Not quite a Marine, but U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant Zach Anderson can stare down a bull from 500 meters!!!  Getting this smile out of this guy was like lifting a mountain with a crowbar!

Of course I’m kidding, but Zach is up there on the intensity scale, which is surprising since he’s an incredibly nice guy.

Zach grew up in the tiny town of Amber, Okla., which, according to him has a gas station, a school, two churches and a restaurant.  He attended the University of Central Oklahoma, and was a television news reporter for a few years before finding his true calling.

In 2005, Zach enlisted and was assigned to the 507th Air Refueling Wing as a Public Affairs troop at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla.  After three years, he put in a package and was accepted to Officer Training School and commissioned last year.

Zach is also a life long reservist (what what!) and is currently stationed at March Air Reserve Base, Calif. while assigned to Fourth Air Force Command Public Affairs as an Air Reserve Technician (meaning he’s a full-time GS employee).  On a side note, the Fourth is who my wing reports to, so I’m always on eggshells when Zach is around.

He’s also mega high-speed, and has greased every speaking assignment we’ve had to date.  Someday, I hope to grow up and be just like Zach…wait, I’m a Captain!

Next up, more air power!

Stone cold!  That’s how I would sum up U.S. Marine Corps Second Lieutenant Timothy Irish.

Another former enlisted troop, Tim got his start in the Marines as a reservist with the Rochester Alpha Company Anti-Terrorism Battalion while he was Attending SUNY Brockport.

After graduating college, Tim was commissioned through Officer Candidate School and will be following on from DINFOS to Camp Lejeune, N.C. for his first active duty assignment.

Tim is by all accounts, a Marine through and through.  He’s also the only Marine in our section!

Coming from aircrew, the Marines are the absolute polar opposite of what I know and Tim has been a great steward for his branch.  He always takes the time to answer my Marine Corps questions, no matter how stupid they may be.

Reserved in class, Tim will every once in a while throw something out there in a discussion that puts me on the floor laughing.  He also does a pretty mean turkey impression.

And I was just kidding about the stone cold part.

Next up, my branch, two times!

Anchors aweigh!  Today’s portrait is of none other than U.S. Navy Lieutenant Greg Raelson.

Greg is a (another) funny guy and just so happens to be my neighbor in our hotel, so he has to be sick of me by now.  From the first day of class we’ve been cutting up incessantly, and I’m sure that our instructors are sick of the two of us by now.

I just thought of something unique about our class while writing this post - over half of the officers in our class are prior enlisted.  Coincidental, strange, ordinary, I’m not sure?  But I think it’s pretty cool.

Unfortunately Greg hasn’t written a book, but I still think he’s an interesting guy.

Before commissioning, Greg did a stint on a subs and set sail a number of times in support of the nuclear triad.  After a tour at the Pentagon and completing a degree at George Washington University, Greg was accepted to Officer Commissioning School and went on to naval flight school to graduate and become an F/A-18 pilot.

His current assignment has him stationed at Naval Air Station North Island, Ca. where he’ll be working with the Naval Public Affairs Support Element West.

On a side note, Greg stuffed a snowball in my face last night after chow and I plan to get him back.

Next up, the Marines!

If you follow my Twitter or Facebook feeds you may have heard me mention a “special project” a few times over the past few weeks.  And here it is, a service member a day!

I am having an absolute blast while enrolled here at DINFOS but, “The Man” skipped a big portion of journalism for me…the photography!!!

As a result, I decided to take matters into my own hands and set up a small portrait studio in my hotel room.  I have a dozen of my classmates slated for portrait sessions and my goal is to shoot 30 people before I graduate in March.

My first subject is my good bud, U.S. Army Captain Ben Tupper, or “Tucker” as he’s affectionately referred to by our section.

Tupper is a New York National Guardsmen who spent over a year in Afghanistan with an Embedded Training Team.  He came back with a ton of interesting stories, a chest full of medals and wouldn’t you know it…he decided to publish a book.

