Strobist Interview
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Press & Interviews
It’s quite a thrill for me to share with you that there is a new article (read here) about my photography and lighting technique on Strobist. As you can see, Dan is pretty excited about this as well. The article details my assignments for WIRED and Technology Review to photograph hacker Dan Kaminsky, and what went into making the final images. For those of you who have already seen the post, this never before seen outtake from the WIRED shoot is for you.
A very big thank you goes out to David Hobby!
“John Keatley: Lighting Strikes Twice”
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2009/02/john-keatley-lighting-strikes-twice.html
Tags: Dan Kaminsky, John Keatley, John Keatley Lighting, Lighting Technique, Photography Technique, Strobist, Strobist Interview, Technology Review, Wired
Laughing With Jeff Bezos
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial
My portrait of Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO, recently came out in Smart Money Magazine. Although Jeff is well known for his healthy laugh, this is not the reaction that I expected to get when I chucked his personal Kindle over the edge of the balcony.
The Amazon people were pretty antsy to get a Kindle into the pictures. I had not been instructed to shoot the Kindle by Smart Money, but just to be safe, I did take several frames with it in. Then, Jeff handed his Kindle to me, and hoping to get a more serious expression, I let it fly. To my surprise, he just laughed (pictured) and said, “I’ve got a thousand more where that came from.”
Okay, so most of that is not true, including the quote. But Jeff is a super classy guy, and he probably would have just laughed if I had actually done something that stupid.
Tags: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Business Portrait, CEO Portrait, Jeff Bezos, Seattle, Seattle photographer, Smart Money Magazine
My Interview On Feature Shoot
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Press & Interviews
I am excited to share with you that I am featured on Feature Shoot as of this morning (read here). There is an interview, and several of my portraits. Including a new one from American Youth, a photography book which will be in stores May 2009.
“Feature Shoot is a resource for photo editors, art directors, and other industry professionals to discover new photographic talent. We interview and showcase the work of up-and-coming American photographers alongside that of established photographers who have completed a project or whose work has taken on a new direction.”
Special thanks to Alison Zavos!
http://www.featureshoot.com/2009/02/john-keatley-seattle/
http://www.featureshoot.com
This interview has also led to a couple of other blog articles today.
(here) Lost At E Minor
(here) [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation
Tags: John Keatley Interview, Press, Seattle photographer, Seattle Portrait Photographer
Backup Your Digital Photography
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Tools Of The Trade
Today I would like to talk to you about a subject that is often uncomfortable, and even a little confusing at times. Using protection. Now I know what you are probably thinking. ”Why should I worry about protection? I’m smart about it, and I try to use safe practices. Besides, that could never happen to me.” I used to think that too, but yesterday I had quite a scare. I realized hard drive failure and data loss can happen to anyone, at anytime. Even if you have a RAID server and a backup system.
It’s embarrassing to think about how I used to store my pictures. External hard drives all over the office. Random pictures here and there. Finally I realized that I needed to get serious and invest in a RAID Server. This thing has 8 hard drives in it, and it is possible to lose one drive without losing any data. It’s happened three times now in the last year, which I am told is not uncommon for running that many drives. I heard that Google has a hard drive go bad every three minutes. Crazy! After the second drive went bad a few months ago, I decided to add an additional backup system to the server. So now every few days, a copy of the data on the server is captured onto two external hard drives.
Now for one of the scariest moments of my career. Tuesday I heard a noise coming from the server. My network admin said that it was a drive, but I should be fine to keep working until he could swap it out the next day. Not long after, several hard drive lights started flashing red. I tried to access the server, and in the root directory, I was greeted with, “0 bytes. No files available.” What!?
It turns out that I didn’t lose anything. One drive went bad, and after putting a new one in, everything went back to normal. But this has me thinking I may need to add another RAID server to backup the one I already have. I am also going to be keeping backup drives at off site locations. No more taking chances. I do not want to go through this again.
Even if you aren’t a professional photographer, it can be devastating to lose all of your personal pictures. So many people have pictures on one drive, or on a disc. Discs and drives go bad! Always keep multiple copies of your data. External hard drives are very affordable these days, so there are no excuses. I seriously recommend taking the following steps to everyone.
1: Keep your pictures organized by creating a filing system that makes sense.
2: Never store data on the C: drive. If you need to reformat, or reinstall your OS, this can be a problem. Have a separate drive for your data.
3: Backup your data! Make sure that everything you save is on at least two different drives. I do not recommend CD’s or DVD’s. They go bad!
4: Keep a backup of your data at a second location. This might be extreme for some people. But if it’s your career, like it is mine, do it.
There you have it. Please talk to your loved ones about the importance of using data protection.
Tags: Backing up digital pictures, Backup, data backup solution for photographers, Data Loss, Data Protection, digital photography backup, Hard Drive, photo backup, Photo Organization, Photography Backup, Photography storage, RAID, Server
Dr. John Perkins
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
This picture came about because I felt compelled to photograph John Perkins after hearing him speak. Not many people have been through, and seen what he has. Harassment, imprisonment, beatings, and the murder of his brother by a town marshal in Mississippi. I mentioned to my wife I would love to photograph him, and she said, “You should go talk to him.” I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I gave it a shot. Next thing I knew, I had an appointment to photograph John Perkins.
John and I drove around for a few hours together. It was part photo shoot, and part tour of the city. Turns out he had been scheduled for events and lectures his entire trip, and he was excited to get away and relax a bit. It was quite an experience spending part of a day with John. I have never met anyone who can naturally start up a meaningful conversation with strangers, but that’s what he did several times.
The portraits from this shoot have led to two commercial assignments, as well as an assignment to photograph John again. Thank you personal work!
Dr. John Perkins has been an outspoken leader in civil rights, and is also an author, speaker and teacher on issues of racial reconciliation, leadership, and community development.
Tags: Author, Dr. John Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down, Perkins Foundation
Sub Pop Records, The Sound of Seattle
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial
I took this portrait of Jonathan Poneman and Megan Jasper for Fortune Small Business last year during the Sub Pop Records 20th anniversary. Jonathan is the co-founder of Sub Pop (Seattle, WA) and Megan is the VP. Sub Pop is the original label of Nirvana. A few other bands who are currently with, or used to be with the label include: Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, The Shins, Flight of the Conchords, The White Stripes and Fleet Foxes. Thanks for the Fleet Foxes CD by the way! Great album!
Megan has a pretty funny story about being interviewed by The New York Times back when grunge became popular. She was asked to define “grunge” words or phrases, and she basically just made everything up. And they printed it. On the front page. There is a video clip about the story (here).
Tags: Fleet Foxes, Fortune Small Business, FSB, Grunge, Jonathan Poneman, Megan Jasper, Music, Nirvana, Seattle, Seattle Music, Sub Pop, Sub Pop Records
