A cool tool is available if you use WordPress and own an iPhone or iPad. It’s the WordPress mobile app. Now you can blog directly from your Apple mobile devices… Like this post, which was composed entirely on my patio!

Well as you can see we have migrated our blog over to WordPress. We lost some comments and our linkblog in the process but we’ll build those back up over time. We are still tweaking the content and placement of everything, so the “look” might change over the coming days and weeks. Let us know what you like, don’t like, or are missing and we’ll see what we can do to accommodate! We are always open to constructive criticism! We are also working on adding some functionality that will allow some more frequent postings, so stay tuned and check in often! And hey, start a conversation or ask a question or two… we are happy to share what we know!!!

We are in the process of updating our blog, so bear with us if things look wacky for a bit…

We have recently added a slew of imagery to our stock photography offerings. Some new imagery and a lot of legacy material that was previously unavailable. The bulk of our stock is with Masterfile, however we do have some imagery with Getty as well. Check out what’s available at both sites and if you can’t find what you are looking for, hey… give us a call and we’ll shoot it for you! (I know, it’s a novel concept!)

While a few years old.. here is another great Ted Video. This one featuring David Carson:

Check out my good friend David Gibbons on his daily internet radio show “In Discussion” on Voice America. His daily program covers a broad range of current topics from world issues to entertainment and the arts. David is a great interviewer and has had a host of notable people as guests. David and I shared an hour together and you can listen to that conversation here if you would like. But tune in when you can with the 100,000+ other listeners that this program has garnered. For an archive of previous programs or a schedule of upcoming ones, check out David’s website at http://www.davidgibbons.org

Well I don’t know about you but I have been anxiously awaiting the release of Lightroom 3. And yesterday my anticipation was satisfied. Adobe released it’s latest version of what is now my main piece of software. While we still use Photoshop extensively, Lightroom has become the hub of ALL of our imagery.

This latest version has a lot of significant improvements and new features and is DEFINITELY worth the upgrade ($99) and frankly I feel it is well worth the new purchase price if you don’t own a previous version. I teach this piece of software in my Art Center College of Design class and thankfully started off the term teaching with the version 3 beta. So now with the full release we can forge ahead with all of the great new tools available!

The main highlights of this new version include:

Superior noise reduction

Accelerated performance

Support for DSLR video files

Image watermarking

Easy image importing

Perspective correction

More flexible print packages

Lens correction

Flickr integration

Easy-to-share slide show videos with music

Tethered shooting

Film grain simulation

Adobe also just recently released CS5 which includes the latest version of Photoshop and has some mind blowing features! With all of this new flexibility it is going to be interesting to see what image production becomes!

We regularly use the services of Lisa Carney for retouching and compositing of images. Lisa has been a colleague for many years and besides doing the work she also shares her knowledge and tips and tricks. She runs regular workshops as well as private one-on-one training and online tutoring by the hour. (If you go here and scroll down mid page.. on the right you can even get a sample free video tutorial!) So if you need to brush up on Photoshop, take your skills to the next level, or simply need a few questions answered, we can HIGHLY recommend Lisa for any of these services! OR if you have images that need (as Lisa puts it) “A Little Sugar” and don’t have the skills to do it yourself, have Lisa do it for you! Find out more by visiting her site at LisaCarney.com!

The last shot from our most recent test was inspired by trying to add a bit of a twist to what would otherwise be a standard beauty shot. I have always enjoyed shooting this kind of work ever since my early days when I was studio managing for a fashion / beauty photographer in Los Angeles. But in trying to keep it in the direction of our current work, it needed to be more than simply a beauty shot. So, toss in a little humor and commentary and presto….

Since I was nervous about having actual needles on the models skin (and strangely enough I seemed to be the only one…) we shot them slightly away and then composted a variety of hand positions to create the final image.

The wonderful retouching was again done by Lisa Carney.

Three Stage celebrates the release of Hasselblad’s new H4D line of cameras, featuring the innovative TrueFocus technology, and offer photographers a hands-on and interactive experience with this and other selected equipment, from computer to lights to photo software.

Attendees will be able to test the latest photography gear and software, discuss with company reps and fellow photographers, and witness and participate to live demonstrations.

