Luceo Images

The Motorcycle Diaries: Vietnamese Body Building

Kevin German — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:23:33 +0000

mind always wanders during the exercise session. I study the people around me. Try to imagine their stories. The classic Vietnamese body shape is one that is short in height and extremely slender with most likely a 5% body fat or lower. Obviously this isn’t too much different from that of other developing countries. Manual labor + limited income for food supply = a body type that Western people strive to obtain.

But Vietnam is changing. The Machine is taking the place of manual labor and food supplies are perhaps becoming more unhealthy with the introduction of Western fast food restaurants. I have noticed more and more obese children in recent days running around the city. In the States, the word “obese” is usually associated with people who have extreme weight issues. Of course the US has big problems with nutrition and health. But, in fact, a skinny person can also be considered obese based on their measurements.

I watch as three types of people come into the gym. The first being the person who either does not know how to exercise properly or does not want to. Perhaps just being in the environment, going through the motions is enough to make them feel better. I watch as they watch more fit people exercise. I assume they think like every other person in the world and longs for what they do not have. The second is the person who has a level of commitment in which their life schedule allows. Health is important but some times work gets in the way and they catch up another day. These people seemed focused on what they are doing, yet always gazing up at the clock to keep to schedule. The last type of person is what people in the States would call a “Meat Head”. Someone who spends all of their free time at the gym. They have incredible bodies and anyone who has spent a day at the gym probably has an idea of how much they have to work towards it.

What first led me to talk to one of these guys was my fascination for the mere size of his body. A complete contradiction to the Vietnamese stereotype I mentioned earlier. Tai is 48-years-old. Though I’d swear he doesn’t look a day over 36. His arms are about the size of my thighs and his chest is about as think as is body is wide. HIs English is good. He tells me that he comes to the gym every day. I usually see him in the evenings lifting dumbbells that far exceed my limitations. A few jokes later exposes a crooked-tooth smile. I like him.

Some time later I am reading the local newspaper. A brief in the sports section talks about the famous Vietnamese body builder Ly Duc placing third in a recent competition in Iran. I stare at the story for a moment in amazement. My ignorant mind couldn’t comprehend that this sport existed in Vietnam. I tell my assistant that we must find this sport. He knew of the existence but says it is not popular and does not know where to find it. He continues to search in the coming days and I continue my gym routine.

During one of my workouts, I got up to Tai and as him about body building. It’s funny that it didn’t occur to me before. His eyes light up with excitement and he tells me that he is a body building competitor. I’m sure the roundness of my eyes match that of his and we go on to talk about the sport. Vietnam has two types of body building competitions. Men’s Body Building and Men’s Classic Body Building. Tai is a competitor of the first category. Big muscles, like what you would see on a movie action hero. The second is about overall balance and look.

Tai and I traveled to the province of Dong Nai two weeks later to meet his coach and photograph a Classic Body Building competition. I instantly fell in love. The grit, the light, the everything. The event took place in a small stadium at a sports complex. A couple dozen people sat in folding chairs in front of the stage waiting for the competition to begin. Behind, about the same amount of body builders readied themselves. Push-ups, dumbbell curls, shoulder lifts. They each took turns exhausting their muscles in hopes their definition would be most visible.

Friends rub fake tanner on their bodies until a deep golden brown is achieved. The fluorescent light casts a sheen that defines their muscles even more. One person does not put the tanner on his face and it looks as if he is wearing some sort of muscle suit. I laugh a little bit to myself as his seemingly white face stands out amongst the crowd.

Further down to the right, I am surprised to see female competitors. This is a new sport for them. They are quite fit, but no comparison to the men or to women’s body building abroad. Still, I am fascinated by them and rituals that take place before competing.

The men are called up on stage in groups of five. The rest of the competitors wait in the wings watching. The men perform seven different poses to showcase their muscles. The stadium lighting casts long shadows on the stage. Men in white shirts and black ties write down comments as they judge the body builders. Finally three medals are awarded in each category. Flowers are given to the first-place winner.

Tai sat in the audience with several other men that matched his size and proportions. They will compete later next month in Da Nang. I hope to be able to travel up there to photograph that category as well. I like the idea of challenging the stereotype of the Vietnamese man. Everyone is different. Those differences are what will help change a country for the bette

Over the past four months I have been spending a lot of time at a local gym here in Saigon. Actually it’s one of the nicest gyms in Vietnam with two locations in Saigon and one new one opening in Hanoi. It’s essentially the 24-Hour Fitness of Vietnam. A friend of mine from Seattle owns them and I’m a big supporter of what he does.

