I’ll be speaking at the 2018 Asian American Journalists Association annual convention at the Marriott Marquis, 1777 Walker St, Houston, Texas, Room 2734.
In addition to the regularly scheduled lineup of writers, editors and TV correspondents, longtime AAJA member Darrell Miho has organized an additional educational curriculum for still photographers over the three day convention. I’ll be doing a lighting talk from 11:00-12:30 Friday, August 10th.
Here’s the list of speakers and subjects for the still photo program:
The Photo Hangouts are FREE to all AAJA18 attendees! If you’re not attending the convention and interested in just attending the Photo Hangouts please call or text Darrell Miho at 626.975.6349 or email us at aajaphoto@gmail.com
Like most commercial photographers, we do a lot of work that is not necessarily viewable by the general public. Even though the work might be viewed by thousands of people, it’s not something you might see on a billboard or on the magazine rack at Barnes and Noble. This B2B corporate photography work can take many forms: a multimedia presentation within a corporation, an annual report to a corporation’s shareholders, a sales brochure, or in some cases a specifically targeted magazine with a carefully chosen audience. These are called “trade magazines” in the photography business, and they often lead to fun and interesting assignments.
CDW has been producing a group of these magazines for quite some time, and I’ve been fortunate to shoot for them quite a bit. Their technology solutions business is targeted to education, business, government, and healthcare customers, so they have a magazine for each industry titled (logically enough) EdTech, BizTech, StateTech, and HealthTech.
Over the years, I’ve been able to create cool environmental portraits of doctors, cops, and business executives. I wanted to share a couple of covers from some recent issues of the magazines.
For BizTech, we photographed a high tech DNA testing facility. The place was just as you would expect, a slightly mundane lab with lots of test tube vials being sorted by techs in lab coats, but with few good photo opportunities, as most of the techs were working at tables facing a wall. Ugh! I became fascinated by a large machine on one end of the lab…..it was a big blocky thing, but had a window looking through to either side. Inside were vials in banks on both sides, and in the center was a little robot arm, doing it’s thing – retrieving vials according to an automated program and moving them to be tested. I decided it would make a cool photo if we could get some light inside, but it proved fairly difficult. We ended up placing the subject on one side of the machine, booming a small strip bank above the machine, and then cross lighting the vials from each side in VERY tight quarters (with a slight green gel added), which also outlined the subject from behind. It was really tricky, since I was shooting through a window on the other side and trying to avoid window fog and condensation on the glass.
For the StateTech cover, we photographed local constable Alan Rosen for a story on body cameras. (It just so happened that our PR guy for the job was a former colleague, the famous Houston Chronicle political writer and generally great guy Alan Bernstein!) We picked an abandoned building with lots of character not far from my studio in downtown Houston and shot several setups with Rosen and a group of his deputies all showcasing their new body cameras. Most of the shots were horizontals and intended for an inside spread, but towards the end of the shoot, I remembered one of my old editor’s mantras: “No matter what you’re doing, no matter what the assignment is, ALWAYS GET A HEADSHOT!” That voice haunts me some days, but it’s really good advice. Your assignment might be to shoot a panoramic cityscape with an architect in the foreground, or an athlete in his home, or whatever – but remember that you’ll be the designer’s best friend if you give them a tight portrait they can run on page 3 or 4 of an article, or on a table of contents page, or in this case, if the story budget changes and your story ends up on the cover!
A recent cover of Constable Alan Rosen for StateTech.
The American Society of Media Photographers is the premier trade association for the world’s most respected photographers. ASMP is the leader in promoting photographers’ rights, providing education in better business practices, producing business publications for photographers, and helping to connect clients with professional photographers. ASMP, founded in 1944, has nearly 7,000 members and 39 chapters. ASMP’s “Find a Photographer” feature on the national ASMP website is a wonderful tool for connecting photo editors and art buyers with photographers in a given area. Despite the word “media” in the title ASMP is not a press photographers organization. ASMP members are typically commercial photographers who work in advertising photography, corporate photography, as well as those who shoot for magazines.
