Cameron Davidson

THE book of inspiration has arrived!

The newest edition of 200 BEST AD PHOTOGRAPHERS WORLDWIDE was recently published and delivered to creatives around the world.

Quite a few friends and colleagues are in the book. Several were honored for inclusion for the second or third time. Which is very impressive! The book is full of amazing work.

Friends/Colleagues that made the cut include:

Jim Fiscus, Randal Ford, Paul Ross Jones, Julian Calverley, Dean Alexander and Peter Yang.

I am also happy to announce that yours truly was invited to be a part of the 2010 Edition.

Two of my images were selected, both of them are low-level aerials.. One was shot for Vanity Fair and the other was a promotional image I shot in New York City.

http://gardenandgun.com/newsletter/chesapeake

The wonderful Maggie Kennedy of Garden & Gun is an active supporter of my long-term self-funded project on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Garden and Gun published this piece in late January. Thought you might like to see a preview.

Cover layout
Thank you page with an image of Steve Bussman preflighting his Hughes 500 before an early morning winter shoot in Southern Maryland.
Rough layout of a few of the pilots I have flown with for this book.
A spread in the Upper Bay chapter showing the Susquehanna near its confluence with the western Branch.
Ace designer Alex Diaz.

Yesterday Alex Diaz, Greg Glaviano and I met to finalize the layout and image selection for the book. I nixed eight spreads and added six new ones from recent shoots. We have an incredible design with a elegant type treatment and a mix of double truck, full page and mixed sized images. The book covers the complete Chesapeake Bay Watershed starting at the headwaters of the Susquehanna and continuing to the mouth of the bay. I shot every major river system in the bay plus the islands, marshes and cities of the watershed. There are quite a few abstract aerials that will hopefully delight the viewer plus images with great impact. The earliest image was shot on Kodachrome and the most recent was shot two weeks ago on a D3x in Pennsylvania.

Goal is for shipment to the printer in early April with delivery of final copies in May. A pre-order site is being set-up and the first one-hundred copies of the book will include a signed and numbered print.

Last Friday morning I caught a break in the weather and flew up the Potomac River from Northern Virginia to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Brunswick, Maryland (updated)

Dickerson, Maryland power plant along the Potomac river.

In the early afternoon, I drove to York, Pennsylvania and flew with a former U.S. Army pilot who now flies a Hughes 500 for power line patrols. We flew the Susquehanna river from west of Harrisburg to the downstream dams near the Maryland border.

Ice moving on the river.

Snowmobile tracks.

Along the river.

Just got the word that I was selected for the next edition of the book. This is pretty cool. Hopefully, this along with the new (soon) version of the web site with the (soon to be published book) will change the perception of the work I shoot and where I am going.

I am honored and grateful. I have several friends who were also selected, including Mr. Bad weather, super dramatic landscape himself, Mr. Julian Calverley. Jules has eight pictures in the book!

John has written/rewritten a revised and greatly expanded version of Better Business Practices.

In an interesting twist, John is suggesting that people buy the new version and take the original version and pass it forward to other photographers or assistants.

John asked me to read the first edition of the book before it went to press.  He incorporated a couple of my suggestions. (Thanks John!).  I purchased several copies for assistants to read.  The revised version expands into tax audits (John went through one) and the need to shoot video for some clients.  The email trail and pricing overviews are worth delving into.

I plan to buy a second copy for the office.  Not a page turner but a strong resource to turn to when in need and a good overall path for setting up your office and business.

Tomorrow morning I am presenting my Chesapeake Bay images and speaking about aerial photography at the William and Mary – Virginia Marine Institute in Gloucester for the Virginia Chefs Association.  Every year VCA participates in the Seafood Symposium and my presentation will be followed by a Marine Scientist whose focus is on the Chesapeake Bay.

10:30 to 11:30 – Tuesday the 13th – College of William and Mary – Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester, Va

Two New Photo Books worth considering.

David Burnet’s: 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World

From an email he sent me a few days ago.

I’m very pleased to announce that in conjunction with the upcoming publication of my book “44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World,” that The Digital Journalist (http://digitaljournalist.org/) is running a cover story in their new online magazine. Please come have a look.. it’s thirty years in the making….

David Burnett
New York
September 2009

Rodney Smith’s: The End Starts Here

Informative blog entries about the book and the story behind some of his perfectly composed images.

http://rodneysmith.com/blog/

http://theendofrodneysmith.com/theidea.html

Yesterday was one of those shoot days where everything just felt right. The crew meets at my place with a quick load in of the gear, we head off to the local bagel bakery for breakfast then arrive at the location without any headaches from traffic.

