Kickin ass and taking names, and pictures…
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Advertising, Tear Sheets
I wasn’t at all surprised when I got a call to photograph Craig and Paul Pumphrey for the ad campaign for their new show Human Wrecking Balls on G4. These guys are seriously tough, and they can pretty much destroy anything with their bare hands. This kind of raw power can be intimidating, and the client wanted to make sure that they hired a photographer who could smack the guys around if need be. Usually I am hired for a job because of my style and photographic talent, but for this job I was also hired for my size and imposing figure.
Craig and Paul are really some of the nicest guys I have ever met. Possibly because they are able to release any frustrations and pent up aggression they may have by breaking things on a daily basis. Like this stack of cinder blocks for example. My assistant Mike and I flew down to LA for the shoot. It was a filming day, and the set was an old abandoned bowling alley. During some of our down time, we threw bowling balls at tv monitors, and kicked things that looked solid. Needless to say, the experience of destroying a bowling alley created some awkward inner tensions for me when I went bowling for my wife’s birthday party just weeks later.
While I was photographing Craig for the punching ad, we started debating which one of us would loose a thumb wrestling competition. I also offered to let him kick me in the head if I could punch him in the face first. Unfortunately this never happened because we were pressed for time due to the long filming schedule that day. Lucky for him.
Watching Craig throw punches, I realized that his form was completely off, and I gave him a few quick pointers. This is where my whole world came crashing down. It turns out that my form was off, and Craig knew what he was doing. What!? I have always thought that when you throw a punch you want to spread the impact across the 4 knuckles on your first. Not true. It turns out that the correct way to punch is to align your index and middle finger knuckels with your arm. Like a battering ram. Those two knuckles are where you should make contact with your target and deliver the impact. If all of your knuckles were flat on impact, your wrist would not be straight, and you could cause some serious damage to your self. So making sure that your wrist is straight and just the two knuckles deliver the impact is very important. And that is how you throw a punch.
These print ad’s are running in Maxim and Rolling Stone. The online content can be seen on the G4 website, as well as the Zune Marketplace and iTunes store. I wish lot’s of luck and good health to Craig and Paul Pumphrey!
Tags: Ad campaign, Celebrity, Craig Pumphrey, G4, Human Wrecking Balls, Maxim, Paul Pumphrey, Pumphrey Brothers, Rolling Stone, Tear Sheets, TV show
Christmas sweaters and a little stuffed goat
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
Happy Holidays! Inspired by this years hottest new Christmas sweaters, I decided to put together a holiday photo shoot. Hopefully these pictures put you in the spirit. And what says Christmas like a pygmy goat. Right? Special thanks to Jessica, Brian, and Little Wonder, the stuffed Christmas pygmy goat. I used these pictures in an e-promo that was sent out to ad agencies and magazines today.
All I did was suggest that we take the little goat out for a few pictures, but I guess that was the wrong thing to say!
Tags: awkward Christmas, awkward pictures, Best Christmas Sweaters, cheesy sweaters, Christmas sweater, Christmas sweaters, Holiday Portraits, Holiday Sweaters, Humor, Portrait, Studio, Studio portraits, ugly sweater, Ugly Sweaters
Technology Review – Dan Kaminsky
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial, Tear Sheets
Technology Review, November 2008. This was my first shoot with Dan Kaminsky. He is a hacker who discovered and helped fix a huge security hole in the Internet. Read more about his story in the Wired Magazine post (here).
*Update* David Hobby at Strobist interviewed me about my lighting technique for this assignment and my other shoot with Dan. He wrote a really nice article, and you can read it (here).
Tags: Dan Kaminsky, Editorial, Hacker, Headshot, Headshots, Internet Flaw, Internet Security, Tearsheet, Technology Review
Wired – Hole in the Internet
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial
My first assignment with Wired just came out in the December issue. You can see the online article with my pictures of Dan Kaminsky and Paul Vixie here. It’s a great story, and worth a read, even if you aren’t interested in secret meetings at Microsoft, and a big security flaw in the Internet. This was my second time photographing Dan Kaminsky, the hacker who discovered the hole in the Internet. It was fun to work with more familiarity than I usually get with a subject. I also flew down to San Francisco and photographed Paul Vixie at his Redwood City office. Paul is considered to be the “Godfather of DNS”.
*Update* David Hobby at Strobist interviewed me about my lighting technique for this assignment and my other shoot with Dan. He wrote a really nice article, and you can read it (here).
Tags: Black Hat, Dan Kaminsky, DNS, Editorial, Environmental Portrait, Hacker, Hole In The Internet, Internet, Internet Security, Paul Vixie, San Francisco, Seattle, Seattle Hacker, Secure DNS, Wired
Jones Soda
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial, Tear Sheets
I photographed Jones Soda CEO Stephen Jones for the November 2008 cover of Seattle Business. I was surprised to hear that Stephen’s last name is just a coincidence, and he just recently joined the company. We were scheduled to shoot early in the morning, but some bad news about the US economy and banking industry meant that Stephen had conference calls scheduled all day and we had to be quick. How many soda’s does a CEO of a soda company drink in a day? If I remember correctly, it’s about 10.
Jones Soda CEO Stephen Jones. Photo by John Keatley
Tags: Business Portrait, CEO Portrait, Cover, Editorial, Jones Soda, Jones Soda CEO, Seattle Business, Stephen Jones, Tearsheet