My mind always wanders during the exercise session. I study the people around me. Try to imagine their stories. The classic Vietnamese body shape is one that is short in height and extremely slender with most likely a 5% body fat or lower. Obviously this isn’t too much different from that of other developing countries. Manual labor + limited income for food supply = a body type that Western people strive to obtain.

What first led me to talk to one of these guys was my fascination for the mere size of his body. A complete contradiction to the Vietnamese stereotype I mentioned earlier. Tai is 48-years-old. Though I’d swear he doesn’t look a day over 36. His arms are about the size of my thighs and his chest is about as thin as his body is wide. HIs English is good. He tells me that he comes to the gym every day. I usually see him in the evenings lifting dumbbells that far exceed my limitations. A few jokes later exposes a crooked-tooth smile. I like him.

***

Kevin German is a photographer who lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His column, “The Motorbike Diaries” appears every other Wednesday. He is a founding member of LUCEO.

Steve Anderson for Stern Magazine

David Walter Banks — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:42:19 +0000

Steve Anderson was an enigma to me. He is a well traveled and intelligent church pastor in Tempe, Arizona who speaks five or so languages. Yet despite his qualifications he preaches a message of hate, calling for the death of President Barack Obama. What’s worse is that he believes his message is condoned by God due to an ill-interpreted verse in the Bible. I tried in vein to argue with Anderson on his position as did Jan-Christoph Wiechmann, the extremely intelligent and highly informed reporter I was traveling with. After my shoot in the office park where Anderson’s church is housed in a small four-room rental space, we went to lunch with him and his wife and three kids. I mostly listened and observed as Jan argued with facts and logic and was continually retorted to with articulate yet illogical and immovable opinions from Anderson. After lunch, the Anderson’s were kind enough to give me a ride in their minivan back to my hotel so I could edit while Jan took the rental car to a coffee shop to write. I smiled and shook Steve’s hand when he dropped me off, and they drove away I stood baffled as as to how these seemingly good people could house so much hate under the surface for those with differing opinions, and furthermore how they could pin all that on God. Anderson formerly identified with the Tea Party Movement and was part of a series on the right-wing activists I photographed for Stern. See more posts here and here.

Summer IX

Kendrick Brinson — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:19:13 +0000

More yummy Polaroid from The Impossible Project.

From the Archive

Luceo Images — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:38:31 +0000

From the Archive is a regular column that features one image from our archive and appears every Thursday. LUCEO Images has a thorough group archive (keyword search bar, top right) and it can be found here.(...)
Read the rest of From the Archive (462 words)

Facing South: Rebels Football

Kendrick Brinson — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:56:44 +0000

When I found out there was a North Georgia high school football team with Rebels as a mascot, I added their first game to my calendar for my ongoing Facing South project. Sure enough, there were Confederate flags everywhere at Fannin County High School’s game. When the first touchdown was scored, three students with flags ran the length of the field. It’s not often a photographer gets to wander a sporting event of any size and can ignore the sports action.

Mark Potok for Stern Magazine

David Walter Banks — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:45:47 +0000

The first in the series of Tea Party related shoots I worked on for Stern took me to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., to photograph Mark Potok. Potok is the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), one of the most highly regarded non-governmental operations monitoring hate groups and extremism in the world today. In addition to editing the SPLC’s quarterly investigative journal, The Intelligence Report, and its Hatewatch blog, Potok acts as a key SPLC spokesman for issues involving extremism. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights among other venues. Before going to work for the SPLC Potok was an award-winning newspaper reporter for long-standing institutions like USA Today, The Dallas Times Herald, and The Miami Herald. Mark has his own unique perspective as one of the countries true ‘watchdogs’ with an organization that backs him to do just that. While Potok’s job may be one that many hold on in high esteem, both him and his organization are constantly on guard for the backlash of the hate-filled groups they report on. During the shoot, I tried to include a sense of the military-like security housed within the building’s sleek contemporary exterior in downtown Montgomery. Check out the first post from this series here.

The final image is a photograph of one of the pieces of historical memorabilia which adorns the SPLC’s walls.

In Ohio and Virginia for AARP Bulletin

Matt Eich — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:46:30 +0000

Within the last 10 days, after two quiet months this summer without any work, Ilene Bellovin, a freelance editor for the AARP Bulletin was kind enough to send me on two assignments for their State Pages. The first shoot was in Cleveland, Ohio and allowed me to spend three days working on “Carry Me Ohio” before coming back home and photographing the second assignment in Richmond, just in time for their deadline. Both shoots were fun, and all three women were wonderful to work with. I’ll be posting some new “Carry Me Ohio” images soon, but for now, here are some portraits of my lovely subjects, Rosalind, Pegg and Nora.

