Cassie graces the cover of Alyson Noel’s book Keeping Secrets.

Keeping Secrets is a book by Alyson Noel, the author of the #1 New York Times Bestselling Immortal Series and the Riley Bloom series for St. Martin’s Press.

A brief description of the book reads:

“We usually tell our best friends everything. Our crushes, our embarrassing stories, our secrets, but sometimes there are truths so deep and dark that we can’t tell anyone. Not our parents, not our sisters…not even our best friends. Some secrets are so unspeakable that we keep them safely locked away so no one will ever discover them.

But what happens when they become more than you can handle alone? In these two magnificent novels, two girls can’t tell anyone about the terrible burdens they carry. But as they’re about to learn, it’s not our secrets that matter most—but those who still love us once they learn the truth.”

Visit Alyson on the web and view her entire collection of books.

The face of Keeping Secrets.

Cassie is a spectacular model based here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have had the good fortune to work with her on many occasions and she is certainly one of the easiest subjects to photograph. It really is impressive to see her come to life in front of the lens with complete and total confidence in what she is doing. This makes a photographer’s work much easier and allows for more attention to be paid to the shot rather than the frequent model corrections that often occur during a shoot. The difficulty in photographing somebody like Cassie happens after the shoot with the hours spent sifting through hundreds of virtually perfect shots and trying to find the best one, it’s a good problem to have but still pretty tedious. If you are involved in a project and have an interest in using Cassie, contact me and I will pass her information on to you. The cat is under management by me and is still trying to make his big break.

Take a look at some shots of Cassie and other faces that have made their way onto the publishing circuit.

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Dynamics within a sparrow colony.

There is an elusive kingfisher that I have been stalking for a long time with no luck whatsoever. The most notable encounters with him usually occur while my camera is not in hand, or even more nauseatingly, as I am switching lenses. Despite the frustrations, I do enjoy the hunt and even appreciate the misses because throughout it all there is something spectacular going on and being an observer to it still remains reward. Sadly, the colder months are settling in Michigan and the kingfisher’s visits have become less frequent as the ice begins to cover the lake. Now forced to find new muses in the surrounding environment, I decided to play around with shooting a colony of common house sparrows that visit the neighborhood.

I wasn’t expecting anything exciting to come from these little birds, to me they were bland subject matter, a mere reason to shoot. Regardless, my aim was to find something just as dynamic in one of them as I see with the kingfisher but nothing was ever going to compare in my estimation. What I did find surprised me, I discovered individual personalities within the colony expressed mostly within their interactions through flight. There is a type of hierarchy, if not definite disputes of dominance, but there is also a lot of entertaining play going on in their little world. I think I was able to get some of those personalities in these shots. In my prejudice I overlooked an important aspect of photography and by photography I mean life. Finding noteworthy elements in the ordinary and even mundane. My pursuit of the dramatic left me empty-handed, at least for now, but observing the ordinary resulted in my being reminded that there is more beauty to extract from the common than normally meets the eye. The end result being an entertaining collection of a colony of common house sparrows.

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Fake photos of Hurricane Sandy and the result of rapid-fire journalism:

This is the story of one of those fake photos of Hurricane Sandy, my photo.

The other morning I awoke to a sea of emails and notifications that my 2008 shot of the George Washington Bridge had gone viral. Apparently someone had passed this shot off as a snapshot of Hurricane Sandy’s descent on New York City. In the fever to feed the public’s appetite for sensation, several journalists decided to run with the picture without looking into the background of the shot itself. As is usually the case, the need to be on top of the frenzy became the motive for what already was a dramatic story. I won’t go into the various ways of determining the origin of a shot, but one is so obvious that reveals how little care was given to verifying sources as the storm broke: the most immediate clue that this shot could not have been taken during Hurricane Sandy is that the storm clouds in this photo are coming from the north! This structure and its placement on the Hudson River are so well known that it seems inconceivable that major news organizations would not have caught the mistake.

