The Count. An outtake from Friday’s production shoot for the Santa Barbara Opera – The Marriage of Figaro hits the stage at the Granada in just under 3 weeks.
The Count. Production shoot for the SB Opera.
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Oceans 19
19 months ago, actually. I came across this today as I was editing images and although this didn’t make the cut back then I’m thinking I like it even more now than I did the original select. A little darker and more mysterious – fitting for the cold waters in February. In the time since, btw, Jenn met a man, married, had a baby girl and can still easily swim circles around me.
Dusk falls and water may be near
January 31st – 2 km of dug trenches and laid pipe threading the hillsides at 12,000′ now stretch from the spring to a water tank above the village of Gulahuayco. The completion of the Modern Gypsies’ compassionate adventure is near as dusk falls, clouds envelope and hundreds of villagers wait for the first signs of water to flow again to the village of 450. Most of the earth was moved by the stout women whose bright colors never seemed to collect the dirt.
Spirited little Monica was never far from the cameras and her smile always lit up the crew. The Quechua people (little spanish spoken) were always ready with a smile. Would the pipes hold?
Barry Williams (Greg Brady) for AOPA mag
With the holidays and then Ecuador I fell a bit behind in updating my tearsheets (published work). Here’s the charming Barry Williams, who’ll be forever known as Greg Brady. Photographed last Fall for AOPA Flight Training, a focused aviation magazine that goes out to hundreds of thousands of aviation buffs and pilots. Earlier I posted some behind-the-scenes.
They ain’t pretty but they’re happy
Portraits of the three Modern Gypsies and producer John Logan Pierson as they arrive back at the trailhead of 19,347 foot Cotopaxi. Their faces show the effort of a 24 hour push through the night for a summit sunrise. The summit, their goal for the adventure part of this 1st Compassionate Adventure, was in Eric’s words “their proudest moment”. This kind of climbing at high altitude is exhausting – both physically and mentally. In their pure go-for-it style the ‘Gypsies had never held ice axes before. I’ve climbed a lot but raging diarrhea forced my decision to turn back at 17,000′ lest I make a mess of the mountain. They suffered as well but it was the pleasurable kind, the kind you look back on and say: that..was..the..hardest..thing..Ive..ever..done.
Back from Ecuador – Compassionate Adventure
Ecuador, South America. What an epic three weeks with the Modern Gypsies trio: Taylor Filasky, John Leo Post and Eric Bach. They had won ABC’s “Expedition Impossible” race across Morocco last spring and with their newfound influence decided to combine fun, adventure and good deeds. The first up was Ecuador – and their commitment to restore water to a village of 450 in the Andes via 2km of communal trench digging and pipe laying.
Before literally digging in the action included motorcycling through Quito traffic, finding a decent Shaman for blessings prior to ascents of 16,000′ and 19,000 volcanoes (they’ve never worn crampons before), cycling along the Pan American highway, eating Cuy (guinea pigs), chasing wild horses at 12,000′ and dropping into the Amazon basin to get muddy.
We’ve got a huge amount of footage and audio that is now being logged and prepped for edit. Most of my camera time was filming on the Nikons while awesome producer and filmmaker John Logan Pierson manned the Canons. Post production is now underway with SF based Avocados and Coconuts for the first episode. I’ll be creating a short reel from my footage inspired from a lucid dream sequence while hammered from the altitude. Or perhaps too much Coca tea. Coming soon.
Here are some of my favorite still images – beginning with John in the Amazon with an eager helper :-)
compassionate adventure in Ecuador
I’m off to Ecuador early Sunday morning: a compassionate adventure with the winning 3-man team from ABC’s Expedition Impossible (which was a race across Morocco last Spring) as the Modern Gypsies explore Quito, paddle in the upper Amazon region and ascend 18,000 foot strato-volcanoes (Cotopaxi) and then on the back end of the trip dig trenches and lay pipe to restore water to a village in the Andes. We’ll be there for three weeks. I’m shooting stills and motion with one other cameraman/producer. Here’s more about the Modern Gypsies. You can also check us out via our Spot Connect satellite messenger which will be posting our messages and updates laid over a google map: This should be active once we turn the unit on in Quito Sunday night…
Our satellite updates on FB /themoderngypsies and Twitter @modern_gypsies
The Chancellor and the Allosphere
UCSB Chancellor Yang and his wife stand within the AlloSphere, a large scale immersive laboratory at the California NanoSystems Institute at the university. The AlloSphere is “a 30-foot diameter sphere built inside a 3-story near-to-anechoic (echo free) cube, allowing for synthesis, manipulation, exploration and analysis of large-scale data sets in an environment that can simulate virtually real sensorial perception.”
Photographed last month, this is the holiday card that UCSB and the Chancellor’s office sent out. Shot with a fisheye lens from up in the rafters with added red and green lighting and two gridded spot strobes on the sides of the catwalk. When completed the entire inside surface of the sphere will be the visual surface where the researcher at the center manipulates the data around them in 3D. We experienced a few examples: flying into a human body to observe nanoparticles delivering chemotherapy to tumors without harming healthy tissue, examining hydrogen atomic bonds surrounding us while speakers provided sound representing electrons changing orbits and finally a giant brain constructed from hundreds of MRI scans to gather data on blood flow.
Running from the total lunar eclipse
The setting lunar eclipse, up at 3700′ on Camino Cielo at 6:25am with Sarah Mandes. Our first shot. The sky a few minutes later lit up with twilight and the moon faded into the sky as we shot some great wide landscapes of the “sky road” above SB. Sarah was out this weekend visiting from DC, her new home since leaving SB this past Summer. An awesome runner, this month she’s in both Runner’s World and TrailRunner magazines from our shoots earlier this year.
The setting moon in full eclipse is pretty small in this wide shot. Santa Barbara down below on the left, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands 20 miles off the coast. Gibraltar Rd winding up to us. Twenty minutes from my house: another world. To the right is wilderness for 50 miles.
Later on in the day she also took part in my Falling Water series which has so far featured Christine here and started with fellow photographer Logan here as my first brave subject.
SolsticePeople gallery opening this evening
This is the second year I’ve created ad hoc studio portraits at the beginning of the Solstice Parade. Last year I approached Claudia Bratton with the idea and she promptly amplified it into action, securing the studio space in the perfect location. I was really not sure what to expect but was prepared for anything. To put it simply: the project rocked. It’s led to exciting creative projects and assignments and provided a lift to the community both in it’s meager financial support of the Summer Solstice Celebration but also in the smiles and high fives from all of those who participate in this wonderful parade :-)
The Jungle theme this year brought out the wild side, the cats and animals, the urban junglers and primitive costumes alike.
This year I shot a little differently, blown away by the “accidental” Mad Hatter image last year when I had to step back to fill the frame, I loved the idea of capturing the whole set. The images in this years book are actually cropped in quite a bit from the full frame of the whole scene which was shot on a very high resolution Hasselblad 40Mpixel medium format camera. The full frames are incorporated into a stop motion movie sequence as are two other synchronized cameras that captured the events from different angles. I wrote about the setup on my blog here.
Hundreds of prints will line the walls. Stop-motion projections will play on the neighboring building and a gallery book, 8”x8”, with all of the 100+ characters will be available. Fifty percent of the proceeds benefit the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Celebration.
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