“I’m not worthy!….” – sandwiched in with some big names inside the new ASMP brochure (cover photography by the great Stephen Wilkes)
An inside spread in the brochure (photo by Robert Seale)
Major thanks to our executive director Tom Kennedy, a former Director of Photography at National Geographic, and a major force in the photo world, who continues to represent our organization and who leads the fight for working photographers every day.
Actor and martial artist Chuck Norris on the family’s Lone Wolf Ranch in Navasota, Texas.
When the Boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.
Chuck Norris has counted to infinity – twice.
There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.
I’ve loved reading these “Chuck Norris Facts” for years. It was pretty awesome when we actually got to meet the man in person recently when we photographed Norris and his lovely wife Gena for Houstonia magazine.
Actor and martial artist Chuck Norris and his wife, Gena Norris, have developed a new private-label bottled water manufacturing company called CForce Bottling Company on the family’s Lone Wolf Ranch in Navasota, Texas.
Part of the hook for the story was that Gena had recently fired up a full blown water bottling plant on their giant ranch property near Navasota to bottle water from the natural aquifer they found on their property. The plant is a state of the art facility and there is a charity component to their H2O endeavor. You can read more about it in the Houstonia story here.
Since we were there in sort of the middle of the afternoon on a sunlit partly cloudy day, we needed a big light and lots of power for the outdoor shots. We used a Profoto B-4 and a Plume Hexoval 180 for most of the outdoor shots.
Although we shot the bottling plant and did lots of still life shots of water bottles, the highlight for me was getting to make a cool environmental portrait of the former Walker Texas Ranger star and Gena on his awesome Texas ranch. We also shot in their horse stables, which had amazing light. Gena was a professional model, and the two of them together have a lifetime of experience in front of the camera and were just wonderful subjects to photograph. I don’t think I’ve ever dealt with two nicer, more accommodating people.
Actor and martial artist Chuck Norris in beautiful natural light in the horse stables on his Texas ranch.Actor and martial artist Chuck Norris in the horse stables at his Texas ranch.I couldn’t resist taking a romantic silhouette of Chuck Norris and his wife, Gena in the horse stable.
As we were loading the gear back into our vehicle, he came back out of the house and gave everyone in the crew a paperback copy of a Chuck Norris Facts book. I think he gets a big kick out of the cult hero status from all these “facts.”
Before we departed, Norris was telling us a story about going to Iraq to visit troops there. He was standing at the front of a long line of soldiers eager to meet him, shaking hands, posing for photos, signing autographs and such. When one of the soldiers (who was a particularly big strong guy) got to the front for his turn, the conversation went like this:
Soldier: “Ok, kick me in the chest!”
Chuck: “I’m not going to kick you in the chest…”
Soldier: “No, really, I want you to roundhouse kick me in the chest!”
Chuck: “Come on, I’m not going to kick you in the chest.”
The soldier wouldn’t let up, and was just dying to go back to the barracks and tell all his buddies that he survived a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the chest…..the line was starting to grumble from the delay.
Finally, Norris quickly grabbed the soldier, and in one quick motion the (at the time) 70 year old martial arts veteran spun him around backwards and put him in a choke hold and dropped the big guy to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
At this point all the other military guys standing in the autograph line, full grown men trained in combat, were yelling like little kids, “Put me in a choke hold too! Put me in a choke hold too!”
Of course….after hearing this story, what do you think I did?
“Put me in a choke hold! Put me in a choke hold!”
Here’s the layout of the article by (then) Houstonia art director Tanyia Johnson. She has an excellent eye for design, and I’m forever in her debt for sending me on such a cool assignment!
The cover image was taken from a helicopter off the coast of Angola.
I’m a little late in posting this, (the 2015 annual reports were actually released during April of 2016), but I wanted to share some of the published work from the last ExxonMobil annual report.
