max s. gerber(the latest shot)

i got to meet up with van ditthavong last weekend, at the tail end of a cross country road trip he was taking. the trip served to deliver a car to van’s sister in irvine, and also to further a personal project of his to photograph fire hydrants in all 50 states. still, on a [...]

last weekend lili haydn played with roger waters at the close of the coachella music festival. i was not in attendance at coachella, but this likely has a lot more to do with my dislike of the great outdoors than it does with music. i like roger waters. i listened to shine on you crazy [...]

i just found this news story today. it seems dick scruggs has pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy/attempting to bribe a judge in a hurricane katrina-related lawsuit. it’s amazing to think of what likely happens in these big cases that most of us never see. i photographed dick scruggs in 2004 for time magazine at the [...]

we all know that life in the photo world has been speeding up lately. where we used to wait for labs to develop our film and for fedex to deliver it to the client, now everything happens at T1 speeds. when i first got a modem on my apple IIc in 1985 i had a [...]

the photo blogosphere is a somewhat crowded place these days. if you want to find a lot of pontificating about the pitfalls and excesses of the photo business, you can rest assured there’s someone out there writing about it. or commenting on it. or profiting from it. anyone who has spent any amount of time [...]

well, the hearts site is now up and (mostly) running. please visit it at: www.heartkidsproject.org also, you can watch a slideshow of pictures from the book, and hear me talk about it here. more updates coming soon, just waiting on certain shoots to go to press before i’m authorized to post out-takes here. . .

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 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 [...]