Category Archives: San Diego

NFL, photography, San Diego, Sports

Giving Back

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I believe in charity, I believe in getting paid. The one thing about a lot of charities is that they believe photography should either be free, donated or minimal cost. A lot of times the requester will mention the great marketing potential and visibility and best of all it’s for charity. Generally the staffer from the charity is paid, the venue is paid, the catering either paid or discounted, the photographer……. free? See why I rarely do charity events?

So, I found a way to give, feel good and not abused. I went to San Diego State University, fell in love with the campus and after leaving for a job continued to actively support them. I eventually was awarded the sports department photography contract and met two young men that both personified the love of sports, friendship and life. Carlos Gutierrez, then Monty Montezuma, and I became great friends while on the sidelines at the Aztecs sporting events. I also met a freshman running back that would put SDSU on the map. Marshall Faulk went on to become an All American, runner up for the Heisman Trophy (he got robbed), first round NFL draft pick and now a future Hall of Famer.

Faulk now a NFL Network analyst is still loyal to SDSU. The last couple years he has been involved in a marketing program to get more alumni involved. It’s called “Aztec for Life”. In the photo above at a event promoting that is (left-right) Carlos Gutierrez, Marshall Faulk and SDSU President Stephen Weber.

Faulk also has his own charity called the Marshall Faulk Foundation. The mission is to improve the quality of life for San Diego youth by increasing opportunities for them. So Carlos G. and I came up with the perfect solution. I donated the image of Faulk (top left) from a game against USC and Carlos had a friend donate the printing of the image. The image was printed on canvas and then stretched on a frame, ready for Marshall’s autograph and the auction. So far copies of the image have garnered nearly $3,000 for the charity. This was a win for me and for the foundation. My old archived images had created the means to help the children of San Diego. What’s in your archives and who can you help? Happy Holidays.

My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com

black and white, location shoot, music, photography, San Diego, Uncategorized

The King and Lucille

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The King and Lucille

I love looking at old shoots I have done.  My career so far has been in the newspaper industry, the sports world and now in the corporate and architectural realm.  I, like so many of my counterparts, have covered a myriad of events that have helped shaped my career and myself as a person.

Music is one of  the sources of enjoyment, enrichment and creativity that is part of our daily lives.  It is the stories real or unreal of our daily live that the musicians have created to share  with  us.  It evokes emotion.

One of the finest bluesmen ever is B.B. King.  I had the honor of photographing him when he was 79 years old during a concert and meet and great afterward.  What a treat.  The music was great.  In fact, I left there wondering as good as the show was how good he must have been  30, 40 or 50 years ago when he was in much better health.  Or……. is music, like photography, like good wine, better with age?  Nothing beats experience and passion, they just enrich  our lives.

After the show I had to take meet and greet photos of the VIPs with The King and Lucille.  After finishing B.B. looked over at me and smiled and asked “Would you like a picture with The King and Lucille?”  I’ll never forget that.

*** the techy stuff.  Shot with a Nikon D2X, iso 1600.  Image processed in Lightroom with personal presets ***

My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com

location shoot, photography, San Diego, Sports, Uncategorized

The Double Bird

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When do you take or not take the photo?  Whether or not you are a professional at times this can be a dilemma and potentially create problems for you.  Hopefully if you’ve pondered this question ahead of time you won’t freeze when it’s your time to capture that once in a lifetime photo.  As my mentors often told me, it’s easier to delete or throw away a photo than it is to not have one to start with.

I previously worked for the San Diego Padres as one of two contract team photographers.  My assignment was to cover a fundraiser for the Hall of Champions featuring two of the best hitters ever in baseball, Ted Williams (right) and Tony Gwynn.  Going into the event the premise was simple.  The patrons for the evening would be able to have their photo taken with Mr. Williams and Mr. Gwynn and then later enjoy a discussion on the art of hitting.  Simple concept?  No……

Hall of Famer, Ted Williams was passionate about hitting.  He had a profound respect and enjoyed talking about the art with Tony Gwynn.  Apparently either he wasn’t told about the photo shoot, or he didn’t care.  All he was interested in was talking hitting with Gwynn.  Each time someone one came up behind them for a photo I would have to say something like, ” look here sir, look here Ted, look here Captain” to get his attention.  Finally “The Splendid Splinter” got fed up.  Without any hint he went ballistic and angrily blurted out “I show you something to look at…..” and proceeded to award me the double bird.  I shot the photo without hesitation.  Needless to say William’s handlers rushed in to stop him and calm him down.  Gwynn and John Moore’s nephew (the boy behind them) were shocked and later Gwynn would laugh and joke about it.  After a few minutes we continued shooting the last few guests and moved on to the rest of the evening’s schedule.

After the film was processed and printed the image was circulated to the ownership of the Padres.  It was decided that even though it was a great photo that it would not be released or published until after the death of Mr. Williams.  However, several prints were made and given to a select few.

I have great respect for the subjects in my photo.  However, I am first and foremost a photojournalist.  Without the photo, often times there is no story.

Technical notes:  Shot with a Hasseblad ELM and a 50mm lens on neg film using Dynalites.  The image above was scanned and color corrected in Photoshop from an 8×10 print.

