As you may know, last January I traveled to Liberia with a team from MiiR to document the clean water wells they are funding in areas that don’t have access to safe water.  It was an incredible experience for many reasons, but it also opened my eyes to a much bigger world than the one I live in on a typical day.  A lot has gone on and been discussed in the past year since I went on that trip, and one of the many things I came away with was a newfound excitement and desire to help educate and inspire others to bring about positive change by using the unique gifts we all possess.  I really love the work I get to create as a commercial photographer, and I find myself laughing a lot which is such a blessing.  But because of my experience in Liberia, I have decided that I want to be about something much bigger than myself.  I want my brand to be something people not only associate with creative photography and portraits, but also with a love for justice and for others.  I am still processing what this all means, and how it will play out, but one thing I know is that I would like to be involved in at least one campaign per year where I can help tell a story that needs to be heard.  I want to be a voice for the voiceless, and help those who can’t help themselves. Even though my efforts have been focused on overseas projects so far, I believe there are stories and challenges right here in Seattle that need to be brought to our attention as well.  I think there is something to be said about traveling overseas, and getting out of ones comfort zone though.  It is good to experience new challenges and different cultures, but I hope to also find stories to be involved with in the States at some point also.  Unfortunately, the story I am going to document in the Philippines is also a serious problem right here in Seattle.

That being said, at the end of the month, I will be traveling to the Philippines with an organization called Arts Aftercare.  It is a nonprofit bringing the arts to survivors of slavery, which was started by my college friends Curtis and Grace Romjue.  The purpose of the trip is to train care workers in a new art therapy curriculum which will be introduced to survivors of sexual slavery.  I will be photographing survivors, youth advocates, and trying to tell the story of what life is like for people who are trapped in slavery, as well as those who have been freed.  Thankfully, I will be traveling with my good friend and filmmaker Eric Becker who will be telling the same story through video.  It will be a collaborative effort, and I am really excited to start working on this so we can shine a light in the dark places of the world.  I was shocked to recently find out that modern day slavery is a bigger problem today than slavery has ever been in the history of the world.  What’s even worse is that not only are many of the slaves children, but they are forced into sex 10 to 20 times a day.

A friend of mine emailed me me a video this morning about a girl who had been sold by her mother into sexual slavery.  I could only watch about 2 minutes of it before I turned it off.  This sucks.  I hate reading about this stuff, and it is beyond sad.  What is wrong with people? is the question I find myself repeating over and over.  I leave in less than a month, and I thought I should start writing about my thoughts as this assignment approaches.  My hope is that some of you will be inspired to take action, and in turn tell your personal network about the work that needs to be done.  I also feel like I need to do what I can to prepare myself for what I will be confronted with.  As my wife reminded me today, I tend to cover my ears and walk out of the room when I hear her nurse friends talking about something that makes me queazy.  I guess if I am being honest, I like to be comfortable, and I don’t like to be burdened.  Not really the best way to live life, as nobody ever said life was meant to be comfortable.  I also feel like you never know what is possible until you put something out there.

I know there are many of you who are already involved in fighting modern day slavery through organizations like International Justice Mission and others.  My hope is that by sharing this, some of you may feel inclined to help fight for justice by giving of your unique gifts.  Maybe you are a medical worker, a writer, a teacher…  The possibilities are endless.  We are also still looking for funding for a portion of this trip, so there is also a financial need at this point.  If you are interested in becoming involved, you can write me (john@keatleyphoto.com) or Curtis Romjue (curtis@artsaftercare.org / www.artsaftercare.org).  You can donate through the Arts Aftercare donation page and mention this trip in the comment field aftercare.org/donate.  If you have any experience with social justice, or working around such a heavy situation, I would love to hear from you.  It’s going to be a difficult trip, and I know I am going to need help and encouragement.

Thanks for reading.  I hope to share more about this soon.