The event will include “Three Stages”, three separate interactive shooting spaces hosted by world class photographers from different fields of photography. At the coming LA event, Joseph Cultice, Matthew Jordan Smith and August Bradley will be demoing the three studio scenarios.

Three Stage demos will take place from 2-7 and the event will end with a rocking Resource Magazine cocktail party bringing together the top photographers (7-11pm).

The coming tour dates are:

Los Angeles at Milk Studios LA – Thursday, 4/8
Chicago – 4/22
SF – 4/29
Toronto – TBA
Atlanta – TBA
DC – TBA
Miami – TBA

Register at http://threestagetour.com

Another shot from our recent test was a lot of fun to shoot. I love working with animal talent! For the most part all you can do is be patient and attentive so that you are ready to capture the right moment when it happens. This is not the first time I have worked with mice and rats. It is strange how when they are crawling through you attic they are disgusting rodents, but get a trained one on your set and they are adorable little actors… what is that about? At any rate, we built a set and spent a bit of time lighting it just right, and shot a few clean frames of it “without talent”. Then we set to the task of shooting the scene with a variety of different mice and baby rats to see who would look and work best. Even though we got very close to capturing the entire scene in one frame, we did end up compositing three pieces together. We did use the clean blank set, a single mouse shot for the body, and we shot a bunch of frames of just the mouse tails to get the right curve, and used one of those as well.

And as is the rule around here…. Credits-

Sets & Props – Oliver Martin
Animal Talent – Animal Savvy
Digital Retouching – Lisa Carney
Digital Tech – Dylan Borgman, Pixel Guru
1st Assistant – Jacob Rushing

With needing to add some new and recent work to the web site we took the opportunity to make a few enhancements. While trying to retain the overall look and feel of the site that we have received so many compliments on, we felt that maybe bigger is better. So we increased the size of the portfolio images by 20%. If we do say so ourselves we feel this makes for a much better viewing experience. So check out the new work and the enhanced image size with all of the added glorious detail over at www.hursey.com!

A couple of weeks ago we did yet another personal shoot. This one was a lot of fun and we got three completely different portfolio shots out of it. This test had been in the planning since early December, but we had to keep pushing it back because either crew was not available or I was not able to find the talent I wanted. The shot I’ll share first was the first shot of the day and the most difficult to cast. It is a conceptual portrait. I had a very clear mental picture of the type of person I wanted for the shot, but after putting my feelers out for almost two weeks I could not find the face I was looking for. So I pushed the shoot back yet another week in order to give myself some time to continue looking for the right face.

Finally I succumbed to the fact that I needed to impose upon my extended resources to get what I was looking for. So I called Gayle Means, a casting director here in Los Angeles. Gayle does a lot of casting for print photographers and within an hour she had a bunch of faces for me to look at.

As I scrolled through them there were indeed several faces that were more along the lines of what I had been looking for but still not the exact one. All of sudden, towards the end of the pack I saw a face… It was not the face I was looking for, but this face… I had to shoot it! While it was not the exact face I had envisioned for the shot, no one else knew this and my vision could simply be shifted a bit in order for it to work.

I called the talent’s agent and explained the project and what we were able to pay, and and they got back to me within and hour saying that the talent was “up for it”! Finally the shoot was on!

The day of the shoot was a rainy Friday and our talent was taking public transit to the studio. We were getting a bit nervous as the time approached 9:30… he was supposed to arrive at 9:00! Well right around 9:30 he showed up .. mortified, as he had NEVER been late for a job in his life. But a tree had fallen across the route of his metro train and he had to be bussed around the blocked section.

We all took a sigh of relief and got him into Makeup and Wardrobe. When he came out and got in front of the lens, it was perfect! He brought all of his energies and talents to the shot and we got a great range of shots from him. It is proven time and time again, that getting the right talent can make the difference between “getting the shot” and “getting a great shot”!

So as always… Credit where credit is due…

Talent: Neal Jano – Mademoiselle Talent Agency
Props & Sets: Oliver Martin
Wardrobe: Stacy Quackenbush – Ennis
Hair & Makeup: Stephanie Daniel
Digital Tech: Dylan Borgman / Pixel Guru
1st Assistant: Jacob Rushing
Digital Imaging / Retouching: Lisa Carney

So we have been sharing some images we did recently for a “Beauty Test” .. A shoot for ourselves and crew & talent to augment our own portfolios and web sites. While a lot of what we did was specifically for the Hair & Makeup Artists portfolio, this was the image I wanted to do for mine…

One Final shout out to Geraldine Shaker on Hair & Makeup and to Lisa Carney for Retouching!

