It’s time for the 10th annual photographic year in review. In honor of this milestone, I’m also including my favorite photo from each previous year’s countdown and a bonus for 2022 because posting 19 photos feels odd.
The year began on a high note with No Limit Records legend, Master P. He opened up his home to our crew, and I had the excuse to add a menace arm to my arsenal. I spent a ton of time on various Ronin gimbals this year, as you’ll see below.
It had been too long since I shared a set with Director Joel David Moore (pictured above). I had the honor of shooting the final scene of his upcoming feature at his recently opened speakeasy, Bathtub Gin LA. If you enjoy craft cocktails, I highly recommend a visit. We paired the TLS Canon Rangefinder 50mm T1.1 “Dream Lens” with the ARRI Mini LF for an ethereal feel. I really enjoyed the extensive collaborative talks with the film’s primary cinematographer, Jean-Philippe Bernier.
After a lengthy service with Duclos Lenses, my newly acquired ARRI / Zeiss Super Speeds found their way to set. Paul and his team did a wonderful job polishing them up and prepping them for many more decades on cameras. Here they helped bring Writer/Director Chris LeVan’s comedic short film to life.
When fellow vegan filmmaker Paul B. Cummings asked if I wanted to shoot a live-action promo for The Bob’s Burgers Movie, I jumped at the opportunity. We paired my Super Speeds with diopters to capture the beauty of Sadie Nash’s meticulously crafted miniature set. Check it out here.
The theme of reunions continues. I had the pleasure of operating for Jessica B. Young on a string of super fun commercials for AT&T and Popeye’s in the spring. We hadn’t collaborated since 2010 (I used to be her Camera Assistant on 35mm music videos in the mid-aughts). To easily move the camera around our dancing talent, we utilized the SONY Venice Rialto Extension. It’s a great system and I look forward to using it more often. I also discovered the ingenious design of the Creeper Butt-Dolly. I may have to get one soon…
In May, I reunited with Bootie Brown for Amy Correa Bell’s music video for “Suddenly.” To visually differentiate the flashbacks in the treatment, we used both anamorphic and spherical lenses on a RED Gemini. The video is still unreleased, but I encourage you to check out Brown’s appearance on the new Gorillaz album in the meantime.
For Ari Somerfield’s short film, Richard’s Roast, we used almost every type of camera movement in the toolbox. We had a J.L. Fisher 11 dolly, my 4′ slider, a tripod, and Baxter Cameraworks’s Ronin 2 / Ready Rig. Here’s BTS from the film’s ending shot, which conveniently came at the conclusion of our final shoot day. This marked my first time using my new Atlas Orion Anamorphic lenses for narrative work, and I can’t wait to regularly do so. It’s no wonder why Oscar-winner Linus Sandgren FSF, ASC has used them on his recent features (Babylon & Don’t Look Up).
Writer/Director Michael Schilf led us on a life-changing journey from Delano to Sacramento, documenting the farmworkers’ march to persuade California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign AB 2183. The four-week expedition tested the physical and mental limits of the marchers as they battled August’s scorching Central Valley heat. Here, my B-camera/Drone Operator Jack Zakrajsek and I waited for our marchers to enter frame. In between setups, I managed to grab some noteworthy stills. In addition to posting them on Instagram, I’ve added this gallery of my favorite shots.
Shooting Rob Mariano without a cast on his arm meant plenty of opportunities for thrills on our second season of Boston Rob Does Beantown. In one crazy day, I joined him in a hot air balloon and a Cessna. On another morning, we swam in the penguin exhibit at the New England Aquarium (my Bostonian niece and nephew were quite impressed) and took a trip to New Hampshire to zip line.
I shot the first two episodes of Out of Office with Cathy Cunningham, and in a strange coincidence, the second installment brought me right back to where I randomly witnessed the Great American Eclipse of 2017. For this shoot, we showcased The Lodge at Palisades Creek on the Snake River. In capturing our subjects fly fishing, we featured the nearby waterfall at Fall Creek Falls. I dug into my archives and found this selfie of me basking in the same waterfall just after witnessing my first total solar eclipse. The foliage of October trumped the heat of August if you decide to venture to this beautiful part of Idaho. Please start planning for Monday April 8, 2024, because another total solar eclipse is coming to (North) America. I command you to experience totality—you’ll thank me later.
As promised, here is a single photo to represent each of the last 10 years:
2022: While I purchased my first MacBook Pro in 2004, I’ve been vehemently anti-iPhone since it’s release. That all changed on November 2, aka “The Day the Bubbles Turned Blue.” After 6 Samsung phones, 6 Androids, 1 BlackBerry, 1 Windows Mobile, and a PalmPilot, I joined the dark side. It was only a matter of days until the AirPods and Watch joined the squad.
2021: Several days before my 40th birthday, Gordon Garreau at Beverly Boy Productions, asked if I could jump on a plane to Atlanta to shoot promos for the STARZ show P-Valley. Their DP just tested positive for COVID and they were in a bind. What better way to spend a milestone birthday than with a bunch of strangers, lots of lights, 4 Arri Alexa Mini LFs, and ARRI Signature Primes at Cinelease Studio – Three Ring in Covington, Georgia?
2020 became the year of remote shooting and my rental inventory adapted to that reality. For this shoot, we ZOOM’d our 2 camera feed to Toronto for the rest of our creative team to monitor. I particularly enjoyed using video projectors to change our interviewee’s background elements while my lighting set-up remained stationary throughout the day.
2019: In the post that garnered the largest response of anything I’ve shared on social media, I present: Elmo! While I didn’t make it out to New York to step onto the actual streets of Sesame, they came to a school in South Los Angeles and I documented the event for SSIC (Sesame Street in Communities). The kids were as excited to see Elmo in the flesh as I was!
2018: Peter Bogdanovich’s documentary on Buster Keaton won the Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema. I visited Italy for the first time to represent the film at the 75th Biennale di Venezia.
2017: One of our Fool Us packages brought us to SkyZone in Las Vegas, which sent me into the foam pit to get the perfect angle. *I didn’t know it at the time, but SkyZone would later become a client and I’d spend many more days shooting at a variety of their locations from Chicago to Phoenix and their corporate headquarters in Los Angeles.
2016: I love this shot of Leonard Maltin at The Theatre at Ace Hotel from April Wright’s documentary, Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace. I reunited with Leonard at his house a year later for an interview with Peter Bogdanovich’s The Great Buster.
2015: My 1st AC, Megan Boundy, decided to photobomb this otherwise nicely staged BTS shot on the set of BuzzFeed’s Just Dance branded video shot at Siren Studios.
2014: I spent an unforgettable morning shooting Karen O, Moses Sumney, and Holly Miranda while they performed songs from Karen’s solo album, “Crush Songs” to an audience of three cameramen! *KCRW later published a photo of mine in their coffee table photography book, KCRW: From the Basement and added another still from this shoot to the halls of their office.
2013: I shot and directed the comedic short film, The [What’s Up with Your Friend?] Friend. Here I am checking the lighting before lensing the hot-tub scene (a highlight of the film’s montage). We later premiered at Hollyshorts Film Festival in 2014 to a packed house at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
For an extended trip down memory lane, here’s an index of all of the previous recaps: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013. What’s your favorite shot of the bunch?