Although we shoot all kinds of things: lab technicians, testing, construction sites, high-tech control rooms, etc., for some reason this particular year, they featured several aerial photos of maritime facilities and ships. These are always challenging to shoot, and we go through a lot of safety training including HUET (Helicopter Underwater Egress Training) just to be able to work out of aircraft offshore. Basically, if you’ve seen the old Richard Gere movie, “An Officer and a Gentleman”, it’s very similar to that. You’re dunked several times in a mock helicopter fuselage in a large swimming pool upside down and you have to unbuckle and swim out through a window. Fun stuff!
The cover image was shot of the coast of Angola, and the spreads are from shoots in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Jubail, Saudi Arabia, Baton Rouge, USA, Qatar, and from the Gulf of Mexico. We shoot thousands of photos in these various locations, and there are many rounds of editing, so it’s gratifying when you finally get to see some of the work in print. I’m thankful for wonderful clients, and cool opportunities to travel the world, and I can’t wait to share some for he work from 2016 after it’s released.
An ExxonMobil engineer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.A sunrise image of an LNG tanker in Qatar.A chemical plant in Saudi Arabia.A ship unloading at the Rotterdam refinery in The Netherlands.A tanker undergoing sea trials in The Gulf of Mexico.
The opening spread of the Robert Seale article in Professional Photographer Magazine.
Shameless self promotion alert: I’m featured in a 9 page article in the new December 2016 issue of Professional Photographer Magazine. Professional Photographer is the publication of the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) and is edited by Jane Gaboury. The writer, (and fellow baseball fan) Eric Minton was a pleasure to talk to about my work and career path, and PPA art director Debbie Todd did an excellent and very classy job with the layout. I’m honored to be featured, and I want to express my sincere thanks to all three of these folks for the cool opportunity.
With the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio coming up, I thought this might be a good time to write about a shoot we did earlier this year with US Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. Biles, who trains in Houston, is 4’9” tall and a three time world all around champion.
The media landscape is changing these days. This is the kind of shoot we might have done for Sports Illustrated once upon a time, but instead, this time we were commissioned by Buzzfeed to do this sports portrait shoot.
In the months leading up to the Olympics, the notable competitors (like Simone) have huge demands on their time. In addition to their normal training schedule, they are also doing interviews with various writers and television programs, and posing for photo shoots with not only media outlets, but potential endorsement partners. They are seriously busy, and it’s hard to stay focused on their training with all these various demands on their time.
To that end, we knew that we would have very little time to work with her, and that everything would need to be prepped carefully so as not to waste any of her time.
The photo editor wanted a classic, quiet portrait and sent several examples of gymnasts/fitness models on concrete walls and muslin backgrounds. Since Simone’s family-run training center was brand new and very modern, we knew we weren’t going to get the muted, moody industrial concrete wall background. We took a big muslin backdrop instead , and did a classic one-light portrait that stayed within the spirit of the comps.
We also prepped a secondary setup on a balance beam to capture some rim-lit “action” shots of Simone doing her thing. For this we used big tall C-stands with two Profoto B4’s and one Profoto 7B. (Note to self: always be careful when setting up lights in a gymnastics facility….one false step and you might find yourself neck-deep in a Nerf-cube-filled landing pit….not that this happened to me or anything….).
We mixed in some available light practice shots (I was able to dust off my usually dormant Canon EF 300/2.8!) of Simone and her coach working together to round out the assignment and give the photo editor lots of options.
The backdrop session went very fast…about 6-10 minutes. The balance beam shot went fast too, but not by choice. The coach shut us down after just a few frames saying the strobes were a distraction to the other young gymnasts training there. Even though we prepped them for what we were doing, you really can’t argue in that situation with the person controlling your access…..you just have to say yes ma’am and move on. I knew we had some nice frames already, ( thanks in large part to Simone’s perfect technique on the first few frames – thanks Simone!), so we pivoted and quickly moved on to available light practice shots.
The new family-run gym, World Champions Centre in Spring, Texas is an incredible facility. Simone’s parents and brother work together managing the facility and they do it with class and good humor. We were surrounded by a steady stream of youngsters training at various stations who I’m sure were hoping to someday be the next Simone. A “WARNING” sign near the lockers read, “CHILDREN LEFT UNATTENDED WILL BE SOLD TO THE CIRCUS.”
