Big vacant lot!
Two hours in a Jet Ranger helicopter with the the back windows down can get rather cold in the middle of December over Lake Michigan. All in all not a bad picture of a big vacant lot, the story runs in BusinessWeek Magazine in early 2008 and deals with real-estate in the Chicago area.
Iowa farmers
Spent a few very cold days in the heartland of Iowa for a story on the economic upturn in the farming business. Besides the freezing weather and ice storms it was a fun time.
Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Took a couple weeks to hit some spots in California I’ve been meaning to go to for years but never seemed to get around to actually exploring. I spent a few days traveling south down highway one from San Francisco, then heading east to Yosemite for some wonderful weather and autumn color. After that there was a few days at Mono Lake (trying to get that perfect shot that’s been taken about a million times already) and then back to highway one — this time all the way up north into Redwood National Park for a couple of cold, grey and foggy days of shooting. Those trees really are tall!
Niche, Wicker Park, Chicago, IL, USA
Shot a nice shopping story in Chicago for Virtuoso Magazine. Not much to say about this one really, we had fun and my assistant spent about equal time shopping and assisting.
Mesa Arch, Canyon Lands National Park, Utah, USA
I’ve really got to think these things thru more carefully. It always seems such a great plan on paper, but wow it really gets hot in Southern Utah in August, at least at night it’s not 100 degrees, it’s a nice cool 90 degrees. Actually weather aside it was a wonderful trip — so much to see and so little time. Trapped by flash floods in Capital Reef National Park, it’s one way to beat the crowds for a few days, actually had some pretty interesting conversations with myself after about a day and half. On to Bryce and Zion National Parks then across the state to Arches to fight the crazy tourist for a day and finally up to Canyon Lands National Park for a peaceful few days of great shooting. Nothing like sunrise at Mesa Arch, makes getting up at 4am in the morning to hike in the blackness of predawn with a heavy backpack all worthwhile, and you can still make it back to Moab for a late breakfast that doesn’t come dry in a bag.
Drag racing in Detroit
I’ve heard getting there is half the journey, and in this case that couldn’t be truer. Managed to turn a 45 minute flight from Chicago to Detroit into a nine hour day at the airport, thank you American Airlines! Ok, so we got there it just happened to be at 5am the next day. The project was a week of shooting for Meredith, an auto tour of the Detroit area, cars, museums, more museums, more museums and one drag race that got rained out. I love Detroit.
Glacier National Park, Montana, USA
Since the weather is nice now here what makes more sense than to go freeze in the Canadian Rockies, and that’s pretty much what I did for two weeks. I’ve had better trips and I’ve had a couple worse. I made it to Glacier, Banff and Jasper National Parks and also spent a few days driving the Ice Fields Parkway. I guess being unshaven with a car full of photo gear sets off some alarm at the Canadian border these days since I managed to spend two mildly unpleasant hours having my truck torn thru, computer searched and filling out lots of mindless paper work. They finally let me thru after seeing how boring my life really is.
CFO James Bell
After almost missing the shoot because of lovely Chicago morning traffic we found our way to the Boeing World headquarters for a 15 minute shoot with their CFO James Bell. Nothing like three minutes to set up for an important shoot, I don’t think I in any way gained the trust of their PR person who must have been thinking this might be his first job after college. All is well that ends well in my book, we got some nice images and everyone went away happy. Mr. Bell was the nicest CFO I’ve met in a long time and who couldn’t love a building full of airplane art, really expensive airplane art!
Daytona Beach, Florida USA
Well not exactly spring break but I did spend a couple days in Daytona Beach in April. Most of that time was spent photographing a feature piece for Money Magazine with a really amazing set of grandparents and their grandchildren. I’ll skip the lengthy details but just say we had a nice time with them and run into one very photogenic pelican. The piece runs in the June issue.
Midwest Living Magazine
Shot the April 2007 cover and a few inside features for Midwest Living Magazine.