The truth behind one of the fake photos of Hurricane Sandy:

Fortunately, various fact checkers decided to call some of these media people out on running with these inaccuracies. Kudos in particular to Elliot Bentley and Mashable for not only revealing the many hoaxes but also directing attention to the actual sources of the photographs and videos. Exposed for their mistakes, several members of the media then began to change the their story, again inaccurately. Now the story became not the astonishing photos of a killer storm, but the fraud perpetrated by photographic tricksters like me. One “news” source had the caption “Fake image of the George Washington bridge” written underneath my photo, while ABC’s “20/20″ displayed my GW Bridge image in fullscreen as the narrator exclaimed, “a lot of the stuff you’ll find here is fake”, and proceeded to explain how images are Photo-Shopped and otherwise manipulated. Displaying my photograph while discussing such techniques implies that this is a digitally crafted image, which it is, photographically. When an individual posts an image like this to social media, it’s easy to overlook their mistake, but these people are journalists; this is their job.

Nevertheless, I was pleased that all this hype brought attention to a piece that I am particularly proud of, but I want to clear the air by presenting the facts. First, this photograph is real and is not some form of digital trickery. It was taken in June 2008 using my trusted Nikon and processed with Adobe Lightroom. To answer a question I have been asked a lot this week: yes, I do get a little pissed when I see a big red label slapped across my photograph that says “fake” and what it implies. But the authenticity of my photo is easily verified when you look and see that it is one of many in a series that can be viewed in my New York City gallery. And yes, whatever annoyance I feel, I find this story highly entertaining, almost as entertaining as these crumbling media empires so desperate to demonstrate their relevance that they can’t even pause to ask the most basic questions of a source’s veracity.

That being said, I am the youngest of 5 boys. When we were kids, controlling the story meant survival. It’s a skill I learned to appreciate early on. Today’s dying media complex is fighting for its survival like we were back then: by crafting a tale as rapidly and convincingly as it can under extreme pressure, but with cooler technology, louder voices and better hair.

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Kelsea appears on the cover of Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess.

Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess, “Lauded by critics and authors for her heartbreakingly real heroines, Laura Wiess brings readers another devastating tale of betrayal and redemption rich with the raw emotion that made Such a Pretty Girl a classic.”

Ok, so I don’t really know much about this particular novel but it’s nice to see Kelsea grace the cover of it. I feel at this point I can only speak to the photograph’s usage while omitting any obvious thoughts beyond that. It just would have been nice to see the wooded background remain untouched. I think it would have had a much nicer feel to it.

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The great thing about macro photography is that you are never more than 2 feet from a subject. When passing time, I am usually digging around in search of some sort of critter. There are more shots to come but for now I will leave you with these.

Nikon 105mm tech specs:

When it comes to glass, the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF-S VR lens is on hand with me most of the time. It’s a great lens when it comes to macro photography work and doubles as a fantastic portrait lens as well. The only complaint that I have about this lens is it’s slow autofocus. It’s not terrible but when you are shooting the smaller things in life, especially the ones with wings, timing can be crucial. It wasn’t until I used this particular lens for about a year that I realized that I do much better manually focusing in such situations. I do recommend this lens but only if you can get a used piece in good condition. The price can be hard to stomach for compromising on something as important as speed in focus.

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It’s not that I have a fascination with palisades and fences or anything like that. I just have a strong curiosity about what happens in a scene between the varying fields of view. Fences allow me to explore and manipulate those relationships as each post serves as a visual indicator as they progress back in space. It’s in exploring such relationships that I was able to learn the subtleties of each lens and apply it to other, more serious work that I am involved in.

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There really isn’t any sort of photographic merit to these particular shots other than the oddity of this particular breed of Maine Coon cat and the need to entertain myself with random recordings of his life. I will continue to update this gallery as time goes on, especially as he begins to near what could be a record breaking size.

