Behind the Scenes
Recently I have had a few inquiries about the idea of sharing some “behind the scenes” moments from past photography projects. My initial thought is that it seems somewhat self-indulgent. But if some of these end up being informative or entertaining, then I am going to go ahead a give it a shot. I will try and share some few words about the moment, where I was at or what I was trying to accomplish. The main criterion is that I had to find projects that actually had some sort of “behind the scenes” image to go along with it. I am adding them without too much regard for chronology...just adding them randomly as I find them.
Tribe Magazine Premiere, 1995
Around 1995 a bunch of hearty souls got together to launch a new magazine in New Orleans. As we were preparing for our launch, we wanted to create a cover and poster that would make a splash. We were working with a title for the mag that many folks didn’t really like, City Buzz. While we argued for a name change we went ahead with plans to create a cover image with the idea of a 50 foot woman taking over the town, with a bee theme that would reflect the title. At the last minute, a week before we went to press for the first time, we changed the name of the magazine to Tribe. Our image now seemed a bit off, but she was still taking over the city, and we didn’t have time to change it. I shot the aerial view during a previous ride in the Met Life blimp, and my good friend and model, Martha, became our bee-girl. My friend Sarah Lavine designed and made the costume. We did the shoot in David Richmond’s studio and he shot the polaroids of us during the shoot. Photoshop was fairly new then and somewhat limited, but we created this composite and it caused a sensation. Although the magazine’s run was far too short-lived, we were named one the of top 5 new launches of 1995, we won a ton of awards and were distributed all over the planet. The whole venture was one hell of an experience.
Edgemont, NC, 2009
I had been invited to my friend John Wilson’s family camp in Edgemont, NC for a big group gathering. I was still a year away from deciding to embark on my “Drawn to Water’ project, but this trip likely helped plant the seed for that project. At this time I had just gotten a cool new Lensbaby lens for my digital camera and was just learning how to play around with it and see what it could do.
Purefoy Road Polaroids, 1985
I was living at my last stop in Chapel Hill, NC…Purefoy Road. We used to jokingly refer to it as Pure Joy Road. I had recently acquired a vintage polaroid camera and was just starting to explore what Polaroid Type 665 positive/negative film could do. I started experimenting with distressing the negatives, solarizing negs and prints and doing composite printing in the darkroom. It was a good time. This film became one of my favorite mediums for years to come. I still lament that it no longer exists. My pal Sam Kittner was over at the house on an afternoon where we were playing around and he made these “behind the scenes” images.
Clouet Street Studio, 1998
For a number of years I had a great studio where I lived on Clouet Street in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. There always seemed to be a lot of activity there, and a number of fun collaborations. This shoot involved models Amy and Kayla and a giant rusty chain and hoops I hung from the ceiling. My roommate, Mick Vovers took these somewhat comical shots of me trying to communicate suggestions on body positions and posing.
Audubon Hotel, 1997
In 1997 I was invited to be a guest bartender at Clinton Peltier’s infamous Audubon Hotel and Lounge. In theory I was supposed to have my own station and only make Cosmopolitans. I could make a mean Cosmo, but I was a lousy bartender, I left my station often and frequently forgot to collect money for the drinks. Instead my focus was on using a Polaroid to document the patrons from early in the evening, into the wee hours. Clinton took this Polaroid of me to use for promoting the event. I will never forget being described as a “Deluxe Swankster.”
The Village Voice: Anthrax Scare, 1998
The Village Voice was one of the few clients I had in New Orleans that kept hiring me after I moved to NYC. Photo Editor Meg Handler gave me a bunch of really great assignments. In this one, the city of New York had a recent Anthrax scare, and the Voice wanted an illustration for a story they were writing. I got my girlfriend, Elita, and our friend Kevin, to be my models. I busted out the polaroid, and we shot this on the roof of our apartment on West 107th street. A little bit of photoshop compositing and bingo. I think Elita must have made this picture of me on the roof while we were setting up. If I look at these images now in the time of Covid and think I might have made the exact same images today.
