Category Archives: Portfolio

Nov 03 0 comments
Personal Photography, Portfolio, Shooting from the Hip, Union Square

Freelance Portfolio Magazine Launches

Inside spread of D.A.Wagner's work from Freelance Portfolio Magazine

Inside spread of D.A.Wagner's work from Freelance Portfolio Magazine

Yesterday afternoon, Greg Welch called me regarding a submission I made to his, about-to-be-launched, Freelance Portfolio Magazine, scheduled for December. He’d taken a look at the blog and felt there was something compelling about my comparisons of Mandelbrot’s fractals, NASA satellite imagery and my photographs of food. It struck a chord and we chatted a while about my past history with computers and special effects and, instead of my original submission, he asked to publish the images from the post. He mentioned that the launch was pushed up and he expected to put it up by today.

And he did. With my images included. I love the way it looks and Greg got me to thinking again about those visual relationships that somehow connect the very small to the very large. I spent most of my morning cruising through CERN, Fermilab and NASA, looking for more ways that that happens. Look for them in upcoming posts.

Thanks, Greg.

Oct 31 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, Organic, Portfolio, Slow Food, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #6

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn and caldron bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire, burn and caldron bubble.

A Chinese lady came up to me in the Union Square market last Monday morning, pointed down and asked, in broken English, how much? I don’t have a clue what gave her the idea I worked at this particular kiosk at the market, but it gave me pause to look down at a group of pumpkins with long, wild stems, as if they had been torn off the vine instead of cut. No prices.

Now, I wanted to know, too. How much? They were two bucks apiece. I took the three most interesting stems (almost more important than the pumpkins themselves) and bagged them so the stems didn’t break on the way back to the studio. Then, I stopped and told the lady how much they were, but she looked at me in a funny kind of way – I don’t think she understood me or, maybe she’d already gotten over her pumpkin jones.

Vicki says these pumpkins remind her of Shakespeare’s witches in Macbeth.

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder. (Shakespeare)

Happy Halloween. (Not Shakespeare )

Oct 23 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Commercial Photography, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Portfolio, Slow Food, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #5

Sweeping Leaves, Mustard Greens

Sweeping Leaves, Mustard Greens

Now that I’m moving onto this dark thing…

Black backgrounds are so completely different to shoot on. The black just wraps itself around the subject matter. Where white is wholesome, clean, crisp and elegant, and never loses my subject, black is erotic, deep, surrounding and foreboding (but not in a creepy kind of way), and can swallow my subject like a black hole.

Recently a friend asked if I was tired of shooting vegetables and the market. No, not really. It’s challenging to find the interesting and unusual in the familiar; it’s not always easy. And what I find fascinating is, there is a front and a back to these studio subjects that I am sure is not intentional, but purely by coincidence. The most involvement I have on set is getting the produce to stand up. With very few exceptions (like Green Market in the Studio #4), I don’t style. If a stem is broken or a leaf torn or eaten by a passing insect, I don’t retouch it. It’s about real food, just as I bought it. The only difference is, I shoot it before I eat it.

If you like arugula, broccoli rabe and bitter greens, you’ll love this very simple recipe for wilted mustard greens.

Wilted Mustard Greens

1 bunch of mustard greens (about a pound or a 2″ circumference of stalks when tied with a rubber band – that’s about what I had)

2 cloves of garlic pushed through a press

3 or 4 tablespoons of dashi (at about 1:5 dashi to water) or vegetable or chicken broth

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

Okay, here’s how: Tear off the leaves from the stems and thick veins (and discard those guys)  and wash and dry them as you would lettuce. In a large frying pan or sauté pan heat up the olive oil on a medium/high heat and add the garlic and brown (about a minute). Add the dashi or broth to the pan and add the greens, tossing gently for about a minute or so (not much more, or you find it’s cooked down to nothing). Remove from the burner, drizzle on the sesame oil, add salt and pepper to taste and toss. Put it on a nice plate and eat. Serves 2 to 4, depending upon how much you love your greens.

And don’t forget to share.

Sep 28 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Greenmarket in the Studio, Portfolio, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #4A

3:24PM, 9/25/2009 - Outcast Bean

3:24PM, 9/25/2009 - Outcast Bean

As always, there are many ways to skin a cat (bad metaphor – I have two cats), or should I say capture a bean.

If there is any one piece of advice I can give about shooting in the studio, it’s don’t quit when you think you’ve got the shot. Hey, it’s digital. It’s not like you’re going to run out of film or rack up a huge lab bill. You’ve already done that by buying a nice digital camera. First, I cover the preliminary set with a point and shoot camera, then shoot until the set has been covered top to bottom, upside down and backwards. It’s quick, it’s easy and there are hidden ideas floating around that get overlooked when burdened with a tripod and tethered to my iMac capture workstation. Then I hook up the big guns and get down to business.

This anthropomorphic alternate to Greenmarket in the Studio #4 was influenced by another photographer’s bean image I have seen in an on line portfolio, but can’t remember who or where. That photo was a group of bean tips simply plated in geometric formation. Well done and quite beautiful, that image has stayed with me, but not the photographer’s name (sorry! Maybe you’ll read this and set the record straight).

Anyway, enough with the beans. What else is out there to shoot?

Sep 26 0 comments
Commercial Photography, Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Photography, Portfolio, Slow Food, slow food, Union Square, Vegetables

Greenmarket in the Studio #4

3:04PM, 09/25/2009 - 3 Beans in a Bowl

3:04PM, 09/25/2009 - 3 Beans in a Bowl

Finally, my first Union Square produce photo shot in the new studio.