That’s it from this series but stay tuned for some more test image from a shoot we did the week before last!

Wow, we’re actually falling a bit behind here. This is yet another image we did during the beauty test. We shot 2 or 3 looks with each of the girls, but really just sharing our favorites here. We have one more to share after this one and then we’ll move on… to the next test that we shot just this last Friday!

So in continuing with last week’s post I thought I would share another image from our day of beauty. This is Melitta. We did not get to do as many shots with here as we would have liked because of the time crunch. But we had some fun and got a couple good ones nonetheless.

So during the slow periods it is always good to get our there and continue to shoot. It’s not always easy, or what you want to do, but it is always good. To that end I took the opportunity to do some shots with one of my favorite Makeup Artists, Geraldine Shaker of Kitten Vixen fame…

Gigi wanted to do a few shots to get some fresh stuff in her book, and even though beauty is not what we normally do, it’s always fun! So we put the team together and did a few images.

Our first model was over an hour late which right off the bat put us into a longer day with fewer shots than we had hoped. But we still got some good stuff out of it.

Credit where credit is due, Dylan Borgman of Pixel+Guru helped out on the digital tech side. Gigi, of course, did the Hair & Makeup, Pasadena Production Studios gave us a break on the studio. Our models were Melitta,Lisa Marie, and Dominique (in no particular order!). And the amazing Lisa Carney did the post production digital imaging.

Here is one of the shots…
(We’ll share some more soon!)

Thank God! It’s Here! Happy New Year Everyone!!! This one is destined to be infinitely better than the last! So start celebrating now,… because it’s a fact!

Every once in a while I get requests for interviews from folks who run photography web sites or blogs. I was recently contacted by Scott Wyden to participate in his interview series. While I completed the interview some time back, it was just posted live today. You can check out the article here.

If you are around a magazine stand over the next month or so, check out the latest issue of Hollywood Weekly (it’s strange.. it’s called Hollywood Weekly, but it’s a monthly magazine…??? The December 2009 issue features a segment on top Los Angeles Photographers and low and behold Dana Hursey is featured as their pick for top Los Angeles Advertising Photographer! Kind of weird but hey!.. we’ll take the kudos when we can!Granted it’s no Vogue or Vanity Fair, but any positive PR is fine with me!

This month we have once again been featured in PDN Magazine (Photo District News). It is very cool as it is actually for the same topic – Corporate Stock Image Libraries. We certainly cannot claim inventing the idea, but we have been at the forefront and doing them for a long time, are good at it, and we can claim the url! (corporateimagelibraries.com) This particular business model makes a lot of sense for everyone involved and we have been touting the process for many years.

Once again if you subscribe to PDN, the article appears in the December Issue on page 48, or you can find it online at pdnonline.com (type “corporate image libraries” in the search box and it should be the first article in the list). You might be able to click here and reach it as well.

Check it out. If you don’t have a subscription but still want to check out the article,Click Here

AND check out last years article through our blog here.

And last but not least you can got to our CIL web site too!

I recently sat down for an interview with David Gibbons who hosts a daily radio program called “In Discussion”. It aires on Voice America (Business). The segment we did entitled “The Art of Photography in a Digital World” takes a brief look at the photo industry today, both economically and technologically. It will begin airing at 3:00pm (PST) on Wednesday, Dec 2nd. Check it out at VoiceAmerica.com. You can also find more at davidgibbons.org.

Earlier this year we went to Europe for three weeks. We spent almost an entire week in the Florence area. While we were there we took a GREAT cooking course. It was taught by Stefania Borgioli; her company.. Toscana in Bocca. She teaches in several locations but we took her course at her home in Florence. I am half Italian and grew up eating A LOT of Italian food. And in this area I am fairly particular. The dishes and recipes we prepared were spectacular. Stefania is a wonderful chef and host. We had the option of simply watching or digging in and making the meals with her. Of course we dug in! We have taken the recipes back home with us and prepared many of them with great success.

While we were there we also took the opportunity to help Stefania out but shooting a few snaps for her newly designed website.

Since our departure Stefania has expanded her business to include a Bed & Breakfast not far from her home. So now we have to go back sometime to experience that.

