cones

For many of you the State Fair was probably months ago but for us living in the SW we just had ours in mid-Oct, as we have to wait for hell to almost freeze over before we can get back to our normal lives ; ) Anyway I haven't been to the State Fair in a long time...the last time must have about 15 years ago when I live in Minneapolis (geesh 15 damn years already? wow) and the time before that I think I was in high school in MI and went with my friend Eric and his girlfriend...huh...anyway it was pretty good time. Also if anyone is feeling a bit melancholy about the summer being gone and the fair not coming around again till next year, check out the July issue of National Geographic for a great read by Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion (and other) fame as well as some great photos by Joel Satore.

missed

I had two days in which I was able to see a few trees with their Fall colors and now I think I've missed it completely. When I lived in Flagstaff, AZ, I use to enjoy watching the leaves on the trees change colors on the San Francisco peaks. They would work their way down the mountainside as it got colder at the lower elevations. The trick-or-treaters are now gone and pumpkin pie is around the corner - you could hardly tell here in the desert as its a very subtle change - but at least I have a few photos to remind myself.

SSERGNOC LETOH

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ePromo

Chris Hinkle shameless ePromo of the month: Alan Weisman, author of The World Without US, as shot for Audi Magazine Brazil. Feel free to send it around and around and around to your friends, family, co-workers, pets and pals.

Behind the Photo

Phoenix, 112 degrees, 12 noon, a Bishop in front of his church, get the shot. That is basically what it will come down to sometimes. No matter what, however, my goal, when an editor calls me with what they are looking for, is to give them just that - what they are looking for, PLUS what I think is even better. This was the case for the September issue of AARP Bulletin and the photo of Bishop Painter. Sometimes the editors go for exactly what they called for and other times they lean a bit more towards what I was thinking. Either way I'm fine with what they use as I feel we are in a collaboration, along with the subject, to create something interesting and viable for their publication or corporation or ad or whatever.

So what is behind the photo on this one? Well what you don't see is my assistant almost passing out from heat, the strobe on camera left (unless your a photographer or just keen on lighting), the fill card on camera right, and the strobe also at camera right in the distance filling in the dark shadow underneath the eave of the church and lighting up the very funny sign that says "church" as if we weren't sure with the crosses at the top...to be fair there are other buildings on site for school and other activities.

I had some outtakes that I liked including the one below that I feel portrays the lock-down that the Bishop and his "campus" is experiencing.

Believing in Editorial

A few months back I was speaking with a photo rep and she was saying how she works with editorial photographers because she believes in editorial. Its not so easy to stand up and admit belief that magazines, in print form, contain a special value in today's tech age when the battle cry "print is dead" is being shouted loudly from every corner and editorial office across the country...but she said it (and yes I hope to work with her in the future). So today as I decided to sort the piles and piles of magazines and newspapers (after purchasing today's New York Times with my photos in it to add to the pile, haha) I have collected over the years - some that I have shot for and contain my photography, others that I hope to photograph for someday, and others that I simply drew inspiration from at one time or another - it dawned on me that I have been semi-collecting magazines since I was a kid. In fact I still have a couple boxes full of magazines from my BMX days (anyone remember Freesyling and BMX Plus back in the day) in the basement of my parents home - sorry mom : ) And this pile of magazines on my studio floor (depicted in the photo) has traveled many many miles with me, to the disdain of at least a couple significant others, as I've moved from place to place. Yes some will hit the recycling pile and yes I will be sad when the truck approaches my curbside blue recycle bin with arms not so gently grabbing hold and arching into a 180 degree spew of printed contents, but for me print is simply not dead. Print exists on my shelf, in my hands, on my walls, not on some hard drive somewhere or some server somewhere else. Print is real, a fossil record, albeit a fading one as it won't last as long as stone tablets have but who is to say that our hard drives full of photos will either?