Mongolia Snapshots
The ubiquitous UAZ, the Russian 4×4 vans you see everywhere in Mongolia. I want one of these so bad I can almost taste it. A few more snapshots from the Hasselblad in Mongolia: Self portrait. Mongolia, 2012. I walked past this thing (below) several times before I really saw it, stopped dead in my tracks and said, or thought, something …
My Next Book – The Print & The Process
My next book just went up on Amazon. It’s always a little surreal because no one tells me these things and suddenly I’m looking at a cover of a book that looks suspiciously like mine. The less coffee I’ve had, the longer it takes me to figure it out. Wait! That’s MY book! 🙂 The Print & The Process began …
Mongolia Films – First Peek
A few quick uploads of some of my images from Mongolia. I picked these up at the lab this morning. I shot these one morning on the Gobi well before breakfast in some of the most delicious morning light I’ve seen in ages. I wrestled with my Hasselbad and a roll of Fujichrome 100, though I’m not offhand sure exactly …
Real Moments
I took my Jeep, Emily, over to Vancouver Island this weekend. We had a festival here in town and the thought of being in the city at all, yet alone having to deal with throngs of people set me to hyperventilating and looking for a cat bowl to fill with gin. So I jumped on the ferry and within a …
Stop Waiting.
Marshall Eagle, Kenya, 2012 Perhaps because I spend so much time with creatives I spend more time with frustrated people who feel like they were meant for something more. Perhaps if the default in this culture was to make a living in the arts, we’d be seeing plumbers that just wanted to quit their job painting so they could …
Gitzo Systematic Tripod (GT3542LS)
Emily, my Gitzo Systematic Tripod, and Me. 2012. Photo: Al Smith I’ve written before about tripods and my growing insistence on using them for my own work. Here’s a look at the one I favour these days, with a few specs and mostly wild opinions that stem from personal use. Disclaimer: I love this tripod. I had one I thought …
Mongolia Re-Capped
Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2012 There were 15 of us, including drivers, our translator & guide, and the photographers who joined Jeffrey Chapman and I on this month’s Mongolia Within The Frame Adventure. Together, over 10 days, we drove 2200km, almost all of them off-road on punishing trails, through the green steppes of Mongolia and into the dry, hot, Gobi Desert …
July Desktop Wallpaper
The Singing Dunes, Mongolia, 2012 A little later than usual but I’ve given myself a little more freedom now since there’s no calendar on these things. Hope it’s worth the wait. An hour after I shot this, the photographer in this image walked up to me and apologized, telling me he thought he owed me a beer for getting into …
Mongolia Dodged & Burnt
Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2012. Click to enlarge. I shot this image in the Gobi last week and used it to show a little dodge and burn to some of the photographers I was traveling with. Most of my images get a little dodge (lighten) and burn (darken), to push and pull the eye subtly through the image. If you know …
Postcard From Mongolia
Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2012. A quick hello from Ulaan Bator, Mongolia. We’ve just come in out of the dust and heat after 8 days off-road in the Gobi Desert. What an adventure! We spent time photographing sand dunes and horse races, the so-called White Stupa cliffs, and miles and miles of desert, horses, goats, and Mongolians. We’ve slept in some …