Heyday Publishing – LAtitudes: an Angelino's Atlas

Some time ago I was approached by a book publisher called Heyday who wished to license one of my images for a book on Los Angeles they were planning to publish. Along with the royalty, they promised a copy of the book when it was eventually printed. That was an extra delight -- normally I don't see how my images are used unless I get lucky and find one in the wild on my own; this is how it works with my agency Getty Images. But LAtitudes was a direct sale.

The book was recently published, and as promised, Heyday sent me a copy. I'm thrilled to be a part of this... the book is very interesting.

It was a little damaged in transit. This is what 4th class mail does to a book.

Nice big half-pager. Credits are never guaranteed; in this case they are in a graphic index in the back.

The book contains relatively few images, so I'm all the more honored to have been included, and I'm grateful that Heyday recognizes the value of photography and offers a fair royalty rather than picking up free or almost free images from the internet.

Serendipity

It has been several years since Steph and I first stumbled on our favorite place at the Salton Sea. It was quite by accident. We just, for some reason, never bothered to turn back when we meant to. We kept going forward into the unknown until we found this place. On that day I took this picture of Steph and wrote this:

"This is the most strange and beautiful place I can imagine. 

Steph inspects a forsaken nest on the dry sea floor. In the background, perfectly frozen a mile away across the desert, is a power plant. We have walked a mile from the other direction over this lovely brutal land to get here, not really knowing what we'd find. There is nothing anywhere around us. Nothing at all but this desolate tree released from worry, this wild empty eagle's place, and the wind tugging hard and bittersweet at all our senses to show us that we are still on earth. And on the ground, not snow: Salt.

This is what I mean when I take you aside, a wild light in my eyes, and try to persuade you how important serendipity is. This picture right here *is* serendipity, and it represents a day we will never, ever forget. I will always remember that when I have no plans, I keep walking."

It was a life-affecting instance of serendipity, and I'm grateful for it and all the times serendipity delights, informs, and improves life.

A Day at the Races

Volunteering today to photograph a charity event at Santa Anita racetrack for Variety, the Children's Charity, I got a chance to make a few images away from the event, just for fun. Here they are.

I'll leave publishing pictures of the event itself up to Variety.

Wildlife Learning Center

Hard off the 210 freeway in Sylmar lies a small gem of an animal refuge called the Wildlife Learning Center. During their 2014 fund raising efforts, my lovely sister purchased for me, at a silent auction, a special one-on-one photographic tour there. It was a delightful gift; I had never heard of the place so I'm glad my sister was hip to it. If you live in the vicinity of Los angeles, you really should take the time to visit.

The WLC isn't a zoo or a curated collection of animals, it's a rescue center, so their assortment of creatures is a bit serendipitous... the animals here have literally been rescued from grim circumstances and given refuge. So alongside a fascinating two-toed sloth and a group of adorable fennec foxes, you'll find a moist little alligator and a couple of striking bald eagles.

I've processed a few images from the visit and put them below, but these are not all the animals you'll find there. There are probably a couple dozen other interesting species which you'll get a chance to visit with up close.

Our time at WLC was made comfortable and engaging by friendly and knowledgeable staff who bent over backwards to make sure we learned lot, got good pictures, and had a great time. Truly, if you like animals, you should visit. Since The Wildlife Learning Center is a non-profit with enormous expenses (I heard somewhere it costs $1,000 a day to keep these animals safe and fed), they provide a lot of opportunities to help them out with donations. Amazon Smile is one way (I added WLC as my Amazon Smile selection), and special events and private tours like the one I got are another.

If you have any questions, I've linked to their website above; check them out! Or feel free to drop me a line in the comments section or e-mail me eric@mojavemorning.com

On to the pictures!

A bald eagle. I resisted the temptation to add blue to the red and white.

Zeus is a blind screech owl. From the WLC website: "Specifically, Zeus was diagnosed with conjunctivitis, corneal degeneration, endotheliopathy, anterior uveitis, most likely caused by a traumatic event like flying into something or being attacked by a predator." Less specifically, it looks like his eyes are filled with stars.

Did you know screech owls are cute as buttons? Not so cute to field mice, I'm sure. The speckles in his eyes are not reflections of something outside, this is how his eyes appear, and part of the symptoms of his blindness.

