Update from the Road

Bill and Laura are in Calgary this weekend for a two-day multimedia workshop sponsored by The Camera Store. Before they left, Bill did an interview with our friends from the Manfrotto School of Xcellence.

This summer, Manfrotto ran a contest asking for thoughts and pictures for the "Imagine More" project and for help co-creating their first visual Manifesto about Imagination. They received more than 730 tweets and seven thousand photos. The images are now in Bill's hands as he works to combine the contributions to a short film which will be unveiled at the 68th Venice Film Festival. Check out the photo submissions online now.

Imagine More

What is imagination?

Join in the worldwide project Imagine More Manifesto, through which Manfrotto hopes to stimulate and share imagination. Participate in the creative conversation by sharing your photos and liking your favorites. The Imagine More Contest is designed to define the first worldwide Imagine More Manifesto and will give creative minds across the globe a chance to walk the red carpet and be recognized at the 2011 Venice Film Festival. The photo contest runs from June 1-15, 2011 and gives more visual social recorders the opportunity to express and share their imagination by uploading their best photos to www.manfrottoimaginemore.com, Facebook and Flickr.

The winner of the photo contest will receive an exclusive trip to Venice for the next Film Festival. During the prestigious cinema event, the Imagine More Manifesto – a short made by Bill Frakes using the winning text contributions (tweets) and photographs from the Imagine More Contest – will be shown for the first time. Violante Placido will be the patroness of the premiere. The Imagine More Manifesto, a worldwide project through which Manfrotto hopes to stimulate and share imagination, is a movement that, from New York, will involve the entire globe through the Internet and social networks.

Start posting your pictures June 1. Learn more at www.ManfrottoImagineMore.com www.facebook.com/Manfrotto.Imagine.More

The First Saturday in May

The first Saturday in May always means the same thing. Louisville and the Kentucky Derby. There is no place on earth I would rather be than at Churchill Downs when they play My Old Kentucky Home. Because it is one of my favorite homes.

It’s weeks like this that make, especially make, mine one of the greatest jobs on earth.

Early mornings on the backside means seeing friends new and old.

For 30 years Dan Dry and Bill Luster have greeted me with smiles and kindness. They’re classy guys and great photographers.

Even though I didn’t work for him, C Thomas Hardin, legendary director of photography at the Courier Journal, had a huge impact on my career because of all of my buddies who did have the good fortune to be influenced daily by him. I treasure those conversations.

This was Laura’s fourth derby, and for me... well, I’ve done a few more. And by that I mean about 30 of them.

Curt Bianchi, who is one of the software geniuses who build Apple’s Aperture was helping us again along with his wife, Sue, and a really good group of younger photographers — Andy Hancock, Sara Tanner, Zach Brake, Mike Weaver, Jeff Lautenberger, Patrick Fallon, Britney McIntosh and Joel Kowsky.

The folks at Churchill are as good as it gets in this business. Darren Rogers has more stuff going on than you can possibly imagine, but he always has time to laugh and help. 



Keith Klein and the Dumsdorf family make things go so smoothly the event that could be utter chaos without them.

When Animal Kingdom surged across the finish line a familiar question rippled through the crowd -- is he the one? Are we looking at the next winner of the Triple Crown?

In 2001, I went to Triple Chimneys to photograph the only horse living in this century to have won the three championships, and the only undefeated Triple Crown winner in 1977 - Seattle Slew.

Every Derby has a distinct flavor. Last year's Derby has a different feeling from the year before it.

The Derby always marks the beginning of a busy summer, but spring isn’t ever slow. This year assignments have taken us around the globe, working on projects ranging from music videos to documentaries to commercial assignments.

2011 started the way 2010 ended, on the road for Sports Illustrated. Lots of football and portraits, including a cover of the University of Connecticut’s Women Basketball team.

In between NFL playoffs and the Superbowl, I took two trips to Sweden working with Nikon and Sony Music on a music video for up and coming Swedish musical artist Lisa Miskovsky.

Everyone had a tremendous time in the snow making great use of our Nikon cameras and Manfrotto supports. Laura edited the music video, "Got a Friend." We also built a behind the scenes video.

February found us back in the States for the Superbowl. Laura and I always have fun in Texas and with a huge group of the SI team there it was great time.

