Last month I wrote about an upcoming assignment in the Philippines for an organization called Arts Aftercare.  Here is a link to the post if you are interested in the backstory, but basically I was working with the story of sexual slavery, human trafficking, and the work people are doing to help survivors.  I was gone for 10 days in the beginning of March, and  I got back to the States a few weeks ago.  After taking some time to rest, and reflect on the trip and what I saw, I finally feel like I am at a point now where I have processed enough of the trip, and I can share my thoughts and more importantly, my pictures.  I feel like this project makes the most sense when split up into 4 or 5 different stories.  The first part of the story is arriving in Manila and getting somewhat acclimated to my surroundings.

I have never had to think so much about an assignment as I did on this trip.  There are so many variables to consider, which I have never had to think about on past assignments.  One of the things I found myself thinking about a lot on this trip was journalistic integrity.  Thankfully I was traveling and working with my close friend, and filmmaker Eric Becker who I learned so much from.  It would have been a totally different experience for me if I didn’t have him there for support, and just overall great companionship.  When I was in Liberia last year, I took pictures of anyone, because everyone in the entire town I was in, was effected in one way or another by the lack of clean drinking water.  It was something that had a broad reach, and just about any person, place or thing seemed relevant to the story.  In the Philippines, I was trying to tell a story about sexual slavery.  Although prostitution seemed to be everywhere I turned, it is not so easy to create a visual story without being painstakingly careful.  For example, we stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort when we visited Angels City.  Just in the short time I spent in the lobby during a 24 hour period, I saw 20 or so men bring back, or meet prostitutes in the lobby.  Everyone knows what is going on, but at the same time, seeing a 65 year old American man and a 20 year old Filipino girl walking to a hotel room is not proof of what is going on.  Sometimes the age difference was not so great, and it certainly isn’t fair to assume every white guy and Filipino girl are in anything other than a serious relationship.  Being a portrait photographer, I wanted to photograph so many different people, but I knew I needed to be careful what I was implying by including someones portrait or picture in a series like this.  I didn’t photograph the bellhop at the hotel I was staying at and say he is somehow a part of the story, anymore than I would want someone photographing me in the Philippines and saying I was somehow involved.  There is actually a lot of human trafficking that happens in Seattle.  Seattle is a major player in human trafficking unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean you can photograph anyone in Seattle and say they are part of the story.  Some of you may be thinking what I am saying seems pretty obvious, but it was  new for me, and took a lot of thought to work through.

With all of that being said, these images are from our travels to Manila from Seattle, as well as wandering around and exploring Manila after we first arrived.  Which I might add, we didn’t have much time to explore.  None of these images are linked to or are intended to be linked to prostitution or human trafficking, but they help set the stage for where I was in the Philippines, and what my surroundings were like.

I am really excited to share more from this trip in the coming days and dive into the images I am most excited about.  As always, thanks for your interest!

On another note, all of these images were edited with VSCO Film which is an amazing image editing tool for Lightroom, Aperture, and Camera RAW.  It has totally sped up my workflow, improved my images, and is one of my favorite tools as a photographer.  Check it out for yourself here.  I also wrote a couple of reviews here and here with processed images if you want to find out more.

This is a portrait I recently shot of my good friend and colleague Eric Becker, who is a director / documentary filmmaker.  For over a year, Becker has been working on his film, Sound & Vision, which “explores issues facing the nearshore environment. It is a film about the oceans, told through the stories of people working to clean up, protect, and restore habitat in Puget Sound and beyond. The film is scheduled for release this fall.”  I really like this portrait, because it hints at the chaos of documentary filming, while capturing the beauty of the Puget Sound that Becker’s film strives to preserve.

I was lucky enough to see the film at a pre-screening not too long ago, and it is really beautiful.  Not your typical everybody freak out, we have a problem documentary, but one that explains a problem and offers hope, as well as a call to action.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Becker and I will be leaving for the Philippines with Arts Aftercare next week.  I can’t believe it’s almost time to go.

Retouching by Gigantic Squid.

Merry Christmas, everyone.  I hope you are able to look back at 2011 with fond memories, and look forward to 2012 with excitement and anticipation.  That’s how I am feeling right now.

Here is the highly-anticipated 2011 Annual Keatley Christmas picture.  It feels so good to have this one in the can, and to finally get to look at it.  (You can click on the image to get a closer look.)  This year, we are living the good life, up in a tree, because that’s how we roll in the great Pacific Northwest.  Sorry to break it to you, but red flannel is the new cheesy Christmas sweater.  I know, just when you finally got around to planning that sweater party.  It’s not too late to trade ‘em in for flannel and an axe though.