Lola hanging around. She was actually pretty active for a sloth. I had to keep the aperture all the way open to completely freeze action in the dark open shade where we visited together.

My approach when photographing captive wild animals is usually to isolate the animal as completely as possible from the environment. The context is not the interesting part of the scene unless the story being told is about the captivity itself. Plus, I keep all my photos as simple as possible anyway. Complicated pictures don't grab.

A fennec fox. Normally adorable, I caught him in a tense moment.

A heart-melting porcupine.

Arctic fox. Rescued from a fur farm.

Nom nom nom

Coming/Arrived/Leaving

Donkey Dominance

We paid a visit to our favorite local wild burro herd this weekend. One of them was a little ornery. He chased the other guy all over the field, biting and kicking him. 

These guys live in the mountains south of Redlands, California. These are a lot of them here--several dozen at least and probably many more-- in a few different roaming herds. No one knows how they got here, but they have been living wild in these mountains for generations. One common story claims they are related to the wild asses that live in the Panamints in Death Valley. They are a charming and entertaining local phenomenon; I hope development and progress doesn't make them vanish anytime soon.

Back to the Botanic

Vernal things are everywhere!

Tarantula Hawk

Chamomile

Sage

European Honeybee

Wild rabbit

Tarantula Hawk

Bye now!

Renaissance Faire

I attended my first Renaissance Faire in 1983. Back then I found it exhilarating. I haven't visited too often in the intervening years--twice, I think-- so I'm no expert in the Faire phenomenon. But one thing is certain: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire has grown much tamer, less bawdy and interesting. During a recent visit with my family, I found the experience a little soporific. It could partly be my age talking, but it's mostly the Faire's homogenization and obvious effort not to offend anyone which has made it a little bland and dull. The addition of uncounted sporadic references to a TV show (Game of Thrones) didn't really help either. That show might be wonderful, but to my mind, the Faire is supposed to transport us to a place other than our televisions.

Nevertheless, I took the best photographs I could in the brutal midday light of industrial Irwindale, California. Here are a few from the Jousting event... a recreation of a historic medieval contest held by agrarian nobility set in a recreation of a renaissance bourgeois town. Because, why not? What's a few hundred years here and there if you're having fun? The Joust was the best part of the day by far.

Friday Night Liberty

The eight prints are hung in the State Parks office at Liberty Station. Now all they need is you! If you're near San Diego, California on May 1st, 2015, consider dropping by. Here is more info: http://www.ntclibertystation.com/what.php

Many thanks to my wife Stephanie for all her help and to the good people of the California State Parks Southern Service Center for inviting me to exhibit in their offices and for all their help with the process.

Corporate Publicity Headshots

The assignment: produce publicity headshots of these six company leaders in a straightforward, honest way. There should be lightness, simplicity, nothing dramatic. The shots should be uniform in mood and presentation, so that they can be used together or apart for a variety of applications. 

Putting together something like this is, perhaps surprisingly, more difficult than making a picture of a wild animal or taking a bunch of different portraits of the same person. Because of the need for uniformity, a certain set of limitations imposes itself once the shoot is underway.

After a long shoot, refinement, and sensitive, time-consuming post work, these are the picks.

I picked the Canon 6D and EF 70-200 f/2.8L II USM as the best choice for portrait work. The lens was set to about 135mm, f/5.6. 135 is a great focal length to help people look their best, and f/5.6 is a good compromise between too shallow and too hard to light with speed lights. The shutter was kept at 1/60 to allow the background to appear more white. The camera was set to ISO400 to give the speedlights a break; there would be a lot of rapid shooting and higher ISO allows the flashes to operate with less power. ISO400 on the 6D looks very smooth. The camera was mounted on a tripod and never moved. The subjects were placed on a posing stool between a 50" silver umbrella camera left and a 36" softbox camera right. A large white reflector was placed below. The umbrella speed light was given half a stop more power to slightly increase dimensionality.

Shooting was done in live view mode with the focusing set to face detection so that I could interact face to face with the clients while shooting, and not worry about missing focus. The company publicist was provided with an iPhone running EOS Remote so that he could review the shots live immedately as the exposure was made, and suggest adjustments to poses, etc.

I was glad to do this work, but being alone in the desert taking pictures of sand dunes is always more fun to me than any other kind of shooting.