Set-up goes smoothly, the lighting was pre-planned and blocked before on our tech scout day. One little hiccup from the Pocket Wizards had us questioning them for a moment. It is pretty easy to “change” a setting without knowing it. The transmit/receive versions of the wizards offer a world of possibilities for triggering strobes and remote cameras but they are also complex. After a quick reset we finalized our lighting and waited.

As if on que, his grace, the Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa, the Honrable Desmond Tutu walked around the corner with his lovely and spirited daughter, the right Reverend Mpho Tutu. While Reverend Tutu was in make-up, I had the opportunity to talk with Archbishop Tutu. His is a charming man, full of grace, humor and wit. We spoke about his participation in the Wisdom book project, his Congressional Medal of Freedom award from President Obama and his respect for Stephen Hawkings. (Wisdom is an impressive body of work by photographer Andrew Zuckerman)

Reverend Tutu preaches at St. Mary’s in Washington DC and was a delight to watch and photograph her interaction with her father.

Just one of those days where everything felt right and good.

My first photographic heros were Jay Maisel, Pete Turner and Eric Meola.

When I started shooting in high school, I lived in a small town in central Michigan. My two choices for color film in those days were Agfachrome CT-18 and Kodachrome II. Both needed to be sent to the lab by U.S. Mail. I’d scour the back pages of Modern Photography to find the best deal for Agfachrome or Kodachrome mailers or the film/combo package that some dealers offered. As a high school student with little funds, I usually would go for a three-pack or ten-pack and try to make every image count. I’d spend my evenings studying the yearly photo annuals of U.S. Camera and Popular Photography. The people whose photographs touched me were Hiro, Arnold Newman, Bruce Davidson, Pete Turner and Jay Maisel. I wrote Hiro about interning at his New York Studio and he sent me a gracious note asking me to stop by the studio when I came to New York.

I choked about going to New York on my own with no financial support. Instead I headed to DC and the Corcoran School of Art and started working at Charlie Scheer’s National Camera near the White House where I met my next set of influences. Frank Johnston of the Washington Post and Fred Ward of the Geographic were mentors of sorts to me along with the wonderful Fred Maroon. All of them influenced my approach and style. Frank shot B&W for the Post, but Fred Maroon and Fred Ward were masters of Kodachrome. My heros shot Kodachrome, the Geographic used Kodachrome with a special messenger run for their film at the Gaithersburg, Maryland processing facility. Kodachrome was the film to use. I remember “RUSH” processing of Kodachrome. You would drive your film to the Gaithersburg lab, hand it over with a store film envelope to someone who reluctantly met you at the side door and then you could pick it up the next morning or have it delivered to your camera store. I also remember shooting 120 Kodachrome for an editorial feature, waiting a week for the processed film and then shipping by FedEx the selects to the photo editor in New York. I can not imagine doing that these days.

Copyright Jay Maisel

How can a film influence a style or approach? The beauty and simplicity of Kodachrome was, you knew what to expect. If you shot under fluorescent lighting you added a 30 or 40 magenta filter and nine times out of ten, you were good to go. If you needed a little pop for color at sunset or in the afterglow, you added a bit more magenta. Usually a twenty would do it. In the early morning pre-sunrise mist, Kodachrome would give you soft colors. In crisp sunlight with bright colors you were good. Add a polarizing filter and underexpose by a half-stop and you were golden.

When I look at my pictures from High School, I see the beginnings of my style. The use of empty space with graphic patterns and always influenced by color or form. Kodachrome helped me achieve my early style by allowing me to trust its consistency and bold colors. Now that Kodak has announced the retirement of Kodachrome, you hear of people buying up as much of it as possible at often prices that seem foolish. Yes, I have a stash of Kodachrome 64 and I plan to shoot it this fall in Haiti. I’ll send it off to Dwayne’s in Kansas and wait patiently to open that box of mounted slides for the last time. When Kodachrome 25 was announced, I recall professionals in DC coming into National Camera and buying up as much of the Kodachrome II as they afford. Seems like history is repeating itself.

Alex Webb, Bill Allard, David Alan Harvey and Medford Taylor were all Kodachrome users. Their photography showed me how to use Kodachrome in low-light and to push past the cliche colors into a softer palette.
In the past I’ve written small posts about scanning Kodachrome transparencies and on the amazing collection of 4×5 Kodachromes from shot during the forties that can be seen at the Shorpy’s web site. Take a look at the collection of images at Shorpy’s. Kodachrome on 4×5 is amazing: clean rich blacks, intense skies and a smoothness that you can only come from large format.

Kodak has decided to retire Kodachrome and Dwayne’s will continue to process the film through December of next year.