In preparation for March Madness, we started shooting a lot of basketball, NBA and NCAA. SI launched apps SI Snapshot and SI Big Ticket, giving us the opportunity to have more images seen.

Febuary and March were basketball heavy, capped by the Women’s Final Four in Indianapolis.

In Nebraska, we taught back to back seminars for the students at University of Nebraska - Lincoln with Apple and for the Nebraska Nature Photographers.

While in Nebraska, we were honored to do a interview with the 13th Poet Laureate of the United States Ted Kooser.

In March, we shot two additional music videos: one of pianist Anya Marina with Cinevate, and one for our friend, master guitarist Neil Zaza with Nikon at South by Southwest.

This is a look at the Behind the Scenes video of the making of “Felony Flats.”

We’re headed off to Nashville to work with Ricky Skaggs, shooting a music video of his song “Mosaic.”

More soon.

South by Southwest

Laura and I are in Austin, Texas, this week presenting and shooting at South by Southwest. Austin is always a high energy city, but with the influx of creativity from this conference the city is booming. There is inspiration everywhere you look.

The beginning of this year has kept me and the rest of the Straw Hat Visuals team busy. We’ve shot four music videos, one documentary pieces, taught four workshops, and we’ve flown thousands of miles from Georgia to Sweden to Canada and now Texas.

Among the videos we've shown here is Austin on the Nikon panel, one of our fan favorites is our Backyard Babies music video.

Watching this video makes me even more excited about the videos we will be launching in the next few weeks.

Olympic Vision

Filmmaker Bud Greenspan passed today. We’ve lost a giant. His was a singular, unique, powerful vision that brought so many so much joy.

What would Rembrandt do?

Late last night I was roaming the back streets of ancient Zurich. 24 f 1.4 on a D300s, just appreciating a lovely early autumn time in one of Europe's treasures. Freed of technical limitations--that camera can literally see in the dark-- and it's so small and light, and with that lens attached I feel a connection to an earlier group of photojournalists working the scenes with fast 35 millimeter lenses attached to the smallest film cameras of the day. Romantic maybe, but those who have been on the ground doing this work can feel what I am feeling.

I was thinking about an earlier time in my life--my second trip to Europe--I was in my early 20's and had 18 hours in London enroute to a meeting with a baby orangutang in the Hague. (The trip with the small primate is a story for another day.)

My father was in the Army Air Corps during the second World War, stationed in Sherwood Forest, and always spoke so captivatingly about England.

I was determined to see all of old London town, and capture it on film. So I refused sleep. All night, strolling the city, making long, slow exposures on transparency film and the venerable, omnipresent TriX loaded in my Nikon F2, pentaprism--no meter, no motor drive--with a 24 2.8 attached. Having to make each exposure count--no blasting away hoping. It was about thinking first, knowing the limitations of the film, and then making it work as best I could.

I thought it might be my only chance to see one of the Capitals of Europe--as a young newspaper photographer in the South, visions of globetrotting were not yet on my horizon.

Half a lifetime later, 8 million miles flown, thousands of trips taking their toll on my back, so many visits out of the US to places relatively near and far that I lost count long ago, and I am still restless. Driven to photograph, to get what's in my mind and my heart captured on something--film, a sensor, paper--so that I can share it with the world.

I used to look at things twice, once especially for my Dad. Now I do the same, but now the second look is for Havana, my daughter who always reminds me to take a picture of what I see just for her.

While I was taking that slow walk in this wonderful Swiss city, soaking in everything around me I started thinking about the distant past. The great painters, DaVinci, Bruegel, Rembrandt, and I wondered what they would do with the tools we have now. What could they see, what would they record, where could they drive the art?

Or more recently, Gordon Parks. Imagine what he could have done with these tools. I know I would read his blog every day...........

I love the technology. And I am determined to use it to not do things more easily, but to do things better. To go further.

And those thoughts just pushed me to keep going, and looking. Enjoying.

Havana Daydreaming

I try to spend at least an hour day with books. If I am lucky that is an uninterrupted pleasure.

My daughter loves reading and art above all else.

As you can imagine, we really get along.

