Holiday Greetings

Would like to thank all of our great students who sent us greetings for a wonderful Holiday Season.  

The Dyna-lite alumni group has recently got in touch with us and requested a second advanced Dyna-lite studio workshop.  We will be adding it to our 2011 schedule. For those interested date will be announced in an upcoming newsletter.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

IT'S HOLIDAY TIME AGAIN!

Artist/Photographer Gary Nicamin 

Every time the Holidays come around I tend to get melancholy. You think of old friends, old times, and of singing Auld Lang Syne. I think of the good old days. A psychologist friend of mine tells me it's normal.  I was working with a new intern today and noticed he was removing some digital dust from a photograph of a dear friend of mine, who passed away. My friend's name was Gary Nicamin. He lived in Hollywood, Los Angeles While I'm feeling in the mood, let me tell you about Gary.  He was one hell of an amazing artist. I met Gary in 1970 and he was the photographer for Chicago, The Beach Boys, Blood Sweat and Tears, and The Turtles. He photographed all of the great sixties and seventies bands. He was also a full blown art director and master of cut and paste. When I had an artistic technical problem I always went to Gary. He also could answer any rock and roll trivia question you could think of.  Gary wore a long Raccoon coat, drove a car that was originally a taxi, and had a penchant for colorful bowling shoes (he had a closet full) which he wore all the time.  At a time when everybody seemed to be stoned on something, Gary NEVER drank or did any type of recreational or prescription drugs.  His only drug of choice was Pepsi Cola. When he wanted to get really high he would eat a chocolate chip cookie. I could spend a long time telling you stories about Gary. So for purposes of this blog we'll call this Gary Episode One.

Here's the story behind the photo; It was approximately a little after 5 AM in the morning. Gary was in his bedroom and I was sleeping on the couch in his studio. I always stayed with Gary whenever I was on assignment in L.A., and in those days it was at least several times a year - usually more. Anyway, I heard sirens screaming, so I got up looked out the window and it seemed like the building next door was on fire. I ran into Gary's bedroom - he was sitting there reading the LA times and watching the local news. I said "Gary I think the building next door is on fire." He said"calm down it's an abandoned building that is being used as a crack house."  He non-chalently, mentioned that it caught on fire frequently.  He led me to the window and we climbed through to get a better view.  I obviously took the opportunity to make this environmental portrait of Gary. Notice the bowling shoes, one of his trade marks. I loved Gary and I sure as hell miss him. A true renaissance man.

-Joe DiMaggio

When Its Cold It's "$#*!' Cold!

A wise man once said, there is nothing you can do about the weather so just grin and bear it. That SOB must have had six layers on because it is just brutally cold. I guess it's a global warming thing. Or maybe its the ozone layer dissipating. No that wouldn't make sense then it would really be hotter. Enough of this. I'm not only running you in circles, I'm running myself in circles. I was going through a hard drive and I ran across a photo done in Tucson, Arizona, it was done with a 16mm lens severally backlit as you can see. I was under a jump while a mountain bike flew over. The key here to remember is the balance between the sun in the background and the biker's face. I took a rigid 4'x8' piece of insulation which was black on one side and chrome on the other and laid it down as a guide for the biker to hit his mark. The sun light reflecting off the chrome surface of the insulation gave me as close to a proper exposure as I could make. If I was to remake this photograph today I would consider using the Lastolight 36" super reflector. Why? It folds up a whole lot better than a 4'x8' piece of insulation,  and you don't have to drive the Lastolight back to the construction site and give it to the foreman. It just makes sense. In 2010 all cameras and all lenses are great. Its up to you, the photographer to come up with a different composition, and maybe a little different lighting. They say everything has been done before, and that may or may not be true. But as Photographers/Artists we have to come up with a different viewpoint.

To all the ships at Sea - Stay warm, I think I'm going to get on a plane and go to Tucson.

-Joe DiMaggio