Rosalind Smith, Cleveland

Pegg Millroy, Cleveland

Nora Schroeder, Richmond

These women’s stories can be read on the AARP Bulletin site, linked below.

Virginia

Ohio

William Temple for Stern Magazine

David Walter Banks — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:41:16 +0000

I had the pleasure of working on my second story with Stern Magazine’s talented writer Jan-Christoph Wiechmann in a series of assignments for the magazine on the Tea Party movement. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens with news magazines, the story was held over and ended up losing relevance before it ever saw the light of day. Since the images were left on the cutting room floor so to speak, I thought I would share a few from each assignment here on the blog. One of my shoots was a portrait session with reenactor, activist, and pastor William Temple, who by his very nature has become one of the Tea Party movement’s unofficial spokesmen. Having already met and photographed Temple while on assignment for TIME in Nashville, he offered me a little more trust than the mass ‘liberal media’, and we were able to dive right into the shoot. While I may not agree with what their party stands for, William was an articulate, passionate and interesting man and I enjoyed hearing what he had to say.

Rev. Dr. Durley for AARP Bulletin

Kendrick Brinson — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:35:02 +0000

Reverend Dr. Gerald L Durley preaches health to his congregation. I photographed a Sunday service at his church, Providence Missionary Baptist in Atlanta, for AARP Bulletin. His congregation honored him during the August 15th service in celebration of Rev. Dr. Durley’s 23rd pastoral anniversary at Providence Missionary Baptist Church.

I was in for an unexpected treat. Although Rev. Dr. Durley wasn’t speaking due to his anniversary, the esteemed Reverend C.T. Vivian gave the sermon. Rev. Vivian was a lieutenant for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I wonder if there was clapping and dancing at the churches I went to growing up, if I would have pretended to sleep so I wouldn’t have to go on Sundays like I did.

Weekly Roundup | 9-3

Luceo Images — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:58:15 +0000

This week’s chatter has been concise, but it still packs a pretty solid punch. First and foremost, we’re pleased to announce that all six LUCEO photographers make up the full feature of the inaugural issue of Fraction J, a feature of Fraction Magazine. The issue can be viewed online, here. We’re particularly thankful to the staff of Fraction J and encourage people to learn more on their website, here. In other big news Matt Slaby’s winning images from the CENTER Choice Awards will be featured in a group showing of all the choice winners at Portland’s Newspace Center for Photography. The exhibition will open today and will run through the 26th.

Tim Lamorte, a recent multi-week winner of You Guess It, selected the theme for this week’s post. With this heavy hitter benched for a week, our other guessers have had a sporting chance at the big prize. His theme was a doozy (and we’re still holding out for a winner) though we’re expecting results before the end of the day.

Finally, we’re pleased to announce that Deb Pang Davis has recently received the title of LUCEO’s Twitter BFF. No doubt there’s some sort of WWF championship belt for her to wear. Hopefully she’s watching for the Fed Ex package. It’s a little heavy and we expect that she’ll wear it nonchalantly and in public.

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Fight for Life for The New York Times

David Walter Banks — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:49:24 +0000

Dialysis patients who were dislocated by last year’s decision by Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta to close its outpatient dialysis unit gathered for a meeting at Oakhurst Presbyterian Church Sunday. I had the opportunity to continue working with New York Times reporter Kevin Sack on his current heartbreaking health care series. Kevin has continued to follow the closing of the dialysis unit at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The free dialysis unit offered treatment to many undocumented immigrants who have nowhere else to turn to for the life or death treatments. After nearly a year of fighting for the life-saving treatment and a number of deaths, thirty-eight end-stage renal patients have been given a rough deal to receive the dialysis they need to survive through Atlanta providers. The question remaining is what will happen to new patients who desperately need ongoing dialysis treatment. Click the links below to follow Kevin’s series with the most recent article at the top.

Deal Would Provide Dialysis to Illegal Immigrants in Atlanta (August 31, 2010)
THE BREAKING POINT; Reprieve Eases Medical Crisis for Illegal Immigrants (January 5, 2010)
THE BREAKING POINT; For Sick Illegal Immigrants, No Relief Back Home (January 1, 2010)
Immigrants Lose Lawsuit Against Atlanta Hospital (December 16, 2009)
Judge Rules That Hospital Can Close Dialysis Unit (September 26, 2009)
Immigrants Cling to Fragile Lifeline at Safety-Net Hospital (September 24, 2009)

Here are a few images from the most recent shoot as well as images from the past year. My heart goes out to the family and friends of Fidelia Perez (directly below) who died after her decision to seek out treatment in Mexico as patients were originally encouraged to do with Grady funding. Perez was one of five patients who have died after taking the advice to return to Mexico.

