Jay's Blog

What kind of photography?

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:18:00 +0000

When people ask me what kind of photography I do, I explain that it's most often photos that are to be reproduced someplace - maybe a magazine or newspaper, maybe an ad or a newsletter or a poster or a web page or a book jacket.

Of course, there are other places my photos turn up from time to time. Like, for instance, a series of bus shelters in Baltimore.

And it's for a good cause -- see http://www.theheartofbaltimore.org/.

Ten minutes

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:05:00 +0000

It was a typical Washington shoot - the subject is running late (more than an hour), the subject needs to get to his next appointment, we need to try to do this right here in these offices.

But that's fine. You pick several spots to work in, so the designer will have some choices, figure out the lighting for each, and then walk your subject through them. And when the subject is Justin Smith, president of Atlantic Media Company (publishers of The Atlantic, which overall is doing quite well despite being in the hard-hit media sector), you end up with multiple choices for a good-looking cover.

"There's Not So Many of You..."

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:55:00 +0000

Showing up in a Capitol Hill committee room to testify a few days ago, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner seemed surprised to find only two photographers waiting for him.

"There's not so many of you," he said. "The economy must be getting better."

A nice insight - but possibly not the real reason for the low press turnout. The secretary was testifying on dull budget matters, while in another hearing room a CEO named Toyoda was struggling to explain faulty accelerator pedals.

Snowmageddon

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:01:00 +0000

"Howling Blizzard Deepens the Misery" is the understated lead headline in The Washington Post this morning (the online edition; we're certainly not getting home delivery). Not to deny there are many people seriously affected by this storm (we too played overnight host to relatives who'd gone days without heat or plowed streets), but isn't that a bit much?

Yes, the federal government and schools have had to pack it in for the week, but does this record-setting winter of snow really deserve the same treatment you'd give a Haitian earthquake or Indian Ocean tsunami? Perhaps the problem here in the capital of the known universe is that the snow serves as a useful reminder we're not the masters of the cosmos, that nature and other potential "inconveniences" still hold the upper hand, even in the 21st century.

And for those of us lucky enough to have electricity and a working oven to bake cookies while the landscape outside is transformed, this memorable week has had a lot to recommend it. Clients have asked if I'm off shooting monuments in snow. No, I'm sure they're very beautiful - the whole city is beautiful right now. But in a family that loves snow and snow sports, this has been an opportunity to enjoy ourselves right outside our front door.

Snowmageddon II from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Leaving town

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:26:00 +0000

That's Sen. Max Baucus, who played a key role in the battle for health-care reform, headed out barely an hour after the Senate's passage of the legislation. That vote came at 7 a.m. on Christmas eve, after Republicans and Democrats had pretty much worn each other out in round-the-clock maneuvering.

Unless you're trapped in a house fire, you'll probably never see a group of people so happy to get out of a building as they were leaving the Capitol that morning. Still, the senator, who'd spent two years in what often appeared to be a losing battle for this legislation, had time to stop and wish me a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Official Photographer for the Big Guy

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:00:00 +0000

I was at a holiday party thrown by a union in Baltimore over the weekend, and they had a problem. Santa was there and so were about a zillion kids. But Santa's photographer was missing. Could I....?

You bet! When am I ever going to get a chance to play official photographer to a mall Santa again? And it was a blast. The kids were all adorable, all zillion of 'em. Of course, there's always a few who look at the Big Guy in the Red Suit and say "No Way." It's an understandable reaction. But it seems their parents still want that photo.

And if I think about it, these photos are going to be held onto long after everything else I shoot this month is history. Even if some of my subjects were less than enthusiastic.

Loud!

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

I didn't realize it at the time, but yes, those musicians in the foreground are covering their ears while the percussion section sounds off behind them.

It was part of a wonderful program for second-graders by the National Philharmonic Orchestra I photographed yesterday. That's Piotr Gajewski, the NPO's music director, conducting at left. Needless to say, the school kids loved the sound. But this is probably not a photo that's going to show up in the NPO's promotional materials anytime soon!

Perfect

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0000

A long-time and favorite client of mine is Barry Remley, of Salvations Architectural Furnishings. Barry and her painters and blacksmiths design and build beautiful tables and other furniture, sometimes starting with found objects like heating registers salvaged from old homes and buildings.

