My Mom is the best. She has religiously collected and saved every tear sheet from every magazine I have ever shot for. Recently, she was in the process of moving and asked if I would like to have the tear sheets with me in California. I said yes and a few days later two huge boxes arrived at my door. I spent that afternoon going back through all of the published stories I had done since 2001. I was surprised to find a bunch of photos that I really liked but had never put in my book or on my site. So I threw the tear sheets on the scanner and decided to share.
Roxanne Austin, CEO of DirectTV for U.S. News and World Report
CEO’s are tough. They usually aren’t very enthusiastic about being photographed and they only give you five minutes of their time. I find it’s a good idea to have a specific shot planned if possible. That was the case with this shoot with Roxanne Austin. She had just been hired as the CEO of DirectTV which was becoming huge at the time. I had this idea to photograph her with a giant satellite dish coming out of her head. Luckily they had just the dish on the roof and Miss Austin was game.
Adult film director Jim Powers for Tokion
During the first few years of my career I somehow ended up on three porn sets. Two were on assignment for magazines and one I just happened upon. The one thing I learned is that porn shoots are filthy affairs. I don’t mean sexually, I mean as far as cleanliness. Just look at the carpet in the photo above. It’s disgusting. Who would want to have sex anywhere near that carpet?
Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton for the London Saturday Telegraph
Cops scare me. Even when I know I have no reason for them care about me, I always feel guilty around them. Now imagine spending an hour with chief of police who was brought in clean up the LAPD. I was a mess the whole time.
G.O.D. for Spin magazine
Every photographer has to try and recreate The Last Supper at some point right? Well that was my idea when I shot these video game developer’s called G.O.D. (Gathering of Developers) They were these rebels in the gaming world who started their own company, called it G.O.D. and set up their office in an old church in Austin Texas. We shot our version of The Last Supper in the conference room of that office.
Franklin Chang Diaz for Wired magazine
Most science labs look the same so it’s kind of hard to make a unique photo in them. It’s usually a bunch of beakers and hot plates and fluorescent lights. Rocket science labs, on the other hand, are pretty damn cool looking. I shot this photo of Mr. Chang-Diaz at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is sitting inside the plasma fueled rocket engine he designed.
Dublab for Spin magazine
I like shooting drunk people. It helps loosen them up. I even encourage it. The guy in this photo was very happy to oblige. This was my first feature story for Spin. They wanted me to go to these web radio stations and show how un-corporate the are. So when I showed up at Dublab radio station, I was stoked to find the owner completely wasted. I just had to work fast before he passed out.
Baby boomer retirees for U.S. News and World Report
I was very proud of U.S. News for not cropping this photo. It seems like most of the times that I have shot a portrait from really far away, the magazine either doesn’t run it or they crop it to death. I’ve always loved portraits in which the subject is really tiny in the photo. One of my favorite photos is Harry Callahan’s portrait of his wife and child taken at Lake Michigan from like a half mile away. This story was about Baby Boomer retirees living in the suburbs and I really wanted to show the sprawl of the suburbs. That would have been ruined if they cropped this photo. Actually I think the world would be a better place if magazines never cropped photographer’s photos. I’m just sayin’….
Ryan O’Neil for V Life Magazine
Ryan seems like a complicated dude. I was warned by his publicist that he can be very moody. I knew the article was about his love for boxing so I brought a copy of my step father Flip Schulke’s photo book on Cassius Clay. Ryan was so jazzed on the book. I told him I would have Flip send him a signed copy which he did about a week after my shoot. Ryan then called my step dad to personally thank him. I think Flip really got a kick out of Ryan O’Neil calling him at home. My mom said they talked boxing for hours.