Sun City: Sense of Place II

Kendrick Brinson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:35:34 +0000

One of my favorite regions in this world is Central America. There’s a phrase there that gets tossed around often that I hope to embody someday: Tranquilo. I’m not exactly a tranquilo person, so it’s a grounding word for me.

When I landed in Phoenix last week, picked up my awesome soccer mom rental van (that would house lights, stands and a backdrop for a fun AARP lit shoot later in the week), and cruised up to Sun City, Arizona, I felt like I’d returned home to a second home. Once a documentary photographer works on a photo story or a photo essay for some time, even if it’s an intense or sad story, a place of comfort grows when we’re shooting it and returning to it. That’s my experience, at least.

I first stopped by a drug store to pick up some water and there I bumped into Snoopy, an Imperial Shih Tzu , sitting a shopping cart in the back-to-school aisle, while his owner Theresa Gottardo shopped. That scene right there was my first welcome back home to this quirky city of retirees I’ve grown to love so. I asked Theresa, who had a beautiful Italian accent, why she moved from New York City to Sun City and what she liked about Sun City.

“I enjoy the tranquility. I really enjoy every moment,” she said. That’s run of the mill to hear Sun Citians rave about Sun City.

and I get that.

It really is such an amazing place.

I hadn’t been back since March, and, over that time, while the temperatures rose, I beat myself up about where I wanted this project to go, what I was missing. When I showed the people my work so far I’d say, I know it’s lacking a closeness and an intimacy, before they could even decide that on their own. But whose rules are those? I’m shooting this project for myself, I don’t have any editors asking for a tight shot of a man on his death bed, or in a morgue.

After this last trip, I’m finally getting comfortable with what’s organically evolving, rather than pushing things that I think are supposed to happen and shooting photos to fill holes that I think populate this essay. I meet people, sleep in their homes, eat lunch with them, ride in their golf carts, giggle with their grandkids, listen to old stories. I’ve tried lawn bowling and waltzing. I’ve had a subject I spent a day with die. I’m growing as a person and a photographer and starting to let myself ignore the ‘hey-you-need-to-shoot-tighter’ nagging in the back of my head. I don’t want to force my vision of Sun City.

What first drew me to Sun City is what keeps drawing me back — the openness of people, the gorgeous backdrop, the energy, the oddity of embracing age and even ignoring age, the living of such full lives, the golf cart lanes along cactus-lined streets. That’s what I aim to show.

Here are some more images to give you a sense of place of my second home while I edit through the portraits and documentary images.

(The first Sun City: Sense of Place series from December can be found here.)

I’m waiting on a client to publish images from my second visit, and then I can edit my four trips so far into a more cohesive essay. In the meantime, some of my favorite images from two of my trips there can be found here.

From the Archive

Luceo Images — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:47:47 +0000

About the Image:

“This is the cousin of my good friend Bobby who is diving into a natural pool at the base of a waterfall in The Philippines. Bobby and I traveled to SE Asia in late 2006 and visited his hometown in The Philippines. It was my first trip outside of the United States and it was amazing. Filipino culture is so rich and the people are incredibly kind. Every day we were treated like rock stars.

This particular image was made in the northern Philippines. We had driven motorcycles up towards the top of the country and then hiked into this waterfall. The smell of natural water and vegetation always reminds me of my home in Washington state. The whole group tore off their clothes and began diving into the pool at the base of the falls. It is a memory I often feel nostalgic for.” -Kevin German

Find these photos in our archive »

The Fourth Wall: Las Vegas

David Walter Banks — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:25:24 +0000

I spent a day and a half in Vegas shooting for my project and had a blast despite the suffocating heat. I believe I’ll end up going back to focus solely on the seediness and greediness, but just kinda wandered around with my eyes wide open this time around. With a motto like, ‘What happens here, stays here,” Vegas invites visitors to be someone other than they are with a promise to keep their secret. In Vegas, I found not only a plethora of individual establishments dressed up as other times, places and realities, but an entire city wearing a mask so to speak. Here’s a few from the exploration.

A big thanks goes out to Mike Davis for some edit help and reevaluation on this project. At LUCEO, centric to our organization is the concept of working together to achieve something greater than our individual parts. This is an idea we bring to our clients in the form of our Partner Network, and our ability to produce as a team. Davis is a part of this external team, but also a part of our internal workings. There comes a time when any photographer needs feedback and editing assistance outside of their close circle of photographer friends. Mike has been an amazing resource for us to rely on and well worth the time and money to work with. Read more about him, or check out the link to his website here.

You can also scroll to the bottom of this post for links to more work on this project.