From the designs to the welding to the last touches of paint, these pieces are just perfect. This month, I realized, marks the 10-year anniversary of when I began photographing them digitally. This meant the dropped backgrounds, perspective correction and other effects that normally wouldn't be affordable for a small business became something I could do for Barry's images. So the images became perfect too (at least more perfect than much of my other work, where dealing with real people and real situations means the images have that real -- and less-than-perfect-- edge to them!).

To celebrate the 10-year mark I used my library of images to create a short film of the Salvations works, and the people who make them. I hope you can take a minute to check it out.

I Love Baltimore

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Well, sure, I married a lady from Baltimore two years ago. And driving up there to see her in the years before that was always a treat.

But I've always liked working in the city. I seem to have the best experiences there, right back to when I started full-time photography in the early '90s. I remember one of my first assignments was to travel around for a day with a doctor who still made house calls. We started in the projects and finished up in a mansion. I don't remember how he got such a varied client list, but I still recall many of the stops we made, including the teenaged quadriplegic, being cared for by his aunt. He'd spent months as a homeless quadriplegic, living in an abandoned building. Only in Baltimore.

I've been up to Baltimore a lot recently, especially photographing healthcare workers. Often these workers don't have health benefits for themselves, or for their children, through their employment. The very people whose job it is to care for others often don't have any way to care for themselves should they get sick. Only in the United States. But it's great to meet these folks and their families, get welcomed into their homes. Yesterday I photographed a woman named Stephanie, her wonderful teenage son and daughter. One photo I did was on their front stoop -- such a hallmark of Baltimore homes.

The color of light

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:42:00 +0000

A problem for photographers shooting indoors on location is that different light sources have very different colors. Our eyes miraculously see a white sheet of paper as a white sheet of paper, no matter what the lighting. But a camera might see that same sheet as white, blue, yucky orangey-yellow, or even worse green, depending on the light source.

The simplest way to deal with this is often to just blast everything with strobes, which cameras quite like. But sometimes those differences in light can be helpful, if you're aware of them.

A recent cover assignment had two challenges. The first was that I was supposed to somehow make a cover image from a tele- conference. ("A tele- conference? What do I do -- photograph the phone!?!?") The second was that the participants, sitting at a conference table, were lit by very warm (in color) overhead lights, while lighting that would register as blue was pouring in the windows.

In this case, problem #2 provided the solution for problem #1. By taking advantage of the warm light on the people contrasted with the bluish light in the background, a picture was made, one that could run on a cover.

How many photos?

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:09:00 +0000

"How many photos do you take?" people ask me when I'm working.

"A lot," I usually say. "It's the secret of professional photography: Take a lot of pictures, and something is bound to turn out."

Well, maybe not. But I do shoot a lot of photos, perhaps a couple hundred at an assignment that only lasts an hour or two. And judging by the sounds of their cameras, some of my colleagues shoot even more.

Usually all the unused images languish in my archive, with me occasionally finding the need to go back and pull one. But, with the magic of laptop movie-making, they can also now be made into a movie. And it can be a darn good movie -- at least when the subject is our highly expressive Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner (see "Yes, he can"), appearing before the House Financial Services Committee.

Geithner, the Movie from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Bike v. Car

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:42:00 +0000

Let me say, first of all, that statistically it's possibly safer to commute by bicycle than by car, if you compare the statistical danger of an hour spent cycling versus an hour of driving. If, like me, you're running around a traffic-clogged downtown, you cover more ground in an hour of biking than an hour of driving as well!

That said, when a car and a bike connect, no matter whose fault it is, the cyclist is almost certainly on the losing end. I can attest to that from an experience a few years ago.

And so, when I came on the scene of one such accident yesterday while returning from an assignment at the Justice Department, I really felt for the cyclist. Talking to a worried coworker of his I learned he was someone who'd just left work on his bike from a restaurant only about a block away. No telling who was in the wrong, but I used my camera and sound to make a brief documentation of the scene. It's a reminder that the more that can be done to make cities and 'burbs safe for all forms of transport -- and we had a jogger killed by a bus not far from this intersection just a week or two ago -- the better for everyone.

Bike v Car from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Multimedia

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:48:00 +0000

A photographer who's also an audiophile told me the other day that the teeny little built-in microphone on his camera body delivered decent sound. Well, maybe I should try the teeny little mike on the back of my camera. It's meant for annotating photographs -- recording the name of a person in a photo, for instance.

