Here is another photo from our scout in Lana’i. The colors and tones there really create a specific palette. So different from the color chaos here in Los Angeles!
Tranquility
We recently went on a scouting trip to the Island of Lana’i in Hawaii. Not a bad venture to have to undertake! It was my first time to that island and while quite different from the other islands, Lana’i has its own unique beauty and above all a tranquility that I truly appreciated. Traveling in from Los Angeles, it took some time to wind down and adopt the slower pace, but unfortunately I found it all to easy when coming back to L.A. to hop back into the chaos. I guess that means I will just have to go back on a more frequent basis!
Feline Frivolity…..
I really don’t have much to say about this.. The images speak for themselves. Cat Fun! We did a shoot a couple of weeks back featuring Rothko. I am not sure who was more tuckered out at the end of it all… him, or me! He certainly has unending youthful energy, but he was also panting up a storm by the time we were done. Don’t misunderstand me, he would have happily continued to play for hours and hours, but ultimately we had to eat!
PhotoServe
Since I have been recently sharing some of the many Professional Photographer sites that I am a part of, I could not leave out PhotoServe. As part of the same company that produces the industry standard magazine PDN (Photo District News) PhotoServe is an online database of most of the top photographers, worldwide. They host full online portfolios of thousands of photographers, all of which are searchable by specialty and/or location. They do regular features and highlights of recent work and it is another great venue for photographers to get their work in front of the right people. Check out some of the amazing imagery at PhotoServe.com
2013 IPA’s
NOOOO! Not beer.. although that sounds like a great idea! The International Photography Awards… It’s September – that time of year. We got another “shout out” from the IPA‘s! This year THREE of our images received an honorable mention! It’s always great to receive recognition for what you love to do, and IPA has been regularly generous to us! Thanks to all the folks and jurors at IPA!!! Your acknowledgement is so very much appreciated! Check out the winners here, and the other Honorable Mentions here!
This Year’s Honorable Mentions:
Ethan Bearman
“Structure”
“Looming”
Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop Creative Cloud Deal
Rumor has it….. Adobe is doing an open enrollment for a special Photoshop / Lightroom Creative Cloud bundle now through December 31st of this year. The price is $9.99 per month for both, that price will never change so long as you keep your subscription, and you must have Photoshop CS3 or newer to qualify. That’s half off the academic subscription for people who just use Lightroom and Photoshop. Such A Deal! Check it out and see if you qualify!Devastatingly Amusing…
Just a quick post on this hot Los Angeles afternoon…. We recently finished another image from a shoot we did with the talented Lynda Kay and wanted to share it on our blog…
On a similar note we went and saw Lynda Kay perform last week at Club Tarantino / The 3 Clubs. What a fun night and great show! She performs there regularly, so check out the schedule and her show. It’s a great way to spend and evening, and you never know who you might run into there!
Workbook & Yodelist
The Workbook has been around almost as long as I have been shooting. If you don’t know what the Workbook is, it is a semiannual industry source book focusing on Photography and Illustration catering to those industries and the people who utilize their services. In the beginning it was books where photographers and illustrators could showcase their work and have it put in front of creatives that purchased their work, be it for advertising, editorial or various other marketing purposes. Over the years (or decades) it has grown substantially to also offer directories for the image creators to source support services (be it talent agencies, model makers, stylists, or producers) as well as the creatives hiring them at advertising agencies and design firms. For me, for most of my career it has been my “go-to” for researching people who might utilize my photography. As the world went digital, so too did the Workbook, migrating their directory to the web and hosting online portfolios for image makers. The Workbook still produces a print version of the of the Photography & Illustration books – in fact they have gone to printing 2 times a year now instead of just one. I use the online directory on an almost daily basis to track down potential clients and obtain contact information.
This year the Workbook is taking the directory to the next level by spinning it off into its own entity known as Yodelist. Yodelist takes all of the great current database information and puts it in a user-friendly interface and expands the usability by integrating the ability to produce email campaigns. With Yodelist you can research and create custom lists of targeted contacts, manage, update, and stay in contact with vital individuals that hire photographers and illustrators.
