Vintage Derby Photos

1952, Championship Heat

In my other role as Dad I've become more invloved with the Soap Box Derby. Along with the amazing Lydia Hess we've been working on producing new marketing material for the Salem Soap Box Derby Association, new website, etc.. I had seen scrapbooks that belong to the club before and tracked down Steve Brandt, a former race Champ and Race Director, as well as Dad to two racer / Champs, who keeps the books. Steve gave me permission to bring some home to scan for the website and I have only scratched the surface. Some of the images are amazing, at least I think so, but maybe that's because of my enthusiasm for the Derby. One of the things that I think is particularly cool is seeing these images from 50 - 60 years ago on the same race track my kids race on. Here's a couple more:



1963, Finish Line


1953

Check out the Salem SBD website here: http://salemsbd.org/History.html

BTW, This is a super cool thing to get kids involved in. If you are interested in more info get in touch.

Characters

When asked what I like about my work the first thing I think of is the cast of characters I meet. Over the years I've had the pleasure of photographing people of many many walks of life, politicians, tycoons, murderers, atheletes, junkies, movie stars, etc., but none have the chutzpah of Stu Rasmussen. Elected Mayor of Silverton Oregon last year Stu became the first transgendered Mayor of an American town. I spent a couple days in Silverton hanging out with Stu and what I found remarkable was after only a few minutes, minutes in which Stu quickly disarms and charms you, you no longer see him as transgendered. You just see Stu. The people of Silverton, young and old have accepted him as one of their own in ways I found hard to believe could happen in a small town.
Anyway, here's a couple from the take I shot for People:




in the City Council Chambers, Silverton.



With his girlfriend Victoria.

We're screwed

Time magazine paid $30 for a stock photo which it used on the cover to illustrate a story on the "The New Frugality". Is that frugality or publishers making a statement to "content providers" about the ready availability of cheap but acceptable artwork. It seems the day of reckoning is upon us when a culture of commodified "good enough" content has replaced well craft art in magazines and advertising. Can consumers tell the difference? Do publishers care?

Great article in the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-onthemedia22-2010jan22,1,3750639.column?page=1

My Blog Sucks

Okay I admit it. I really have been calling it in and not putting forth the effort to make this worth reading. And to be honest I've been just a tad lost in regards to improving it.

But the thought occurred to me that perhaps I could spice things up by telling a few stories about some of the more, ahem, interesting shoots I've been fortunate to be assigned over the years. I mean this IS a glamour profession after all.

So why not start at the beginning. Way back in 1985, I was living in Dallas Texas trying to get started working as a magazine photographer. I went down to Austin and met with Fred Woodward at Texas Monthly and showed what no doubt was the thoroughly forgettable portfolio I had at the time. He didn't have much to say about it but on leaving I gave him a copy of a small self published book I had produced a few years prior, called Atget's Gardens. The book consisted of pictures I had made at Versailles one afternoon under the influence of cheap red wine and the notion I was walking in Atget's footsteps. Here's a couple sample pictures:




Well what do you know but Fred really liked the little book and damned if he didn't call me for an assignment a couple weeks later. My first big time magazine assignment. And for a heavy weight art director as well.

The assignment was to photograph the car pound. The place your car goes when it gets towed. I shot 22 rolls of tri-x (that's black and white film for any youngens that might be reading). Here's the image that was published:



After that it was off to the races. My next gig was shooting the dog catcher:



Over the next 4 years I shot a number of assignments for Texas Monthly for Fred, Nancy McMillan, Kathy Marcus and DJ Stout. I can't begin to tell you how fortunate I was to land those first gigs, as they opened doors for me in NY and elsewhere down the road. But the first was still the best. Thanks again Fred.

BTW, I still have copies of Atget's Gardens for sale. 5 bucks.

Mark Hooper

I just returned from a terrific presentation by photographer Mark Hooper as part of the Portland Art Museum and the Photography Council's Brown Bag Lunch series. Mark produces elegantly executed, thought provoking and often humorous work for magazine photo illustrations as well as work specifically for exhibition. If you don't know his work seek it out. The two images above are the only ones I could find to link to but take some time and look at his web portfolio.

Surprise Package

As has been widely reported Business Week magazine was purchased by Bloomberg and is moving their offices. Today I received a package of original images dating back 20 years I had created for Business Week over the years, which they kept on file for potential future use. Was fun going through the package and finding images so old made for stories I had long forgotten.
Included was this vintage portrait of Bill Gates, photographed in 1991 working in his home office on a Saturday morning.

I have no idea

Preservation Magazine

This guy has made a mint selling stuff for old houses.

Inc. Magazine

Fun story about books burritos and a son's love.

Performance makeup

Musings on Shooting Video

Wednesday night Pro Photo and Canon sponsored a panel discussion of photographers who are beginning to shoot video. Like many photographers who are wondering where the sea change in our industry is headed, I’ve wondered if video is the new thing. Wednesday night did nothing to clarify it for me.

After a promo reel and an introduction to some video basics by the Canon rep, we were shown clips by each of the panel members and when the evening was over I came to a couple of very vague conclusions:

1. Just because you can shoot a fine still image does not translate to being able to speak a motion language.
2. Video is as much about sound and editing as it is the visual, perhaps more. Crappy sound, bad music, choppy editing makes a bad video, no matter the visuals.


The new Canon DSLR tools are opening doors to thousands of photographers who will shoot video. They will all be competing with an already robust industry of seasoned, talented film makers for their assignments. If I were a veteran film maker I’d be really concerned about the race to the bottom in the pricing arena that we have seen in the photo business brought on by an influx of hungry young photographers/videographers. If you think I’m being cynical consider clients who are looking to Flickr for their source of still materials. Then have a look around youtube.

I think the real growth industry in video production will be skilled sound artists and editors.

When the discussion brought up the subject of royalties for music I got really depressed. They all agreed your best bet was find a musician who would hand over their work for free or for trade. Sound familiar photographers?

I thought it was ironic when one panel member stated although he had used music without permission, as it was not a commercial piece, and besides he didn’t know how to contact the famous musician anyway, it was okay to use it.

But is not a portfolio piece, in this case a video clip as part of ones reel, a “commercial” piece? And is not using someone’s work in this way no different than an ad agency using your images for comps? I know many photographers who have tried to get paid for such usages.

The real kick in the pants was the suggestion that it’s so easy to find musicians who will let you use their work for free, just search myspace. Apparently there is a French website that has over 100,000 royalty free music clips. Ironic to hear all this from photographers who fight tooth and nail to retain intellectual property rights in an age of Flickr, clipart and royalty free micro stock. Glad I'm not a musician.

All this plus the unanswered questions about pricing / ownership rights and I came away from the evening no more enlightened, or for that matter excited, about the prospect of adding video to my skill set. Then again I saw one clip that kept the idea alive for me.

One video clip really stood out from the others and it wasn’t surprising given that the director / dp was none other than Pete Stone, a famously talented and creative still photographer who has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and can run most other photographers off the field. Here’s a link:

http://wadhams-stone.com/

McClaran.com Redesign

Lydia, Rory and I have been working on a web re-design. No radical changes, just cleaned up the old design, fixed some things that weren't working well, made the pictures bigger and of course added some new material (as well as got rid of some). Phase one will be live soon featuring a new Portraits portfolio, with a brand new Travel portfolio soon to follow and finally a refreshed Projects section. We're beta testing now, here's a peak:

http://mcclaran.com/portraits/portraits_01.htm#

If your tired of wasting time on Facebook have a look and let me know if it's working okay.