As you may remember, in last years picture, we were with our yeti in the middle of Fargo.  (You can see all three of our Christmas pictures by filtering the posts with the ‘Keatley Christmas’ category.)  It went over pretty well, and because of that, I put a lot of pressure on myself to repeat or even outdo it this year.  Long story short, I over thought the whole idea and couldn’t come up with anything for about 5 months.  This has been a year of great learning and growth for me as a photographer.  I have had some things I had to really wrestle and struggle with for a good part of the year, but in the end, I feel like I came out with a much better perspective and idea of who I want to be as an artist.  It was only after I made some of these realizations that I was able to come up with this idea.  It was a difficult, but worthwhile process, and  I love how this picture turned out.  I think it’s a lot of fun to look at, and something I am really proud of.  Our dog, Oliver, on the other hand, well, he is just glad to be out of the tree.  In hindsight, it is also probably really fortunate that we did the yeti last year, because I can just about guarantee Isla would have passed out from screaming if we tried that this year.  She was so young last year, she didn’t have a clue what was going on.

If lumberjacks and outdoor types sound familiar to some of you, it is probably because of my short promo video, The Woodsman, shot earlier this year.  You can watch it at the bottom of this post.  It is worth pointing out, that lumberjacks and woodsmen are not necessarily a tight knit group, but they have been known to fraternize from time to time.  All that to say, for me, I guess you could call 2011 the year of the lumberjack / woodsman.  Who knows what 2012 will bring.  Stay tuned.

It’s been really fun to hear from so many of you about how you look forward to our annual Christmas picture.  It means a lot to us, and it makes it that much more enjoyable for me to work on knowing how much some of you enjoy these.  I am already looking forward to creating next years.  Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you will like, tweet, or share this if you enjoy it.

Photo Retouching by Gigantic Squid.

I added a couple of new images to the Liberia section of my website.  Check em out.

The 2011 PDN Faces issue is out, and Plants Vs. Zombies is a winner in the Celebrity/Editorial Portraits category.  My Liberia series also won, under the Environmental Portraiture category.  Last year, my portrait of Annie Leibovitz was the feature image in PDN Faces.  It’s a thrill to have my work included in the contest again.  Last July through April of this year felt like I was going at 200 mph non stop, and it’s nice to be able to slow down a little bit in the summer and reflect back on the work I have done this past year.  It is even more satisfying to have that work recognized by the various contests I have won recently.  Now it’s time to get busy again.  Lots to do and look forward to.  The new Keatley office project, the 2011 Christmas photo, some new video projects, and hopefully more fun work as well.  I just finished a short video about my experience in Liberia this past January, and I will post it shortly (tonight).  I think you will like it.

Side note: Co-founder of PopCap Games, John Vechey (pictured above) trumped my award just a little when PopCap was acquired by Electronic Arts for $1.3 billion,  just days after the PDN award became public.  Congrats John.  Dolla dolla bills, y’all.  I like to think the awards for this picture is what pushed EA to pull the trigger.  Not that I am surprised, because just days after I photographed TechCrunch founder and CEO Michael Arrington in his home, TechCrunch was purchased by AOL for $30 million.  You seeing a pattern here?  I can’t legally promise companies will throw millions of dollars at you after I take your picture, but…  Hey, that could make a great promo.

The list of this years Faces winners is on the official contest website.  I haven’t had a chance to see the issue in person yet, but I am looking forward to sitting down with it.

I was asked to create a bio video several weeks back, and I immediately knew I didn’t want to do another interview-type video.  Don’t get me wrong, interviews are great and have their place, but this felt like a great opportunity to do something creative and show people a side of me often only expressed through my images of other people.  I think this short film is a good glimpse into my personality and how I think about life and work.  Sometimes words just aren’t enough, at least for us visual types.  So think of this as a creative bio/promo, rather than a literal account of my work and life.  I hope you enjoy it.

I posted several of production stills if you want a behind the scenes look at this video also.