I was waiting to get settled before capturing these images of wax beans (crappy name, but that’s what the sign said), also known as yellow, heirloom or golden beans, and almost missed my chance. Except for the folks with the big ORGANIC banner, none of the vendors had them. Wax beans (yellow green beans as far as I’m concerned) have these really gorgeous yellow to green transitions at the tips. When I started to play around with the curved ones it looked like steam coming up from the bowl, so I went with it.  Maybe this will make it to the portfolio.

Who said legumes can’t be sexy…?

Sep 16 2 comments
Commercial Photography, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Portfolio, Union Square

Moving Day

Sugar Hot Peppers (Greenmarket in the Studio #3)

Sugar Hot Peppers (Greenmarket in the Studio #3)

I’ve spent the last 6 years working out of a small studio inside of Graphic Systems Group on Union Square. It’s been a good run, but now it’s time to move on to something a little more, well, studio like. So it’s out and down to 12th Street, just two blocks south of my favorite greenmarket, although the market at Grand Army Plaza on Prospect Park is a favorite, too. Oh, yeah, then there’s Chinatown, under the Manhattan Bridge (one of NYC’s best kept secrets), and the markets at Testaccio and Campo di Fiori. But Rome just isn’t a daily event, so I’ve got to pull in my reins here and get back to the topic of moving.

I’m working with old friends in a crisp new space, oddly named, Cheeky Little Monkey Studio. They’ve invited me to join them and I couldn’t turn down the offer.

I had to pick a day where we expect rain…

Aug 29 0 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Portfolio, Shooting from the Hip, Slow Food, slow food, Uncategorized, Union Square, Vegetables

Shooting from the Hip #14 & Greenmarket in the Studio #2

Which do you prefer?

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background in the studio

Zucchini flowers on display at the union square market in NYC

7/31/09, 2:57PM - Zucchini flowers on display at the Union Square market in NYC

As I continue to shoot the Union Square Farmer’s (Green?) Market, I see a pattern. My studio work of Union Square produce over the past three years has clean crisp lines and, with a tip of the hat to Avedon, is shot unadorned with simple lighting.

On the other hand, the “as is, where is,” technique I use for the Shooting from the Hip series has an earthy, gritty look due, in part, to higher contrast curves and vignetting in post production.

One has the elegant, but not quite blemish-free, perfect look of food for advertising; the other is a raw, nearly random capture of food as it appears close up and personal, blemishes and all.

I like them both. Which do you prefer?

Aug 29 0 comments
Food, Greenmarket in the Studio, NYC, Organic, Personal Photography, Portfolio, Shooting from the Hip, slow food, Uncategorized, Union Square, Vegetables

Shooting from the Hip #14 & Greenmarket in the Studio #2

Which do you prefer?

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background

3 Zucchini Flowers on white background in the studio

Zucchini flowers on display at the union square market in NYC

7/31/09, 2:57PM - Zucchini flowers on display at the Union Square market in NYC

As I continue to shoot the Union Square Farmer’s (Green?) Market, I see a pattern. My studio work of Union Square produce over the past three years has clean crisp lines and, with a tip of the hat to Avedon, is shot unadorned with simple lighting.

On the other hand, the “as is, where is,” technique I use for the Shooting from the Hip series has an earthy, gritty look due, in part, to higher contrast curves and vignetting in post production.

One has the elegant, but not quite blemish-free, perfect look of food for advertising; the other is a raw, nearly random capture of food as it appears close up and personal, blemishes and all.

I like them both. Which do you prefer?

Jul 15 2 comments
Advertising, Commercial Photography, Marketing, Photography, Portfolio

JPG Magazine Photo of the Week

Goldfish Outtake

Broken Column - Goldfish Outtake

JPG Magazine online just voted my Happy-Go-Lucky Goldfish photo of the week. Once again, I didn’t even know it. Someone from the website said, “congratulations.” I love this photo series as evidenced by my jumping goldfish logo. The photo on this blog posting is an outtake from the original shoot.

Jul 01 1 comments
Commercial Photography, Craftsmen, Marketing, Personal Photography, Photography, Portfolio

Craftsmen Revisited…

Happy Go Lucky Goldfish

Happy Go Lucky Goldfish

When I was a kid, my dad had a workshop, his sanctuary really. There were countless days spent at his side, building or fixing something, always setting up some kind of power tool or hand tool, depending upon the project of the moment. Much of that time I would have preferred playing outside with my friends, but it was demanded of me to be my father’s assistant, like it or not. But, like it or not, I learned. I learned to wood carve, make moulding and furniture from scratch, frame out and build structures, weld pipes, repair radios, TVs, and clocks, wire electrical outlets, and on and on.

No matter the project, he would read up, dive in, then bitch and moan about something gone wrong – frequently crying out loud, “goddammit!” – but in the end the project got completed flawlessly, as if he were a master craftsman, when in real life he was simply a repo man for a truck company. His quest for excellence was overwhelming at times, as nothing short of perfect was ever acceptable.

What about all these bits and pieces I weathered in his shadow? I grew up having a real comfort level around power and hand tools and that now translates into improvising sets and finding solutions to the day-to-day challenges of photography. These days I don’t build so much; it’s more like I modify props and rig sets to suit my needs. Although I’m not adverse installing an outlet or replacing an old faucet, it’s a lot more fun drilling out the bottom of a fish tank to see if water spins in a vortex.