Q: When is an iPhone better than $10,000 worth of professional camera equipment?

     I was in Hawaii last week for my brother’s wedding. My partner and I stayed in a rented condo with my parents. We’ve traveled to Hawaii together before, and one of our routines is to walk on the beach every morning. One morning, my partner spotted a large sea turtle in the water. It was less than ten feet from shore in very shallow protected water. We probably could have waded right up and patted it on the head.

     My camera bag, filled with equipment with which I could have undoubtedly gotten a perfect photo, was back at the condo.  My partner’s iPhone was in his pocket.  He got a photo of the sea turtle. I did not.

     That is when an iPhone you happen to have with you is better than all the best pro equipment that is five blocks away.

     On Thursday night, I went down for Art Walk. I haven’t been for a few months. The weather was a bit cool, but surprisingly nice for early February.

     The most interesting thing I saw was an exhibition at the Garde Rail Gallery by an artist named John Taylor. He apparently builds these ships (mostly ships) from scratch using found materials. They are immensely detailed. And unlike a pristine model, these mostly look like what you’d see in a shipwreck, or a ship long neglected and past its hay day, which gives them real character and elicit an emotional response. Plus it appealed to the kid in me that used to build lots of models when I was a boy.

     I won a “Concept Shot of the Day” award on Model Mayhem (a networking website for models and photographers). This was the second time I’ve won; the first time was last November. The theme this time was “hair”. I was a bit surprised, because there were some other really good entries that day. Here is the photo that won:

     Yes. That is actually his hair.

    Here is the story. I had worked with this model several times before. His name is Kince. He had been growing his hair progressively longer over the course of a couple of years. I asked him if he ever decided to cut it short, to please let me know. He is a dancer, and got sick of tying it up and pinning it back all the time, so he did decide to cut it off, and he did call me. I only had a few days to set it up.

     I found a stylist to work with. I rented a straight jacket. We sat down and cut off half Kince’s hair! Then teased out the remaining hair to look ratty. I placed clumps of his hair on the table, put a pair of scissors and a straight razor just out of reach, and asked Kince to look longingly at the scissors, as if he’d done this to himself. We tried several different looks. This was my favorite.

     After we were done, the stylist cut the rest of his hair so it all matched. Fun!

     I don’t use my photo studio full time. So I share my studio with other photographers. It helps defray some of the costs, and allows others to make use of it when it would otherwise sit dark.

     I’ve got a vacancy come up at my studio. So if you are a photographer, or know a photographer, who would be interested in a shared photo studio, please email me for details.