For more, check out previous posts on the project’s progress:

Project Description + Epcot

Ireland

The Holy Land Experience

LUCEO Featured in Inaugural Issue of Fraction J

Luceo Images — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:34:36 +0000

The fine folks at Fraction Magazine have released a new feature of the magazine to showcase documentary photography and photojournalism called Fraction J. The inaugural issue, which was released today, features recent projects by all six LUCEO photographers. A special thanks to David Bram, Stella Kramer and Jason Houston for their work in creating this publication and for featuring LUCEO in the first edition.

To check out the publication, visit: FractionMagazine.com/fraction-j

In My Back Yard: Disposable pictures

Matt Eich — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:41:27 +0000

When something jolts me to make a picture, the only thing I’m interested in is the feeling behind that jolt, the emotional resonance of a situation. The past two summers I have tinkered with an underwater disposable camera when at the beach with my family. In 2009 I shot half of the roll and this year I finished that camera and one more. These photographs feel intrinsically more nostalgic, what with their flaws and the tones of faded memory. It puts the fate of my photographs back in the hands of chance and that loss of control allows me to focus on the only things that matter. Feeling. Being there. Fighting the waves. Letting go.

Photo by Hannah Eich

________________________________________________

Matt Eich is a photographer who is based in Norfolk, Virginia. His column, “In My Back Yard” appears every other Wednesday. He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

Summer VIII

Kendrick Brinson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:10:44 +0000

I bought a super cheap underwater digital camera and I got to finally play with it at the lake a weekend or two ago.

The more photos I take, the more I’m drawn to the awkward, imperfect frames. I used to be such a stickler for having everything perfect (that was my newspaper staffer side) and now I swoon over the quirks and the odd gestures and the in between moments. That’s why these grainy jpg images that I had to take half-blinded and with a ridiculous shutter delay feel just right to me right now. They turn off the controlling side of my brain and let the go-with-the-flow side take over.

Zoltan Mesko for The Wall Street Journal

David Walter Banks — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:31:35 +0000

I recently photographed New England Patriots’ punter Zoltan Mesko at the Atlanta Falcons’ practice field in Flowery Branch, Ga. for The Wall Street Journal. The Romanian born kicker went to the Patriots in the fifth round, with the 150th selection after a 5-year college career at the University of Michigan where he graduated with a master’s degree in sports management. The interesting thing about Zoltan’s story is that he didn’t always want to be a football star. After winning a green card lottery, his family immigrated to a small low-rent apartment in Queens before moving to the small town of Twinsburg, OH in search for a better life. When Zoltan accidentally shattered a light with a ball he kicked in gym class, the coach told him that he could either pay for the light or join the football team as a kicker. Zoltan chose the less expensive route. Later he was astonished when he found out that you could get a free ride to college simply for kicking a ball. As a top recruit he had his pick of schools, but chose on the basis of the education he would receive and not just the strength of the football program. He didn’t expect he would again be a top recruit at the end of his college career, but he was. Read the complete story on the WSJ website here.

You Guess It

Luceo Images — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:41:54 +0000

Every other week we at LUCEO post iPhone and archive photos as part of a challenge that involves you, dear photography lover. We post photos Monday through Thursday based on a secret theme provided by a photographer or blogger or anyone in the photo industry, then we wait for you to guess the theme and write it in the comments by Thursday. Friday, we will announce who guessed right first. If you play your cards right, there might just be a prize involved. (Keep in mind, not ever photo has to blatantly follow that theme, but all the photo clues together will spell it out.)

This week’s theme picker is Tim Lamorte, the most winningest guesser of You Guess It of all time. We thought we’d give him a guessing break–he must be exhausted–and give you other guessers a reach chance at a prize!

Mr. Lamorte is a photojournalist and the editor of The Rivertowns Enterprise, a newspaper in Westchester County, NY. In addition to wearing out his thesaurus trying to win You Guess It, Tim likes LL Bean, root beer, Fig Newmans, schnauzers, and the name “Rosco.” If he had a schnauzer of his own, however, he would call him “Watson.” Despite his last name, Tim does not wear a block hooded robe and brandish a sickle. His photography portfolio, edited by the estimable Mike Davis, can be seen at timlamorte.com.

UPDATE: We have a winner! Tim’s theme was Oops! Mito is our winner. Mito, email Kendrick (kendrickbrinsonATluceoimagesDOTcom) and tell her you want a prize!

