Redlights and Redeyes

So LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and I were there together hanging out and….well, there really isn’t going to be a time I get to say that again, so I’m going to take advantage now.

I was lucky enough to be part of the huge team that the fine folks at ESPN the Magazine put together for their latest One Day, One Game series. The point is to give fans a glimpse into everything that it takes for one single game to be put on with vignettes from every angle imaginable.  It was one of my most fun shooting days ever, and I don’t think I can really go back to “normal” access after this.  Of course I will, but now will at least have a hard time wondering why I can’t come back into the locker room and photograph a player in the ice bath.

Out of the many talented photographers they had covering this game versus the Chicago Bulls, my assignment was to be in the Miami Heat locker room with another talented shooter, John Loomis, which was a blessing to have a 1) room covered in red 2) insane access and 3) plenty of things happen I’ve never been witness to.  Half the time it was just me and whatever superstar player happened to pop into the room.  Very quiet, intimate, and subtle shooting – which is everything you would expect a NBA game to not be.  The calm before the storm.  I shared some tattoo war stories with a player here, a fist bump with another, but for the most part it was very much myself, some eye contact, and nods of approval before I shot.

Every photographer had a place, an assignment and it was truly a team effort between not only all the photographers, but the editors (thanks Jim!), reporters, assistants, and The Miami Heat staff and NBA that made it happen.  Very cool to see it all come together in one great issue, which is on newsstands tomorrow – so go check it out!  The ESPN the Mag online presentation has all sorts of online content from the other photographers as well.  Definitely worth a look-see.

I don’t know how a photographer can ever actually go on vacation – it might take a cement room devoid of any color in Des Moines for me to actually leave a camera aside and take a “vacation” from “work.”

I constantly find it amazing we can call photography work.

Oh well, let me load up the carousel with some slides and make you sit through my vacation photos.  Here I was in Mexico…then here’s that colorful wall I waited forever for someone to walk by….there here’s some strangers…here’s that cross that I bought…and…and…

For more photos from Sayulita, Punta Mita, and Puerto Vallarta click this sentence.

I could sit here and write a ton of copy about covering Florida politics.

Fact of the matter is, it’s weird, it’s draining, and it’s one of most fun things I get to do in photojournalism.

With that, here are some random rectangles from the week of covering Mitt Romney’s win in the Florida Primary with some scraps from the cutting room floor as a bonus.

I-4 is an interesting road.  Connecting Daytona, Orlando and Tampa, it slices the nub of South Florida right off the map, it provides a vast array of landmarks – strange kitschy theme parks, vasectomy billboards, and rest stop oasis after oasis.  It is also fertile ground for voters and an area candidates target every election cycle.

The New York Times sent me with a reporter and videographer to tackle I-4 man-on-the street style to try to find folks opinionated about the state of the GOP and politics in general.  I did that.  Then I also did this.  Whenever I could break away and find some images for me I did, and luckily the NYT embraced the latter and ran it A1 as a grid of four.

I know there aren’t any faces, a lack of folks, but sometimes the details and vignettes of nouns can tug at the sweater string of story mood.

For more photos along I-4 in Florida please visit my Photoshelter archive.

You know what, Instagram?  I’m sorry.

I cursed you and your buddy Hipstamatic for the last couple years.  You were destroying our industry, flooding our market with imagery, and making the construction and process of image-making too easy and less intellectual.  I was one of, if not the guy who wrote the blog post that started the whole Damon Winter/POYi mess.  I cursed iPhoneography, Holgaroids, and Urban Outphittography™.  Oooooh, I like that – Urban Outphittography.  Note the ™.

I’m big enough to admit that I was wrong.  Well, sort of.  Wrong is such a subjective term.

Here’s where you are right.  I caved one day when walking along a storefront and finding a little window with a mannequin head in it I wanted to shoot.  I didn’t have my 5d Mark II, nor was it a scene I really needed to break out a big DSLR and really work.  It was the morning after landing a great gig and I was happy.  I was excited about life, excited about being my own boss, and excited about being so freaking lucky to be able to be able to make pictures still after leaving my staff job a year-and-a-half ago.  Something about that window, that little patch of light, that reflection that made me want to just snap and capture it.  I whipped out my iPhone and made a frame and randomly used the Instagram app, which I had on my phone and never used – know thy enemy.  Then I posted it and was suckered into a medium I had previously put on blast.

Now, I can sit here and try to wrap the reason for you as to why I am on Instagram and why I am not a hypocrite, but I can’t.  I am a hypocrite.  I’m using and enjoying my latest foray into Instagram.  It has been six weeks and 36 frames (ironically, a whole roll of film), and I think I know why I’ve changed my mind about it.

What I haven’t changed my mind on its role in photojournalism.  I think it’s a slippery slope of ethics to be be masking and changing content for news stories.  For feature stories, illustrations, and work not labelled as news?  Sure and please do.  I think there is one last holdout of truthiness out there, though, and that is documentary photojournalism. It is a field that should adhere to its own set of rules and ethics, no matter how the world changes around it.  I’ll preach that until it dies (don’t worry, I’m not going there).

Damon Winter and Ben Lowy are two of my favorite photojournalists and friends, and more power to them for using the iPhone for evil (kidding, guys).  Their work inspires me, and consistently pushes me to be a better photographer.

There is something to be said for making pictures that aren’t important, that don’t change the world, and that aren’t perfect.  I just need to make pictures…more.  As a freelancer, I apparently spend 12.2% of my work hours making actual photos per this diagram.  That is true.  I make pictures when I am hired and honestly, I don’t pick up my cameras as much as I did at the paper.  I used to shoot 3 assignments a day for years and years.  I wore my crappy cameras out.  Now, I have gear that is nice and snug in a bag in the corner of my office and not rolling around in my trunk.  When I shoot now, it is much less frequent, but much more deliberate and important.  I’m paid more for those shoots, the risks are higher, and it’s my name on the line.  Not the paper’s.  I lose a client if I screw up.  It can be frightening, but always exciting.

Instagram lets me document random moments that don’t need 21.1 megapixels and a Lightroom bath.  These are pictures that aren’t important to really anyone but me.  They are there just to document for the pure sake of documentation.  They are slices of me with four little corners, four even lines, and some borders.  It may be just a fad, but you know what?  Participating in a fad means at least you are participating.  It means contributing the the visual history of what we put as photographers out there.  There may be a lot of it overdocumentation now, but it is who we are in the Applocracy we live in. Again ™.

They aren’t photojournalism.  They aren’t perfection.  They are just..life.

So, Instagram, please take me back.  I’ll never be mean again.

Lovingly yours,

Chip

Return of the creamsicle…love it.

For a team that wears red all season long, I seem to get hired by the Bucs when they throwback or go pink, but I’ll take it.  I always love shooting for public relations in these situations, because I’m generally given the (paraphrasing) “Here’s the images we need, but otherwise have fun” job.  I’ve covered dozens of games at this stadium over the years, but always try to find a few new things to shoot.  It’s the thrill of the hunt – even if it means shooting sunflower seeds in front of me smashed into the grass this past Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.

If I walk away with the same pictures I’ve made before I feel like a complete failure.