Hip, Healthy, and Fugetaboutit

Zagat took me through an eclectic mix of late. Frank DePasquale refitted News into Splash down on Kneeland St. near South Station. It's meant to be something of a Miami bar / club scene which I guess is possible 2.5 months out of the year. But, who am I to argue with one of Boston's most successful restauranteurs?


First off there's a very nice roof deck complete with its own bar and stands for your chilled bottles. A shallow, aesthetic pool runs down the middle and at night is lit up with water spouting out of the wood into the pool... it does kind of look like what you might be thinking.


We were shooting around some construction, but the indoor had a large bar servicing two different rooms. Off to the side, there was this billiards room and the elevator access to the roof. Can I say again, I love remote flashes. The trick is remembering where you stuck them and not forgetting any.


In the main lounge area, the manager asked if I had seen what the wall "did." No I hadn't. It creates it's own little indoor rainstorm / self cleaning mode. I haven't seen Splash in full swing at night but get the feeling my shoes might not make the cut.


Run to Newton Corner, healthnuts. The Prana Cafe just opened. It's raw, vegan food. I got to shoot and then eat the Prana burrito (chard leaves wrapped around refried beans, avocado, marinated vegetables, and sour cream). Also had a strawberry shake of sorts. The chef was flown in from California... we're not fooling around here. And, I think I could eat vegan a good amount of the time if he was in my kitchen but I'll continue to make do on my own.


The cafe is very family friendly and open complete with encouraging words framed on each table and a kids' corner.

Ah, pizza, a classic. I can still remember as a kid when a pizza shop moved into my small PA town and I really thought we were on the map now... our own post office, county pool, hotel, and now a pizza shop. But, Ducali in the North End is a few notches above Mario's. The pizza is great, and the Italian pride is overflowing.


I like how all the shops in the North End hold on to their first dollar. I don't even know if my first dollar was in paper, check, or electronic form. I do know it was put in the bank. What Germans lack in sentimentality, we make up for in practicality.


I asked the cook to throw some pizza for a few shots. Turns out Ducali is owned by the family that owns the Italian restaurant below the Lee Gallery where I used to work in Winchester. Anyway, he had the dough ready in no time; and, after a little personal preference quiz, put together a great basil, chicken, fresh tomato pizza for me to take home. Ask and ye shall... you know.

Boston Book Festival and Boston Noir

I finished up at the Dorchester Open Studios on Saturday and then rushed downtown to the closing events of the Boston Book Festival. I was sorry to miss the day as Ken Burns, John Hodgman, Ben Mezrich, and Robert Pinsky among others were lecturing.


I went to Old South Church (another church I'd never seen the inside of) with the assignment to get a picture of Keynote presenter Orhan Pamuk, Festival president Deborah Porter, and State Street sponsors. It was five minutes before Pamuk was to go on and with a little wrangling they let me in the back room to get the shot. Moments after shooting his picture, Pamuk headed to the stage. He talked about his new book Museum of Innocence and the clash of modern and tradition and what love is. You know, easy stuff. His native Turkey said he "publicly denigrated Turkish identity" for acknowledging 1 million Armenians were killed in Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire but they dropped their case against him when he won the Nobel Prize in literature.


From there, it was back to the Boston Public Library for the closing event centering around Boston Noir, a collection of short stories edited by Dennis Lehane of Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone fame. He told the story of walking down a street in Charlestown and hearing an old guy hanging out second story window saying "hey, hey, hey..." When Lehane finally looked up, the guy said, "What the fuck you lookin' at?" He marveled at people who wonder where he gets his material from.


There was a wrapping party upstairs. The women dressed as femme fatales and men in trench coats and hats tried to pull of Sam Spade. It was lots of fun and a great way to end the First Inaugural Boston Book Festival.

Boston Book Festival, Boston Out Loud

Can you believe Boston didn't have a Book Festival (or at least not an official one for years)? Deborah Porter couldn't and she went on to found the Boston Book Festival. I got to shoot it for two days. It was a great success... unfortunately, many people had to be turned away at the doors. While I read mostly non-fiction, going around the Festival had me thinking I really should read some of these guys even if they write fiction.

On Friday night, Boston Out Loud, opened the event. I entered Trinity Church in Copley Square for the first time and felt like I was in Europe. It was huge, ornately decorated from the floor to the glass windows, and so beautiful. Despite the church being cavernous, it was very full.


