Author Archives: Cameron Davidson

About Cameron Davidson

Cameron is an aerial and location portrait photographer working worldwide with clients that include Vanity Fair, Audubon, National Geographic, American Express, Virginia Tourism and Dominion. He lives near Washington DC in Northern Virginia. Cameron is represented by Visu Artists - New York | Miami | Dallas www.visuartists.com

Chesapeake at the Nature Conservancy

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Mark Godfrey, the Director of Photography at the Nature Conservancy recently interviewed me for his “Mark Godfrey selects” series on the Nature Conservancy website. Mark also chose a selection of images from the book for an exhibit in the lobby of the Nature Conservancy Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

If you find yourself in Arlington, swing by the Nature Conservancy to see a few pictures from the book.

Chesapeake

There are two restaurants of note near their headquarters. Uncle Julio’s for excellent Tex-Mex and Willow for upscale dining.

Cameron Davidson Nature Conservancy

The exhibit space in the lobby uses a standard frame size. Mark prints the images in his office to make sure that they match his standards.

Addis to Gheralta

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A year ago December, Jessica Dimson, the former Picture Editor at Departures Magazine sent me to Ethiopia to shoot a dream assignment. A mix of aerials and portraits about a helicopter safari to the hottest inhabitable spot on earth: The Denakil Depression. (Jessica is now at the New York Times)

I’ve been meaning to post a couple of blog entries about this assignment and never got around to it. Feature Shoot posted a piece about the assignment and recently tweeted about it.

The first part of the shoot involved a 17 hour flight from Washington DC to Addis Abba with a refueling stop in Italy. After I arrived in Addis I met the fixer for the shoot and several government officials who I needed to sign off on the authorization for me to shoot aerial photography. After the paperwork was taken care of, I met the writer, Sophy Roberts. Sophy was a joy to work with: she is inquisitive, funny and nothing seems to bother her.

The next day we hopped a courtesy ride from Addis to Gheralta on a private aircraft. Dealt with a customs agent in the middle of the country who thought we had flown direct his little airfield. By the time were finished “clearing customs” it was close to dusk and we had four hour drive on a dirt track in front of us.

Once we got underway we came across a caravan of camels led by a young man. From within the truck I shot a few frames and was berated by a boy of about seven yelling at me, in English, “no picture, no picture!”

After we arrived at the lodge, Sophy and I met Ben, our pilot along with his best friend, Richard who serves as cohort in crime and all-around crew chief. Our goal was to fly the Denakil in the morning and then return with the helicopter to Addis. As always, go with the flow, is the rule for editorial on location in another country. The schedule changed and Sophy and I took advantage of a free morning to explore the landscape of Northern Ethiopia. Our guide took us to meet two monks who lived in caves that are 1000 meters above the surrounding valley. The monks live in rock-hewn churches carved deep into the mountain and painted with images of Jesus and the Holy Church.

It was a tough climb with little helpers to carry my back pack and tripod. The first part of the climb was up a rutted and rock strewn chute we half crawled-walked up. Then we tackled a kilometer of slick rock and donkey trail. Of course, once we got to the top we found a perfect spot to land the helicopter if we ever wanted to come back.

The monk on the left is seventy-eight years old. The monk on the right side of the frame is 113 years old by the Ethiopian calendar. The Ethiopian Calendar has thirteen months instead of twelve in the Julian calendar. I think the older monk is close to ninety years of age by the Julian calendar.

For some reason, even with the language barrier, the younger monk and I connected. I shot some strong portraits of him and sent jpegs to our guide to show him the next time he goes to the church.

Shoot Film | Kodak Bankruptcy

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Last week I sent ten rolls of 120 film Kodak Portra off to the good folks at Miller Imaging in Kansas. They offer a sweetheart deal on processing and scanning. The images were not serious or even shot on an assignment. They were a test of a pinhole camera that I purchased on Ebay.

A couple of months ago I shot a fairly large project on color negative film and it was fun to shoot it again. Mostly to know that I got the image right and not to shoot tethered or to worry about creating web galleries in the evening. Instead I worried about the film arriving safely at the lab.

