by Jonathan Blaustein

Much later in the day, David and I stopped off at a tiny little rest stop off I-25, just South of Socorro. A brown sign, made for tourists, announced we were on the famed Camino Real, also known as the Jornada del Muerto. The journey of death. Finally, it all made sense.

I knew it would be a dangerous day hours earlier. Descending out of Taos and into the canyon, where the highway hugs the Rio Grande for twenty miles or so, I pulled out to pass a line of cars. It’s something I do all the time. As I finally got a clear look down the hill, a horse-trailer was backing up traffic ten cars ahead. I tried to merge back, but there was nowhere to go. (In the exact spot where a family died a few years ago.)

Desperately, I jammed the gas and barely wedged myself in just beyond the nose of a semi-truck hauling pressurized chemicals. Releasing a pent up breath, seconds later, I looked in my rear-view mirror to see the truck swerving, barely keeping it together. Not 30 minutes into my trip, and I almost ignited a firestorm of misery. Classy.

Twenty minutes later, traffic came to a stand still. Lights were flashing, sirens screaming. Not good. As I inched along, off to my right, another semi-truck had launched off the road into the rocks along the river. Hard to see how the driver could have survived. Never seen that before. Bad omen.

From there, I herky-jerked my way down past Santa Fe. Cops were everywhere, brainless drivers the norm. It was so odd, so disconcerting, that I mentioned it to the Native American woman behind the counter as I paid for my breakfast burrito at the Casino/Gas Station/Rest Stop just north of Albuquerque. (Casino Hollywood on the San Felipe Reservation, BTW.) She nodded, implacably, and said, “Yeah, one of those days. You never can tell.”

So by the time the brown sign reminded me that the Camino Real is not for the faint of heart, I was practically relieved. At least I wasn’t imagining things. One needs to keep one’s wits when heading down to the borderlands, a world populated with smugglers, junkies, truckers and dropouts. (Now that I think about it, I suppose it’s not that different from where I live.)

Why a road trip? Well, that’s an easy answer. David and I were headed South to Las Cruces, where we intended to meet up with our friends Ken and Scott. After a pit stop of a studio visit with photographer David Taylor, (the king of La Frontera) we ditched one car, piled into Ken’s Prius, and continued on towards Marfa, Texas, Art Mecca. So there’s the why. I rallied a few buddies to take a big Texas road trip, to go see some great art and write about it for you, the APE audience. Nobody died, nobody even got hurt, so in the end, it was worth it. But drama-free? Not likely.

My three friends are all photographers, and also accomplished in other aspects of the field. (An editor/publisher, a professor, & and a museum executive.) Each of us drowns daily in a sea of email, commitments, and plans. So for once, we relished the opportunity to wing it. No hotels were booked. No Yelp reviews were solicited. No idea where we were going to spend the night. Romantic? Not exactly.

When you’re 21, you don’t mind sleeping anywhere. Road Trips are just an excuse to drink way too much Mountain Dew (which lacks any other purpose), smoke too much weed, and take pictures of absolutely everything. Think about it. When you’re out in the middle of nowhere, every single fence-post seems profound. “Look man, it’s a cactus, just oozing cactus-ness. Just one more shot, OK?”

On this trip, however, I was the youngest at 37. Creaky backs and coffee-snobbery are the norm in this demo, and the idea of just stopping “wherever” for the night doesn’t work as well as it did a decade or two ago. (Though Ken did bring along some coffee-crack in a creamer cup called Stok. Look into it…)

David Taylor, desert expert, mentioned there was a town a ways North of Marfa called Van Horn. He assured us there was nothing else around for miles, so we default set that as a destination for the night. Hopped up on shitty burgers and vitamin water, the four of us drove. And drove. Mountains in the reflected moonlight are a sight to behold, but very difficult to photograph from a moving car. So they’ll exist in my memory only. (Close your eyes, and maybe you can imagine it. Charcoal gray, texture, jagged lines pushing up from the ground, no other light around.)

