Bioluminescent Waves

On the way home from work last night I wheeled off the freeway in Encinitas and went to Swami's to see if the coast was still being graced with a spectacular neon blue light show in the waves. The bioluminescence is caused by an algae bloom commonly called red tide. The organisms, Lingulodinium polyedrum phytoplankton, illuminate the crashing waves with a sudden flash. In the background are the lights of the San Diego coastline. I've gotta go back out before this phenomenon ends, and shoot more.

The free portraits project

It's been two years since I was laid off, joining the ranks of the many newspaper folks who found themselves mid-career and with few options other than reinvention. Along with my colleagues, I applied for jobs and put more effort into my professional presence online. New bloggers were born, people who wrote and edited for a newspaper became online writers and editors. Everyone realized the value of LinkedIn if they were searching for a new job.

In the interest of trying to do more for my friends & former colleagues than just forwarding them links to job openings, I thought of other ways to help. What is it I do again? Oh right, I'm a photographer.

So I started offering free portrait sessions to people who needed them, people whose online identity was defined by a bad cell phone photo, or no photo at all. These days your photo for LinkedIn & Twitter & a blog is how so many people will form an impression of you. So I'm dragging friends out for a quick shoot, and giving them social networking portraits, two of which are below. Some of them are unemployed and searching for work. Some have found jobs where their online presence has gone from Facebooking with friends to representing a company or communicating with students and fellow faculty members. Some are putting their effort and time into blogging, and reaping a reward there.

All of us are moving on from what we used to do at a newspaper, seeing ourselves and each other in new ways.
Journalist David Gaddis Smith writes about Mexico. You can find his work here. His site is being redesigned and as of this writing the portrait is not up yet, so check back.

Jerry McCormick is an Associate Producer at NBC 7/39 in San Diego. He also teaches journalism at Southwestern College.

When Location Scouting Turns Into A Portrait Session

I was scouting locations at Balboa Park today when a portrait walked up and asked me to take it.

In my bag was a single light stand, two small strobes with remotes, a camera body and a couple of lenses. No light modifiers such as umbrella, softbox, etc. - I was traveling light. This was just a location scouting mission, after all.

That'll teach me.

After spending an hour looking for locations for an upcoming shoot, I was getting ready to head back to my car. That's when I saw Curtis. He was getting ready for his gig at the park, where he dances and speaks to groups in costume as "Zulu Warrior." He seems a little out of place among the mostly Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, but the park attracts all kinds. He was brushing out his black-and-white horse hair armbands when I saw him. I struck up a conversation and asked if I could take some photos. He begged off, saying the photos would be much better if I waited for him to get into costume. I said I'd REALLY really like to get photos of him doing what he was doing, but he was stubborn. As stubborn as me, and that's very.

I normally favor the journalistic approach, and would have pushed back, but as I was scouting locations for a portrait session, I thought "What the hell. Have him stand in for the portrait subject, see if you like the result." So I asked him to meet me around the corner from where we stood, as soon as he was ready.

I was too far away from my car to get a light modifier, so I just set up without what I had. I put up a flash on a light stand and did the old "shoot through the leaves" trick (better version here) for the background and thought I'd just try to feather the light off the subject so he wasn't getting hit directly with harsh strobe.

Here's the setup before Curtis showed up. The light hitting the right side of the palm tree is sunlight.


And here's the shot of Curtis in costume.

Needless to say, I'm going to have a decent light modifier and a light stand when I go back and shoot my (previously planned) portrait session, so I can get better quality and direction of light from the main flash.

I sent Curtis some photos, so by earning a little good will with him maybe I can set up a re-shoot with proper gear. And who knows? Maybe I can even weasel my way into doing something a little more documentary next time, too.

Thieves, the lot of them

A friend alerted me to this surely fake but popular video making the rounds - it shows a young woman who (supposedly) becomes a bit overemotional while recording an introductory video for online dating site eHarmony. Turns out, she really REALLY likes cats. Especially cats in a basket and cats wearing bowties. And cats on rainbows.

So I wanted to send my friend a copy of this picture I created a few years ago by Photoshopping a rainbow coming out of a kitten's ass.
Original blog post here.

Yes, it's a really bad Photoshop job. With a background in editorial photography, I'm afraid my limited Photoshop abilities tend to be in the area of making an image look real, not making an image up. Plus I wanted extra cheese. I mean... it's a kitten with a rainbow coming out of its ass.

I started looking back through the blog to find it but couldn't lay my paws on it quickly, so I thought hell, I'll just do a Google image search for "kitten rainbow." That'll surely get me to my photo fast.