FRIDAY CLUE:

Tim Lamorte Photo

THURSDAY CLUES:

Matt Slaby Photo

Matt Eich Photo

WEDNESDAY CLUES:

Matt Eich Photo

Kendrick Brinson Photo

TUESDAY CLUES:

Kendrick Brinson Photo

Matt Slaby Photo

MONDAY CLUES:

Matt Eich Photo

Matt Slaby Photo

Images to Show at Newspace Center for Photography

Matt Slaby — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:23:17 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that two images recently selected for Center Director’s Choice Award will be shown as part of a group showing of all Choice Award winners in Portland’s Newspace Center for Photography. (...)
Read the rest of Images to Show at Newspace Center for Photography (103 words)

USC Orientation for U.S. News & World Report

Kendrick Brinson — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:54:04 +0000

I photographed freshmen orientation at The University of South Carolina for U.S. News & World Report. It wasn’t all that exciting, for visuals or the students either, as you can see by the lines and yawns. But it was fun to experience the nervousness and anticipation of the new students, to hear orientation leaders ruin the end of the summer reading and warn students about being carded at bars, and I was certainly thrilled to add U.S. News to my list of clients and head back to the city I grew up in for a day.

Malta, MT 8-28 through 9-1

Matt Slaby — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:14:38 +0000

I will be leaving on Saturday for Malta, Montana. The trip will bring me back to Colorado sometime around next Wednesday. Maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later. It depends on how good the fishing is after the assignment. At any rate, these trips are the reason that I still haven’t upgraded to a smart phone. There are still a few, fantastic places left where analogue service is all you can find. I will have my clunky, old dumb phone on for the duration of the trip to handle immediate needs and requests.

Also, on the medium-range radar, I will be in New York later in the month from the 26th-30th.

Weekly Roundup | 8-27

Luceo Images — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:03:09 +0000

This week has been fairly good for LUCEO’s travel miles. Kendrick Brinson is in Arizona, Matt Eich is in Ohio, Kevin German is cooking up something new in Vietnam, and Matt Slaby is about to depart for Montana. In the way of personal, phototographer-to-photographer thank-yous, a round of applause is in order for Andy Delisle for assisting Brinson on her latest trip to Sun City (thumbs up, AARP). Also, Kevin Riddell and Andy Spear each deserve Klondike bars for providing Eich with a couch to crash on during his latest foray back to Ohio. We’re waiting eagerly to see the updates that both Brinson and Eich bring back and we hope you will be, too.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

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From the Archive

David Walter Banks — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:51:16 +0000

Caption:

Rally attendees overflow onto the hillsides at the ‘Showdown in Searchlight’, a conservative activist rally put on as part of the Tea Party Express tour in Searchlight, Nevada.

About the Image:

“The good folks at Stern Magazine sent me out to the desert in Nevada to document a Tea Party movement rally. This was one in a string of six assignments that got me all-to-well acquainted with the radical political party. Strange as it may seem, I don’t disagree with much of what the party ’says’ that it is about like smaller government and less taxes. However, as is often the case, what they claim to be about seems quite adverse to their words and actions when surrounded by each other. But I wont’ get into that.

As I left Vegas in the early morning light, speeding out into the desert, I expected to find a small gathering but I was mistaken. By the time I arrived an hour early for the event, miles of traffic had been created leading up to the sandy highway turnoff. As my patience with traffic is thin, I opted to park on the side of the road and walk the last few miles. My main objective for the assignment was to photograph Sarah Palin who would speak briefly to the crowd, but it was the crowd that drew my attention and those people who I felt told the story. So I made the image of Palin when the time came, but I spent the rest of my time studying the characters in the crowd and their interaction with the desert environment.” -David Walter Banks

Find these photos in our archive »

Gulf Spill Bird Rehab for Mother Jones

Matt Slaby — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:22:44 +0000

In July, I had the opportunity to shadow the bird rescue and rehab operations in Louisiana for Mother Jones magazine. The biggest problem in photographing the spill –and the reason why it was an incredible opportunity to cover its different components for different clients –is that the actual fallout from the oil is so large and cumbersome in nature that it’s next to impossible to wrap your head around in a short amount of time. In my estimation, the spill is a conceptual issue. You can look at it from a micro perspective, but fail to show the broader scope of its impact; likewise, you can take a macro perspective, but that fails to show any real, tangible effects of the oil. In essence, I think the choice for most magazines has been to either show satellite images that give a sense of the colossal reach of a disaster front that stretches from Texas to Florida or to lean towards showing the environmental or human toll in order to approach it from a more personal perspective. Both approaches are valid and still neither comes close to giving an accurate sense of reality.

Complicating matters is the actual nature of the mess. The slick itself doesn’t really have any firm correlations to previous spills. Unlike the Exxon Valdez, it’s not a two-dimensional issue. It has depth and dimensionality resulting from the application of dispersant on the surface. This essentially means that there is a tip to this iceberg (and a corresponding subsurface behemoth). Mapping and understanding the nature of these subsurface plumes has been the source of much back-and-forth between BP and researchers, though at least one 22 mile long plume has been confirmed and, at depths, the plume lacks two components crucial to degradation –oxygen and heat.

