Montego Bay and offers a unique and eclectic accommodations. YS fall is a must see, the location for this year’s cover shoot. If you missed the last year’s issue, here is a copy featuring Grace McClure from Australia, shot in Puket, Thailand. Enjoy.