I was hanging out in Huntington Beach on a Tuesday night with a group of BMX friends. These weren’t just ANY BMXers, though. Among them were legendary riders Eddie Fiola and Martin Aparijo, as well as Bill Allen, the actor who played Cru Jones in the cult classic film Rad. I was hanging out and producing a couple of video interviews for a project Bill was working on. While I had the lights set up, Eddie asked me to get a dramatically lit image of everyone there, There were ab

For this image, I lit Mel with a film noir look. Editorial personality shoots are always fun and rely on experience, preparation, collaboration and often serendipity to fit an entire magazine shoot into a half of a day. Diane Anderson-Minshall, Editor in Chief of HIV Plus magazine and friend for well over a decade, asked me to shoot a cover and inside layout of actor Mel England. This is a big shoot for the magazine, Mel is a very outspoken, inspirational and well-known actor

Rotor Drone Cover with the DJI Inspire 1. Lit using PocketWizard Hypersync I was hired by Air Age Media to shoot the insanely hot and sought-after DJI Inspire 1 drone. Creative Director Betty Nero asked me to create something high-tech and eye-catching. Though that’s something I regularly do, until you get to a location and see all the various aspects, you never know what you’re going to get to work with. The shoot was scheduled for 8:30 AM, and I needed to shoot detail shots

The triumvirate of creative work As a creative person who works with customers, both individuals and corporations, I have to provide detailed estimates for almost every job I do. And especially now, with the ubiquity of digital images on the web, all the great tools available to consumers. Since everyone has a digital camera and thinks good photography is easy, I have to explain something about any creative process to new clients. Years of experience creating great work make

But there’s a big problem with going into the store versus shopping online. Their website has truly competitive prices, but when you walk into the store, not everything has a price tag on it. And here’s why: they typically mark up anything not tagged by 50% or more to increase profits. It pays to know what the real-world price is when you walk in, or at least by using your smartphone and checking online. Today, I walked into the store to buy a couple of things. Two of them ha

And that hard place was ANOTHER ROCK! I was working with hero, friend, and former champion professional BMX racer “Pistol” Pete Loncarevich. Pistol is an intense guy, which is how he got to the top of BMX racing, then transferred that to becoming the number one downhill MTB racer. Skills and personality for days. The image was for an ad and the cover of a catalog featuring the shoes. As we walked up one hill, Pete saw a little hit, not even a jump, that would work perfectly f

Photographing my heroes and friends with the gravitas they deserve Eddie Fiola, the “King of the Skateparks” debuted his new EF Proformer bike here at OSBMXR – I’m now the proud owner of one of these limited edition frames! Every year I go to the Old School BMX Reunion at Woodward West in Southern California. It’s an invitation-only event put together by one of the luminaries of the BMX freestyle world, Steve Swope. There’s a minimum age for attending, as well, and that age i

The CamRanger is a small, white, wireless controller for your camera. It attaches to your Canon or Nikon DSLR (Full list available at http://www.camranger.com/supported-cameras/) via USB cable. From there, download the CamRanger app to your iPhone, Tablet or Mac. It allows you to wirelessly control your camera the way high-end tethering solutions do, but without the cable and expense. It’s fast and intuitive to set up. The box has the device, a battery and a pouch with a mini

Fantastic photography comic strip In case you’ve been living in a cave or don’t have geeky enough friends, there’s a syndicated comic strip called “What The Duck”. Penned oddly enough by musician Aaron Johnson, it’s amazingly insightful into the world of professional photography. Nothing is off-topic, from assistants to technology to all the things clients do to drive us nuts. You can check it out in many newspapers that now carry it, or online at WhatTheDuck.net. There’s eve

One of my photography heroes has a website Mike Buff, IN YOUR FACE because he was in Oz’s lens! Before I ever became interested in photography, I was into BMX. I mean, INTO BMX. It was everything. And that started when I picked up my first issue of BMX Action magazine in 1982, collecting articles on anything to do with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The magazine tested the Kuwahara E.T., the same bike Elliott rode in the movie. I fell in love with the sport through Bob Osborn’s

If you’ve been a professional photographer for any length of time, your clients have probably asked this. Especially after paying you a lot of money for what you make look easy. Things started getting tighter, and someone mentioned to me that I was paid “awfully well” for going out and shooting for an hour or two. I asked if they were happy with the images, and of course they were. I explained that if I was shooting, for example, a dirt jumper doing one of his best jumps, and