I hinted at a fun assignment I was working on last month on Twitter, and now I am excited to to be able to share the images with you.  I had a lot of catching up to do when I first got the assignment to photograph Murray Stenson from Art Director Jane Sherman at Seattle Weekly, but it didn’t take long for me to find out that Murray is widely regarded as the best bartender in the country.  Don’t believe me?Just ask Esquire, Playboy and Tales of the Cocktail.  It felt like when you get a new car, and all of a sudden you realize that just about everyone else on the road has the same car as you.  As soon as I got this assignment, it seemed like everyone I knew was going out to get a drink from Murray.  Apparently I was the last person to know.  I was quite excited to not only photograph Murray, but to also have a drink from him.

I did the shoot at Canon, which is a new bar in Seattle where Murray works, along with an all-star group of bartenders led by Jamie Boudreau who is also the owner.  There is a bit of a wait to get in, but I can tell you the wait is well worth it.  I filmed a short video of Murray mixing and explaining how to make an Absinthe Julep, which you can see below.  And yes, I did get to drink it after we were done filming.  Someone had to, and I didn’t want it to go to waste.  We did have to do 2 takes, but thankfully my assistant handled the second one since we were dealing with 124 proof.  For what it’s worth, I made sure the video was the last thing we did so my pictures wouldn’t be out of focus.

Although Murray has been written up in many other magazines, this article is the first time he has told his story.  It was written by Mike Seely, and is a really fascinating read.  Here is the link to the article if you are interested.  Along with the video, I also included a few behind the scenes pictures at the bottom.

Thanks to Jane Sherman for working with me on this, and thanks to Murray and Jamie for being such gracious hosts and subjects.  Photo retouching by the fine folks at Gigantic Squid.

Behind the scenes pictures by Lonnie Webb.

We just gave away a Vanguard GH-100 Pistol Grip Ball Head, a Think Tank Urban Disguise 40 v2 camera bag, and now we will be wrapping up what I like to call “Second Christmas” by giving away two copies of Visual Supply VSCO Film.  For those of you who are not familiar with VSCO Film, it is an incredible film emulator that plugs into Lightroom and ACR to make your digital images look like film.  Another benefit of VSCO Film is that it doubles as an incredibly fast workflow for editing your digital images.  I wrote about my experience with the emulator a few months back, and you can read my review of VSCO Film here.

All you have to do to enter and win a copy for yourself is ReTweet our contest tweet with #keatley on Twitter, or like AND comment on the contest post on the Keatley Facebook fan page.  After that, you are entered to win!  One winner from Facebook and Twitter will be randomly selected tomorrow, January 20th at 4pm.  Be sure to check back tomorrow to see if you won.

Thanks to everyone for participating this week.  It’s been fun hearing from many of you, and even more fun giving some awesome gear away.

Be sure to check out more of the great products from Visual Supply, Think Tank, and Vanguard as well as follow them on Twitter for updates, and new offerings – @VisualSupplyco, @thinkTANKphoto, and @VanguardPhotoUS.  Good luck everyone!

We just gave away a Vanguard GH-100 Pistol Grip Ball Head, and now it’s time to give this bad boy to some lucky winner.  Behold, the Think Tank Urban Disguise 40 v2 camera bag.  It’s an awesome camera bag that converts to a messenger style bag with tons of pockets and compartments to store all of your gear.  I have been using Think Tank bags and organizers for about a year now, and I am a big fan of many of their products.  You can find out more about Think Tank and this bag on the Think Tank website, and be sure to follow Think Tank on Twitter (@thinkTANKphoto).  All you have to do to enter is ReTweet our contest tweet with #keatley on Twitter.  You will be automatically entered to win!  The winner will be randomly selected tomorrow, January 19th at 4pm.  Be sure to check back tomorrow to see if you won.  We also have 2 more great prizes we will be giving away on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow, so even more reason to check back.

I woke up this morning to get a Twitter mention and early Christmas greeting from @Strobist that my portrait of Annie Leibovitz is on the new cover of Spanish Esquire.  That’s an awesome Christmas present, and my first Esquire cover as well.

Big thank you’s go out to Redux Pictures (Lori Reese and Jesi Bevis, who tirelessly represent my stock archive and editorial assignments) and Esquire.

Esquire Spain
Editor in chief: Andrés Rodriguez
Creative director: Clara Montagut (her design department runs this great blog / found via CoverJunkie.com)
Photo Editor: Diego Martinez

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.