New York Times Magazine, 1998
I moved to NYC in 1997 with the notion that I could be successful as a photographer in the big city. Things didn’t go exactly according to plan. I got a handful of assignments, but not enough to exist in New York. Eventually I took a job as an Art Director. Weeks before I was to start that job I got the assignment of a lifetime. I was assigned by the New York Times Magazine to do a project that involved portraits in multiple cities, NYC, Atlanta, Denver, London. I had to pull out all the stops to be able to complete the assignment. Somehow this image of me in Denver was made during this assignment.
Zoe in the Bahamas, 1999
In August of 1999 I got an invitation from my great friend and muse, Zoe Wiseman, to join her and her partner Charlie in the Bahamas. Charlie was there for recording sessions in Bob Marley’s recording studio and Zoe knew she was going to have a lot of free time. “Come on down and let’s make some images” is how I vaguely remember it. Of course I leapt on the opportunity, flew down and slept on a leaky air mattress on their cabana deck for several days. I must of had no idea what I would be doing, because looking back at the film, I must have brought every camera I owned. There is medium format work, toy cameras, polaroids…and I shot a lot of color, which I didn’t do often, but I suppose I was seduced by the colors of the Caribbean. Zoe took this silly image of me, once again looking foolish, trying to direct some posing idea I had. I don’t know that we made our very best work on this trip, but I remember it being a grand time and great experience.
Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 2007
I never liked when I saw photographers on Fat Tuesday not in costume. To me the masquerade was important. I like to spend most of the morning with the Mystic Krewe of St. Ann and then split off and wander. So I would always create a costume, and sometimes even one for my camera bag. In 2007 I spent part of the day with my friend Tara Eden (who took this picture) and her sister. This is late in the afternoon outside the famous Napoleon House in the French Quarter. I had spent many years shooting film during Mardi Gras, but in 2007 I was trying to embrace color and digital.
Jim Carrey, “I love you Phillip Morris” 2008
A client hired me to do some promotional images for the Jim Carrey film “I Love you Phillip Morris.” The film was being shot at this time in a decommissioned prison in New Orleans East. They were trying to do early promotion before upcoming film festivals. They told me Jim had picked my work out of a few photographers that had been proposed. He was very kind and flattering when we met. The client had also told me a few things to help me out…one was that the scene they were filming before our session was going to be a very emotional one, AND that Jim liked being directed. And we only had a very limited time with him. So my assistant, Tara Eden (who also took the behind the scenes images) and I did our lighting tests so that we would be ready. Not only did Jim arrive at the appointed moment, but so did most of the cast and crew, who now had a break in the action. Jim immediately began to entertain the gathered peanut gallery. I shot merrily along at this show proceeded, but we also knew we had to pull off some of the images that we had planned for. It took all of my gumption to holler out and shut down the gallery and Jim in order to get things in order. We shot with him alone, but we also pulled in a bunch of the extras who were playing inmates.
Melancholic at the Fruit, Durham NC 2015
I had been holding on to my inventory of Polaroid 665 film well past its expiration date, not shooting it unless I knew the subject was worthy, which means I wasn’t shooting it while it went bad. Then I got a call from Tim Walter, who is not only the proprietor of the Uber-cool Fruit art space in Durham, but a photographer who has been doing incredible work with the human form, emotions and trauma. He knew of my background shooting figure work and he had a model, Melancholic, in town for a while. They had been working together and he thought a break in the action would be good and he was curious about my process, so he connected Melancholic and I and offered up the Fruit as a location. Tim shot some behind the scenes shots of us working. These are some of the last frames I made using what remained of my Polaroid film.
UNC Basketball, 1983
I had the great fortune of having some great mentors while I was a student at UNC. Some of my predecessors had established shooting color basketball in the “Sports Illustrated” style, which meant mounting a strobe system in the rafters of Carmichael Auditorium and using flash to get high quality color images of the action. No other university that we knew of was doing this. Folks like Bob Donnan, Scott Sharp, Al Steele, and Peter Krogh passed all this knowledge down to us. In this image, my cohort Ward Callum and I were going up on the 40 ft lift to install the strobes and we had forgotten our roll of gaffer tape. Someone below was throwing it up to us so that we didn’t have to come all the way back down. Did I mention that we also had the good fortune of shooting Basketball during the era of Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, and even opponents like Len Bias?
