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This image was made recently in a club. When I saw the purple lights on the black vinyl I got my long lens (70-200mm f/4) and shot wide open. This lens has image stabilization which really helps for low light shots.

This is Solomon on his boat on his birthday. Something I like to do is explore reflections in a mirror, which I’ve done here. We’re in the shade of the canopy which evens the light out on his face (no shadows). I tried to make a split-tone out of this, but the top left hand corner was problematic as it is the lightest part of the frame and became distracting. By leaving it B/W, it’s much less pronounced.

Every one of my weddings has a few images that stand on their own and truly capture the essence of the entire day. I am let into very intimate places. This is Charlie and Samira moments after being married. I love this series. You can feel her love for him. It’s so tender.

This image is a good example of how fences are coming down and lines are blurred between different areas of photography. This is my friend Kylie, at SF Lovefest, who had ridden the Pink Mammoth float during the parade and was now fanning herself with a Supperclub fan while standing on their float. It looks as though we set the whole thing up, but I had my 70-200mm and she was just having fun. I followed her with my camera and kept firing, hoping for a winner. This image was later used for promotion.

North Beach in San Francisco is so lit up, you can shoot at midnight with no tripod! When I approached this scene, I could tell it had the makings of a photograph; all the lights and windows set against the dark of the street and sky at night. What’s funny is, I’m using a wide angle lens, so the guy in the bottom left has no idea he’s in my frame and has turned around to see what I’m photographing.

This image was made at the very end of an engagement session with Anne and Dan. Something I learned from Greg Gorman was, once the goal of a shoot has been accomplished, there may still be time for creating a personal vision. After we’d got a handful of good shots, I had an idea and asked them if they would be into it. I wanted to capture their elegance and sophistication along with the child-like fun of anticipating the big day. So, I positioned them like this and when I asked Anne to look up at Dan, she lit up like a Christmas tree. Click… The moment lasted a second. In subsequent shots, she is still smiling, but not like this…

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That is the eclipsing moon up in the sky, from the other night. I waited a long time for it to come back out and although it was murky, it was then close enough to the bridge to get them both in the same frame with my 24-70mm. This image has been converted to B/W and then split-toned in Lightroom.

Last night I went to my parents house for dinner, where my Dad gave me an article from the ARCE (American Research Center in Egypt) Bulletin written about his brother who we recently lost to leukemia. He was 62. He spent much of his later years in Egypt heading archaeological preservation projects. I recently posted a video slide show of our family reunion in Maine, last summer. Here is what was published in the Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo.

Robert (Chip) Vincent (1945-2007)
By Michael Jones

On Monday 5 November 2007 a memorial was held for Robert (Chip) Vincent at the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). Over 100 of Chip’s colleagues and friends attended. When he died on 11 October, aged 62, Chip had been battling with leukemia for over a year. His death brings to an end a distinguished career in cultural heritage preservation in Egypt and elsewhere. At the time of his death Chip was still working on the final stages of a book which he had conceived for ARCE some three years ago. It is a retrospective volume about the 50 conservation projects he directed and successfully completed for ARCE during his 12 years with this organisation. It is therefore a good place to start to recall Chip’s achievement. It is also a clear testimonial to the way that Chip saw all of those who worked with him as participants in a shared accomplishment.

Chip came to Egypt in 1994 to set up a new venture for ARCE because it had just received a generous grant from the United States Agency for International Development for the conservation and preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage. Out of this the Egyptian Antiquities Project was created as a unit within ARCE. The ARCE director at that time was Mark Easton, and between them, Easton and Chip forged a new mission for ARCE to the extent that the ARCE of today is very much their legacy.

There was another fortunate coinciding of events and people. Abdel-Halim Nureddin, Gaballa Ali Gaballa and Zahi Hawass have all been thoroughly supportive, widening the scope of collegiality to include their staff and all the inspectors of the Supreme Council of Antiquities with whom ARCE has worked.

Chip’s background was in archaeology and management. He participated in over 30 excavations and surveys in many countries including Britain, Cyprus, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. During the 1980s he directed projects for the Sultan of Oman, developing water resources, and immediately prior to Egypt he spent six years as the executive director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&ampM University.

Some of the first projects established in those early years of USAID-funded ARCE conservation projects were in Historic Cairo: at the Bait Al-Razzaz, the Zawiyah of Farag Ibn Al-Barquq, and the Sabil of Nafissa Al-Baydah. Outside Cairo, collaborative projects began with Chicago House at the Luxor Temple and Medinet Habu and with New York University at Abydos, recognising that the very raw material of Egyptology, comprising many of the most famous Pharaonic sites and monuments, require urgent conservation to safeguard their future survival.

Within a year of the initial grant USAID was confident enough to award ARCE further funding in 1995, which fell to Chip to administer, for conservation projects at the monasteries of St Anthony and St Paul and the Ottoman Fort at Qusseir (Red Sea) and in the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of the Kings. Each new project increased the number of colleagues and friends and the professionals who directed and participated in them and created an enduring team of colleagues who became friends with a common vocation dedicated to the preservation of Egypt’s cultural heritage. That is how Chip saw us.

