max s. gerber(the latest shot)

this was an odd sort of press junket. well, all press junkets are kind of odd, unnatural affairs, but this one was particularly odd as nobody really seemed to know about it. the hotel didn’t seem to know about it, and the only other media person there was a writer for some film technology blog [...]

adrian tomine is a graphic novelist, but if you hear him talk about it he uses the word “cartoonist” instead. he was in town to promote his new book, shortcomings. adrian started publishing his comics when he was a teenager, and you can occasionally see his work in the new yorker, too. he was giving [...]

the advantage of photographing really smart people is, obviously, getting the chance to talk to really smart people. sometimes they say really smart things that i sometimes even remember, and can add to my internal catalogue of Smart Things I Know for use at parties (if i happen to be unfortunate enough to have to [...]

roky erickson is the most cooperative uncooperative subject i’ve had in years. i’d ask him if he could face a certain way or sit a certain way and he’d say “yup, yup” and then do something completely different. but he was really nice about it, and he kept saying things like “hey man, it’s great [...]

every once in a while in life you realize that things which seem strange can also be true. one of those things: people actually live in las vegas. like permanently. not just for a weekend that they wish they could forget about. perhaps even for a whole life they wish they could forget about. but [...]

today’s insight into the world of the professional photographer brought to you by mr. paul bennett:
———-
From: bennett@———-.com
Subject: Re: Ugly Cypress
Date: November 6, 2007 7:27:52 PM PST
To: max@msgphoto.com
Reply-To: bennett@XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com

So I finally broke down and bought a fabric grid for my little square softbox today. I’m sure its going [...]

CEOs can be tricky to photograph. mostly because they generally look similar and you generally get stuck in similar looking conference rooms by harried publicists. also, CEOs aren’t renowned for their patience with photographers. it’s always a relief to me when the CEO arrives  kind of in the middle of doing something else. usually this [...]

new scientist magazine in the UK used one of my photos of james watson in their october 20th issue. the deal went down before all of watson’s controversy in england last month, and i’m pleased to see that the article didn’t dwell on that. i’m not going to comment much on the hub-bub, except to [...]

this is from an in-class demo earlier in the week. i was trying to make a point to my students that portraits don’t necessarily have to be obvious or straightforward, and also that you can get more out of any given location than you might think. this is particularly difficult at cypress college, one of [...]