Robin Young from WBUR's Here and Now got things started as Master of Ceremonies. Always fun seeing how a voice matches up with a person. She seemed like a good match to her invigorating voice. She dragged out all the books on her nightstand at the moment to talk about how important books are to all of us. So many books in fact some fell off the pedestal near me, and I handed them back to her.


The Boston Children's Chorus sang and between them being so good and the church's acoustics, it sounded better than what I thought singing could.


After talking about his awe for Faulkner and how it inspired him to be a writer even if he'd never be that good, Richard Russo read from his book Empire Falls from a dramatic spot like a preacher high up looking down on his congregation.


Livingston Taylor took over from there talking about words and how important it was to use them properly and acknowledge their power. He sang a few songs. The one I remember the most was where the songwriter went back and forth with the surly railroad man character he had created for his song trying to get him to do things like rescue a kitten from a tree and the railroad man refusing and then the songwriter putting the railroad man through awful trials. It was a bit sadistic but very funny.


Yolandi Cruz, a student at the Boston Arts Academy, performed a spoken word piece about reconciling with your identity, race, and family. For being so young, she already had powerful experiences and the ability to share them.


Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, closed the night. He is also a motivational speaker, and he relayed a story of visiting a prison upon a prisoner's request and how, yes, that room was full of men who had down awful things, but they were searching for ways to improve themselves and rise above. He also talked about his father being in a concentration camp and deciding they needed a university and spent his time there running clandestine education inspiring other captives. He rounded out the night leading the crowd in singing Beethoven's Ode to Joy in German, noting this is played as the Wall came down twenty years ago. The 1st Inaugural Boston Book Festival was off to a good start.

Headshots and Massachusetts Icon

Have been shooting a good deal of mobile headshots lately. Have been to Health Dialog, BevNet, and Network Health. We were going for pretty standard business headshots but; as you see, I couldn't hold Network Health's Edward back.

I also got to do a group shot at O'Neill and Associates downtown. O'Neill and Associates is run by Tom O'Neil, son of the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. It's a PR firm and was heavily involved with the Big Dig... hence, the Tip O'Neill Tunnel.


They stood in a small office while I shot through a double door from the board room into the office. Was definitely threading a needle but it worked. I wedged my Alien Bees lights in the two upper corners of the office and then put my two smaller Nikon remote speedlights in the board room to light up Tom and the front row. They wanted it sharp all around, and I poured as much light as I had into the scene so I could close down my aperture = more depth of field. Just got one of my favorite lenses (24-85mm) repaired and it worked great. Finally, had to make sure I had little to no reflection in the framed American Flag behind them... it was flown over the United States Capitol in 1994 after Tip O'Neill's death.

Tom and group were pretty fun and relaxed. We shot for about 15-20 minutes and got them back on their busy ways.

Photo Plus Expo

I've never made it to New York for the Photo Plus Expo before this year. Through my ASMP membership, I was able to have a portfolio review by Elaine Totten Davis. Living in New York has never been that enticing to me but visiting is always a nice time. It turned into a reunion of sorts from the Maine Photo Workshops (now the Maine Media Workshops) '02 lab intern days. I didn't know it then, but the 3 other interns I worked with would become great friends as we all headed into our photographic careers. Back then, we were mixing chemicals and keeping the lab working. Now, I'd have to review my notes a bit to make sure my developer, stop, and fixer would all do their jobs.


Anyway, the night before the review, I stayed with John, living in Brooklyn and with one more year to go in his MFA studies. He's also starting up his own BW custom lab service. One of us had to rebel against the digital revolution. We stayed up showing each other our work and talking shop over bourbon and beer. John pointed me in the right direction towards the Expo the next morning.


The right direction included passing the Adorama Store where I had to pick up a print for my review and then I walked past the B&H Store a bit later. I've done plenty of online shopping at both of these stores but never visited them in person. Wasn't sure what was more impressive, the selection or the organization of the places. Some type A's definitely had a field day. B&H has a track system going throughout the store so that as you shop your items will stack up and wait for you and your credit card at the check out counter. They are lifted out of the basement and then roll over the ceiling floor on their way to check out. This way, there's no items taking up floorspace... and all the customers get be enticed by the gear whizzing by like toy train sets.


Past B&H, I bumped into intern 3 and 4, Julie and Dutch... now married. We all headed to the Javitz Center. You knew you weren't in the typcial street crowd as you started to hear things like, (in nerdy photographer inflection) "Look at this light, it's more like afternoon than morning." We're a hopeless bunch sometimes.