As an instructor / mentor I have for years recommended the Workbook as one of the best resources for our industry and with this new iteration I’ll continue to do the same. Workbook has done a great job of staying current with the industry as well as maintaining a top-notch database in an industry that changes more often than the seasons.
If you are not using the Workbook as a support system for your studio, I highly recommend you get onboard! Check them out at workbook.com and yodelist.com.
Sparkle Brite
A couple of weeks back we got the opportunity to play and shoot with the wonderful Lynda Kay. What a fun day! By the time we wrapped we were just getting silly and trying all kinds of things, grabbing props from every corner of the stage, food, saws, blow torches… you know the usual! But one of the two main shots we were going for was a continuation of the current style we are having so much fun with. A throwback to a decade gone by (but with a touch of today thrown in for good measure). Plugging an imaginary toothpaste we prompt everyone to clean up their act with “Sparkle Brite”! One once you are all polished up and ready for a night on the town, check out Lynda Kay, performing at a club near you (if you live near Santa Monica & Vine…)
The Alternative Pick
Wanted to highlight one of the Creative Source Sites we belong to… The Alternative Pick (or AltPick) We have used their service for many years to present our work to creatives around the world that might hire us for photographic projects. We are able to have a full online portfolio, track visitors, have news articles blasted about recent work we have done, opportunities to be included in group promotions and direct mailing campaigns, and so much more. It is a great bargain and we want to share the love. If you are looking to broaden your reach and get new exposure, consider signing up with AltPick!
Just Another Summer Evening in Southern California…
It has been a fairly warm summer this year in Los Angeles, and on occasion a bit muggy. We had about a week of grey monsoonal days but last Monday we had a lovely day and while the summer daytime temperatures can creep up there it sure makes for some really wonderful evenings. Monday was one of those evenings… So what better thing to do than throw the top down and soak it all in… So that’s what we did! Okay, I didn’t but I photographed someone doing it… almost as good! We had a fun, impromptu session over on the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, and here are the results.
6th Annual Photography Masters Cup – International Color Awards
We were excited today to receive notice that we were nominated in two categories for the 6th Annual Photography Masters Cup – International Color Awards; both for Advertising and for Portraiture!
In Advertising it was for a campaign we did for Pd46 – a shampoo & conditioner for grey hair where we were shooting both men and women with grey hair along with a BEAUTIFUL grey horse. In Portraiture it was for the image entitled “Seriously” from my personal project “Nuclear”.
Always honored to be included in such great company as the other nominees!
Going Mobile with iFolios
We have been using iFolios for our mobile sites for several years now and have been really happy with the results and user experience (both on the front end AND back-end)! They are built on the WordPress platform so most of the back-end user interface is familiar (as obviously we use WordPress for this blog) and easy to use.
However the look and feel on the front end is clean, simple, and refined (like us!). This month iFolios unveiled two new designs with many upgrades. While they are moving from a purchase model to an annual subscription model the pricing is so reasonable that it is completely worth the investment!
If you are a previous user they will migrate your old site over to one of the new layouts for you. If you are new to iFolios they have three startup options; a.) do-it-yourself, b.) assisted installation, c.) full service (where they get you up and running with little to no work on your end) When I fist signed up, I did the “do-it-yourself” and was up and running in about 2 hours (their documentation is really good! – and simple)!
iFolios main focus when they started up was to offer a mobile solution for photographers that have flash sites that won’t display on most mobile devices. However we have an HTML site and still opted for the iFolios solution because it was a ready-to-go presentation that worked better than our HTML site on smaller screens.
The folks at iFolios have done a really nice job of making the interface user-friendly and keeping the design clean and focused on the imagery. Check out their site at getifolios.com and check out our newly updated site on your mobile device at hursey.com or on your desktop at hursey.com/mobile!
ooshirts….
Cloud Backup
Sorry! We have been absent for a while…. We have been busy working on a few projects and neglected our blogging responsibilities!
