Happy Holidays!

Several weeks back I got this idea to create a series of postcards to send out to the many people who helped me out in 2012.  I thought it would be fun to recreate a photo from when we worked together (either when I worked as an assistant, or as the photographer) and turn it into a holiday themed photo.

I figured it'd be easy enough to re-create these photos inserting Santa into the scenario.  The first such photo I planned on re-creating was a job I worked on with Stephen Voss.  I worked as an assistant on a job where he photographed Sandra Fluke, for Newsweek, and I really loved that image.  I thought it'd be easy enough to re-create that with Santa instead.

So I checked that off the list.  And I kept going down the list of people I worked for.  Combined with the clients I worked with as a photographer, the shot list started getting large.  But a funny thing happened.  It was the rudiments of what appeared to be the faux documentation of Santa Claus.  Traveling on public transportation, the gloves in a museum, sitting at home.  It turned into a project about creating a Santa Claus in our world.  I mean, if Santa existed.  His clothes and apparel would have to be in a museum somewhere, right?  He couldn't be making toys all day, every day, could he?  He must just want to chill out in the living room and surf the web and watch TV.  What would it look like in his bedroom?  All these thoughts went through my head and a project was born.

I found Santa on the internet.  Big shock.  When I put the idea to him, he seemed a little skeptical.  When I started to rattle off a huge shot list to him, he wasn't so enthusiastic.  It turned out he wasn't in the best of health and couldn't be on his feet for too long so my long list wasn't going to work.  Instead, I pared down my list and agreed I'd set up the backdrop and lights at his home, we'd pop out to the local metro stop (instead of Woodley Park, in DC) and we'd have to be ok with that.  The other shots would be done later.

As it turned out, the background of the Vienna Metro station was fantastic and his living room was large enough for a 12 foot seamless.  Lucky me.

As for shooting in a metro stop...

CAN METRO PLEASE STOP HARASSING PHOTOGRAPHERS?

I had an assistant carry a beauty dish on a pole and we were prepared to make a couple passes on the escalator when the Metro employee came bursting out of her booth,
"You can't take pictures here, you need permission!"
"No I don't," I replied.  We kept walking to the escalator.
"I'm going to call my supervisor, you can't take pictures here without a permit!" She yelled back.
"Please do.  Call the police.  This is a public space".  We kept on.
And by the time we were finished, as we left she let me know she felt "disrespected" by me and didn't appreciate it.  She continued that her supervisor said we weren't allowed to use a tripod and take pictures there without permission.  I responded that she was wrong and pointed out that we weren't using a tripod.  Then we continued to walk out of the metro stop.  And I tried not to get too furious.

100.8(2) Still photography that does not require a tripod, special lighting, film crews, models, impair the normal ingress/egress or operation of Authority services and can be accomplished by a hand held camera by one person is not regulated...(thanks to DCist for their post, here, but nonetheless it is a continuing issue with photographers)

Just like the Metro photo was inspired by working with Stephen Voss.  This photo
was inspired by the few days I worked with Dan Winters during summer.

While I wasn't able to execute all of the ideas I had in my head (I'd mention them, but I'm scared someone might steal them...and hell, maybe I'll do a similar thing next year), I was able to put together what I felt to be a small, cohesive set of images.  Please enjoy them for what they are.  I am normally a photographer that deals in photographing "real" events and "real" people.  But this was too fun to pass up.  Please visit my site to see the entire gallery here.

Happy holidays.