I’ve noticed a trend. People really like my staggered setup, multiple light group/team photos and it seems I’ve been asked to shoot them quite a bit lately, which is ok by me because they are fun to do. When Milwaukie’s coach called me up wanting to take a cool photo for the team, I said no problem. being a former Mustang myself, I always jump at the chance to shoot photos for my Alma Mater. Plus, they are literally 8 blocks from my studio, so the commute is good. :). When talking about setting aup a shoot time he mentioned they get done with practice at 7pm, which was perfect since sunset was 8pm. I thought it would be cool to shoot the photo away from the high school field and just a few blocks from the school (and my office) is a boat ramp/tiny little beach area along the Willamette River. I thought it would be perfect and it was. Again i used 4 Alien Bee lights and a couple of speedlights, using my now patented “gaff tape the crap out of the strobe and put it on the person’s back” method of getting light where I need it in the group. Here are a couple frames of the setup (that’s my stud intern Nick checking to make sure everything is firing):

I also video taped the whole shoot, Nick told me all the cool photographers video tape themselves and post it online and I want to be cool, so, once I figure out how to edit the video and such I’ll post it. Once again the Vagabond proved to be a true workhorse, firing all the lights without any problem. This time, I hard wired 3 of the lights together and fired three lights on one wizard, to free up pocket wizards for the speedlights. I need more pocket wizards!

After the team photo was done I pulled one of the seniors aside, he had booked with me to shoot his portraits next week, to make a cool photo of him for that. I basically used the same setup as the team photo, just had him stand close to the light I would use as a key and then by happy accident I got some nice fill from the other lights in the setup and it turned out nice. I’m happy.

I had a last minute assignment this morning to shoot a photo for the Portland Business Journal to go with a story about a new class at PCC. In the fall, the school will begin to teach auto shop students to work on Hybrid cars. The assignment called for a photo of some students working on a Hybrid, so I used a canon speedlight and a pocketwizard and placed them in the engine and had the students go to work.

The people over at PocketWizard liked my Beavers ring light photos and mentioned me on their blog yesterday (here). I thought that was pretty cool.

……another business portrait.

Just trying to make an half way decent photo in a 10th floor conference room.

I shot this story a few weeks ago and today it ran on the Life cover in the USA Today. It’s a story about the life of William Young, the author of a book called “The Shack”. I shot him at Multnomah Falls and at his daughter’s home in NE Portland.

My favorite event, bar far, to shoot every year is the state track meet in Eugene. I wasn’t sure if I was going to shoot it this year, but I got a bunch of calls from various newspapers around the state and decided to go down. I was a little tired after shooting a wedding until midnight last night, but the great light, great emotion and great action of this event woke me right up. Here are a couple images I like and there are a bunch more on my Sports Shooter page.

I was shooting for 4 daily’s and 1 weekly newspaper. I hitched a ride with LE Baskow and a couple of reporters from the Tribune and spent the entire ride back home editing and transmitting from the car. Worked out perfectly, I buried my face in my computer and by the time I was done sending to everyone I needed to send to, we were home. Fastest trip from Eugene to Portland ever, or so it seemed.

Spent the morning shooting people turning in their ballots. Here is a photo that USA Today used in the “Day in pictures gallery”, here.

And here is a photo that the USA Today used from today in the primary night photo gallery, here.

A couple more “people turning in ballots” photos, here.

The USA Today ran the portrait I shot on Friday in today’s paper. On 1A even. Here is the online version.

I love that Oregon is in the center of the political world, for the next week anyway. Today John McCain came to town and spoke about the environment at a Portland company that makes wind turbines. You can see my take on the Getty wire, here. The New York Times used a photo, here as did the USA Today, here and the Boston Globe, here and the National Post in Canada, here. Obama is coming back this weekend and the primary is in 8 days so I suspect this little political hotbed will get even hotter this week. I can’t wait.

When I woke up Thursday morning, I had nothing to do today. But as often happens in the world of photojournalism, that changed real fast. My phone felt like it never stopped ringing Thursday. First a call from USA Today asking me to shoot a portrait, no problem. Then a couple hours later, the Daily Mail in London calls and needs a portrait of a guy claiming to be related to the Royal Family. Apparently, he is 309th in line to the thrown. The thing about this was that they called me at 3pm and needed the photo by 8am the next morning. So, I hit the phones and juggle the schedule around and try to get a hold of the subject and schedule the other shoot to not conflict. Finally I get all the ducks in a row and schedule the Daily Mail shoot for 6:30am so I can make the London deadline and the USA Today shoot for 9am. Then, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama decide to come to town this morning and throw a huge wrench in everything. Reuters calls me and wants me to cover Hillary while their regular Portland guy shoots Barack. The problem is that the Hillary event is at 9:30, have to be there by 8:30 for the Secret Service to give you the special treatment (cavity search). So, back to the phones. I knew I would be ok with the first job, I could shoot and transmit that by 7:15 or so and make it to Doernbecher in plenty of time. But now I had to try and move around my second assignment, so I give her a call and the latest she can go is 11:30. That’s going to be cutting it close, but it will have to do. Here is the image from shoot #1:

Wesley Berger , who claims to be a descendant of the Royal Family poses for a portrait at Gino’s Resturant in Portland, Oregon, USA on May 9, 2008.