My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com

Old archives and sports images are on: www.bigstudioz.com

HDR, location shoot, photography, San Diego, Solar

Going Solar

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I just finished shooting an assignment for Swinerton Builders showcasing the new solar farm installation at Harrah’s Rincon Casino and Hotel.  I ended up doing a couple setups to process in hdr for my client.  The key to a good hdr image is a good steady tripod and good clouds in the sky.  The hdr process has to be handled properly otherwise the image will start to look too much like an illustration.  In this case the choice of hdr helped create the strong contrast elements and accentuated the shadows and made the sky more dramatic.

One of my goals was to highlight the elements and power of the sun  and sky.  This solar farm was a one megawatt facility.  The CO2 savings would be the equivalent to the output of 77,600  cars.

More of my work can be view at:  www.zwink.com

HDR, location shoot, photography, San Diego

Playing with a new lens

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Midland_JDZ7490a
Midland Animal Clinic

I just had brain surgery a week and a half a go.  Seriously…….  Modern medicine is a wonderful thing.  Eight days later it was time to get out the house and go test my new Nikon Nikkor 24 pc tilt shift lens.  I decided at the last minute I was going to do a sunset shot but then waited too long to go to my first choice of location.  So, I decided instead I was going to go shoot the Midland Animal Clinic in Poway where we take our pets to.  This is a fairly new building that I’d been wanting to shoot and this was the perfect excuse.  I knew that the success to making a good image was to take advantage of the lens, using it’s perspective controls to keep the lines on the building straight.  I then did several exposures as the dusk turned into the evening and from those multiple files selected four files to work with.  I used Photomatix to create a HDR image and then carefully layer in one of the original files to pull out the signage in the highlights.

Just a quick word about working with HDR tonemapping in Photomatix.  There are no sound formulas or great starting points that will give you a great image with the automatic settings.  It’s really a starting point to creating a good image and the more you experiment with it the more you will understand it’s controls, allowing for more creativity in the image making process.  HDR won’t work on everything.  Part of successfully integrating it into your work is to use it as a tool to enhance your vision, not create it.

location shoot, music, photography, San Diego

The Mighty Danielle

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The Mighty Untouchables

Danielle Tucker is every thing I like about artists.  Danielle (the brunette) has been singing since she was a baby and will probably be singing when she’s old.  I’ve had the pleasure to do a photo shoot of her when she was first starting to front for local cover bands.  Then about a year ago I was asked to do another shoot of her when she was signed to an artist development deal and produced an ep dvd that already has garnered plenty of airtime on KSON radio.  More of Danielle’s story is on her site: http://www.myspace.com/danielleltucker
Danielle now fronts her own band, The Danielle Tucker Band, and is often booked in many of the local venues while waiting for her call to hit the touring scene.  The photo above is linked to her site and if you love good country music check out her site.
Danielle is also part of The Mighty Untouchables, a corporate oriented band that is loaded with some of the top musicians in San Diego.  The photo above was part of their marketing package I helped create at a beautiful 18k square feet estate in Poway.  The goal was to show a mafia style “family” in the images.  With the great architecture and design of the home we achieved several different images enabling a wider selection for their p.r. and marketing.  We used Profoto lighting and a couple Q flashes for most of the images to create a stronger, bolder, contrasty look.  Post production was in Lightroom and then I used a custom preset to create a high pass effect.  More of the final images including portraits can be seen on their website: http://themightyuntouchables.com/

More of my work can be seen at:  www.zwink.com

art exhitibion, dancer, photography, San Diego

Melding of the Souls

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Melding of the Souls
Melding of the Souls

I was introduced to Ashley by my talented photographer friend, Heather Fuqua.  Heather had asked me to show her some location lighting techniques and said she would provide the talent.  My original plan was just to introduce her to some directional lighting using a couple Quantum Q flashes and Pocket Wizard remotes.  The day was overcast, the alley in North Park grimmy.  After watching the interaction of Ashley and Heather, I finally accepted the offer to join in the shoot.  Ashley was a very strong dancer and was able to easily collaborate with us and react to the adjustments we often requested.  Due to the flat lighting I used the lighting to help create strong lighting patterns to accentuate Ashley’s movement among the alleyway.  The lighting also allowed me to pull out the emotional interaction and strength in the post production process using a combination of increased saturation and hi pass effects.

This image was chosen as part of the Harbor Arts exhibition which opened this past Saturday evening in San Diego’s North Park at J&T Architecture Gallery.  I’ve entered very few images in competitions the past few years, partially a result of not taking my work seriously enough.  After reviewing a portion of my existing work and with the encouragement of my friends I hope to make more of an effort in the future.  Photography is meant to be shared, discussed, learned from and enjoyed.  It’s time for me to start sharing.

More of my work can be seen at:  www.zwink.com

location shoot, photography, San Diego

Getting high on the Vibe

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I was hired by Tim Young from GMR Works to go to a General Motors car distribution plant in San Leandro in the Bay Area. The goal was to get elevated on a lift and photograph the new Vibe cars arranged into the shape of the Vibe logo, drop it into a logoed template and get 100 prints by 6 p.m for a car dealers meeting. Making maters more complicated that day was extremely windy conditions and we had to go almost 60 feet in the air to get the proper perspective on the “logo”. After getting used to the sway of the platform/cage I finally made a good series of images. I proceded to do the postproduction on the image under a tent and then went and emailed the image to Chrome in San Diego where they proceed to do a rush print job for us. My assistant Gary Flanagan then picked up the prints and jumped on a flight to SF where we met him. He handed the box off to Tim and Gary and I made the next flight back to San Diego. All in a day’s work.

More of my work can be seen at:  www.zwink.com