More In-Betweens

Last week I spent a few days at a conference at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Although some meaningful topics were covered, conferences tend to take on a certain sameness. Speakers at lecterns and people sitting at tables listening. Occasionally people have break-out sessions...yippee!

While doing this, I had to remove myself from these rooms and wander about trying to find something to photograph... something for myself. Here are a few examples of some of these efforts.

See The Range

I think one of the best things about being a photographer (especially with my clients) is seeing such a wide range of life. From young and old to rich and poor. In the last 24 hours, I photographed 1st Graders at St Paul Academy School and a resident of Walker Plaza, an assisted living facility.

There was a day, admittedly many years ago, when I worked in Los Angeles I witnessed a very extreme range. One morning I photographed the mayors (current and all former...14 total) of the City of Beverly Hills. It was all you can imagine: bickering over who should stand next to each other and who shouldn't be in front or behind one another. I remember the reigning mayor being late and a few people even trying to rush the shot so he would miss it!

I then went back to my studio to change my clothes and went to work at the Los Angeles Mission photographing homeless people just trying to survive. Both these spots were 10 miles apart physically but at the same time were a world apart. I felt much better about the second assignment that day.

In-Between the Shots

While I am shooting on assignment there are often things I see in-between the shots I am doing for my client Here are a few of these shots during last week's assignment for The Bay Area Rescue Mission in Richmond, CA. (near San Francisco)

These images are not anything the mission can use, but I shot them anyway. It is hard for me not to take an photo when I think there is one to be taken...and why should I? It was a long day 6am-9:30 pm

"Unique" Joseph

It's been awhile since I made a post to the blog, but it's not because I have nothing to post. Admittedly, I started out with a quite regular thing going and have faded, but I promise to get it going again. Things have been quite busy for me this past month for which I feel very lucky. Many of my colleagues have not been as fortunate as budgets are scaled back and magazines either fold or reduce their editorial content.

Here s Joseph, who responded to my craigslist ad "looking for unique individuals for photo project". Sadly Joseph's story is turning out not to be so unique.