By the time we got to Van Horn, it was almost 11 at night. (Damn you, time change.) The decent-looking motels were the first into town, and surprise, were all booked. So there we were, sitting in the the car at a gas station, doors opened for fresh air, and that’s when the Iphones came out. Seriously? If you don’t want to TripAdvisor that crap three weeks ahead of time, what’s the point of doing it near midnight, thirty yards from the nearest hotel? We pounded the pavement for a bit, checking in at the certainly haunted Hotel El Capitan, before finally settling on a Days Inn adjacent to the off-ramp. I was confident, which was a mistake.

In these long articles, I try to keep it breezy, keep it funny, and keep moving along. But we’re what, ten paragraphs in and I haven’t even gotten to the Art yet? It’s not like this is the New Yorker, and I’m aware that you don’t have unlimited time to stare at your screen. This time, though, I have to slow down. We’ll get to the art, and the insane mashup of billionares slumming with South Texas poor folk. We’ll get there. But what my friends and I witnessed that night, in Van Horn, is worth conjuring for a couple more minutes.

We walked into the Days Inn lobby, David and I, ready to book a room. Immediately to our right, recumbent on a sofa with a TV behind it, we saw a young woman. At first glance, she looked 25, and attractive. Dark hair, nice figure. As she swooped around us to the front counter, though, we got a better look. Not a day over 20, and more likely less than that.

She would have been beautiful, and probably was until a few years before. But now? With the discoloration under her eyes, she was like a cancer-ridden raccoon, and the expression peering out was dead. Not defiant dead, like the junkies in a Mikhailov photograph, but dead in a soul-sucking, depressive way that makes you touch your wallet and lock the car door. Meth, most likely, though I suppose it could have been crack. Whatever the culprit, this girl was gone.

She handed over the key cards, and ushered us on our way. I wanted to cry. We got to the rooms, and David rushed right to the bed to see just how crappy this place was. He found…blood stains on the bed. For real. That’s the kind of detail that a better writer than I would make up, but there it was. Real blood. Perfect. As my room’s door was broken, we had to re-engage our meth-head princess, which was one more encounter than I ever wanted in my life. Her reaction, if you can believe it, was to throw the new bedding at a co-worker, and scream, “Blood stains? I don’t get paid enough for that shit.” She stormed off, never to be seen again.

Her colleague, a nice enough guy, was from India, and rocked a thick accent. At that point, you reach the “I’ll believe anything phase,” so I only grinned. Scott, who’d been to India a few times in the last couple of years, was fascinated, and chatted with the guy for a few minutes. I was shocked that he was shocked. It is America after all.

We drove around the town a bit, stopping here and there to take photographs. Once we returned to the motel, we stalked around the parking lot like quivering hunters, never straying out of eyesight of each other. Lest you think we were scaredy-cats, I’ll state that between the four of us, we’ve traveled the world, and lived in many a metropolitan city. This place was just that disturbing. Why?

Because we’d entered that part of America not often seen by Coastal Elites, or fancy-boy artists such as ourselves. The kind of place where, behind each Motel door, someone’s shooting up. Someone else is getting smacked around. And door number three has 32 Mexicans huddled together, chained, while their minder watches “Dancing With the Stars.” Tomorrow, they’ll climb back in the van for the trip to Chicago, or Raleigh, if they’re lucky.

We woke, the next morning, very glad to see the daylight. (And the Prius, for that matter. At least we had four walls to protect us, but the Prius was a sitting duck.) I surmised that there was probably not a plate of vegetables in the entire town, and my comrades concurred. So we piled back into our little Japanese rolling box, found the highway, and drove South to Marfa, where fancy coffee and fresh fruit, doubtless, awaited us.

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I wish I could scale back the amount of time I spend in front of a screen. It’s beginning to define what “being a photographer” is like these days.

via » 10 minutes with Wesley Mann this is the what.

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Nylon

Art Director: Evan Campisi
Co Art Director: Chris Segedy
Photo Director: Stephen Walker
Photo & Bookings Editor: Rhianna Rule

Photographer: Marvin Scott Jarrett

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Have a look (here).