After my shoot I spent a day or so wandering around Southern Virginia shooting anything that caught my fancy. Just me and my big old Fuji 6×8 Rangefinder. Fuji made a 6×7 and 6×9 for the world market and 6×8 for the Japanese event photo market. The cameras are nicknamed Texas Leicas.

I would like to shoot more film as long as I don’t have to scan it. C-41 processing in DC is handled by Dodge Chrome and they are very good but it does take a few days. Often I just FedEx the film to Millers in Kansas or Richards in California. Richards Lab and Millers offer pretty decent scanning of the film at the time of processing.

It is a shame what is happening to Kodak. They tried to sell their digital and patent rights, then filed law suits against companies that are now huge (with deep pockets) in hope of stavingoff a financial disaster, followed by the bankruptcy filing and the now very real threat of being de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.

The Great Yellow Father in Rochester has certainly been humbled by the changes to the communications industry.

Spider Awards | Honorable Mention Advertising

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The Spider Awards just released the list of winners and honorable mentions for the 6th Annual Spider B&W contest.

My aerial of the Milford Wind farm in Utah that was shot for Clipper WindPower was included in this years advertising section.

The contest winners work can be seen and the magazine downloaded at: http://www.thephotopaper.com/download.php It was a slow connection this morning. (Sunday)

13 Years | Portraits of Haiti

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13 years is a long time to devote to a project.

Here are a few selects from my long-term project supporting the Community Coalition for Haiti as a volunteer photographer and board member. I started going to Haiti in 1999 and decided during my last visit in August of 2011 that it was time to move on from CCH.

Here are a few selects from a PDF brochure that was edited by Mike Davis and designed by Lisa Lytton.

If you would like a copy, please send me an email and I will send you a link to download a version.

Cameron Davidson Haiti

Driving in Haiti at Night

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On one of the last trips to Haiti I spent a day photographing villages that were participating in the Community Coalition for Haiti seed programs. At the end of the day, we ended up on the wrong end of the road near Cape Haitian. Our goal was to be off the roads before sunset. We left Cape Haitian and started working our way south and east across the mountains toward the guest house at the Pignon. About a third of the way up the mountains the truck overheated and came to a grinding halt. We waited out the mandatory cooling off period and then refilled the radiator with water as curious Haitians gathered around our beater of a truck. Dusk came quickly soon we were in total darkness. It was a tough and slow ride across the gutted tracks that pass for roads in the central highlands.

For some crazy reason, most likely out of boredom, I started shooting flash pictures of animals and people as we crept through the night. Not the smartest idea in the world but most people laughed and thought it was fun.

Here are a few frames from that journey. I am constantly surprised at how good the Nikons are at figuring out exposure and focus in extreme low light.

Haitians at night
Oxen on a Haitian Road
Kids at night in Haiti
CArrying the load

Ben Reznik for Vanity Fair

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For the past two days, I’ve been trawling my archives for new portfolio images. Images that were overlooked in the rush to get the client selects out and the job put to bed.

In September, Vanity Fair sent me to Los Angeles to shoot aerials of a contested piece of land under development in Beverley Hills and to photograph the attorney representing the owner of the property.

Mr. Reznik was a delight to photograph. Given the nature of the story, I expected a tightly-scheduled, let’s get this done approach from him, instead I met a gracious man who took the time to tell me the back history of this unusual property that overlooks Los Angeles. He showed me the original underground garage that housed former owner Peter Sellers collection of vintage sports cars and told me a bit about the history of the property.

The shoot was scheduled for the mid-afternoon and the weather gods blessed us with the first clear day in close to a month. I’ve started shooting portraits with medium format again. My goal is to slow down a bit and lets the moments happen rather than chase after them with the DSLR kit. That approach is a reflection of my own desire to shoot less frames and make them count.

Attorney Ben Reznik in Los Angeles

I posted a brief piece about this shoot when Vanity Fair first published the story. If you are interested in the piece and the controversy surrounding this land, please click here to the Vanity Fair site.