And sure enough, I found my photo. But I didn't only find it on my blog. Someone stole my rainbow kitten.

This blogger at least gave my stolen photo some decent play, at the top of the post:


This one wasted a good image (ahem) by putting it at the bottom of the post:


Points for creativity - this band called "Rainbow Kitten" stole the image for their Myspace page, but at least they really fucked up the colors so it's not really a rainbow anymore. Makes me wonder about their approach to creating music. As in "steal something cheesy and bad, then make it worse."

Also, Myspace? Really? Is it 2004?

Relief Portraits

New York photographer, Strobist guest-poster and Alabama native Miller Mobley spent the weekend in Tuscaloosa, doing what he could to help the people in that tornado-ravaged community. And by "what he could," I don't mean helping people clean up or rebuild their homes.

Those things need to be done, of course. But as a photographer, Mobley decided to bring his particular skills to his home state to do what he's good at. He joined several other photographers in creating new family portraits for people who lost photos of themselves and their families when the vicious winds uprooted their homes and their lives.


NPR has the story here. The Relief Portraits Facebook page is here. Mobley's blog item about the effort is here. Take his example to heart and think about what you're good at, and find someone who needs you.

You don't need to wait for disaster to strike, either. I help a friend shoot family portraits every year around Mother's Day at the family shelter in San Diego. Like what Mobley and the other photographers in Tuscaloosa this weekend did, it's a small way to give back to someone who's lost so much.

Manuel Labor

For a while now I've been meeting with friend, online comics genius and uber-talented graphics artist Paul Horn for a collaborative effort on his strip, Cool Jerk. At first we were kicking around general ideas but mostly we just caffeinated ourselves and laughed our asses off. We used to work together at the San Diego Union-Tribune, but neither of us are there anymore, so we don't see each other too often despite the fact we live in the same neighborhood, City Wok Heights.*


But over the past couple months we've been more actively brainstorming and scripting a series of strips for Cool Jerk in which a long-established character, Manuel, comes out.

We met on my days off and the resulting series of strips (start reading here) was a blast to work on. As proud as I am of anything I may have contributed, I'm more proud that the strips and characters all retain their voices, voices Horn has nurtured and crafted over the past *cough* decades *cough*. We didn't want this to be "a very special episode in which Manuel learns the true meaning of friendship" in any way, with lots of tear-stained faces and happy talk. And I was especially careful in that I didn't want the strips to sound like they came from anyone other than Horn himself.

Plus Horn is brilliant and it was just plain fun to hang with him.

I hope the strips have a feeling of reality about them, and that we avoided the pitfalls in a lot of popcult coming out stories. And that we threw a few curves.

He posted something about the series, and about yours truly, on his blog. Do my ego a favor and read some nice things about me. My Jewish Mother™ will be happy if you do.


And leave Paul some comments on the strips. Let us know what you think. Did we blow it? Did we nail it? Did it need more cowbell? Or maybe I should make that "disco-ball."

*Not really the name of our neighborhood.

Can I Drive Your Magic Bus?

David Hobby and Joe McNally brought their Flashbus tour to San Diego today. The small flash gurus (wow, that's about the most reductive phrase I can think of for these two guys, considering their talents and careers) spent the day at the NTC Promenade talking to a roomful of photographers about the philosophy and craft of lighting with small strobes. They're witty and fast-paced and they pack an incredible amount of information into the day. If you're in one of the roughly two dozen cities left on the tour they'll visit in their graphic-wrapped bus, just go.



I met McNally for the first time today, but I've known Hobby for years, back when we were both University of Florida photo types. We reminisced about school and swapped stories from when he was an intern at the Orlando Sentinel, where I was working at my first newspaper job. Apparently that lesson about how to deal with pesky TV photographers who jump in front of you at news scenes has stuck with him. It was great catching up. Plus he picked up the bill for breakfast and lunch. Gotta love a per diem. Thank you again, Dave.

All that aside, the two do a great job engaging the audience with everything from the basics to the esoteric when it comes to lighting on the fly. It's about the image, not the toys. Know the subject. Learn to look at light. And of course, they don't just tell, they show.


Here's Hobby gesturing hypnotically. Note the strip of green gaffer's tape he stuck on his sweater, because it's St. Patrick's Day.


And here's McNally demonstrating some multi-flash techniques on a model/grip on tour with them. Note that McNally doesn't need green tape. And note the model/grip looks like a bearded Justin Bieber. I can say that now because the bus is on the road to the tour's next stop - they're halfway to Phoenix as I write this. And therefore it's not very likely he'll kill me for saying it.