[by Rosh Sillars]

If you don’t track where leads are coming from, there is no way to know where to put future time, effort and money.

Reviewing Google Analytics is an important part of tracking website traffic and understanding your Internet sales funnel.

Tracking clicks from your latest e-mail campaign will help you become a better e-mail marketer.

Tracking your social media statistics is important to understand what works to drive the most engaged traffic.

We have wonderful technology available at our finger tips. This doesn’t replace important old-school marketing information.  This information comes from the most important thing you can do when you finally receive that e-mail or phone call requesting your services.

Ask the right questions:

• How did they heard of you?
• Why did the prospect chose to call you?
• What images did they like the best?

Ask the questions that will make you a better marketer.

Rosh Sillars is a photographer, author, blogger, and podcaster supporting the photography community at http://www.roshsillars.com.

MarkLoundy: RT @peterhlewis: Top two officials of #CIRonline to take over management of #baycitizen in 30 days, TBC board says.

MarkLoundy: RT @peterhlewis: New #CIR bosses are addressing #baycitizen staff right now...

MarkLoundy: The @mercnews staff's great work is invisible here. Why not leverage their strength?

MarkLoundy: Where is the @mercnews photo dept on Twitter? MT @MarkConley: http://t.co/KSPXOjIm - Alex Smith tries not to be lulled to sleep by...

MarkLoundy: RT @TheBayCitizen: It's official: #baycitizen and #cir center for investigative reporting sign letter of intent to merge. Details to come.

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MarkLoundy: RT @profsivek: 20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes | LitReactor http://t.co/7YHiHVkj #mscm175

An email from the Kerrang Magazine editor came in on a Wednesday morning asking if I could do a cover shoot with pop-punk rockers All Time Low. In addition to the cover photo, they would need extra images for the story inside and a potential poster.

The band’s manager added, “We would really like to get this done in Baltimore tomorrow if possible.”

Baltimore is 200 miles away from my home in New York City. With less than 24 hours of prep time for a major shoot out of town, I went into logistics-mode overdrive.

My favorite way to travel in the Northeast is on Amtrak’s Acela business class train. It’s comfortable, there are power outlets at every seat, and there’s free wi-fi. You can also arrive at the station five minutes before your train and don’t have to deal with airport TSA agents.

But what about my gear? I needed to bring big lights for this job.

The answer is simple. Rent.

I called my pal, Baltimore resident David Hobby (yes, the Strobist himself!) and made a deal to rent some of his lighting equipment for the day.

The rest was easy. I hired Baltimore assistant Dave Buchanan, had him pick up the gear from David, and meet me at the train station.

I’ve photographed All Time Low before and the guys are always easy to work with. Here’s guitarist Jack Barakat getting some air. I shot the frame wide to show the lights.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 52mm, ISO 200, 1/250, f/16)

For my main light on the right, I used a Profoto Acute2 2400 pack in a 64” silver Paul Buff PLM and a white diffuser. I filled in on the left with a Profoto Acute2 1200 pack in a 60” Photek Softlighter II, also with a diffuser.

I used the same setup for this group shot.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 24mm, ISO 200, 1/125, f/14)

Since the guys were about to embark on a tour of the UK, the magazine wanted a “hitting the road” image. I imagine it’s been a while since they loaded their own gear, but it was fun to put them in this situation.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 48mm, ISO 500, 1/250, f/6.3)

I put a bare flash on the 1200 pack at far right up high with a warming gel to simulate the late afternoon setting sun. The 2400 pack with the 64” PLM was behind me to fill in the shadows.

I also stuck a bare bulb strobe with a blue gel inside of the van, which you can see in this image from another angle.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 42mm, ISO 500, 1/250, f/9)

The magazine came out recently with my cover shot of the four guys and five more photos inside. Everyone was happy.

I’m a big fan of renting expensive equipment when possible. Whether it’s for convenience, or to try new gear that you normally wouldn’t be able to afford, it’s the most cost-effective way to have access to every piece of photo gear in existence.