While deployed, he kept a vivid journal of his trials and tribulations and even spoke to National Public Radio a few times (one and two).  He took all his material and complied it into a novel which is slated to hit the shelves this June.  His book is titled, Greetings From Afghanistan, Send More Ammo, and here’s an except published on Amazon:

“Working in teams of two, ETTs are tasked with training, leading in combat, and mentoring the Afghan Army to victory against the thriving and brutal Taliban insurgency. Writing and recording from a remote outpost, Benjamin Tupper’s boots-on-the-ground dispatches were broadcast on NPR and posted on Doonesbury’s milblog The Sandbox. Now he takes us inside the intricacies of the war, opening up a unique and multifaceted view of Afghan culture and war tactics. From the rush of gunfire to surreal, euphoric moments of cross-cultural understanding, this emotional and thought-provoking narrative is rich with humor, eloquence and contradiction. Writing of danger and desire, confusion and camaraderie, outrage and inspiration, Tupper illuminates the challenges of the war, vividly bringing to life both the mundane and the extraordinary and seeking a way forward. Readers will take away an understanding of the Afghan people, from soldiers to interpreters to villagers, that is critical to shaping our policies in what will soon be America’s longest war. His journey comes full circle; from direct involvement in fi ghting for Afghanistan’s future he is suddenly transported back home, haunted by dreams and enduring the travails of PTSD. Welcome to Afghanistan offers new insight into America’s eight-year mission, and takes readers to a place where our warriors need us to go.”

For this portrait, I chased after the theme of how the “mundane and extraordinary” intersect in a soldier’s life while deployed.  I wanted a stark portrait, with a bit of irony thrown in and the t-shirt set off that message perfectly.  I also made sure to highlight his Combat Infantry Badge tattoo on his right arm with a separate strobe.

But I don’t want to end this post on a completely somber note since Tupper is a fun dude, who will laugh at just about anything!

I’m looking forward to finishing out the next month with him and my 13 other classmates and stand by for tomorrow’s portrait.

Last weekend when I was home in Charlottesville I stopped by my gym to shoot the inaugural Crossfit SuperFit Games.

I was immediately taken back by the number of people there to support their athletes throughout the grueling eight hours of events.  It’s next to impossible to describe just how hard Crossfit workouts are until you’ve done one for yourself.

There was no shortage of dedication on hand, and everywhere I turned I saw one great shot after another.  Unfortunately, I could only stick around for a few hours but I managed to get a few good grabs before I had to head out.

More.

Here it is, the future of military public relations and journalism!

Not feeling comfortable with where your tax dollars are going?  Well you shouldn’t worry.

Despite our motley appearance, this has to be one of the sharpest groups I have ever been a part of.  There is a wide gamut of experiences amongst us and everyone brings something to the table.  The joint course includes all branches of the military, and as you can see there’s a good representation of Air Force, Army and civilians with a sprinkling of the Navy and Marine Corps.  It’s interesting to see and hear how we all interact with one another, and much like the Bad News Bears, it somehow all comes together nicely.

I am having a lot of fun out here and learning a ton of information from the class syllabus and cadre of phenomenal instructors who sincerely care about the course material.  We’re kept pretty busy and like many other formal military training schools, there is little chance of getting comfortable with the constant workload.  This is a great opportunity for me to learn a new trade and more importantly…improve my writing skills!

I’m not getting much better huh?  Well, there’s still over a month left!

And in case any of you were wondering, no I am not full-time with the military.  I am on “orders” until March 5, which is when I will graduate from the DINFOS course and shortly thereafter return to my clients.

Just after the holidays I got together with two good friends of mine for a quick portrait session at Strathmore Hall.  Phil and Melissa are brother and sister (if you couldn’t tell) and wanted to surprise their mom with a late Christmas gift.

I kept things real simple and shot with one lens (50mm F1.4) and a 30″ white reflector for the hour we were together.

The pictures came out great and the recent rain brought out a surprising amount of green color in the winter grass.

While I thoroughly enjoy shooting weddings, events, families, portraits and just about anything under the sun, my sole photographic passion is shooting anything related to the military.