This is Mr. Miyagi, Miyagi is a purebred Maine Coon. He came onto the scene as somewhat of an alien-like thing with the attributes of Bill the Cat. I had no clue what this breed was all about until I started to do some research. These cats are massive and tend to hold most of the world’s records concerning size, length and weight. Other oddities include a serious fascination with water, and true to his Viking lore, Miyagi loves water, to the extent that he enjoys standing in the lake with me while I fish and dropping foreign objects into the toilet with the only objective that I can tell,  being to just stare at them, intently.

The Guinness Book of World’s Records holds a Maine Coon cat named “Stewie” as the record breaker in length, measuring 48 1/2 inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tailbone. Miyagi is already ammusingly concerning us with where he is at in size considering that he is only 10 months old and approximately 40 inches. From what I understand, Maine Coons will keep growing for the first 3-5 years of their lives.

What’s in a name?

Apparently a lot of alcohol. Maine Coons are known for a distinctive “M” in the center of their forehead. Obviously we needed a good “M” name. Well, it took a couple of bottles and a lot of laughing and so he landed with the name, because Pat Morita would just be silly.

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The feedback that I have had for this particular shot of a cat vs praying mantis has been overwhelming to say the least. It went viral on three separate occasions that I am aware of, the latest trigger site being Colossal. It was originally posted to my flickr and there were times where a simple browser refresh would indicate tens of thousands of views within a matter of a second. Between Flickr, 500px, this site, and the myriad of blog reposts, well over 1.5 million hits have been generated that I am able to track. For me it was just a funny shot without much merit to speak of other than it’s perspective and the capture itself. Trying to put the mantis in the power position meant pressing the side of my face into the grass and aiming my 105mm upward in order for the story to be captured from the mantis’s perspective. Obviously not much of an upward angle can be obtained on a horizontal plane but if you understand the size of the 105mm along with it’s somewhat slow autofocus, getting the shot that I did was enough to make me happy for what I had on hand at the time. Looking back, I kind of wish that I had my fisheye with me.

I decided to post the outtakes from it here because everybody wanted to know the outcome and who won, the story is more comical when shown visually, the blurry shots being my personal favorite. The truth is, I was already out shooting when I noticed the cat was caught up in some sort of conflict. Abrupt bolts of nervous reactions indicated something entertaining was happening. When I noticed what was going on I propped my 105 on the lawn and watched through the lens while trying to take the shots that I was hoping to get from the moment. The mantis did win, not by any sort of carnage or devouring the cat’s head as it tends to do at times with it’s mate, but it was fierce enough to signal the cat’s inner instinct to let it be. That’s pretty much it, a simple moment, a quick story, and a few entertaining shots.

Sidenote: The requests to purchase this shot has been more than I can keep track of, but interested parties can go here as this photo is now licensed through Getty images, my apologies to those who have asked for private sales on this particular image but the shots that I determine to be licensed through Getty can only be issued through Getty though the majority of my work is open to private sales, many of which can be found here.

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I think that almost everybody is drawn to black & white photography in some sort of way, I am no exception. When I process photos I often find myself struggling with what feels like a “cheat”. It’s easier to think in black & white because you are limited to tones and contrasts, whereas color adds another dimension to an image and thus more to consider in processing. Sometimes though, an image just feels better in black & white. This collection is a series of shots that I felt carried more impact with the absence of saturation.

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Many companies are taking the health and fitness of their employees quite seriously. This company in particular has a tradition of rewarding the fitness efforts of their workers with perks of various sorts: from time off to straight up cash. I was asked to shoot the winners of each category on two separate occasions. The black and white series was entertaining for me simply because the people themselves are a lively and creative bunch and more than eager to flaunt their success to the others. It seemed appropriate to somehow showcase their particular category in each shot. The results (shown above) are what happens when you mix long hours of work, a colorful cast of characters and a Nikon D3S.

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