An email from the Kerrang Magazine editor came in on a Wednesday morning asking if I could do a cover shoot with pop-punk rockers All Time Low. In addition to the cover photo, they would need extra images for the story inside and a potential poster.

The band’s manager added, “We would really like to get this done in Baltimore tomorrow if possible.”

Baltimore is 200 miles away from my home in New York City. With less than 24 hours of prep time for a major shoot out of town, I went into logistics-mode overdrive.

My favorite way to travel in the Northeast is on Amtrak’s Acela business class train. It’s comfortable, there are power outlets at every seat, and there’s free wi-fi. You can also arrive at the station five minutes before your train and don’t have to deal with airport TSA agents.

But what about my gear? I needed to bring big lights for this job.

The answer is simple. Rent.

I called my pal, Baltimore resident David Hobby (yes, the Strobist himself!) and made a deal to rent some of his lighting equipment for the day.

The rest was easy. I hired a top Baltimore assistant, had him pick up the gear from David, and meet me at the train station.

I’ve photographed All Time Low before and the guys are always easy to work with. Here’s guitarist Jack Barakat getting some air. I shot the frame wide to show the lights.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 52mm, ISO 200, 1/250, f/16)

For my main light on the right, I used a Profoto Acute2 2400 pack in a 64” silver Paul Buff PLM and a white diffuser. I filled in on the left with a Profoto Acute2 1200 pack in a 60” Photek Softlighter II, also with a diffuser.

I used the same setup for this group shot.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 24mm, ISO 200, 1/125, f/14)

Since the guys were about to embark on a tour of the UK, the magazine wanted a “hitting the road” image. I imagine it’s been a while since they loaded their own gear, but it was fun to put them in this situation.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 48mm, ISO 500, 1/250, f/6.3)

I put a bare flash on the 1200 pack at far right up high with a warming gel to simulate the late afternoon setting sun. The 2400 pack with the 64” PLM was behind me to fill in the shadows.

I also stuck a bare bulb strobe with a blue gel inside of the van, which you can see in this image from another angle.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 at 42mm, ISO 500, 1/250, f/9)

The magazine came out recently with my cover shot of the four guys and five more photos inside. Everyone was happy.

I’m a big fan of renting expensive equipment when possible. Whether it’s for convenience, or to try new gear that you normally wouldn’t be able to afford, it’s the most cost-effective way to have access to every piece of photo gear in existence.

MarkLoundy: RT @BillMoyers: "People are information-rich & theory-poor." They need a story to organize the data swirling around them. http://t.co/yD ...

Still Images In Great Advertising, is a column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.

I have known Shawn Michienzi for decades throughout my career as an art buyer. I never had the honor to work with him but came close once. Shawn is a pure advertising photographer-he loves the business and brings a lot to the table when he shots a campaign. I interviewed Shawn with his West Coast rep, Kate Chase (he was sick as a dog and had a hard time finishing his sentences before breaking into a coughing fit).

Suzanne: There is a lot of propping in this ad campaign- did you shoot it in Washington, DC or Minneapolis? And how big were the sets to create these scenarios? And if not from a commercial prop house, where did you get a lot of these props?
Shawn: This campaign was created to raise awareness for a special King Tut sponsored by National Geographic and exhibiting at the Science Museum in Minnesota. Ultimately it was meant to be two-fold and gain the interest of other museums around the country for additional exhibits too. We shot in Los Angeles, in conjunction with TV spots. The sets were used from the TV spots but are all real places. The props came with the our very real talent — as in the tool guy, Johnny Long, that was his actual garage and those were his tools. Same for Lord Andrew Fairfax, the Medieval Re-enactor, he attends festivals and with the exception of the Damsel in Distress, he had all those props. And Dr. Ruehl, we photographed him in his house too, some additional propping of the dinosaurs required there.

