Savoy, Thank You

Last night was the tenth annual Calçotada, a traditional Catalan onion festival that marks the start of spring, at Savoy in SOHO.  It was an amazing event with great food, wine, music, and dancing.  I'd like to thank the owner, and chef, Peter Hoffman and the equally amazing chef and personality superstar, Ryan Tate for their hospitality and great work.  I'll be posting pictures from the event on my website soon.
If you're ever in NYC, please stop by Savoy and enjoy their amazing food and service.  They have the "freshest" menu around.  Pair that with their great service and you have a match made in heaven.

Documentary Photography

Today I had a great meeting with award winning documentary photographer Marc Asnin.  Talk about passion, energy, and talent.  WOW, this guy is amazing.  I'm lucky enough (and hopefully talented too) to have been accepted by Marc to work with his team on a couple of projects he currently has underway.  This is some really amazing stuff.  Check out his website above for samples of his work.  I'll keep the updates coming and I'll be posting more often over the summer.

On a "Food" note, I'm talking with several downtown restaurants right now about shooting their menus and interiors for websites and ad campaigns.  So things are still moving.

New Leica Digital

I'm lucky enough to have been able to communicate with 1 of 12 authors/photographers who were given test models of Leica's new V-Lux 20 12MP digital camera with manual functions. Evidently this thing is absolutely amazing. Results rival images created with Digital SLR models currently on the market.

Pros: It looks and feels like a point and shoot but has a very good sensor, an amazing lens with 25mm-300mm effective zoom range, and produces great colors. Also shoots HD video. It's a Leica!
Cons: $699 price tag. Shoots only jpeg, no RAW. No viewfinder, only amazing color screen used to frame shots.

Did I mention it's a Leica? I visited the websites of B&H and Adorama and found this camera on preorder. I also found a high end Leica DSLR priced at about $28,000. I'm not saying price is the sole indicator of quality, but these folks make great cameras. Can't wait to get my hands on one. See official info here: http://us.leica-camera.com/photography/compact_cameras/v-lux_20/

Hope that link works.


-- Post From My iPhone

Fine Art Photography

I will soon be adding to my portfolio and my photography skill set.  I hope.  My friend, the artist and philosopher, Geoffrey Raymond, has agreed to let me go to his studio and photograph some of his paintings.  I've always been interested in photographing fine art, but I've never had the chance to do it.  So now I will have the opportunity to play around a little bit (as long as I have more than 15 minutes and a push pin to gauge lighting) and see how paint and different surfaces absorb and reflect light.  It will be very interesting, and maybe I'll get some pics of the artist too.  Regardless, being around Geoffrey is always enjoyable and enlightening.
I'll keep you posted.  You can see Geoffrey's portfolio HERE.

Photos up on Lure Fishbar website

Some of my pics are up now on the new Lure Fishbar website under the Gallery page, including some pics of their dining rooms.  Interesting update to their site; they went with a Blog style site and seem to put up a lot of "celeb-sighting" photos.  Check it out: Lure
Getting ready to send out a new marketing email this week.  Excited about the potential work coming up.

Food Photography Workshop

Attended a really great food photography workshop yesterday and met some wonderful people. Sponsored by Adorama and facilitated by the amazing Lou Manna. They limit it to 10 participants so there is a great deal of one on one work. He's probably the number 1 food photog in the country. He reviewed my portfolio, gave me excellent tips for my workflow, and provided some great ideas for future gear purchases. Check out his site at: www.loumanna.com

Sharpening Images

Here's a great short article from Photocritic about Sharpening Images.  It discusses some basics and then goes into more detail and contains links to more information about why it's important in digital photography.  I always sharpen my images in Lightroom, usually the last thing I do before exporting them.  Lightroom 2.6 and the 3.0 beta both have a great sharpening tool with a zoom feature that allows one to see the results up close.

Why Sharpen Your Images - Photocritic.org