As luck would have it, I linked up with Argus Vigilance after taking a few head shots of mutual friend Greg Barbaccia in July, who happens to be a managing partner of the small defense contracting firm.

Argus Vigilance is mounting up a marketing campaign to advertise their latest service offering based on their Network Exploitation System (NES).  They needed me to roll in and create some dramatic imagery to go along with their brochures and website.  A great thing about working with Argus was the amount of latitude they gave me with this shoot.  Greg informed me that he wanted the NES to appear as if it was in a deployed environment and to add a hint of mystery, and he let me roll with it after that.

After a few emails and phone conversations I had a better idea of what I was going to work with on-site.  I knew that the beta NES was built from a Dell platform and would be bundled with a black Pelican case, which gave me a good place to start building this image in my head.

Product photography is extremely deliberate, and this shoot was no exception.  It ended up becoming a complex shoot consisting of 3 lights, 2 reflectors, and 1 diffusion panel and I think it is a good representation of how much I have grown over the past year.  All of these shots have an AB1600 on a boom stand with an 11″ reflector resting high above the product and aimed directly down to simulate “interrogation lighting,” as I like to call it.  The moody backdrop was accomplished with an AB1600 with a green theatrical gel and a 20 degree grid to create a green glow emanating from the background.

For the individual product shots, I used one small flash with a 15″ Lastolite EZYBOX along with a 30″ Lastolite TriGrip reflector for added fill around the edges.  I used my 30″ Lastolie TriGrip one-stop diffusion panel to balance out the highlights coming from the lamp posed high.  The Alien Bees of course had a modeling lamp, which helped me tremendously to gauge where the light was going to fall.  However, the smaller strobe ended up becoming a bit of a guessing game, but my light meter helped alleviate a lot of the guess work.

This is one of my favorite shots.  Initially I was very apprehensive about how the black on black would turn out, but with a little bit of tweaking the strobes broke out the individual contours of each product exceptionally well.

I’d like to thank Greg, Alex, and the rest of the Argus team for inviting me out that day, and I hope that this imagery is able to convey the great work that these guys do day in and day out for our deployed troops overseas.

Here are some of my favorites from our session with Max, Clarke, and Shaio from the Zerba family, and Gina, Aiden, and Dave from the Hammer family by the White House Holiday Tree.

Dave and I have been friends for just about 6 years now, and we met during my first tour in the Middle East where he was my Aircraft Commander.  I learned a TON from Dave as a very green Second Lieutenant, and I’m glad that I could pay back some his patience and mentoring during this afternoon with his family and friends.

Little Clarke did great in front of the camera and settled in right away.

After walking around the tree, we took a quick Cheerios break and Clarke was in HYSTERICS feeding Shaio and Max.

Most of the afternoon was overcast, but the sun decided to pop out right at the end of the day.

Next up is Aiden, and boy was he tough to frame!  Every time I thought he was just about to look my way he would grin for .0001 seconds and then turn and run in the opposite direction.

Eventually I got around his fleet feet and moved on to a telephoto lens.

Aiden got his hands on some wreath ornaments and decided to send some my way!

Thanks to the Zerba and Hammer families for inviting me out to a great afternoon in DC!

Over this last December UTA weekend I was personally requested (thank you MSgt Eckert!) to come out and shoot a few portraits of our wing’s career advisers.

After seeing a bunch of back and forth emails from the Cult on Platon’s Portraits of Power series I was feeling inspired, and took a similar approach with these portraits.

Unlike Platon, I do not have access to an amazing Hasselblad, but I do have buckets of ingenuity and a Sony!  I took his basic concept and spun it a couple of different ways.  First off, I’m not in my subjects face purposefully trying to induce distortion.  I am close, but my subject’s features remain somewhat proportional and do not appear too exaggerated.  I love what he did, but I don’t think the shots are the most flattering.  Second, I used a back light to create the halo effect instead of turning to Photoshop.  This is my modus operandi 99% of the time, and if I can make it happen in camera, I will.  Finally, I used two rim lights to throw in some contrasting highlights on my subject’s temples which I think is more in tune with sports photography and works well for military folks…probably would be out of place when shooting world leaders.