12/23/2011 UPDATE: The position has been filled.  Thank you so much to everyone who helped spread the word and for your interest.  Merry Christmas.

We are looking to hire a marketing director, and I thought I would post the job listing here in case any of you are interested, or know anyone who may be qualified and interested.  The requirements and application process are described below.  Thanks in advance for your interest, and for passing this along.

Location: Currently we operate out of a small home office in West Seattle, but construction of a new West Seattle studio is underway and near completion.

About us: We are a commercial photography business that focuses on editorial and advertising photography, both locally and nationally. Our business has steadily grown over the past ten years, and the photographer has been recognized by multiple national and international contests and awards.  He has photographed Fortune 500 CEO’s, National bestselling book covers, and many celebrities.  His work has appeared in Time, Wired, Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, and Glamour to name a few.  We consist of one full-time photographer, a part-time office manager, and frequently work with freelance artists on a per-project basis.

About you: We are looking for a business-minded individual who is passionate about marketing, social media, and networking, who wants to make your mark on a business and help it grow.  Skills that are required for this job: self-motivated/driven, detail-oriented, organized, relational, flexible, an appreciation for creativity, and a sense of humor.  While this job will start as a part-time position (20-25 hours a week), through your efforts and tireless pursuit, the position can grow to full-time.  Your job duties will immediately include establishing a yearly marketing plan, managing the blog and social media, developing relationships with current and prospective clients and sponsors, handling press inquiries, and scheduling speaking engagements.
Are you the person at a Christmas party who can walk up to someone you don’t know and have an interesting conversation?  Then you would be our ideal candidate, someone who is great with people, and can make a great first impression.
Are you the person who can persuade a vacation rental owner with a no-pet policy to allow you to bring your pet?  Then we need you, because your strong communication skills and persistence will help us achieve and even exceed our goals.
Are you the first among your friends to get the flu shot when winter approaches?  Then you are the person we are looking for, who is always ahead of the curve and has gotten things done before others even realize it needs to be done.

You will be a key contributor and play a pivotal role in determining the direction and the success of this business.  This job has tremendous growth potential, and we hope great personal satisfaction.

Qualifications:
College degree required
At least one year of marketing experience (internships included).  However, if you blow us away with your resume, application, or interview, we would be willing to look past this.
Must be flexible and a hard worker
No third party agencies/recruiters

How to Apply:
Respond to this ad with an email containing your resume (inline or attached as a PDF) and cover letter.  Also, answer three (3) of the following four (4) questions in your response (your pick).  A short paragraph on each should be sufficient.  All inquiries will be replied to and kept in confidence.
1. We are big believers that details make all the difference.  Tell us a couple details about your car (or the bus if that’s how you roll) that you especially like or dislike.  And then tell us what you would do differently if you ran Ford or Metro King County Transit.
2. A new bakery opened up in your neighborhood three weeks ago, but nobody is going to it.  If you were the owner, describe what you would do to attract customers, and keep them coming back.
3. What do you like about Arrested Development, and give us your opinion on why it was cancelled.
4. List two statements, rules, or principals that you have found invaluable in your life/work experience, explain why they are so important to you, and list examples of when they have applied.

• Location: West Seattle
• Compensation: Depends on qualifications – but negotiable
• This is a part-time job with great potential to become full-time.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Go Huskies!  Ok, so I didn’t go to UW, but my wife did if that counts for anything.  Over the past several years, I have learned to enjoy Husky athletics because of my strong sense of Seattle pride.  I follow the football team a little more closely than the basketball team, but it was still really fun to photograph Lorenzo Romar, the Husky men’s basketball coach.  He is one of those people who commands your respect when he walks into a room, but I also found him to be very kind and personable.  I think a good gauge of success is when strangers carry around giant cardboard pictures of your face.  That’s when you know you have really made it in life.  Something I think all of us should strive for.

How was work today honey?
It was great!
Did you get that promotion they promised you?
No, but my manager did hold up a big cardboard picture of my face at lunch.
Oh, that’s wonderful!  Congratulations honey.
Yeah, it was awesome!