The story becomes conceptual at this point because it is difficult to show future impacts or to track slow degradation of a shoreline, an industry, or a ecosystem. You can’t show a subsurface plume, photograph the chain reaction that happens when a keystone species in the food web is threatened, or make black-and-white the grey areas that occur in the interim between the explosion and the impact. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

So, given these very practical constraints, this set of pictures takes an anthropomorphic look at some of the direct impacts of the spill by tracking a full day with rehab workers from Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research as well as the International Bird Rescue and Research Center. These workers are selfless and passionate about what they do and the opportunity to shadow them was something that I took very seriously. Oiled birds come in, captured by rescue workers throughout the region. They arrive caged and are triaged according to their condition. Lightly oiled birds are treated last, heavily oiled ones are treated first. Some birds are dead (or near death). A percentage of what arrives will either die or be euthanized. The first phase of treatment involves an intake procedure that documents the bird’s condition and attempts to help the bird regain its a stable body temperature, receive some form of nutrition, and prepare it for a subsequent cleaning.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not enough to just scrub the oil from the bird and put it back out in the wild. When a bird is covered in oil, it’s ability to repel water is severely impacted, leaving them unable to effectively thermoregulate, forage for food, or properly hydrate. Incoming birds must first be stabilized, warmed, fed, and hydrated before they are candidates for cleaning. Re-release into the wild is an entirely separate set of hurdles that consider the birds condition after cleaning, existing injuries, and the likelihood that its re-release will place it in the same danger that it was just removed from.

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Just like the set of images for Time Magazine, I’d like to thank both the International Bird Rescue and Research Center and Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research for accommodating my request to photograph their faciltiy. I had the opportunity to join a press tour of their workspace prior to my time there and am always surprised by how journalists create their own biggest obstacles by being pushy, demanding, or aggressive when the situation doesn’t require it. Part of my agreement with the facility was to remain low-key and unobtrusive during my time photographing this very difficult subject matter. I did my best to keep that promise and could barely leave after shooting for twelve hours. Their work is compelling, thankless, and important. I hope my pictures reflect that sentiment and am definitely thankful for the opportunity to share this work publicly.

Find these photos in our archive »

College Scholarships for U.S. News & World Report

David Walter Banks — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:08:16 +0000

I recently shot a quick portrait shoot for USN&WR that gave me a whole new appreciation of my lack of student loan debt. I photographed Powder Springs, Ga. resident La’Nita Johnson at Woodward Academy where she recently graduated. She and her family will be responsible for about $32K of the annual $52K total cost for Pepperdine University where she will attend in the Fall. She secured $20,000 from the school, but was still left with the $32,000 gap, and that’s a big gap. Last I heard she had struck out on 8 of the 10 private scholarships that she had applied for, which goes to show that good grades and high SAT scores don’t really assure you of cashing in on scholarships.

I had the good fortune of receiving Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship which paid for my entire schooling at the University of Georgia. Only later did I realize what a blessing that was. The HOPE is funded by the Georgia Lottery, and although I don’t play myself – bless you people who do that paid for my higher education.

Check out LaNita’s story on the USN&WR website here.

Dystopian Saturday

Matt Slaby — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:34:10 +0000

Chlorine in your eyes, the way it burns and stays there like a tactile aftertaste until you shut them in the evening, safe again under air conditioned skies. Summer has always had a taste, a smell, even after its warmth is long, long gone, faded into the pulp of memories, a stack of things that, for as far as you know, may or may not have happened. It’s the fresh feeling in your lungs after coughing out water you accidentally inhaled, the way the pool’s loudspeaker system echoes through the locker room, distorted and still somehow fitting. Stepping up through the blue surface is an exercise in perceptive weightlessness. It’s not that you’ve become a feather, rather that the resistance the warm breeze offers can’t hold a candle to the heavy water. Eight pounds per gallon, or something like that, though from the deeper end of the diving board it’s a damn block of concrete. Summer is not a dream –even on a midsummer night. It’s not a place, but a series of places, a collection of sights, smells, sounds rolled up into a tight ball, tucked underneath your tongue and dispensed with like a cough drop connecting sickness back to health.

Nate Gartrell for U.S. News & World Report

Matt Slaby — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:15:32 +0000

In May I made a quick trip north to Oregon to shoot portraits of University of Oregon student Nate Gartrell. Gartrell transferred from San Francisco State into the Oregon system following the California budget crisis that left its state university system in a bit of a shattered situation. The article discusses the exodus of California students into other states and focuses on Gartrell’s path into the University of Oregon.