Today was delicious. Havana and I went through five photography books, front to back. Slowly. Savoring the art. Discussing the content. Appreciating the sacrifices.

Larry Towell--The World From My Front Porch Leonard Freed--Black in White America Henri Cartier Bresson--The Modern Century Keith Carter--Photographs--25 years W.Eugene Smith--Dream Street

It was a black and white kind of day.

Old friends, new vision

Being a Sports Illustrated staff photographer I get type cast--so many people just assume that sports is all I do, and all I want to talk about. Wrong and wrong. So this weekend when I was spending time with my friend Bill Fortney looking at images on his iPad, I was embarrassed to admit I had forgotten what a wonderful range of work the man has done.

His aerial imagery is so superb that I had done to him what I hate being done to me.

It was a treat being reintroduced to the breadth of work he has created.

The Promise

In the 85th Anniversary issue of The New Yorker---A brilliant, and poignant photograhic essay by Platon: CIVIL RIGHTS: A PORTFOLIO

Nikon Nordic Road Show

It was snowing hard outside my window. It was so cold out there you could actually see the blue in the light. An ancient city. A modern mission. New friends. Old friends.

Something ventured. Something gained.

An emotional day to say the least.

A friend lost her grandfather, the tribute she posted was incrediblyintense.  

It doesn’t take much to lead me to thoughts of my mother. And to my grandfather, mom’s dad. They’re gone now physically, but are very much a part of everything I do.

Every time I talk about my life in photography, at the heart of the conversation is always a discussion of the lessons my mom taught me. Systematically, patiently, thoroughly, lovingly shaping my existence, molding me into an artist, a storyteller.

Growing up in rural Nebraska I was always awake early--chores to do, books to read, fine crisp air to enjoy. And almost always Mom was up before me. The woman just didn't sleep--as I don't now.

Laura Heald and I were in Scandinavia as part of the Nikon Nordic Roadshow. We presented in four countries, and in addition to showing examples of our work, we added a little twist: The day before each presentation, we planned to shoot an event and then produce a multimedia program that night for the next day’s audience. Part of the challenge was that we'd never seen the venues, nor were we familiar with the sports and individuals we'd be shooting. But that’s all part of the fun.

In Stockholm--the first stop on the tour--we shot a bandy match. Bandy is a team sport that resembles field hockey, played on an outdoor ice surface the size of a soccer field. The action is fast, and we wanted to put together a multi that captured the essence of attending a Bandy game. We had hoped to position remote cameras at the corners of the nets, but the venue officials evidently hadn’t seen that done before and weren’t too keen on it. So I shot with a 600mm lens from one corner of the ice, and then headed into the stands to capture ambient audio, and video and stills with a wide angle lens.  We also interviewed some of the spectators. They’re an enthusiastic bunch. They sing and stand, bobbing up and down on their feet, propelled by the rhythm of a large bass drum that keeps their spirits stocked.

The match ended in the late afternoon, and Laura Heald did her usual fantastic job of editing the piece into the wee hours of the next morning. I showed it to the Stockholm audience the next day as part of a 7 hour presentation done in conjunction with Apple on building multimedias using DSLR cameras.

That night we flew to Oslo and bussed to the town of Rjukan, arriving late in the evening. Rjukan was the site of the first commercial heavy water plant. It was controlled by Nazi Germany as part of its program to develop nuclear weapons, but the Norwegians sabotaged the plant numerous times--a feat that was dramatized in the movie The Heroes of Telemark, staring Kirk Douglas.

Now Rjukan is famous for ice climbing, and we met up with Andreas Spak, who would be the subject of our next shoot. Andreas was kind of enough to wait up for our arrival, and we planned the next day’s shoot before going to bed.

Norway is a fairy tale waiting to happen. It was freezing cold, 200AM and as soon as the pre production meeting broke up we grabbed cameras and headed outside to play in the snow.

It's great being a four year old with credit cards.

The next morning we drove up the mountain and hiked down to an overlook from which to shoot long telephotos of the Andreas from across the glacier-carved valley. Just getting from the bus to the overlook was a challenge for the less seasoned in the group. Curt Bianchi, software wizard extraordinary and all around good guy didn’t even make it off the road before landing on his rear, but he did manage to save the camera he was carrying, which impressed me given his engineer like reflexes. Then when we began the hike down to the overlook, Laura did a face plant into the three-foot deep snow--dangerous for her since she is barely 5 feet tall herself. She wasn’t the only one who took an unconventional route down the mountain and we were all laughing hard and in good spirits when we arrived at the base camp.

