Over the years technology has changed, and so has what I carry. Ice has been smashed off my lenses, tar cleaned from dials, tripods have fallen hundreds of meters at once, even a penguin attack on my optics. I have shed blood trying to keep them safe, fallen in raging rivers, torn flesh on Greek beaches (more than once), fractured bones saving camera bags, and once knocked high off a ladder to protect Swiss lighting. It has all been worth it. Here are mere samples of equipment ability, techniques, and processing systems I’ve practiced nearly seven years.

 

Some believe all you need is vision, but quality of light, depth of field, colour control, and dozens of other factors to a final output don’t simply happen on a whim. Some of the most powerful cameras in the digital world have been used in my shoots, lenses from both modern optic superpowers, and old world handmade gems, it all has a purpose. You may notice I went with a bit of a car theme with the lower images of this page, which I did because these demonstrate two of the most demanding, technically challenging, potentially disastrous, and outwardly appearing to be insane shoots that came to mind when I considered what to include here.

First image - this shoot was for the opening scenes of an Indian street racing movie, filmed outside New Delhi on Christmas day. We used RED One cameras, which account for most likely half the movies at cinemas the last year, a whole new approach and modular beauty of a camera built by the people who brought the world Oakley (sunglasses, accessories, and military hardware). We utilized all it could do, shooting R3D at 200 frames per second catching slow motion footage of a gleaming orange Subaru emerging from the shadows, drifting toward us at full speed, and the camera pulling up smoothly from the front bumper just before impact to glide over the hood, windshield, and pull back looking down as the vehicle blows by. With full crews cold in the winter night, generator trucks, my own people, and working with the Director we made it all work despite amateur drivers and near collisions with gear many times.

Second image - something for which you could be forgiven to think I was an idiot to try. The rally race was the next day, we had the track to test up North in Ontario (Canada), with sporadic rains all day and night making the road less than forgiving. The vehicle was modest at best, a Geo Metro, subcompact car. It was used simply because the driver considered it “disposable”, an easy to fix and cheap to repair car, light and able to take a hit, most importantly something he didn’t care much if he destroyed. This is where I come in, a disposable car means no issues for me to tie myself in, one foot on the dashboard, scratching the side panels and roof with my huge camera as we impact relentlessly and gravel bombards all exposed skin. The tool, a Canon 1D mark2, at the time this was the top tier of photojournalism and sport photography gear, able to take severe beating and weather without hiccup. I spent the day washing mud and debris off it by merely dunking in streams and puddles, as the attached 16-35mm F2.8L lens took all the abuse head on and glass first. This particular shot was done with slow shutter speeds, by careful exposure and timing, moving with the car as to create the texture and flow you see here, no photoshop or image manipulation. Everything had to line up perfectly for this to work, and after a few slams into the road and near tree-branch misses I got this, among many others.

Canon 1D mark2, 1D mark3

Canon 1Ds, 1Ds mark3

Canon 5D, 5D mark2

Canon 7D

Canon 20D, 30D, 50D

Canon G11, G10

Canon lenses:

70-200mm F2.8 L IS

16-35mm F2.8 L

17-40mm F4 L

24-70mm F2.8 L

50mm F1.4

100mm F2.8 L Macro

Teleconvertor 1.4xII

Canon 580exII

Canon 430ex

 

Nikon D2X

Nikon D2H, D2Hs

Nikon D200

Nikon lenses:

55mm F2.8 micro

24-70mm F2.8 AFS

10.5mm F2.8 DX

35mm F1.4

105mm F2.8 VR micro

16-35mm F2.8 AFS

 

I don’t plan to go through exactly every item I’ve trained on, worked with, and studied, but here is a brief of tools I can attest to either owning, or knowing at a professional working level.

Mamiya RZ-67

Mamiya 645d

 

Phase One 45+

 

Leaf Aptus 50

 

Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed 1200

Elinchrom Digital 2400

Elinchrom A and S heads

Elinchrom BXRi 1200/600

Elinchrom 250r

Elinchrom Skyport (trans, univ, usb)

Rotolux, multiple up to 69”

 

Bowens Gemini 750/500

Bowens TravelPak

Bowens Quad 2400

 

Hensel Porty 1200

 

Pocketwizard system

 

RED One Mysterium

REDdrive

REDbomb evf

RED modular body system

RED 17-50mm F2.9

RED 50-150mm T3

 

O’Connor 2060HD

 

Kenyon GS-8

 

Silicon Imaging SI-2k modular

Silicon Imaging SI-2k unified

Silicon Imaging Si-3D

 

Zeiss Master Prime:

16mm T1.3

21mm T1.3

35mm T1.3

50mm T1.3

 

Zeiss Ultra Prime:

85mm T1.9

100mm T1.9

180mm T1.9

Fujifilm ASK 2000

Fujifilm ASK 4000

Kodak ML-500

Kodak 6850

DNP DS40

DNP DS80

 

HP DesignJet 4020ps

 

MacBookPro 15” 2009

MacbookPro 17” 2010

MacPro tower 8 core 2009

iMac 27” 2011

 

Arlacon Stage

 

CAT 4000

CAT 1200

 

Lacie RAID arrays (multiple)

 

Fuji X100

 

RRS BH-50cl

Gitzo CF