On a bit of a sidenote, a huge thanks is in order to Sol Neelman for, well, just being in Portland. And keeping me company on the drive down. And bringing me to one of Portland’s zillion breakfast places (but the first one that I’ve been to with Salmon hash). Wish I had something bad to say about him, but there’s really nothing worth mentioning. Nothing at all.

Back to Sun City for Round Four

Kendrick Brinson — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:36:10 +0000

I’m heading back to my dear Sun City today for a slightly more focused approach in my Life After Life essay to try and gather images of what I feel this project lacks. I haven’t been since March, when the weather was much more tolerable and more residents were in town. Wish me luck?(...)
Read the rest of Back to Sun City for Round Four (2 words)

Legal Left, Meet Creative Right -A Case for Net 30

Matt Slaby — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:10:12 +0000

My best clients pay on time. In fact, many of them pay early. It’s the kind of reciprocation that not only makes me smile, but makes me feel like my work is valued and enough to ensure that, when it comes to billing and perks, I will do my best to give these clients the same back in kind. I suppose you could call it the Golden Rule but, to me, it’s just the fair and honest way to run a business. These clients are important enough to me that I will go the extra mile to let them know it. In short, I’ve moved my schedule around to accommodate their needs, I offer complimentary discounts, I’m much more flexible when it comes time to negotiate additional terms, I think of them first when it comes time to mail out care packages (from my garden every year, eh?), and I definitely –most definitely –let each accounting department and their bosses know how much I value their attention to deadlines.

It’s a pleasure to work with people that understand the importance of making timely payments (especially since, as photographers, we understand the importance of submitting our work to meet publication deadlines). At a very basic level, regular and timely payments ensure that your business is able to return the favor to its creditors in the same, timely manner (and, in doing so, also avoids interest and finance charges related to late payments). This cycle is part of what is called ‘cashflow,’ or the cycle of cash in and out of a business. Without diving too deep into this subject, a healthy business should have enough cash flowing into the business each month to, at bare minimum, cover its periodic expenses. For example, if you have $100 in expenses each month, you need to bring in $100 to cover that debt. Reductive? Yes. Obvious? Yes. (So, CPAs, don’t get your panties all bunched up because we’re not talking about the finer, nuanced points of corporate finance).

In the same example, if your business brings in less than its monthly expenses, you will end up paying finance charges and late fees for the overdue payment or you will borrow money from a line of credit in order to make the payment. In either instance, poor cashflow management costs you money and requires you to remain vigilant on your accounts receivable so that this situation doesn’t recur to the point that you can no longer remain solvent.

Complicating this cycle are changes in expenditures. Certain things remain relatively fixed –utilities, rent, professional services, etc. – while others fluctuate. A camera breakdown? Car explodes? Or, more appropriate to the example, a client hires you for a shoot that requires expenses related to the shoot’s undertaking. Gas, hotel, meals, models, equipment rentals, additional staff, makeup, props, etc. You will incur these expenses on behalf of your client and you will (hopefully) bill a reasonable amount with a reasonable deadline for payment so that you, in turn, can pay off the creditors who helped you make those purchases (even if that creditor is your own savings account).

In order to handle these expenses, I bill on a NET 30 basis. NET 30 means that my client is responsible for paying their debt in full no more than 30 days from when my services are rendered in full. The reason that I elect this billing cycle is simple: my creditors operate on the same cycle. So that I can pay them on time, my business requires a regular influx of cash on the same cycle in order to cover those expenses. This is particularly important in instances where the execution of a client’s job requires additional expenses above and beyond my fixed overhead. In short, keeping to this cycle –and explaining its importance to reluctant clients –helps my business remain solvent and steer clear from the trappings of becoming a bank for my clients.

For a listing of several other standard payment terms, visit this page. Choosing the right payment terms for your business is integral to keeping it open for the long-haul.

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Matt Slaby is a Colorado-based attorney (and photographer). Matt attended the University of Denver College of Law on a full public interest scholarship. His experiences in law school include a PILG clerkship for ongoing civil work with El Centro Humanitario’s legal clinic as well as handling wage claims and contract issues for DU’s Civil Litigation Clinic. He is a founding member of Luceo and, in addition to his photography, brings his legal background to the organization. Questions, comments, and ideas for future posts are welcome. Please add them to the comments section or reach me here: mattslaby@luceoimages.com

**DISCLAIMER: Luceo Images LLC and Matt Slaby assume no liability for the information provided above. This information may not be correct when applied to your specific situation. Moreover, the information provided is not intended to create an attorney/client relationship and shall not be construed as legal advice.