Shot and sent with time to spare. Next I head up Pill Hill to the hospital to get in place for Hillary. Luckily, they have table and wi-fi setup so sending from the event will be a breeze. I figure I need to leave by 10:58 to get to the next assignment in time. 8:40 rolls around and the tiny outdoor courtyard begins to fill up with doctors and sick children. It’s cold out. 9:15 they bring out some blankets, 9:45 the traveling press corps comes in, so you figure it will start soon. But no, 10:40 Hillary finally graces us (and the sick, cold children) with her presence. How hard is it to show up on time to the first event of the day? I was annoyed because I only had a very short time to make some pictures, so I get busy.

US Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton (D-NY) waves to children peering through a window during a roundtable discussion on health care at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon May 9, 2008. REUTERS/Craig Mitchelldyer

You can see more from my file here. So anyway, I shoot as long as I can, run to my car and sent 3 photos while driving to the next assignment. I made it with a couple minutes to spare, shot some portraits and then went back to my car to file more Hillary photos. I’d post one of the final job photos, but the story will publish next week so I have to wait. Anyway, so after sending to Reuters, I go back to the office and file to USA Today, run a DVD to FedEx Kinko’s and then go home to say hi to my wife and kids before coming to the airport to fly down to San Diego for a wedding tomorrow. Whew! Anyway, so now I’m on my way down south and I will be staying an extra day to hang out with my brother who lives down there. We are going to go to a Padres game Sunday, should be fun!

I shot a story yesterday for the USA Today that brought me to Multnomah Falls (among other places). I’ll post some more photos from that after it runs in the next couple weeks (it’s a Life section cover story), but while I was there I snapped this quick cliche’ frame. I like it though.

Yesterday I shot the St. Baldricks event downtown. The event is a fundraiser for children’s cancer research. A great cause and a fun event. Here are a few frames I shot for the organization.

They packed the Barracuda club downtown and 300 or so people shaved their heads.

I shot this event last year as well, and shot a photo of this same kid shaving his sisters head.

I also setup the ring light photo booth which was pretty popular.

I was assigned by a football magazine to go and shoot a spread of a cheerleader on the University of Oregon Campus yesterday. I had no idea what I was going to shoot until I got there, I was hoping for some sun and it was a great day in Eugene. Warm, slight wind, great light. So we just walked around the campus until I saw something that looked good for a photo. Here are a few of my favs.

I also learned that Comcast is shooting a reality TV show about the Oregon cheerleaders. They had tryouts yesterday (and the rest of the week) and had a film crew in tow. I guess it will be out this summer. Look for it.

I had never really walked around the actual UO campus much besides the sports venues, it’s a really nice campus, lots of cool old buildings mixed with new buildings, made for some great backdrops.

Today was “Media Day” for the Portland Beavers, the AAA team for the San Diego Padres. Every year I shoot mugs and some portraits for the team for the program covers, etc. Every year I’m running around like a freak trying to grab different people for different photos, so this year I decided to setup a remote camera and a ring light and setup a station for the guys to shoot their own photos while I was doing other things. I hooked up a pocket wizard to a foot switch, so they just sat down, made whatever face and hit the foot switch. Here are a couple of my favs.

LEFT: Chase Headley and Matt Antonelli, rated the #1 and #2 prospects in the Padres system. RIGHT: New Beavers manager Randy Ready. There are a few more on my Sports Shooter page too. Also, there is a gallery on the Beavers site, here. Opening day in two days!

Here are a few photos from my coverage of Barack Obama’s rally in Portland this morning. I think it was worth getting up at 5:30, getting to the venue by 6:45, waiting around for 2.5 hours, I made some decent frames. I wish I could shoot more of this stuff, I love it. I also broke out the 4×5 Crown Graphic, but those photos didn’t turn out quite how I had hoped. I’ll try again when Hilary comes through in a couple weeks.

Here is how the Register-Guard used one of my remote photos from Wednesday night. Gotta love a paper that runs the photos HUGE.

I spent today shooting a belly dancer clothing catalog. Here are a couple frames.

Spent the day over at KPAM Radio shooting photos of on-air personalities for future promos and print ads. We had two sets setup, each with 4-5 lights and my favorite make-up artist, Nicole Wagner, making everyone look better than they already do. The first set was a simple black backdrop for some basic head shots, the second set was a white backdrop and more of a 3/4 or full body shot, that is where we had more fun too. Here are a few of my favs.

Stace and Liz Gordon walk on the rocky beach near the Yaquina Head lighthouse on Sunday February 24, 2008. The Gordon’s aren’t anti-religious, they just don’t pay any attention to it. In the survey covered they fit under the religious “tradition” of “nothing in particular.”

Here is a link to the USA Today story I shot that ran today. They sent me to Newport to shoot the Gordon’s doing their regular Sunday activity that does not include going to church, in this case a walk on the beach near the lighthouse. Here is the photo that ran in the paper: