Author Archive

A few months ago I had the pleasure of photographing Mohammed El-Erian for the cover of Futures Magazine. El-Erian is currently the CEO of PIMCO, one of the world’s largest bond investment management firms (with a portfolio of over $1.35 trillion in assets).

Driving down to New Port Beach at 5:00 in the morning, I knew that I wouldn’t have much time with him. My assistant and I got down there by 6:00 (the sun was still barley up), we were set for the shoot by 7:00 and by 7:20 we were already packing up to leave.

While Mohamed was a relatively nice guy with a good sense of humor, it’s always a rough way to start off a shoot when your celebrity talent says “I hate photo shoots. You have no more than 20 minutes of my time, so let’s hurry up and get this over with.” Needless to say, we quickly zoomed thru our 4 lighting setups and Mohamed was pleased at how “painless” our shoot was. His personal assistant even told me later that week the he actually liked the way he looked in our photographs!

Now, if I can only figure out how to focus in on just a tiny piece of that PIMCO bond portfolio…

We shot various products for Element 7 last week including gaming accessories and colorful protective cases for the iPhone, and stands and carrying cases for the iPad. Getting just the right lighting on highly reflective surfaces can be a bit difficult, but both the client and myself were very happy with how the pictures turned out. Here are just a handful of examples from the shoot.

I shot with Raphael Lapin (a Harvard-trained international negotiation specialist) at the swanky Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills for a story that was being written about him and his new book “Working with Difficult People”. While it took a little bit of leg-work on my end to convince the hotel management to give us permission to shoot in their courtyard, it was worth the effort as the visual background was stunning to work in. Raphael was a natural and completely comfortable in front of my camera, and in spite of his new book, not at all difficult to work with!

http://www.researchmag.com/Issues/2010/January-1-2010/PublishingImages/RaphaelLapinWeb.gif

http://conflict-management.net

The Negotiation Specialist - Raphael Lapin

In early June, I drove down near San Diego, CA on assignment for Research Magazine to shoot a cover story on Tom Lawson. A former US Naval Commander and fighter pilot, Tom now manages the La Jolla branch of Marill Lynch. We shoot in the office and at his home, highlighting some of Tom’s hobbies such as riding his Harley and of course, maintaining his Vineyard.