Chris Crumley Blog

I'm chuckling as I'm writing this and looking at the image. This is real. When a photographer goes on location and has to take everything needed because there are no photography rental businesses in most of the third world, this is what it looks like getting from the airport to the hotel. The problem worsens if he/she is also an underwater photographer; that means personal dive equipment plus coordinated underwater gear for the models.

Hey, I'm not complaining. It's just the nature of the beast. So, if you're in some far off airport and it's short of skycaps and you see a bunch of black cases stenciled with my name and there's no crew in sight, give me a hand, okay? Or, just offer to watch the stuff so I can go to the bathroom or look for a latte.

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We were shooting food and drinks for a popular sports bar yesterday; this Blue Martini had lots of color. Like most of the shots during the day, this was a collaborative work by the art director, chef, food stylist, client, assistant, bartender and me. The collaboration and journey to making a picture is usually the experience we remember best.

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This image and others were part of a job which included the cover of a real estate catalog. We shot it in the waning days of Summer. Now we're in the early part of the new year and the catalog is being released.

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On 1/1/08, TSA banned Li-ion batteries in checked luggage and set limits on Li-ion batteries in carry-on. Photographers with $150 Li-ion batteries necessary to their work (notably camera bodies and laptops) became frantic.

An airline Captain described the policy as a solution looking for a problem.

On 2/2/08, TSA staff at ORF (Norfolk, VA), when asked where the container was for confiscated Li-ion batteries was, told me there had been so much backlash that the policy had been rescinded.

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We are putting a collection of varied shape fishbowls with different underwater scenes on our stock photo sites. Here's one.

The underwater scenes are from around the world, shallow and deep, light and dark, playful and dangerous and..... well, you get the picture.

This seastar was resting in 2-3 feet of clear shallow water on a rippled sandy bottom at a remote beach. Freeport, Grand Bahama Island, Bahamas Islands.

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It's amazing how realistic some mannequins can be. This one had a botox look. No particular reason for shooting a mannequin; just out and about testing the Canon 85mm f1.2.

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This is another in the series for the North Carolina company developing the golf and boating community. How different we envision "parking" as we get a little older.

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Another version of the Converse red shoe session underwater.

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There are some majestic trees on the old Cavalier Hotel property in Virginia Beach. This one stood out against the sky one evening last week.

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Part of a client's print campaign started with this image taken in a shallow section of the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. The crew of ten included "grandparents", various age/gender "grandchildren", boat captain, art director, assistant and me zipped into a lightweight drysuit. The camera was in the housing we use for both shallow and deep underwater.

The only casualty was the drysuit developed a leak and the clothes I'd intended to be dry for the next session with kayaks were soaked. Fortunately, like backup cameras and lights, there were dry clothes.

Eventually, we had the shot, but the kids and their "grandparents" didn't want to quit.

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We made this image in Mexico a few weeks ago and it just now surfaced from the retouching computer with a Polaroid-Film-Proof look and feel. The straight version is nice and so is this treatment.

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A nice thing about the business of photographing people is working with some incredible individuals. This lady, Bobbie Laska, an attractive and likable woman whose children have children, is one of the most interesting. Here she is at about 80 feet underwater inching down a coral chute to nuzzling distance from a six foot green moral eel named Elvis.

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Becca works the swirling tool around the crepe like others I've seen around Paris and other parts of the world. Nice crepe, Becca.

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"Creperie" is not a word I use often, so it's hard to say. My favorite soup and sandwich kitchen was full and I found myself having lunch at the counter, reviewing the custom functions I'd set in the Canon sMkIII, and noticed the window. The word backwards looked foreign; intriguing. Click.

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Hotel Cozumel has a bronze sculpture of a woman under a shower. It has a nice look at night.

Happy New Year's Day.

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