Suzanne: This campaign seems to have your funny quirk to it- were you able to add a lot of your creative input to this campaign?
Shawn: As is sometimes the case, there were no layouts, just an idea so I did pitch some of my thoughts to the creative director and we took it from there. In this process that is the fun part. I love portraits of people with their stuff and for these, there were many ways to execute but we went with the idea that I had envisioned of having them laying down, real-people as modern-day King Tut’s, in their environment, with their collections.

Suzanne: It is really refreshing to see a hometown agency using the talents of the local photographer. Do you have a long working relationship with Carmichael-Lynch?
Shawn: Yes, I do. Was happy to do this for their budget because of my long-term relationship with the creative director. Even though print is not currently produced as frequently as it was once was, I have been fortunate to work with them at least once a year. Though I don’t ever count on the theory of repeat business coming from an Agency, after all these year’s we enjoy working together and I believe we produce some great ads, and now it feels less formal too. I get what art directors are doing, I understand it’s a process and it doesn’t bother me creatively that you have to shoot for the gutter. I just want to make beautiful images that work hard, no ego. I think if you are not working with the right people then your work is only as good as the people who hire you. The majority of the work that is risk-taking is typically not US-based so when this came in the door and it was clear we could take some risks, I was in, and it was worth it to make it happen, call in favors as needed. Along the way and because of the relationship, I was also commissioned to direct the TV spot with The Conspiracy Theorist. And I like that I am doing more and more commercial TV work. I feel this is reflective of the folks I have relationships with that are also doing more commercial/motion work. The younger creatives don’t have that much craft beyond print yet – so motion is where I see myself headed to provide value to the relationships. I have always believed you have to stay true to who you are, be passionate about what you do, find the joy in it. Be inspired. Making ads is a great day job- and I love it.

Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.

Shawn Michienzi is an award-winning photographer whose work has been featured in everything from Cannes to Communication Art. He maintains residences in LA and Minneapolis and is represented on the West Coast by Kate Chase, Brite Productions.

APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies.

 

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There’s nothing wrong with not being any good at photography. Everybody started out bad and none of us does all aspects of it well. But it’s a crying shame to want to be good at it, to spend time and money trying to be good at it, and not getting any better.

This isn’t like teaching a child to read. Positive reinforcement is your enemy. Your Facebook friends, your Twitter followers… hate you.  Instead of taking ten seconds to say. “This doesn’t work. You need to do better”. They readily push that “like” button, because it’s easy and they hope to get the same from you, but also because they’re cowards.

via Mostly True.

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The New York Times Magazine

Design Director: Arem Duplessis
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Art Director: Gail Bichler
Deputy Art Director: Caleb Bennett

Photographer: Joel van Houdt

Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Have a look (here).

[by Colleen Wainwright]

There’s no question that tools like email newsletters, trackable bit.ly URLs and other digital tools with baked-in statistics are a boon to businesses wanting to market themselves. You can test different approaches and come up with meaningful measures of how comparatively successful your efforts have been.

But one of the most effective ways of leveraging your existing marketing is even simpler than that, and woefully overlooked: keeping track of the people who refer business to you.

Think about what usually happens when you give a referral, and you’ll understand what I mean. A colleague needs a recommendation–for a plumber, a graphic designer, a stylist–and you serve one up. Often you’ll get a thank-you from the service provider (with or without accompanying graft). But imagine if along with the thank-you, that service provider came back to you with specifics of how the job went? And imagine if then, six months down the line, you received a follow-up note of thanks, along with news of another terrific job the provider had been able to do for your colleague. Provided the provider didn’t go overboard, wouldn’t actually knowing that the job(s) went well make you more likely to keep sending referrals their way? I know it does me.

The people who refer business to you are part of your extended marketing. So take care of them by keeping track of them. You can use a robust database, or a combination of a calendar and the notes field in your Address Book app. But use something. Your business depends on it.

Colleen Wainwright loves the people who refer business to her just as much as the ones who attend her lively ASMP talk on marketing, “Making People Love You Madly.”

MarkLoundy: RT @TheBayCitizen: Interim CEO @brian_c_kelley, formerly the CTO, is "honored to help The Bay Citizen through this time of transition" h ...