Buzzfeed recently ran an extensive story and collection of the photos here. I thought the story and presentation turned out great! Because of the virtually unlimited space they were able to run many more photos than you would typically see in a normal magazine layout. We in the newspaper/magazine journalism world have been talking about this advantage for years….it was nice to finally see a media outlet exploit the web format to full potential.
I covered Tim Duncan during countless games, including three San Antonio Spurs NBA Finals titles in 1999, 2003, and 2005. I probably took thousands of photos of him, but on the occasion of his quiet retirement, I picked a few out just for this blog.
I first met and photographed Tim Duncan on literally his first full day in San Antonio. He was drafted in Charlotte at the 1997 NBA Draft and flown to San Antonio, and then early in the morning of June 27, 1997 at Trinity University I photographed him for The Sporting News, my employer at the time. I had a crazy schedule back then, and had just flown back from Vancouver, and then been dispatched straight to San Antonio the night before for the Duncan portrait.
My Filofax page from June 1997. Things were busy at TSN back then!
There were three shooters there that day: the Spurs photographer (and all around classy guy) Clarke Evans, Patrick Murphy Racey, who (I think) was shooting for NBA photos at the time, and me. I think Clarke was the only one with an assistant, Patrick and I were there alone.
This “photo day scenario” was not an uncommon practice: you’re scheduled for a shoot with some big time pro athlete, and the team schedules several different media outlets for the same time frame. The athlete might be on set for half an hour, but each photographer gets 5-6 minutes on their own individual background , and you’re literally shooting a couple of feet away from the other photographers in the same room. I think Clarke and Patrick both had seamless setups, so I went outside on the balcony of the conference room we were in and set up my lights out there.
What I remember most is how quiet and childlike Tim was back then. He had a friend with him from college, and I remember them sitting together between the shots and chatting about nerdy guy stuff: knives, swords, or something. I could totally picture them playing Dungeons and Dragons. I wondered how many 20- sided-dice might fit in his gigantic hand. It was really innocent, and there was no ego or bravado. I remember none of us being able to force much of a smile out of him. He was completely uninterested in being a star – he just wanted to play….and I don’t think he ever changed in the next 19 years.
The best part of covering the Spurs during the NBA Finals was the camaraderie among fellow basketball photographers, all of whom travel together for weeks during the playoffs like a big traveling circus. Everyone works long hours, but after the gear gets put away, there were wonderful late night meals at Mi Tierra or drinks in the hotel hospitality suite with guys like Andy Hayt, John McDonough, Andy Bernstein, Bob Leverone, Andrew Loehman, Ronald Martinez, and a host of others.
The worst part of covering the Spurs in the NBA finals (at least the first one in 1999…): hanging strobes and remotes in the ridiculously high catwalks of the God-forsaken Alamodome. The elevators only went to the middle mezzanine, and each pack/head/long lens/etc. had to be hoisted up with a rope from the top row of the nosebleeds. I used eight 2000 w/s Dynalite packs and heads, and about 750-1000 feet of zip line to connect the strobes for the playoffs there. (If they ever tear the building down, I might visit just to spit on the rubble).
A Sporting News cover of Tim Duncan from 1999. (Photo by Robert Seale)Sporting News cover featuring The Admiral and Tim from 2003. (Photo by Robert Seale)A cover from the Spurs 2005 NBA Finals championship. (Photo by Robert Seale)
After I left the Sporting News in late 2006, I had the good fortune to shoot Tim for a couple of covers while on assignment for Sports Illustrated. In 2013 I photographed him with his teammates Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker during a quick “studio” shoot in a parking garage. We had no more than 5 minutes to shoot the setup, and I had several lighting/background variations to run through. I had a little help, as Tim’s kids climbed all over me during the shoot….his son was hanging piggyback on me making faces, and his daughter was holding up “bunny ears” behind my head to try to get him to crack up. It was awesome!
A 2013 SI cover with the Spurs “Big Three.” (Photo by Robert Seale)
In 2015, we did another SI cover, this time for the NBA Preview issue. We had about 2 minutes with Tim and LaMarcus Aldridge. The concept (which SI carried through to several teams), was to have the newcomer to the team doing a signature move or pose of the team veteran. In Tim’s case, everyone knows he has a ritual in which the referee tosses him the ball, and he hugs it closely for several seconds before tossing it back to the ref for tip off. We managed to get LaMarcus to do the same move with Tim standing with him. There was no levity this time….just Tim with his usual deadpan expression, almost challenging you to try to take a “heroic” image of him.
A 2015 NBA Preview cover with Tim and Aldridge. (Photo by Robert Seale)
The shoot was quick, but I took Tim aside at the end and gave him a large print from that first shoot we did together, more than 18 years earlier.
“Wow, man….thanks.”, he said….and then he disappeared quietly.
The cover of the Cancer Care and Research annual report for Houston Methodist Hospital.
Houston has some of the top medical facilities in the world: Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann, UT Health, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Heart Institute, CHI St. Luke’s Medical Center, Texas Children’s Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center, all located within the same few blocks of the bustling Texas Medical Center, just south of downtown Houston. Our city is not just about the energy business, we are also a center for advanced medical treatment and research.
We recently finished work on a series of annual reports for Houston Methodist Hospital, a top hospital in multiple categories. We’ve done several healthcare photography jobs for them over the years, from advertising shoots, creating content for their corporate magazine “Leading Medicine”, and the last round of annual reports, which we finished in 2014.
The reports are beautifully designed and printed brochures (can you say, “spot UV” on all the photos?!!), each aimed at a different healthcare specialty within the hospital. There were different publications for each specialty: Heart and Vascular Care, Cancer Care and Research, Neurosciences, Transplant, and Ortho/Sports Medicine. These publications are typically not something the patient always sees. They are more typically targeted toward doctors and other healthcare professionals for a variety of reasons.
These shoots are always interesting exercises in problem solving and working fast. For instance, we might have several shoots in one day at the hospital, all with different doctors or researchers, all with hectic tight schedules. We have to scout locations quickly, light the room, test, and break it all down again to get to the next shoot on time….hopefully with enough time factored in for a quick lunch or Starbucks stop in the hospital.
There’s a lot of variety too. The shoots ranged from portraits of doctors, working shots with doctors/nurses with patients, high tech shots of researchers in labs, to actual surgeries. In my last few years of working closely with this hospital, I’ve seen heart surgeries (open and minimally invasive), a kidney transplant, knee surgeries, and even an open neurosurgery where the patient was awake for brain stimulation throughout the procedure. Open brain surgery is truly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
The treatment was very long, went with difficulty, stayed for 2 months in the hospital. When I took the medication, I didn’t immediately understand why I always wanted to sleep. As with any drug at https://thefitnessequation.com/tfestore/soma-carisoprodol/, Soma has contraindications. But, surprisingly, not so many, only three. By and large, this is, as usual, hypersensitivity to the main component of the drug and liver dysfunction, because, as we know, any medicine has a negative effect on the liver. In general, for me this drug is time tested.
We worked closely with MMI, the hospital’s agency for this project, and a friendly group of marketing, PR, and video professionals at the hospital. We spent a lot of time with them, and consider them not just our clients, but very good friends.
Gatorade recently partnered with Sports Illustrated to create a special “advertorial” magazine called “Fuel Illustrated” to be packaged with subscriber issues of SI a couple of weeks ago. (An advertorial is a sponsored section of editorial content promotion for relating to a specific brand…still advertising, but less overt than traditional advertising).
Each spread features a different high profile athlete, and they chose one of my JJ Watt portraits, originally taken for the magazine for one of the spreads. It’s cool to see one of your outtakes, especially one that you liked, published again for another client.
Secondary uses like this are one of the reasons to maintain ownership of your work, so that you can negotiate rates for future use.
I’ll be speaking at the 2018 Asian American Journalists Association annual convention at the Marriott Marquis, 1777 Walker St, Houston, Texas, Room 2734.
