I've always said it would happen. Long period of time and no blogging. Really no excuse other than getting overwhelmed with everything else going on in my life. I'll be a dad in 10 weeks. Which is crazy overwhelming. Preparation for parenthood is overwhelming. Afghanistan, Vegas, Haiti, and China assignments were overwhelming.
But Im so crazy excited to welcome my baby boy into the world. I welcome the change it will bring to my life, to my family, to my career. I'm scared, anxious, but excited.
I have of course been keeping up a regular iPhone photo blog over at www.benlowy.tumblr.com. I update that pretty much everyday. Hopefully I can keep this up again as I insert myself back into the NY community and gain some time to reflect on this crazy life of ours.
-- Post From My iPhone
Back in the saddle... Again
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 | |
Gestating
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | |
It looks like I'm going to be a father in 6 months time. A whole new world is waiting for me. For Marvi. For our family. I'm scared shitless and can't wait. How will it change my life? Drastically I'm sure. How will it change me as a man, as a husband? I'm sitting in my run-down hotel room in Afghanistan thinking about how much I can't wait to go home, hold Marvi, and build a crib or something.
-- Post From My iPhone
Ephiphany
Sunday, April 19, 2009 | |
I spent most of my days these last few weeks in the air flying between various shoots. While most people hate the travel and sitting in the middle seat, it does give you some down time. No phone, no email, just you and a book or a journal - which is what I regularly bring onto all my flights. I spent most of my last flight reading US News and Works Report photographer Jim Lo Scalzo's memoir - Evidence of my Existence. Great read, and the catalyst for an epiphany. I love photography, I love traveling. I love exploring. But I love Marvi so much more. An with all the changes coming to our family in the next few months, I want to be home. Working. But home and close by.
-- Post From My iPhone
Another Blog site
Friday, April 10, 2009 | |
www.benlowy.tumblr.com
I'm not sure how to delegate my two blogs. What I write on this one versus what I write on the Tumblr blog, but I really like both. And since I do facebook and twitter, I figure I'm just making myself more Web 2.0.
I figure I'll end up doing more rambling long diatribes against the establishment here, post images and outtakes from assignments, and inspirational links from friends. Tumblr will be more in the "now." iPhone pics, quotes I hear on the street, and small snippets of my two cents.
Good?
-- Post From My iPhone
Chicago O'hare Airport
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Currently on another assignment, this time to Minneapolis for Time Magazine, I realized during a layover in the Chicago airport that I've been here so much lately. Tons actually. But the fact is that I've only been "in" Chicago twice. Weird. I know where all re starbucks are in O'hare, but I don't know the first thing about downtown Chicago. Except that it's cold. And windy. It gives me pause, my career takes me so many places so often, but sometimes I just pass through, and never experience where I am. Do the job quickly, go to the venue, and that's it. No time to stop and smell the proverbial roses.
Sometimes I just want to see a place. To wander through it. Screw the camera on those days.
-- Post From My iPhone
Guilty Pleasure
Saturday, March 28, 2009 | |
When you are really feeling down on your luck, check out this site here. Its sure to make you feel better and realize that some things could be much much worse.
Move from Vail....
Friday, March 27, 2009 | |
Some more early edits of time lapse movies from the Vail ad shoot. The lead off features the whole shoot crew prancing around an open slope overlooking a massive "bowl."
Next up - skiers!
The Abuse Debate
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Benjamin Chesterton makes an interesting argument. One that questions much of the ethical tightrope that social documentary photographers straddle.
Its a slippery slope, both the practice of photographing and publishing something so horrible and the notion that we should stop. Would then the image of a dying man on a road in Georgia, Gaza, Iraq, be considered wrong?
What about Eugene Smith's image from Japan of a deformed "Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath?" Is this wrong?
At what point do we as journalists, as human beings, stop photographing? Where is the line?
Back in Business
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 | |
Just got back to NYC after an exhausting 2 1/2 week trip to Vail, CO for a tech scout, down to Bogota, Colombia for an editorial shoot, then back to Vail for my first advertising campaign. There is lots to be said, and impressions made following my experiences in the last few weeks.
First off, The editorial gig in Colombia was for Purpose Driven, Rick Warren's new Christian themed publication from Reader's Digest. As most people know, I am not a particularly religious person, but the story was interesting (Former FARC members now Christian missionaries), the print quality of the rather thick magazine is amazing, and they have a budget for international travel. In this day and age, with magazines printing on thin paper, with hardly any ads and very few pages, this is a magazine that stands out. And while the subject matter has a particular theme, a photographer gets to experience new ideas, situations, stories, and receive a paycheck.