Now, we could have photographed a staged climb--and a lot of ice climbing photographs are made that way--but that would have been too easy. Instead, we intended to shoot the real deal, and after doing an interview with Andreas, he and an assistant made their way across the valley to begin the climb. Unfortunately, that’s where things began to go wrong.

Weather conditions were not conducive to climbing--“horrible,” as Andreas put it--not to mention the fact that the ice flow upon which Andreas would start the climb was broken off, necessitating an alternate route. After several attempts, we had to give in to the elements and accept that climbing on this day just wasn’t in the cards. Nevertheless, we hung out for several hours, enjoying a truly spectacular view, spending time with the Nikon guest photographers, and being interviewed by the local media. The women from the Norwegian National Television crew took a particular interest in my hand warmers, and I spent considerable time explaining what they were and how they worked.

Shut out by the weather we decided to head back a little early, talk about process on the bus on the way to Oslo, and just enjoy our hosts and guests. I will say this, no matter what these folks have fun.

It was fabulous being back in Oslo. This is my sixth trip to Norway--the first being for the Lillehammer Olympics--and I love the place. I was up and out at the crack of dawn--fortunately dawn is at about 9 am this time of year ( Laura enjoys sleeping more than I do) --and enjoyed walking the center of the city remembering a time traversing the streets with Johan Olav Koss and knowing how the Pied Piper must have felt.

Later that afternoon in a packed auditorium along with my new friends Peter Brodin and Lars Petterson of Nikon Nordic--two terrific guys who have been the most gracious of hosts, Laura and did another long presentation sharing 8 or 10 of our multimedia presentations and short films and talked about multimedia.

Peter Brodin is a sweet guy with a hardy laugh to match his tremendous resourcefulness and impressive patience. He is a combination taskmaster, school marm, favorite uncle and aberrant frat boy. He muscled the ridiculous logistics on this trip, and that was a load.

Lars Petterson kept us laughing and informed--we wanted to bring him home with us. It's just more fun when he's around.

No sooner than we started to get comfortable Mr. Brodin, the taskmaster, ushered us onto another bus to go to yet another airport for the flight to Copenhagen.

Our first day in Denmark was a tough day at the office. We struggled mightily to build a multi on the Danish Junior National cycling team. Everything that could have gone wrong, did.

We arrived at the velodrome only to find that the “infield” had been configured to house three soccer games--dozens of eight to ten year olds, all screaming at deafening levels. Not what I had in mind. Now don’t get me wrong: I love kids, and my daughter Havana is right smack in the middle of that age group--at least in actual years--and I really enjoy hearing those sounds, except when I need to collect ambient audio of cyclists practicing.

The ceiling-to-floor nets, raised to keep errant balls from flying into the path of the cyclists, threw hundreds and hundreds of small shadows across the track. A nightmare for video.

Using a color temperature meter, and comparing the results to the back of my Nikon D3s camera, we identified six different light temperatures bouncing around. Filtering for that many different sources just wasn’t going to happen. Auto white balance is fantastic, but it has to pick one and correct for that, which made the overalls a bit of an issue.

The bottom line, though, is that tough conditions are just a complication. At the end of the day, the viewers only care about the images, not what we had to go through to produce them. That’s our problem, and one we have to handle with grace under pressure.

We decided the best way to produce this multi would be to let stills dominate the action, and light an interview using with one of the cyclists--Christian Cortvelt-- the result being a video portrait. We quickly set up two Chimera triolets and put an octaplus on one and a pancake lantern on another.

With this we were able to take advantage of the video capablitlies of the D3S, and the ease with which we can do a multicamera shoot.

We wanted motion so we quickly assembled our Atlas slider fitted with a Manfrotto 503 HDV fluid head so we could push and pull focus, and move the camera smoothly. We put a D3S with a 24-70 f2.8 Nikkor on the Atlas. We also put a Hague camera jib on Manfrotto 519 sticks which gave us quick and smooth up and down motion. We mounted a D3s with a Nikkor 50 1.2 to do float closeups and smooth transitional motion.