Many of you have asked about editing commercial work with VSCO Film, and how it looks with images lit by strobe.  I busted these images out after I started using VSCO Film, and gave them new life with just a couple of clicks.  All three of these images were lit with strobe, so hopefully this gives you an idea of what is possible.  I think it works just as well with strobe as it does with natural light images.  If you are unfamiliar with VSCO Film, it is a film emulator that plugs into Lightroom or ACR and makes digital images look like film.  Not to mention, it is an incredibly fast alternative to Photoshop actions and other Lightroom presets.  It really is an amazing tool for photographers.  So far I am editing images 10 times faster than I was before, and I am getting better results.  Here is the VSCO Film review I wrote last week.

I used Kodak Portra 400, and Orange Skin Fix + on these images.  You can see a cool video tutorial and find out more about VSCO Film here.

Material Connection Disclosure

I was recently contacted by a new company called Visual Supply Co about using a film emulator they have been developing for Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw called VSCO Film.  At first I was skeptical, but decided to give it a try.

I am fortunate to work with a really incredible retoucher on most of my commercial work, but I still have thousands of personal images as well as some smaller jobs which I try to edit on my own.  Problem is, I don’t really like Lightroom, or Photoshop actions, so more times than not, my RAW images just sit in a folder.  Every once in a while I manage to process a few personal images, but it usually takes a long time, and I never really get them looking like I want.

Within the first 10 seconds of using VSCO Film, I was hooked.  It is so fast, produces the results I have always wanted, but didn’t know how to achieve, and it actually makes image editing fun again.  Now I am going through all of my personal images at the speed of light, and everything looks fantastic in 1 or 2 clicks.  I also used VSCO Film on a small job I shot this week, and it took me 10 minutes to do 23 images.  It would have easily taken me 90 minutes had I done it the old way.

Anyway, enough of that.  I don’t like sales pitches, and I don’t want to annoy you with one either.  I am willing to endorse this because I actually use it and really really like it.  Not everyone will feel the same, but I think many of you will.  I have already had several people ask me about how it works with strobe photography, so in my next blog post, I will show some images lit with strobe that I edited with VSCO Film.  I edited the following images with VSCO Film in just a couple of clicks per image.  Here is the link if you are interested in buying, or just finding out more.  Enjoy.

UPDATE:  8/22/12 – Here is another post I just wrote with some new images I edited with VSCO Film 02.

Material Connection Disclosure

Why are Bill Gates and Dustin Moskovitz, the richest and youngest billionaires in America, laughing?  Let’s just say my joke was so funny, someone bought it, and I no longer have the rights to tell it…  I have wanted to photograph Bill Gates for a long time, and my opportunity finally came around a couple of months ago when Forbes called.  Dustin, is one of the four co-founders of Facebook, and since he is 8 days younger than Mark Zuckerberg, he is the youngest billionaire in the world.  As you would expect, time was extremely limited for this shoot.  We were given one and a half hours to set up the studio shot, and then I would have the first 10 minutes of the interview, and the last 10 minutes of the interview to take pictures.  Immediately after the interview we had 3 minutes for hair and makeup and 7 minutes to photograph both Dustin and Bill.  It was a whirlwind, but I am really happy with how everything turned out, not to mention it was a pretty cool experience to sit in on a conversation with these two.  You can read the Forbes article here.

Here are a couple of shots I took after the shoot of the studio lighting setup.

For the interview image I used a Canon 5D Mark II with an on camera flash which I bounced off a wall to fill in with the natural light coming in from the back windows.  The studio setup was a bit more elaborate, and I used my Hasselblad H3DII-31 Camera with the Hasselblad H 80mm Lens for the portraits.  For lighting, I used two Profoto Giant 150 Silver Reflectors.  One as the key, and one for fill.  The Wescott 45” Umbrella was used to brighten up the right side of the background, and I used two Profoto 1×3 Softboxes as edge lights for the subjects.  A lonely Elinchrom Ranger head on an Elinchrom RX 1100 Watt Battery pack snuck it’s way in, poking out over the top of the seamless as a hair light.  Aside from the Ranger, the Profoto lights were powered by Profoto Acute 2400 watt power supplys, and one Profoto AcuteB2 600Ws AirS LiFe Power Pack.