max s. gerber(the latest shot)

though only a senior in college, stephen is already one of the flying karamazov brothers. more importantly he brings props to the shoot that light on fire. there are very few jobs i do that couldn’t be improved with something in the picture being on fire. or doused in liquid nitrogen, for that matter. i [...]

a couple weeks ago i was taking pictures of a number of the incoming freshmen at occidental college. as the day went on i started to feel increasingly old in a room full of kids and mentioned that feeling out loud, to this girl (above) named yelka. the dialogue went something like this: college freshman: [...]

i’m a photographer, and i’m from a secular jewish family. this means i love complaining. i love it, i was raised on it, and i excel at it. but every once in a while you meet someone that just shuts you up. the plain fact is that my life is pretty damn good and i [...]

ah, why is it that it always seems like my favorite shot from any given shoot is the one that’s almost guaranteed never to get published? well, i guess that’s where the glorious internet comes in. thanks, internet. ken berry is an awfully nice guy with a giant garage full of robots and robot parts. [...]

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 [...]

i teach a portrait photography class at a college in orange county, california. very often students will neglect to turn in assignments. generally, the excuses are as wild and exotic as saying “uh. . . the printer was broken”, or “i don’t have a car” or simply staring blankly and sort of half-shrugging. none of [...]