But today is a benchmark day and wanted to share it with you. After many months, we have just completed a full cloud-based back-up of all of our systems.. Many, many terabytes if information are now securely stored in “the cloud” which gives us incredible piece of mind. I have always been a huge advocate for triple / quadruple back-ups of all of our digital data, both imagery and basic data.
Our back-up routine has long consisted of having our primary files that we work with on the local computers, then having a daily backup sitting right next to that. THEN having an off-site back-up that lived somewhere else in case tragedy struck here at the office. The problem with the off-site back up is that it was kind of pain in the neck to go pick it up, do the FULL SYSTEM back-up (which took 2 days) and then deliver it back to the off-site location. Consequently it did not get done as often as it should and sometimes spent a few extra days on-site that it shouldn’t have!
With both local internet speeds increasing as well as online backup services improving performance, we decided to take the leap. While things will only get better and faster, I am glad we did this now. It literally took months to complete, but now that we are 100% in the cloud for our “off-site” back-up, adding to and maintaining it is automated and effortless!
Did I mention piece of mind?
There are a few good services out there (and a few bad ones) and we have tried several. I am sure more will come on the market as time goes by. But our favorite players are CrashPlan and Backblaze. They both offer unlimited back-up space for your computer for a VERY LOW flat monthly rate!
We have multiple computers all safely (and securely) backed up and available from anywhere (including our mobile devices)!
Those who know me will tell you I harp about it all the time, “Make sure you are backed up!” I do it because I have had plenty of disk failures (simply the law of averages because we use so many drives!)
So here I go again! Make sure you are backed up! 2 or 3 times!!!! You never want to loose data, especially if it is valuable digital images that you can never get back! Cloud back-ups are the way to go (despite the time investment of having your computer run 24/7 for the first round) because IF the worst ever happened… at least your data will be safe!
Stellaaaaahhhh!
Picking up from two weeks ago (…sorry) Here is one of the other shots we did… This is Brigitte… aka Stella from Modern Family… We had lots of fun dressing Brigitte up in ribbons and bows, although I don’t think she was as amused as we were… but in the end she worked the camera better bare naked… Again…Thanks to Sarah over at Animal Savvy for sharing Brigitte with us!
Finn
Wow… Can’t believe we didn’t share this image on our blog! Recently we sent out and eBlast with an image we did a while back that somehow we seem to have completely overlooked. We have used it in other media, but failed to share it here! This is Finn. An adorable LITTLE hedgehog. We were photographing him along with some other animal talent (like Stella from Modern Family aka Brigitte.. OMG we haven’t posted THOSE either!.. Next week!) and it was a crazy (but good) day at the studio! Finn had a mind of his own this particular day but we got the shot, in spite of him! Thanks to Sarah & Heather over at Animal Savvy. They’ve helped us out an SEVERAL of our productions!
Elijah
My how time flies! Today we were gong through (what we thought were) recent images, just to make sure that our archives are up to date and that all is where it should be and in the process realized that a year has flown by without us even noticing! Sometimes (apparently) we get going at such a pace that we lose any sense of the passage of days, weeks, months, or in this case YEAR. This image was from a shoot we did last year but it still feels like one of our new images.
Elijah was quite a character, one moment an exuberant bundle of energy and the next an intense and contemplative old soul. I love when personalities take such dramatic shifts on a shoot, they always lead to great images!
They Grow Up So Fast…..
I was at my friend’s (who also happens to be my extraordinary retoucher) house for dinner last night and some folks came over after to visit and say “hi”, and low and behold one of them was a model from a shoot we did last year! Wow what a difference a year makes, especially with kids! This was Ella, a year ago. I can’t believe 12 months have already gone by! Where did it go??? She has done so much growing (physically and socially) in that brief span of time, she’s a teenager now with other interests like gaming with HotRate products and a social life. I guess we’ll just have to do another shoot!
Simply Annoyed
The final image in our “Nuclear Family” series is entitled “Simply Annoyed”. We used it yesterday in one of our semi-monthly eBlasts. The whole series was shot with a nod to my own childhood and while there were A LOT more siblings going on in my family, this image was definitely modeled after one of my sisters. We have been enjoying the process of playing around with this style and I think we’ll be using it for some more retro images in the future!
