Interview On PDN Features
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work, Press & Interviews
PDN just posted a great online article with interviews from me and Danny Wilcox Frazier (here). It covers our work in the new American Youth book that was released this month. We have been getting some fantastic press for this, and none of it would have been possible without the wonderful people at Redux.
I am getting ready to head out to New York for two weeks, and I will finally get to see the actual book for the first time. I am also looking forward to talking with many of the people who put so much time and energy into this project. Should be fun.
This is an outtake from the book, but one of my favorite pictures from the Seagals pictures.
Special thanks to Jasmine DeFoore and Conor Risch for this article.
PDN online article - http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3if6edc43bfbecc72af9626bec0b2f5b69
Tags: American Youth, Cheerleader Pictures, Cheerleader Portraits, John Keatley Interview, NFL Cheerleaders, PDN, Photo District News, Redux, Seagals Cheerleaders, Seagals Pictures, Seaglas, Seahawks Cheerleaders, Seattle Seagals
Hot Water Baptism
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Personal Work
A few months ago, I reconnected with an old friend from college, Kyle Bowden. I had not seen him for about 8 years, since we were both studying abroad in Uruguay during my senior year. A small group of my friends all decided to study abroad together, and we went during Spring quarter in 2002. After we had been overseas for about 6 weeks, we had an extended weekend, and decided to get out of town for a couple days. We ended up traveling to Suriname and got in pretty late. Just outside of the capital city of Paramaribo was an old brick convent at the base of the hillside. Not having made sleeping arrangements in advance, some of the guys were joking around about staying the night in the convent. I’m sure they would rent us a room for the night right? As the joke quickly came to an end, Kyle said in a rather serious tone. ”I am going to spend the night in that convent.”
I laughed at first, but quickly realized that he was serious. He thought he could sneak into the convent and spend the night without being noticed. ”No way!” was the unanimous response from the group. But this just made Kyle even more determined. Finally, we decided that we would see just how serious Kyle was about this idea. We made a bet with him. If he could pull it off, we would collectivly pay him $400. And if he could not, he had to buy the drinks for the rest of the weekend.
Kyle gave us his backpack, took a few snacks, and headed up toward the convent. We agreed that we would meet back at the same spot the next day at 11:00am.
Kyle never showed up the next day. And through a very strange chain of events, that one night turned into three long years of isolation and canning fruit.
In 2005, Kyle was discovered and kicked out of the convent. He is currently living back in the States, trying to re-discover himself.
THE PHOTO SHOOT:
You know how high school kids like to yell, and mock people while driving by in a car? I won’t go into the psychology of why they do this, but it seems to be in their nature when a group of high school guys are together. So just imagine a group of high school boys driving along the waterfront, and as they come around the bend, there in front of them is a nun. With her back to the car. How could you not yell, right? I didn’t see them approaching at first, but I heard the screams. Two guys leaning out the windows yelling a Braveheart kind of scream at the nun as they drove by. The other passengers smiling from ear to ear, feeling so proud about scaring and intimidating a nun. Then suddenly, as the car passed, the nun’s face became visible. The screams and smiles stopped as quickly as they had started, and disappeared into complete shock and confusion. It was priceless.
Tags: Advertising Photography, Bearded Nun, Classic Nun Portrait, Habit Picture, Male Nun, Nun, Nun Habit
American Photography 25
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Awards, Celebrity
An email went out this past April to the winners of the American Photography 25 silver-anniversary competition, and I am happy to say that I received one of those emails. This was the first time that I submitted my work to AP. It all became official last week as the selected photographs were released in an online slide show. In all, 10,100 photographs were submitted, and the jury selected the 351 best images from 2008 to be published in the AP25 book. The book will be distributed world-wide in hard cover this November. My portrait of Annie Leibovitz is the picture that was selected from my submission. Annie Leibovitz also has work in AP25, including her controversial portrait of Miley Cyrus which appeared in Vanity Fair.
It is a major thrill to have my work selected for this, but what really blows my mind is the fact that many of the photographers I have been inspired by since I first picked up a camera also have work in AP25. Dan Winters, Peter Yang, Annie Leibovitz, Emily Shur (check out Emily’s blog if you haven’t already), and Martin Schoeller. I am very thankful for this opportunity.
Steve Wiecking just put up a nice post about AP and me on his Seattle Met blog (here).
Tags: American Photography, Annie Leibovitz, AP25, Award Winning Photographer, Celebrity, Celebrity Portrait, John Keatley, Photography Award, Photography Competition, Portrait, Silver-anniversary competition
American Youth Book Launch Invite
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under News
You are invited to the American Youth book launch at The New York Photo Festival. It is taking place Friday, May 15, 2009, 6:00pm (sharp!) – 7:30pm. It will be at St. Ann’s Warehouse, 38 Water Street, Brooklyn, and you must RSVP. Just click on the invitation above, and you can get all of the necessary information. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, so please take notes and pictures, and let me know how it goes. I think it is going to be a great event, and I am really excited to see the actual book in my hands.
I photographed street youth, and NFL cheerleaders (not together) for this book as mentioned earlier. I am planning a big post with all of my Sea Gal cheerleader images (including outtakes) along with some video footage from a few of the shoots. I hope to do this around the book launch, so probably in a week or so.
Tags: American Youth, Book Launch, Brooklyn, Contrasto, New York, New York Photo Festival, Redux Pictures
Brain Rules And John Medina
Posted by John Keatley | Filed under Editorial, Tear Sheets
Mina san konnichiwa. Hot off the press, my portrait of Dr. John Medina was printed on the cover of the Japanese edition of Brain Rules.
“In Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule—what scientists know for sure about how our brains work—and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives.”
I photographed Dr. Medina’s author portrait and press pictures last year, just before the book was first released in the States. Since then, the pictures have been published in Harvard Business Review, Seattle Metropolitan, and Response, to name a few.
When I got the assignment, my mind started racing with ideas and concepts that I could use for a brain scientist. I had heard that John is a passionate and expressive person, but nothing prepared me for the amount of energy and intensity that John generates. The slide show should give you a pretty good idea of what the shoot was like. John sang a song, made up a science rap, and charged at me during the shoot. Oh, and ate a plastic brain. What more could a photographer ask for!? One of my favorite images was an outtake that we shot at the end. I had the idea of using a brain like that old light bulb hovering over a persons head when an idea goes off. It was difficult to keep the brain from moving (I used string) but we eventually got it in place, and that ended up being the picture that was printed on the book jacket for the author portrait.
There is a ton of online content about Brain Rules if you are interested in finding out more. I highly recommend reading the book, as well. The English version that is…unless you can read Japanese. It is written in a way that anyone can understand, and everything in the book is practical information that can be used in your daily life.
* If you are using a blog reader, you may need to visit my actual blog to see the slide show above.
Tags: author portrait, biologist, book cover, book cover photo, Brain Rules, Dr. Medina, How The Brain Works, human brain, Japanese Edition, John Medina, molecular biology, Pear Press, Portrait, scientist portrait, The Brain