Chip was also an accomplished photographer, especially in black and white, and mounted several exhibitions of his work from his schooldays onwards. He lamented the passing of conventional photography in favour of digital, as much for the risk posed to the survival of photographers’ skills as for the quality of images, but he accepted it and started exploring ways in which it could enhance project documentation. His time in Oman planted a love of the desert in Chip’s heart which he developed to the full in Egypt, organising and leading four-wheel drive expeditions which he planned meticulously. He once admitted to me that he enjoyed the planning, obtaining reliable maps (when possible), establishing GIS points and discussing the routes with friends more than the trips themselves. He relished the difficulties. Particularly memorable was his triumphant return from the difficult drive between the Roman quarries at Mons Porphyrites and Mons Claudianus in the Eastern Desert. Chip was also a keen scuba diver and not only enjoyed diving in the Red Sea but also promoted two underwater conservation-archaeology projects for ARCE.

Chip’s last summer was spent with his family at their new home in Maine, where he was able to work on his retrospective book and, among other excursions, take a four-day sail on a tall ship with his daughter. His wonderful sense of humour and ability to conduct himself with dignity and care for others, especially during his last struggle, were inspirational. He is survived by his wife, Fran, and daughters, Sarah and Suzannah.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Originally, I’d planned to be at Mono Lake for last night’s lunar eclipse, but decided against it due to the storm. However, yesterday afternoon the skies were clearing just enough for us here in the Bay Area to witness a partially eclipsed full moon rise. The Golden Gate Bridge was where I wanted to be. I grabbed my tripod and the rest of my gear and took off. Traffic through the city was light. I don’t know if you’ve ever been able to go from Market to Lombard, on Van Ness without ever hitting a red light, but I did it yesterday and felt as if the traffic Gods had escorted me across all of San Francisco. I got to the Marin Headlands around 5:30 and while I thought there might be 25-30 photographers lined up along the fence, there were only 3. One of them had a compass and they were discussing exactly where the moon would be rising in relation to the bridge. Based on what they were saying, I expected to get a great shoot of the moon through the bridge. But no. These guys were waaaaay off and while they continued to look at the compass, I noticed the top of the moon poke up over the eastern hills. I wasn’t terribly impressed as there was about 15 minutes of clarity before it ducked behind the clouds. I shot it through a hole in the cyclone fence.

Then, as the sky darkened, the lights from the bridge created a brilliant contrast against the city. I shot for a long time, hoping the moon would come back out. It made a murky appearance later on, but I was freezing and it was time for a beer. I got one good shot.

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This is Robbie Lemos, who decided to build his own modern dream house in Montclair in the Oakland hills and now shares his visions with a host of new people eager to live in one of his new homes. We met almost 2 years ago as I drove by the property day after day, watching his beauty take form. It’s rather large with clean lines and in the living room, dj turntables come out of the ceiling star trek style. I could go on and on about how dope the house is, but then I would be stealing the thunder from his tour. This image was made last summer late in the afternoon. I love reflections… and windows too. They have the ability to create a ghosting effect. Here there’s a little of both. But in the end, it’s the glass with ice against a black background that anchors it all so tightly.
We will be doing poolside location work at Robbie’s crib during our week long workshop, details tba.

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This was an image shot for a client that manufactures high end robes. I wanted to capture the feeling of having a luxurious robe draped over your body in the warmth of the afternoon sun; to create a sense of peace and calm to associate with the robe. To achieve this image, I had the model walking slowly on the beach directly at the sun and the ocean and used a lens hood to keep my 70-200mm lens in the shadow and prevent lens flare.

[taken w/ iPhone]

See if you can figure this out. It’s a little whacky…

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When you spend enough time looking through the lens, you can start to see the world as if you were a camera. After all, a camera is really just a very adjustable third eye with a recorder on it. Recently, my friend Komal picked me up at the airport and while at his house, he recounted the celebrity rockstar party I’d missed while away. When he put his slash costume on, I went for my camera. I knew what kind of image I could make with my 70-200mm lens and the light from his two-story, 16 window living room wall was awesome to say the least. In Lightroom, the image has been split toned to add some warmth to the hightlights and a cool tone to the shadows.

Most of the time, it’s best to keep the sun behind you or off to the side. But sometimes, shooting right at it can work. In this image of Klara, it’s over her shoulder in the top right hand part of the frame. The sunlight hitting the glass of the lens directly created a soft milky cast over the whole image, which was my goal. It’s just an effect called lens flare and it’s what hoods are designed to control, but only for sun coming in at an angle. To address direct light lens flare, I could have just moved myself a few inches to the left, putting her between me and the sun, thereby creating a shadow for my lens. Shooting into the sun during the day is a great time to manually turn your flash on. You need it to fill in the dark shadows created by the bright sunlight. This is called fill-flash and I will discuss it more in another entry.

Here is a video that highlights Megg’s journey on ANTM.

