@davidbergman

A couple of months ago, I shot an ad campaign for Sonare Winds, which is a division of Verne Q. Powell Flutes. Artists Lew Soloff and Anne Drummond were just added to their list of endorsing artists and the company wanted fresh, new portraits of both.

Lew is the legendary trumpet player most known for his days with Blood, Sweat, and Tears. If you know the song Spinning Wheel (iTunes link), you’ve heard one of Lew’s famous trumpet solos.

Anne is a young, highly acclaimed flutist and rising star in the jazz world.

We shot all day in downtown Manhattan at 55 Bar and in the surrounding area. Here are the first two ads that are scheduled to run in the April edition of Downbeat Magazine.

I was looking for an outdoor location and spotted this green security gate. It was pretty cold out, but Anne was a trooper and performed for the neighborhood.

I asked company president Steven Wasser to walk through the frame and ignore the talented flutist playing on the street corner. He did it once, and it made the image.

The highlight was at the end of the day when I finally got Lew and Anne together for a shoot. They’re separated by more than a few years, but the jazz world bonds them. I asked them to play a bit and they were able to improvise off each other beautifully.

Right before the BNL Cruise, I was in Las Vegas to shoot “Drew Carey and the Improv All-Stars.” They perform at the MGM Grand each Super Bowl weekend and Drew asked me to come out and document it again this year.

The cast is made up of improv comedians that you know from The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway. Along with Drew, they are: Ryan Stiles, Kathy Kinney (check out her reading site for children here), Greg Proops, Sean Masterson, Chip Esten, Julie Larson, and Jeff Davis, along with musicians Laura Hall and Linda Taylor.

We didn’t do a portrait like I’ve done in the past, but it’s always fun to watch them perform. I’ve probably seen them do this show 30 times, but since it’s all improvised, it’s different every night and always makes me laugh.

The quality of the light wasn’t very good in the theater, so I converted the images to black and white using the Silver EFX Pro plug-in for Aperture.

I made this first image of the board during sound check using a tilt-shift lens.

(Nikon D3, PC-E Nikkor 24mm lens, ISO 1600, 1/60 sec, f/3.5)

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 4000, 1/60 sec, f/2.8)

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 1250, 1/250 sec, f/4)

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 1250, 1/200 sec, f/4)

Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff was in the audience one night and came backstage after the show.

(Nikon D3, 24-70 lens, ISO 1600, 1/125 sec, f/4, SB-800 bounced off the ceiling)

Sometimes Drew likes to zone out with his iPod and work on his stand-up material backstage.

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 4000, 1/100 sec, f/2.8)

I left Vegas after shooting half of Saturday night’s show to catch a red-eye flight to Miami for the BNL cruise. It took me longer than expected to make my way through the crowd and get a car because a major UFC title fight had just let out at the     MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Luckily, I made it to McCarran Airport on time and all my gear arrived with me in Miami. Otherwise, I would have literally “missed the boat.”

This afternoon, on Valentine’s Day, I spent time at the nation’s largest adolescent care agency for homeless, runaway, and at-risk youths: Covenant House in New York City.

I was there to “Do 1 Thing.”

I wrote about Do1Thing after producing a video portrait of Perry, a homeless teen who also happens to be a talented piano player and composer. See it here.

All across the country, award-winning photographers, writers, designers, and editors gathered today to shine a light on the issue of teen homelessness. I made portraits of three people.

Christina, 20, recently moved to Covenant House from another facility in Atlantic City because they couldn’t provide the mental health services that she needs.

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 400, 1/250, f/5.6. One umbrella on an SB-800 strobe.)

Dequan, 19, came to Covenant House to escape a traumatic home life.

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 400, 1/250, f/8. One SB-800 on the floor behind him with an amber gel and one SB-800 in the front with a snoot made on the spot using a black folder.)

Chrystyana, 19, has been in foster care since she was a little girl and was recently kicked out of her latest home.

(Nikon D3, 70-200 lens, ISO 200, 1/250, f/11. One SB-800 with the same homemade snoot.)

These kids and millions of others can use your help. If thousands of people simply “do 1 thing,” we can have an impact. Go to the site to see what you can do to change someone’s life.

While I generally prefer to stay behind the lens, Do1Thing also posted a video clip where I talk about the power of photography and the effect it has on people, including myself.

** Warning – there is a low-resolution photo that shows nudity at the bottom of this post. If that bothers you, or if you’re in a public place that frowns on that kind of thing, you should stop here. **
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Now that some of the inauguration hoopla has died down a bit (5.5 million views and counting), it was time for me to get back to work.

I mean “work” in the loosest sense of the word since my job last week had me on a 5-day Caribbean cruise with the Barenaked Ladies. This is the third annual rock cruise for the band and I had the enviable pleasure of documenting it again for TourPhotographer.com.

