Never work with children or animals...

Here's a brief behind the scenes video of National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore working on his epic project 'Rare'. His mission is to document as many of the 6,000 species of captive animals in American zoos as he can, in particular endangered breeds, and has so far photographed over 1,800 different species in zoos and aquariums across the United States of America.

As you will see, trying to take great photos of animals with complicated lighting setups is far from easy!

RARE: Behind the scenes video

To see some of the hundreds of photos he has taken so far, check out this link:
http://www.nationalgeographicstock.com/ngsimages/lightbox/share.jsf?l=MH5tolXTjyQ=&o

Behind bars and beginning to forget.

Just clicked through to this powerful photo essay by Todd Heisler on the New York Times Lens blog.

The story, which documents the lives of elderly prisoners suffering from various stages of dementia and their caretakers, shows a side of prison I'd never really thought about, in a very visually striking way.

Obviously most of the inmates have done some awful things, including murder, but thinking of these same people being a personal carer, feeding, showering and changing adult nappies for another mentally ill inmate is somewhat jarring.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/behind-bars-and-beginning-to-forget/

One of my grandparents has quite advanced dementia and has needed full-time care for a few years now. It's hard to know what level her understanding of the world is. On the odd occasion she has made what seems like a completely lucid comment out of the blue, but for the rest of the time she may barely even register that anyone else is in the room, let alone recognising who they are.

Visiting a nursing home full of people who have lost most or all of their mental capacity is quite confronting; I think partially because of the fear of ending up with a life where you have no control or understanding of anything that happens. Todd's 'Vanishing Mind' portfolio covers similar ground to this: http://toddheisler.com/#/Vanishing%20Mind/0/

It's hard to not feel pity for some of the poor souls in nursing homes, who may well spend their last years and days staring vacantly at a wall, with no control over their physical bodily functions, and no idea of who they are, where they are or why. But combining that pity with the revulsion for someone who has murdered another human being, or something similarly terrible, makes for a strangely conflicted feeling while viewing this series of images.

Be sure to check out more of Todd Heisler's work on his website here: www.toddheisler.com
 
He has an enormously diverse body of amazing work. His portfolios range from arresting depictions of the war in Iraq, to behind the scenes coverage of the popular American TV series Glee.

His 'Final Salute' series, showing a dead American soldier's return home and subsequent funeral, is particularly moving: http://toddheisler.com/#/FINAL%20SALUTE/0/

Todd has received well-deserved awards and accolades from numerous photography organisations and competitions, as described in the 'about' section on his site:

 "Todd Heisler has been a staff photographer for The New York Times since 2006.
While a staff photographer for the Rocky Mountain News, Heisler was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his images depicting the families of Marines killed in Iraq. The images also received top honors from the World Press Photo Contest, Pictures of the Year International , NPPA’s best of Photojournalism, The American Society of News Editors and at Visa Pour l’image. He was also part of the team which received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of wildfires in Colorado."

Learning new skills.

I saw this post on Chase Jarvis's blog today, which quickly made some interesting points about the different and constantly changing skills needed to be an assistant for one of the top commercial photographers in America.

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2012/01/no-but-i-can-learn/

It boils down to a simple premise; nobody can know everything, but being willing to learn is an invaluable tool.

His blog is great for learning about new equipment, inspiration and techniques, as well as behind the scenes videos and stories about his escapades as a successful shooter. He also made the jump into doing film productions as well as stills, which these days is becoming an expected service from many clients.

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/

You can view his extensive photography portfolios here: http://www.chasejarvis.com/#mi=1&pt=0&pi=2&p=-1&a=-1&at=0  

And the video projects here: http://www.chasejarvis.com/#mi=1&pt=0&pi=3&p=-1&a=-1&at=0

Definitely worth a good look around if you're keen to learn something new.

An interview with National Geographic magazine editor Chris Johns.

I came across an interesting post on burn magazine yesterday, which is a blog for emerging photograhers, run and curated by legendary Magnum and National Geographic photographer David Alan Harvey.

He's definitely up there with my favourite documentary photographers, with a great eye for colours, light, timing and composition. A few years ago I bought one of his photography books, Cuba, which in itself is a photography lesson. 

But back to the original point, in this blog post David interviews the current National Geographic magazine editor in chief, Chris Johns. As well as holding the top position at the Nat Geo headquarters in Washington D.C., Chris has also had decades of experience as a photographer himself. The insights gleaned from their conversation are fascinating, with a frank and open discussion regarding the trials and tribulations of working out in the field for the magazine.

http://www.burnmagazine.org/dialogue/2012/01/interview-chris-johns-editor-national-geographic-magazine/ 

Following on from that post, there's a bit of a sneak peek at one of David's upcoming articles, showing several potential opening spreads in one of the picture editor's layout rooms.

http://www.burnmagazine.org/dialogue/2012/01/obx/

Then in the following post, Senior Photo Editor Sarah Leen looks at three different options for the first few pages of the article. It's interesting to see how much of a difference editing and sequencing can make to the mood and feel of a story, and the post is interactive, in that David asks readers to comment on what layout they like best, and why.

http://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2012/01/sarah-obx/ 

It's quite difficult to choose a favourite, as I like them all. I would choose the top row, as I really like the surfer beach shot as an opener, but with only a small photo on the third page, as opposed to the three full page images of the other two, it has less impact visually. That said, with the fishing picture being a very strong frame and on the fourth spread page, I think it just wins out over the second row. 

Chris Johns makes the final call, but I'm keen to see what the final cut looks like in the June issue.

Inspirational photographers: Jonas Peterson.

I randomly stumbled across Brisbane-based wedding photographer Jonas Petersen a couple of weeks ago, through a link on a car forum.

I don't know how I haven't come across his work before; after clicking through to his blog, was absolutely blown away by the most recent wedding post which was at the top of the page:

 

http://jonaspeterson.com/wedding/wedding-johan-emelie-sweden/

Over the past few years I've looked at an enormous amount of photography on the net, including quite a lot of wedding and portrait photography. While excellent work isn't out of the ordinary, it takes a lot to stand out as being truly special and unique.

The epic location, with the ceremony taking place alongside a lake and forest in Sweden, certainly wouldn't have hurt the chances of getting some good shots. However, his use of light, framing, shallow depth of field, perfect timing and composition produced some phenomenal images.

There's one photo that stood out as being something different (you'll know it when you see it) from the usual 'girls blowing bubbles' photos that get taken quite often. Not only does he have a single floating bubble in sharp focus, in the background he's captured the exact moment of a hug and smile between what looks like the groom and father of the bride. 

But it's hard to pick a favourite really, the whole set is stunning. With photos like these, I would imagine he's booked solid for a while.

Plenty more photos on his blog here: http://jonaspeterson.com/

Taking a year to make a photograph.

I just came across this interesting video on http://www.dvafoto.com/, where National Geographic photographer Sam Abell talks about making pictures for a story on the life of American cowboy painter Charles M. Russell. 

I found it fascinating listening to the lengths he went to so he could get the perfect shot of bison skulls. In an age where people take digital photos every few minutes, it's very unusual to hear a story about one photograph that was a year in the making. He mentions near the end of the video that although he took roughly 25,000 photos for this story (all on film) only eight pictures were used in the final article in National Geographic magazine.

You can see more of Sam's work on his website here: http://samabell-thephotographiclife.com/

As well as some on the Digital Journalist: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0202/abell_index.htm