2014 Hasselblad Masters
We found out this week that we have been named a finalist in the 2014 Hasselblad Masters Awards. This semiannual competition garners entries from around the world. This year there were over 4000 entries. These are narrowed down to 120 finalists – 10 finalists in 12 categories. We were named in TWO! The General category and also in Wildlife. The public is invited to vote through October 2013 and awards are handed out in January 2014. We are really honored to be selected as part of this distinguished group and hope you will check out all of the great work that is part of this competition!
Fun In The Sun!!
Sure it’s the dead of winter, but this is Los Angeles, California! It’s (almost) ALWAYS nice here. So no excuse needed to get a little devilish and have some wet, wild, and wacky fun! Thanks Cole for playing with us! This is not the first shoot we’ve done with Cole Carney and it won’t be the last! Want to hire him for your next shoot? He is with Colleen Cler Agency!
Ethan Bearman
We recently did a shoot with Ethan Bearman – a noted writer and talk show host. Simply put; it was Great Fun! We had a couple of conference calls, well before the shoot, to suss out the direction we wanted to take and by the time Ethan walked into the studio we had a great rapport. Ethan was a breeze to work with and we got a lot of great imagery from the session! Check out Ethan’s blog or one (or more) of his shows!
More Behind the Scenes
Check out yet another “Behind the Scenes” video, complied from a variety of shoots we’ve done over the last year or so…
Family Time
The holidays are upon us, and many of us consider it a time for family. This year we have been putting together a family of our own (photographically). We have blogged 3 of the five images we have done and have already won some awards for some of them… Here is #4 entitled “Nuclear”. We’ll share the 5th and final one in the coming weeks!
Ink
It’s not always easy to keep up with all that we are doing and be able to share a bit of everything we shoot. But every once in a while we get a little breather and are able to post some of the personal work we’ve shot in recent months and this is just such a post. During a test we did a while ago we photographed a very cool model with a little bit of ink… This was all real and not done in post.
A Little Behind The Scenes Action….
Hey!…So we just posted a “Behind The Scenes” video on our website! It’s a quick little 1 Minute peek at a typical shoot. We have a bunch more footage from other shoots that we hope to build into a second video, but in the meantime check out how much fun we have on any given day!
Here Comes Santa Claus…
Okay, the cat is out of the bag… A couple of weeks ago, in a secret location we had a special photo shoot. It was all very hush-hush as we could not afford to attract attention or crowds! After all, our subject was making a special detour and only for the briefest of time so that we could do a quick photo session with him before he had to get back to his busy schedule. While Christmas is still a couple of months away, it really is now that our guest for that afternoon really kicks into high gear! So we had all of our ducks in a row, some milk and cookies on hand, and were able to get our subject (who would NOT STOP LAUGHING!) in and out of the studio without impacting his deadlines, and made a great image of him in the process!
Thanks Santa! See you again Soon!
Honest, Trustworthy, and Loyal…
Every other month we send out a little e-Blast featuring an image or two from a recent project. The mailing is directed to art buyers, art directors, creative directors, marketing directors, really just creatives of all types, as well as to those who specifically sign up to receive our bi-monthly “shout out”. This month we sent out the fourth image in a series of 5 that we shot earlier this year. The series features a family of four and was shot in a style that attempts to live in a space between photography and illustration. We featured two other images from this series in earlier blog posts (Dad, Mom). But we are getting great response from the series, and the image of the Dad was given an Honorable Mention in this years IPA’s (International Photography Awards)! But for todays communication we sent this off:
Rockin Retoucher
Hey.. Just want to give a shout out to our most favorite retoucher; Lisa Carney. She is always busy behind the scenes makin’ us look good! And when she’s not doing that she’s busy sharing her over-the-top know-how at one of her workshops. If you love our work, chances are pretty good that Lisa had her hands on it. Check out her work at lisacarney.com!