So if you ever find yourself heading to Florence and need a place to stay and / or want to taste and learn how to make some amazing authentic Italian meals, drop Stefania a note and tell her Dana sent you! (Tell her I said “hi” as well!)

Meantime here is a photo of Stefania and a shot of a mind numbingly delicious Red Wine Chocolate Cake….

Just finished an interview for another photo blog… Check it out at phoyographysilo.com. You can watch the main banner cycle through various articles and click on each one as you want to read them or you can go directly to our interview by clicking here.

We are thrilled to announce that we have new representation! After an extensive, intensive and lengthy search we have joined forces with Jodie Zeitler. Jodie is based out of Chicago but will be covering the map for us. We’re looking forward to a great relationship with Jodie and know that our clients will quickly appreciate in her, the same commitment we share for providing great productions and even better imagery!

You can check out the other folks on Jodie’s roster by going to www.jodiezeitler.com

I hate to say it but it’s true! Over the last two weeks we made the commitment and set ourselves to the task of saddling up in front of the computer and keywording every one of our over 87,000 images that we have on our system.

I have always just avoided the brain numbing task and convinced myself that it was really an unnecessary and tedious exercise. Well, actually I was correct about it being tedious, but no sooner did we finish and it showed it’s worth.

Our entire library of images (both digital and those images on film that over the years we have deemed important enough to scan) reside in Lightroom. These days we are actually spending more time in Lightroom than even Photoshop. It has become our MAIN workspace and for the most part I love it. It certainly does help with tasks such as keywording. I shudder to think how long it would have taken to accomplish this task without such a program. Actually without it, the task probably would have simply not happened. AND without it the keywording would not be as useful!

Both of our stock agencies require submitted images to be keyworded. But beyond that, a couple of days ago we got a request for some sample food & drink images. Before we had keyworded, the task of pulling together samples and getting them off to a client would have taken a couple of hours; trying to remember what we had done in the past and where it resided. With this request coming in just as we finished the keywording process, we were able to pull up everything we had ever done (of value) in less than 30 seconds and made a quick and easy selection of about 25 images, popped over to the Web Module in Lightroom, and with a template we had made about a year ago, exported and uploaded a web gallery in about 5 minutes, sent a link off to the client and went about the rest of our day.

So.. now that the task is done, and all new imagery will be keyworded as it comes into the system, the speed at which we can find images will really illustrate the power of this amazingly arduous but highly beneficial task!

Our advice?…. sit down, set yourself to it… and just power through till it’s done! It will pay off, and once it’s done, if you make it part of your workflow from now on, it really is not very painful!

One thing I am always amazed that I keep forgetting is how important a little down time is. Even with all of the shooting we were doing in Europe even just the day or two that I put down the camera and did not touch it was extremely beneficial. Thankfully I did not have any regrets for the two days I did. You know how you tend to not want to leave the camera behind just in case that “magic moment” appears. Honestly I missed several “money shots” along the way and that was with the camera in my hands! At any rate just stepping away for a couple days, rejuvenated me. I find that important in life too. It is only when I finally take real time off that I am shown how important it is. When I took my first LONG vacation at age 32, I vowed that I would not let life run away with me again and that I would allow myself the these vacations saying they were not a luxury but truly necessary. I still believe that but my dedication to what I do and who I do it for so easily takes over. So I guess what I am try to say in a very long winded way is that down time is important to you physically, emotionally and creatively and not giving it to yourself is a disservice to you and your clients… Take a vacation. Stimulate yourself and the economy too while you are at it!

Wow!

What a year so far!!
I know.. you are wondering what happened to us and where we have been…
Well, we have been wondering the same about you!
For our part we just got back from 3 weeks in Europe. LOTS of shooting!!!
So as we try to get back into the swing of things here, we’ll share a couple photos.
Look forward to hearing from you!

One of our recent projects just ran in some California newspapers. Directed at the Latino market, we did a shoot for the new “Make Me a Millionaire” scratcher game from the California Lottery. We had fun putting our model through the paces of (pretend) eating a variety of disgusting creatures. Adrian was a great sport and gave us LOTS of fantastic expressions to choose from. Ultimately the scorpions won out!

As of January 2009 we are now sending out monthly ePromos. Sign up and get yours!