I made a stealth portrait of the newly svelte Steven Page while he was waiting to greet surprised passengers at the Port of Miami.

The band played a “sail away” show as we left U.S. waters on the Norwegian Jewel.

I always like to look for little details that you normally wouldn’t see.

I was thrilled that Sarah McLachlan came out this year. Battling through laryngitis, she still sounded angelic.

Tyler Stewart thanked the crowd at the end of one of the big shows in the Stardust Theater.

Of course, I shot the traditional naked photo. We had around 850 people this year – fewer than last year but more than the first one.

Since this ship had a big pool right in the middle of the deck, I decided to let in a group of “floaters.” When we asked for volunteers, about 30 exhibitionists agreed to drop their robes and jump in the water while everyone else was still covered up.

The band then took their position under the gazebo in the back, but the fans started chanting, “Get in the pool! Get in the pool!” Being the good sports that they are, the guys also dropped their robes and joined the floaters near the back of the pool.

The motto on board was, “You never know what’s going to happen on the cruise.”

All of my images – except the naked photo – are available as prints at TourPhotographer.com. You had to be on the ship to get that one.

** CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PRINTS OF MY INAUGURATION PHOTO. **
For more information, send a blank email to pano [at] davidbergman [dot] net.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not sleeping.
President Bush is not sending a text message.
Yes, Oprah Winfrey is blocked by a camera tower.
We’re still looking for Waldo.

Just wanted to clear that up.

Covering the inauguration of President Obama was one of the biggest thrills of my life. Little did I know that it would be topped by the reaction to a photo I made that day.

Unless you’ve been away from a computer for the last week, you’ve probably already seen the Gigapan image I created during the inaugural address. With the ability to zoom in and move around the photo, it turned into an international game of “Where’s Waldo.”

In the first 5 days, the image was viewed by more than 2 million people in 186 countries. I’ve now seen my name in Russian and on a Japanese web site.

I did an interview on CNN and the resulting web traffic brought my site down for the rest of day.

I’m happy to announce that prints are now available for purchase. I’ve partnered with Pictopia to handle the large format printing of this historic photo. (Update: smaller prints and custom images are now available from my new print site.)

There are three sizes available – 3 feet wide (36 X 18 inches), 4 feet wide (48 X 24 inches), and a whopping 8 feet wide (96 X 48 inches). Contact me through my portfolio site if you want to special order something even bigger. For editorial or commercial licensing, please contact Corbis.

To make the print, I asked talented panoramic photographer Ron Pepper to compile a new version and fix the handful of stitching errors found in the web version.

I can’t thank everyone enough for all of the enthusiastic comments, emails, and Facebook notes I’ve received about the image. The wild thing is that I almost didn’t shoot it.

I was covering the inauguration for Corbis and had all of my normal photo gear with me — three Nikon camera bodies and five lenses including my favorite – the 200-400 zoom. I normally use a roller bag, but with the anticipated crowds, I decided to use the Thinktank Shape Shifter backpack. It’s a fantastic bag, but it was heavy.

I knew that I wanted to make a wide, panoramic shot of the crowd in addition to my traditional coverage. I brought the Gigapan Epic with me to D.C., but really didn’t know if I had room to carry more gear.

At the last minute, I decided to strap it to my waist using the Thinktank Skin Chimp Cage and pro speed belt. I don’t believe the designers at Thinktank knew that the “skin chimp” would be the perfect size for a Gigapan.

After a cab ride with Peter Turnley, three security checkpoints, and a lot of walking, I was finally in my photo position. I was in the very back row of the platform, standing on a chair behind an AOC photographer. She was nice enough to allow me to attach the Gigapan to the railing next her.

The unit takes a series of overlapping images one at a time. In this case, I set it to shoot a grid that was 20 photos wide by 11 photos down. It took about 15 minutes to complete.

During the event, I made it through 4 1/2 sets of photos before the batteries died. For the final image, I used all 157 frames from my fifth set and 63 frames from the fourth to complete the entire scene.

I sure am glad I brought the Gigapan with me.

So, what’s next? I’m out of town for two jobs that have been booked for months. First, I’m working with Drew Carey and the Improv All-Stars to document their show in Las Vegas.

Then, on Sunday, I fly to Miami to get on the annual Barenaked Ladies rock cruise. I’m the band’s tour photographer, so I’ll be presenting a photo seminar on board and posting pics to TourPhotographer.com.

Every year I shoot a group naked photo of the band with their fans. Last time we had nearly 1,000 people.

I think I’ll refrain from using the Gigapan for that one.

Below are some of my other images from Monday and Tuesday.