Turns out, though, it can be used for much more than that (though only in 60-second snips). And when you have a camera that can record sound, you have a machine for making multimedia, like this video, from a health care rally I was assigned to shoot yesterday.

Highway to Health Care from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

Cell phone multimedia

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:35:00 +0000

I really like cell phone cameras. If you always have your cell with you, you always have a camera. And the quality is amazingly good, way better than you can see on the little cell phone screens. (I do always have my cell with me, even when I'm rock climbing in an area with no coverage. That's why my current phone, like one of its predecessors, has a crack in its cover, from my swinging into rock.)

A couple weeks ago a photographer pointed out to me that you can send images directly from your cellphone to a blog -- no laptop or computer intervening. I quickly set that up, on Jay Tumblz, and have been having daily fun with it.

But your cellphone is actually even better than this -- with sound, audio, and video, it's a full multimedia machine. So yesterday, passing through Rock Creek on foot and in my car, I stopped to create a mini "multimedia" piece on the rain-swollen stream, with nothing more than my ever-handy cell. It's called "Rock Creek Rain."

Rock Creek rain from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

August

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:23:00 +0000

Summertime, or August at least, is every bit as quiet in Washington as rumor would have it. Everybody either skips town or enjoys the fact that everyone else has skipped town.

In tribute to one of the best times of the year, here's a shot from my cellphone camera, of #2 son on a rope swing near a cabin we rented in the cool mountains of West Virginia.

That's a lot of Congressmen

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Well, how would you react if you were called to testify before the combined membership of the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees - more than 100 members of Congress in all, or about one-quarter of the full House of Representatives.

What a great city, again

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:13:00 +0000

As we approach DC's big July 4 tourist weekend, I must say - it's no wonder so many people come here all year. I was just photographing at the Museum of Natural History, and it's a great deal: Walk in anytime, see everything from a T Rex skeleton to live bugs to the Hope Diamond, all just a few rooms apart. If that's not of interest you can go across the street and see the Declaration of Independence, with John Hancock's actual signature, or cross the Mall and check out a lunar lander. And it's all free.

A relative once emailed and asked if I really thought Washington was an appropriate place to raise kids. The answer: It's one of the best. And it's a pretty decent place to be an adult, too.

Walk Your Bike

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Here in DC we're fortunate to have several excellent blogs devoted to bicycling as transportation. This might sound like a pretty geeky subject, but the ultimate goal is far-reaching: to make the nation's urban and suburban areas more people-friendly by designing for "active transportation" -- a category that ranges from kids (or adults) on skateboards to cyclists to pedestrians of every type. If you've stepped outside of a car lately you may have noticed: A lot of places are only friendly to autos. It's no wonder Americans drive everywhere.

Thanks to a confluence of factors -- gas prices, environmental awareness, enlightened urban planning, even stimulus money -- a lot of people feel we've reached a critical mass on this subject. Blogs like The WashCycle and the DC Bicycle Transportation Examiner do a great job tracking developments. And they're fun reading besides, particularly for someone who often gets around by bicycle.

The first blog, sponsored by the Washington Area Bicyclists Association, provides detailed coverage of transportation and bike planning in the region. The second, by Adam Voiland, is a bit more personal, and wide-ranging. A former reporter for U.S. News and World Report, Adam (whom I've never met) will summarize complex health studies on air pollution and biking, then go on to feature pieces of local bike culture. His "Politicycle" analyses of politicians' records on cycling are a lot of fun. Who would've guessed that New York Sen. Charles Schumer, riding a $75 department store bike, would outscore DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, a triathlete with a $4,000 rig? (On second thought, maybe that's not so surprising.)

Yesterday Adam noted the increasing number of "Walk Your Bike" and similar signs around the DC area. I'd taken photos of a bunch of these signs on a long ride back from a photo assignment a few weeks ago, and turned the still images into a YouTube movie. Adam used it on his blog. You can read the blog, and see the movie (all of 30 seconds), by clicking on the image below.

Luck on Location

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:47:00 +0000

It's usually a big challenge, going into a typical DC office needing to come up with a really interesting photo, often for a cover. I may be misled by other photographers' images, but I get the impression that in Silicon Valley, everybody works in high-tech spaces with lots of glass and metal. In New York, company digs are pricey and elegant with somehow a bit of a gritty urban feel thrown in. And in Washington .... Well, there's often not much to work with here (especially since so many of the photo subjects are lawyers).