The show was mayhem. All the stores and brands you've ever dealt with packed into an exhibit floor space showing off their latest wares. Sensory overload happens pretty quicly. There's plenty of marketing comedy too like photographers shooting models in cheesy set ups and poses so you can see the latest whatever at work live. I stopped by the KEH booth to talk about used SB-800 flashes, the Nikon booth to see lenses and cameras that I might rent some day, Lensbaby to see their new bendy lens, and the ASMP booth for my review.


It went well. I showed my Guatemala work to Elaine and we talked about getting more education, portrait, editorial work and taking full advantage of my new studio set up. On the way out, I picked up some business books from the Allworth Press corner of the booth. It was very nice getting to see some of the folks behind the various stores etc. I've dealt with for years but 2 hours was just about all I needed.


Got to hang out with Julie and Dutch on the Post Office building steps with tons of other people before getting on a bus headed back to Boston and my business.

Nearby Restaurants

With rain canceling a school shoot on Friday last week, I got to enjoy my first day more or less working from my studio at 46 Waltham St. It was very cold for mid October but I was breaking a sweat hustling over the W. Broadway bridge from Southie into the South End.


Two Zagat shoots were on the docket. First stop was at Post 390. It's an "urban tavern" concept built where a post office once stood in the Back Bay. The walls were lined with wood, straight cut from trees and left with its imperfections. There were three gas fireplaces and two levels to the place. Sometimes between the South End and Back Bay, it's hard to remember there's a recession on. The fare is American comfort stuff like Macaroni and Cheese etc. Then again, with all the new restaurants serving such "comfort food," maybe that says what diners are looking for these days... maybe that's got something to do with current times.


As I shot a corner table on the second floor with views into Copley Square on one side and down to the Prudential on the other, the first snowflakes of the year began to fall.


From Post 390, I was off to the studio for a bit and then a quick walk to Ginger Park on Washington St. I shot this space when it was Banq about two years ago. Still about the same on the surface although the wall behind the bar has been removed opening up the entire restaurant but there's a new chef in town. Patricia Yeo came up from New York to make a menu of what I understand to be kind of Asian tapas. Banq was going well but the owners couldn't say no when they heard she was interested in leaving New York for Boston. On a visual note, I really like this space. It looks like a cave kind of and reminds me of wooden dinosaur models I used to play with as a kid.


I find it funny both Banq and Post 390 named themselves after the function of the building they've replaced.

Faith and Education

I kicked off Thursday last week working at Jewish elementary school for Coffeepond. We set up to the children reciting passages in Hebrew. Later that night I worked the Adopt a Student Foundation benefit dinner for Cathedral High School who I'm now a neighbor with my studio just across Washington St. in the South End.

I particularly enjoy working for schools and helping promote education through my pictures. I enjoyed seeing how the two faiths worked into the educational environment in both these institutions.


Cardinal O'Malley was there and the Boston businessman Jack Connors gave a keynote. Connors was very inspiring talking about the Catholic faith and what drove him to help rebuild some Catholic schools in the Boston area. Interesting fact, the Catholic Church is the biggest buyer of duct tape in the United States because of all the boiler rooms they keep running in schools which still educate over 2 million students in the country. Jack talked about how the point of the school was to educate not indoctrinate and that originally the students were mostly poor Irish Catholic. Now it educates the some of Boston's current less fortunate classes such as blacks from Roxbury, hispanics from East Boston, and Asians from Chinatown.



Afterwards, Ernest McNeil gave a speech about his early years and his paternal grandmother becoming effectively his mother. I got the chance to meet Ernest a few weeks ago when I shot his headshot for the brochure. His focus and drive helping him move forward from where he started were very admirable. I had no idea of these things as I shot his picture. It reminds me that you never know where someone is coming from or what has or is happening in their life. But, the person can always put forward their best foot.



Cathedral did a wonderful job of using my images from my previous shoot with them a few months ago. Large photos were in the reception area and there were banners behind the stage. Very nice brochures had been printed up and the photos were in a video / slideshow shown that night. It made me proud my images were representing the school to so many people.

Lots of money was raised. I've never seen an auction like it. They pretty much said "this is what we need" and asked who could write a check for this much... then this much... then this much. There were no prizes or things to bid on or auctioneers working bidders over. After 5 minutes, we were done.


At the end of the night, I arranged a group shot with some Cathedral students and some of their teachers and benefactors. Bill Brett, who has covered all things Boston his entire career, showed up and as I set them up said, "I'm just watching you work." I was happy to have him shoot a few over my shoulder.