I was able to travel through out Bogota and a smaller northern city near FARC territory called Villavicencio. And while the photographic possibilities that accompanied the story were slim (I wasn't inclined to spend a few months as a "guest" of the rebels), I met some really interesting people - former fighters, commanders, soldiers - who "found" God and put down their weapons in favor of the Bible.
In order to make more compelling shots - beyond the stale portait of a pastor, missionary, or "hands-in-the-air-praying" image, I resorted to using, almost as a crutch - the Canon 45 Tilt Shift Lens. Amazing. I think I found my new Holga/Lensbaby/Kitch cliche tool of the moment. Had a ton of fun with it.
Though by far the most amazing thing to come out of my trip to South America was a chance to see the clouds. Flying back to Bogota from the north of the country, I must have shot 16 gigs of Cloud imagery.
They have truly amazing cloud formations. I almost felt like Stieglitz from the plane. Except with a digital camera.
After that I was back to the USofA for my first ad campaign. Stuart Hart of New Cruelty was my producer, David Holloway and Ken Cedeno for the DC crew were my stalwart assistants. I haven't had as much fun doing my job as I did last week. Climbing snow covered slopes in the freezing cold dawn, crawling through waist-deep snow, setting up four sets of cameras to shoot time lapse, stills, and video - was great fun. It was actually the opposite of stressful.
I swear I felt my hair growing back.
Almost.
I know having a stress free ad shoot in rare, having a creative director like Graham Button - a funny extroverted brit stuck in Colorado who can do imitations of Bear Grills while singing "Im Too Sexy," is even more rare.
I found myself climbing a snow swept rock face at about 11000 feet with David, Ken, and Graham - we staggered our climb, ten feet away from each other and passed up cameras, tripods, lenses, and pouches. Finally we arrived at the summit to witness one of the most spectacular Dawns I have ever seen. The fiery red tendrils of the morning sun cresting through a gap in the mountains. A layer of clouds separating the pink sky of dawn from the deep blue of the night.
Meanwhile, as I shot this, I lost most of the feeling in my gloveless had as the temperature dipped low and the wind howled and whipped against us.
All this and no bullets. No armed guards yelling at me about security risks. No managers demanding I get written approval. No bombs, no danger. No danger except from and errant snowball or stumbling skier. People were having fun, laughing, doing ski tricks, and were glad I was around. I wasn't the liability, I was the party.
I was in Vail to shoot the Vail Resort's marketing campaign and image library for next year. I could seriously get used to this sort of thing in these lean editorial times.
Below are a few outtakes - Skiers jumping off ramps in the "Terrain Park," and a time lapse of my second dawn on the roof of the Rockies. Or at least close to the roof.
POYi Judging
Thursday, February 19, 2009 | |
Looking for another way to be less productive besides from DVR, Tivo, or iChat?
Try watching the live judging of Pictures of the Year....
Another Time Lapse Test
Monday, February 16, 2009 | |
This one was done at one picture a minute for hours until my camera battery quit.
Time Lapse Test
Saturday, February 14, 2009 | |
Recently Ive been turned onto some amazing Tilt-shift time lapse photography by Keith Loutit. Seriously inspiring stuff. You can see it here.
So today I went out to Adorama and picked up a timer release for my camera. These are my first experiments from my apartment window.
Portrait Sequences
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 | |
Marvi, David H, and Ken Cedeno... My first subjects.
In DC
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Spent the last week in DC at the White House. In fact I am still here, waiting for two last shoot appointments to get scheduled. I miss home, but I am having a blast hanging out with David, Ken and assorted friends. I totally nerded out yesterday waiting for a shoot by spending the whole day in the Apple Store. I managed to convince those Apple Genius Bar peeps to give me a new iPhone.
Ive been spending my time in DC - between my short shoots at the White House - thinking about what's next for me. What is it need to finish, to do, to accomplish.
Ive thought a lot about the current social economic crisis in the US and how I can document it. How I can, at the same time, escape the editorial grind that wears down my creativity.
I have all these ideas, in my head - books, projects, things I want to do - I just dont know when I'll actually be able to get to them all.
One step at a time I guess...