There's the conference room, with the maximum-sized conference table shoehorned in, leaving little space to maneuver. The room with the view - but each view overlooks either the White House or the Capitol. And the company logo, usually bolted to a wall in the elevator lobby.

I usually avoid them all. But sometimes you arrive on location and realize you lucked out. Such was the case a few days ago with a cover shoot at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. They had a great logo, punched out of the sort of corrugated tin you'd expect to find sheltering a tequila bar in Tijuana (or a Chipotle in Bethesda). Combine that with the paintings decorating their suite and you feel this group definitely cares about its space.

The logo was fun to work with, as were my two subjects, Don and Katrina. And maybe the next time someone tells me over the phone, "Well, we have a nice sign out front," I'll put my skepticism on temporary hold.

Moving around

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:13:00 +0000

I've mentioned the "light(weight) light movement," photographers who are working with much smaller lights than were deemed necessary in the past (See "Visual Borrowing").

A big advantage when it's appropriate to use these lights is that I can work quickly, in a small area. That's a positive because "quickly" and "small area" define a good part of editorial photography in Washington. But another advantage is that a photographer can move around easily and try different setups. To someone who's not familiar with this kind of work that may not sound like a big deal. In comparison, though, when using traditional lights with big stands, power packs and lots of extension cords, once you set up to photograph your subject you — and they — are pretty much locked in place. Even moving to the right 12 inches can be a major engineering challenge.

But in situations where I can use the lightweight battery-powered strobes, I often just scoop them up and move to another location. That was the case recently when I was photographing Dr. Mary Wakefield, a nurse and PhD who is the new head of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. In just over half an hour we were able to shoot in three different locations, giving the magazine editors a nice choice of images to work with for their cover layout. And everybody, particularly editors, likes choices.

Photographer at work

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:48:00 +0000

Many thanks to Alex Wong of Getty Images for this portrait (maybe a little too close!) of a photographer hard at work.

Separated at birth?

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:28:00 +0000

Doing dishes last night I realized two images I'd made over the two previous days, though on very different jobs, were still quite similar.

One image is a detail shot I did of a beaded sculpture by artist Gail Gorlitzz, a client. (See "www.gailgorlitzz.com".) The other is of Neel Kashkari, interim assistant secretary at the U.S. Treasury, testifying before a House subcommittee.

Hopefully you can tell which is which.

Yes, he can

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Back in January I noted how well-suited former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was to a time of economic crisis — at least in terms of his facial expressions (See "Farewell to the Bald Guy"). And, since I regularly put in time photographing Treasury secretaries, I wondered how well his successor, Tim Geithner, would do on that front. What if we got a secretary incapable of anything but bland expressions and limited gestures?

Following a pair of hearings with Mr. Geithner, I can report my situation was like that of many comics at the end of the Bush administration. They were concerned that the last president's departure would leave them without material. And they, like me, need not have worried.

The Revenuers

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:07:00 +0000

Every once in a while I get to photograph someone with the IRS, even the IRS commissioner. And it's always a good experience - nice subjects who are interesting to talk with and photograph. Once, trying to work quickly at a House hearing, I jokingly asked an IRS commissioner "to gesture early and often." And he did!

But they also sometimes seem a bit apologetic, as if accustomed to getting teased, at the least, about their jobs.

So let me say: All the IRS folks I've met seemed thoughtful, interested in their work and with a good sense of humor too. If the tax code is impenetrable, blame Congress - and Congress' constituents (that would be us), so many of whom lobby for specialized tax breaks.

The cover shoot above of IRS official Lois Lerner, by the way, was for a story on a report that the average CEO at a nonprofit hospital earns $490,431 annually.

Faces Tell The Story, II

noreply@blogger.com (jay) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:03:00 +0000

Back in November, I wrote that on election night, "the story of this point in our nation's history is told in the faces of its people." In Washington on Inauguration Day, on the Mall as President Obama took the oath of office, that story continued. I was near the Washington monument; I talked to a photographer who was high on the Capitol with a view of the crowd, and who told how he was moved to tears at the sight of all those people who came from everywhere in the country to stand out in freezing cold and lend their presence to the event. It was a privilege to be there.