Recently, I was lucky enough to spend 3 days photographing Megg Morales, who was on cycle 7 of America’s Next Top Model. She is very sweet, loves rock and roll… and she’s one hell of a model. You would think that all you’d have to do is point the camera at her and press the button. While that’s almost true, it’s still a lot of hard work and at times very stressful. If you’ve seen an episode of The Shot on VH1, that’s exactly what it’s like. This afternoon we had 1.5 hours in the dunes with 2 models. In teams of three, 2 people assisted while the third was shooting. As a team, we got 45 minutes with each model, which meant I got 15 minutes with Megg. So I thought for a moment and asked her to sit down at the very edge of the dune and play with the sand. The late afternoon sun was hitting her just right and when I asked her to throw the sand in the air, I saw something happen. We did this over and over and I was getting 3-4 shots off with each throw. There are some other good ones, but this is my favorite. I was about 15 feet below here and maybe 35 feet away, at the bottom of the dune.

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This is an image made this morning for a client who’s submitting images for modeling in a Safeway advertisement. In my studio, I have 6 large skylights and 7 big windows. For this image I drew the shades on 2 of the windows and one side in order to create a bit of shadow for the background. I moved her into a position where one of the skylights serves as a hair light and a glass door camera-right provides a main light that softly falls across her face sideways and puts a nice catch light in her eyes.
i am a little troubled by the amount of light on her shoulders.
you can see the 12 or so select shots here

http://www.mreclipse.com/Special/LEprimer.html

There is a lunar eclipse scheduled for February 21st and I’m planning to go photograph it rise over Mono Lake. I’ve never been there, but have always wanted to go. Just recently, I started reading Fred Miranda’s forum on his valuable-to-any-photographer website, www.fredmiranda.com. He has awesome Photoshop plugins and I encourage you to visit. It was in the landscape forum that I just read about the eclipse coming up in a matter of days.

These are the other ways I processed the image from yesterday, in Lightroom.

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The sun creates unbelievable, ever changing light and shadow all day long. The key is finding the right balance of the two elements in combination with which to create an image. In terms of lighting, this is nothing more than direct, winter afternoon sun, shining on Klara’s face. She’s in a large room that has 4 big windows passing a finely sliced block of direct sunlight. I asked her to lean forward into the sun till she could feel it on her face. I must say, that she was NOT in the mood for being photographed. She was complaining how she didn’t look good, didn’t feel good and just didn’t want the camera pointed at her. But she didn’t see what I saw and I convinced her to humor me. The warmth of the sun relaxed her and she let go for just a moment. I have about 25 images, all so different. But I really like this one. There are a few others I will share in the next few days, along with the other ways I chose to process this image in Lightroom.

Wow! I was in shock this afternoon when I logged into the web site control panel and had a look at traffic over the past few months. Since I started writing the blog, I have becoming passionate about creating a place to share my photography with anyone who stops by. Well, traffic has risen sharply since last August and the number of pages served in the month of the January was 12,663. Thanks to everyone who keeps coming back. There’s a lot more excitement to come!!

Here is an image I made of my friend Lucky, entertaining us at his house. It’s the same evening I made this one of our friend, Guy, laughing in the kitchen. This is where I love having top gear. I’m shooting slow moving action in extremely low light but it’s no problem using my 5D with a 16mm lens at 2.8 with a film speed of 3200 ISO. Shooting RAW and processing in Lightroom allows my final vision to be realized. If you care about your images AT ALL, start shooting RAW. Even if you don’t understand it. Just do it. Trust me. Later you’ll understand and thank me. I promise. Plus, memory is cheap as chips these days, so go for the big SanDisk cards. That’s the brand I trust more than any other in the card market. As for the multiple card readers, I’ve heard from a top pro that he experienced an error during import and many of his files just went missing. Unless you’re on a tight schedule, I would download one card at a time. I use the SanDisk reader.

While shooting the helicopter skiing adventure last March, I kept noticing my own reflection of the shiny chrome button on the video camera. I also noticed the simplicity of the three-mode control button and while looking at myself in the reflection of the button at the same time, how the whole scene pretty much summed up my life. I suppose you could substitute “off” with “sleep if you wanted to, but I like it just the way it is.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the living room talking with my friend John when, out the window, I noticed the moon hanging very low in the sky. Now, while they do make attachments that allow you to snap your SLR body onto a regular telescope, I don’t have one. What I do have is a 200mm lens with a 1.4x lens extender, giving me 280. I dropped my exposure compensation down 2 stops and setup on the railing. Fortunately shooting the moon itself is a fast exposure and doesn’t require a tripod. I cropped way down to get this. But it’s great! Look at the detail. I love digital. I shot this with my Canon 5D.

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This was an image that I hadn’t planned and never would have created had I not had my camera on my shoulder and ready to fire. We were on the ferry, leaving dock, as this entire scene started forming. The moody sky and the oily look of the water with the weathered dock was magical. But we were moving away quickly, so I got a series of shots as we left and the view kept changing. But this is the one. What’s crazy is that original file of this image is almost 17 megapixels and zooming in allows you to actually recognize the faces of those people waving goodbye.