Collecting URLs -No More Tear Sheets

I am not an old photographer, but I have been shooting long enough to have a file cabinet full of film and a few storage boxes filled with magazines, postcards, brochures and many other incarnations of printed materials.  I can honestly say, these “tear sheets” that I have collected over the years are a nuisance.  They take up space, they are chaotically filed and they are beginning to show wear from years of neglect in my garage.  I have considered going through the boxes and scanning the documents or individual magazine pages to store them on a hard drive and recycle the boxes as well as my print legacy, but I can’t seem to follow through with this personal threat.  Instead my old “tear sheets” collect dust in my garage and I collect URLs for all of my current and likely my future projects. Occasionally I will see a printed piece with my photos and magazines still publish stories with pictures, but more and more of my work and visual content in general ends up online.  A recent story in the magazine Fast Company about Energy Recovery, Inc., a company I  have been working with for the past year made me think about this process in a new way.  While more people will have access to my photos if they are published online, I still feel a sense of nostalgia for the printed image.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681490/our-pipes-are-full-of-power-that-were-wasting

This Jazz Times piece covering the opening of the SFJAZZ Center features 10 of my photos http://jazztimes.com/articles/71542-sfjazz-center-is-open-for-business

Would it have been better to see 2 small photos in the print version?

Today the majority of my work is destined for the web.  Every business needs a website and every website needs photos.  I am happy to oblige and fill webpages with my photography.

If only I could find thetime to update my own website http://www.scottchernis.com/

Here is a sample of recent shoots for new website designs

http://www.microprobe.com/?v=true

http://www.pacificfertilitycenter.com/fertility-specialists/our-fertility-specialists

http://www.hsf.net/

http://www.energyrecovery.com/

http://www.4cd.edu/about/committees/measure_a/annualreports/2012%20Annual%20Report%20to%20the%20Community%20(English).pdf

The clear space saving benefit of digital publication is worth noting.  The exponential reach of the web published piece is irrefutable but I do like to see a poster or billboard every once in awhile.  Perhaps my recently published book “10 Years With Intersection The Jazz Series” will satisfy this need for the short term, although the press release is only viewable online

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10334715.htm

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Landing the big one

As a young photographer, just out of college and idealistic enough to believe that my love of music was enough to have a career as a music photographer, I loved to look at books by established photographers.  The first book I remember spending a lot of time with was “Photo Diary” by Lynn Goldsmith.  This chronicle of her adventures with musicians on various shoots from the mid-seventies to the late eighties hooked me and I loved it.  The stories are insightful and allowed me a glimpse into a world I only dreamed about.  One story that has stuck with me over the years involves Bob Dylan and an assignment that she received in 1976.  Lynn tells the story better than I do so I will use her words here,

“But I never really experienced what it meant to be a professional photographer until I got a call late one night in 1976 to come down to Secret Studio to photograph Bob Dylan and Bette Midler.  I grabbed my cameras and hopped in a cab.  I was so excited I started talking to myself, saying over and over, ‘I’m going to shoot Dylan, Bob Dylan!’  The driver heard me and pulled over.  He told me to get out of his cab, he didn’t want to drive ‘no assassins’.

Many photographers use this term ‘shoot’ to describe the act of making pictures but in today’s world it is best to change the verb under certain circumstances.  This morning I received a similar call and an assignment that makes me very excited.  When I step into the cab and head to the airport on Sunday I will only say, “I am off to Hawaii to photograph the President of the United States, Barack Obama.”

For more information or images visit www.scottchernis.com