Behind the lens at Thoughtform Design

After last weeks presentation at Thoughtform Design I was invited to sit down with Project Strategist John Sotirakis, and some of his colleagues, for a brief Q&A. Jonathon Hill was one of those and he created the web page of my presentation.

We talked about photography, culture of the amateur, the influence of stock photography on assignment work and our clients interpretation of a visual comp. I talked about the journey from Assistant to producer to photographer. The importance of mentors and mentoring and why I love teaching.

An additional caption and attribution should be noted on the photograph of Greg Louganis, that was a Polaroid test, from a photo shoot in 1986, I was the first assistant and the photographer was David Vance.

Dreams, Goals & Lists

This morning I am presenting to THOUGHTFORM Inc, a Pittsburgh based design firm. I was invited by my friend and colleague, John Sotirakis,to tell some stories that I refer to as "behind the lens" (reference to "Behind the Music," on VH-1).

Going back to my early mentors, David Vance, Art Kane and Kurt Markus the experiences of assisting, producing and shooting come full circle in the photograph that I am creating today for clients and my personal projects.

Later I will share some of the stories.

Shutterbug Magazine Radio Professionalism and Ethics

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to participate in an interview on Shutterbug Magazine radio. The theme was ethics and professionalism in photography. As a photographer and educator these topics come up from time to time in the studio or in the classroom, but it is a rare opportunity to talk about business ethics to a more mainstream audience.

The topic was partly inspired by recent news coverage of photojournalists creating new images from multiple frames using image editing software and the comments of a popular conceptual photographer who created images of a political candidate. Although very different circumstances, both have started multiple discussions online and in the mainstream media about the photography industry and the professional standards and ethics we stand by.

As I prepared for the interview I looked back at some of my experiences over the twenty years I have been a professional. My personal opinion is that the expectations of our profession have not changed, but that society has both raised the bar of what is acceptable and at the same time been an accomplice to more and more sifting under the bar.

Here is the link to the interview, let's see what develops. Bad puns never die they must be archival!