CAST
John Keatley and Oliver

PRODUCTION CREW
John Keatley // Writer, Producer keatleyphoto.com
Eric Becker // Director weareshouting.com
Brandon and Les Hilliard // Director, Editor, Writer, Producer braindancers.com
Rodrigo Valenzuela // Director of Photography weareshouting.com
Ian Goode // Graphics giganticsquid.com
Ryan Dunleavey // Motion
Michelle Chappron // Hair and Makeup michellechappron.com

Music by Björn Olsson bjornolssonmusic.com

Surprised to see something other than stylized portraits?  From the beginning, the goal with this ongoing personal series was to create something completely different from my portrait work.  Last fall, I decided I wanted to push myself to create something outside of my comfort zone.  I would prefer to let these images stand on their own without adding a story or context to them, but I also realize it is important to talk about one’s work.  If not the meaning, at least the process.  I have attempted to explain these to a few close friends, and the best explanation I have come up with so far is that this good idea evolved from several really bad ideas.  What this means is I began with an idea and talked about it for a little while and really wrestled with the concept and how it would read.  The first few concepts never really sat right with me, but thinking and talking about them with others eventually led to what you see here.  Even after I began shooting, the concept continued to evolve.  I worked with a great post production studio called Gigantic Squid, and collaborated with Ian Goode on the final look and feel of everything.  This really has been an experiment and exploration of a different type of photography.  As much as I pulled away from my portrait work in this process, I came to realize just how important the human element is to me in my work.  I learned how to respond to what I was shooting and adapted my approach as the images came to life.  That is not something I get to experience when working on an ad campaign which has to be planned out completely before shooting.  So far, this project has taken me across Washington and Northern California, and I am planning a couple more out of state trips in the months to come.  I have learned so much from this experience and I am excited to see how this continues to evolve and shape me as an artist.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  Finally, a normal holiday picture from the Keatley’s, right?  I’ll admit last years holiday photo was a little strange, what with the accident and everything.  But the show must go on.  This year we have a couple of new introductions.  Our daughter Isla, and our yeti who is holding her.  We did look into more “traditional” forms of childcare, but everything is so expensive these days.

I had a lot of fun planning this shoot out.  I have been thinking about it, and planning for about 5 months, so seeing it finally come to life like this is a mix of pure excitement and a little relief.  Although, I am already starting to think about next year.  I just can’t help myself.  It’s a blessing and a curse.   I just think it will be so awesome to look back 10, 15, or 20 years from now and see all of the different holiday photos we have taken.  Not to mention, how many 6-month-olds get to say they had their picture taken with a yeti?  Isla is either going to think we are the coolest parents ever, or she won’t be able to get far enough away from us when she is older.  I’m hoping for the first, but only time will tell.

This has been a wonderful year for me, and I am very grateful for all of your continued support and interest in my work.  Thank you for reading my blog, and for coming out to hear me speak on occasion.  That is definitely something I hope to do more of this next year.  The next blog post you see from me will probably be me announcing my new website which I am very excited to share.  As much as I like my current one, and it was selected in the 2010 PDN Annual, I feel like there is always room for improvement.  Stay tuned.

Just finished up a nice two weeks off work with my wife and our new baby girl, Isla.  She is our first child, and for those of you with kids, I think it goes without saying how incredible it is to be a part of new life.  We are having a lot of fun, and from what I hear, it only gets better.  Thought we would try to get her started early with costumes so she will be ready for her first annual Keatley Christmas picture this year.  It’s actually just a blue monster bath towel, but it’s a start.

Now before you go freaking out sending cards and flowers, you should know Oliver and I are doing much better after the sledding accident.  It was unfortunate timing, one day before our 2009 Keatley office Christmas photo, but the show must go on!  We were lucky to walk away with only a few broken bones, a concussion and some mild dizziness.  The snowman however, did not fare so well.

Please allow me to introduce you to the Keatley team.  On the left is our bookkeeper Nichelle.  Now you have a face to put with the name next time you receive an invoice from her.  I am in the wheelchair, and on the right is our intern Allison.  Oh, and Oliver is on Allison’s lap.   He is the night janitor.  No job goes unrecognized around here.

Every time I look at this picture, it makes me laugh.  I like that, and it is a good reminder for me to continue making images that make me happy.  I decided after this shoot to make it a goal to get hired to shoot a ridiculous holiday portrait like this.  I know there may not be a big market for this kind of thing, but when someone wants it done right, I have full confidence my phone will ring.  I just hope my arm will be fully healed by then.  (Here) are the Christmas pictures I did last year.  The plan at this point is to make this a yearly tradition.

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope this puts you in the holiday spirit, and gives you a good laugh.

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