Our main camera was a D3S with a 24-70 head on. We put the Cinevate DSLR rig on a Manfrotto 536 tripod. We wanted to bring some light from behind for separation but keep it knocked down so we wanted to use the matte box barn doors to control flare and also give us the ability to use a 4x4 .3 neutral density filter.

The interview went well. Laura molded the stills and video into a tight, cohesive package--but not without incident. Three of our brand new, right out of the box compact flash cards failed to write the avi files--and of course one of those cards was the one in the main, head on camera. Which is exactly why we always, always try to have backup and multiple options.

At each stop of the roadshow, Nikon invited guest photographers to join us for an event shoot on the first day. There were usually about 15 guests, and they get to participate in the shoot, observe how Laura and I work, and ask us questions.

In Denmark, one of the guests was Nicolai Brix, a young aspiring documentary videographer. He works a day job in order to pay the bills, but his real passion is making documentaries. That probably sounds familiar to a lot of you. Nicolai showed up with a Nikon D3s in hand, rigged with a monopod and an external microphone, and set about capturing a number of clips at the cycling event, mostly of me and Laura working. He worked hard at it all day, even doing an interview with me. Nicolai went home and produced a nice documentary short, which you can view at http://vimeo.com/8875882.

The next day I saw Nicolai at the presentation, and he had brought me a book that I told him I was looking for. He went to the trouble to find it and bring it to me. That brand of kindness is something to be cherished.

The cinemax in Copenhagen held an amazing crowd. They had so many questions, were so hungry to discus the process that we flat ran out of time--after a 7 hour session.

As usual we were scrambling to get everything broken down and into the truck so we could board the bus, hurry to the airport and head to the next city--this time Helsinki.

In Finland we were up and out early. We had scouting to do, and a huge setup to install in a fairly short amount of time, plus we had to drive to the town of Turku, 3 hours outside of Helsinki.

Turku Fast Forward from Lasse Pettersson on Vimeo.

Even with a full crew helping us it was going to be tight. Music videos aren't produced in a snap.

We rigged 2 overhead cameras--one for stills, one for video at the back of the room. We installed a slider (link to cinevate atlas here) camera in front of the stage. A camera jib on the side. Three more with long lenses on the edge of the dance floor on heavy tripods. Then we lit the bands dressing room.

We were shooting a music video with the Backyard Babies for their new release Abandon. They rocked the place, literally. The connection between band and audience was crazy cool and we had to capture that.

This band has been together for 20 years and they are tight. One hardworking rock band.

Heading into the club we listened to three very inebrriated Finns who staggered along on the way inside the club struggling to read the sign in the front window of our bus--one of them looked plaintively at his friends and managed “I thought we were seeing the Backyard Babies tonight, who the F@%$ is this Nikon Roadshow?.”

The band played a strong set, and by the time they finished and we broke down it was nearly 200 am. Three hours travel time back to Helsinki.

Soon we were slip sliding through the center of Finland on a full blown bus, rigged as an edit suite , as always Laura is in control of the first edit and we’re right in the thick of it. She's laying down the audio track and organizing the video while I handle the stills and the imaging.

When we get back to the hotel, we unloaded the 25 cases of gear, prepared it for shoots later that day in Helsinki---a video portrait of the band for the video open, and another take of Abandon at tomorrow nights gig.

I managed to crash for an hour, I had to head out at first light to scout locations for the opening sequence of the band for the video.

I managed to find just the right spot .We had the band walk across the frozen Baltic sea............like the Swedes of old did when they invaded.

Later that morning we showed our first cut of the video, and a number of our other multimedia and film productions to a live audience in Helsinki. Laura didn’t go to bed , she worked straight through on the edit--arriving for the second half of our presentation. You have no idea how happy I was to see her.

It was tough saying goodbye to Peter and Lasse. They tried to ease the parting with a few dozen Long Island Ice Teas.

One more day before heading Stateside. Some sleep might have been nice, but Tallin Estonia is just a short trip--a few hours across the frozen sea--and old town there is fantastic………..

It's tough to rest when there are images to be made.