Search Results for: ROBERT SEALE

COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to many areas of the economy in the past few months. As we emerge from lockdown situations, businesses will continue to have a need for fresh commercial photography, whether it is for new marketing efforts, making portraits of new faces as leadership and staff undergo changes, documenting new facilities and infrastructure projects, or communicating with stakeholders about a company’s efforts to keep workers safe and healthy during this ongoing crisis.

I was commissioned recently to create a photo illustration for Houston Methodist Hospital Foundation’s Annual Report for a story on concussions in high school football players. This is a big issue not just for the NFL but also in youth sports.

I covered Tim Duncan during countless games, including their three NBA Finals titles in 1999, 2003, and 2005. I probably took thousands of photos of him, but on the occasion of his quiet retirement, I picked a few out just for this article.

Photographers often harangue one another over pricing. Ironically, very few are willing to publicly disclose how much they charge for jobs. In economic speak, this leads to an inefficient market that has wide ranging pricing for the same output.

More to the point, no one knows what to charge, photographers don’t have an easy way to benchmark their rates and approach, and thus pricing information is guarded like gold. The cycle of opacity continues.

I’ve dreamed about shooting Houston Rockets guard James Harden for a long time. How can you go wrong with that beard? He’s just awesome looking. I wanted to pose him with ZZ Top for the last couple of years -- or at least with Billy Gibbons -- but alas, no one has bitten on that idea yet. (You hear that Texas Monthly? It would be a great cover. Trust me.)

Anyway, the call finally came some weeks ago from Sports Illustrated. Harden had a super tight schedule with the All-Star Break coming up, and the editor asked if we could put together something with the iconic Houston skyline with only 24 hours notice.

Hindsight is always 20/20, which is why if you’re a photography student or about to launch your photo business, you should turn to those who have already completed the right of passage for a little first-hand, grade-A advice on how to go about the whole thing.

With experience comes great wisdom, so we asked seven professional photographers what advice they would give to the graduating class of 2015 photographers, and what they would have done differently if they had known what they know now. From business and gear advice to staying true to your inner artist, and just simply being nice - take notes, cause these nuggets of wisdom are pure gold.

Colonel George Everette "Bud" Day is a retired U.S. Air Force Command Pilot who served his country during the Vietnam war, enduring a stint as a POW and earning the Medal of Honor and the Air Force Cross.

When he was asked to be on the cover of Smithsonian's Air & Space magazine, it was portrait photographer Robert Seale who got the honor of photographing him, and for our sakes, he put together a behind-the-scenes video while he was at it.

With the NBA Conference playoffs nearing completion and the Spurs already a lock for the Finals, I got a call from Brad Smith, the Director of Photography at Sports Illustrated, asking if I could quickly get to San Antonio.

Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker rarely if ever pose together, but had reluctantly agreed to pose for an SI cover which would come out a couple of days later, to coincide with the beginning of the finals.

I shot the photo above during a visit to Zermatt in October 2020. It was my fifth time there, and the second time the weather had been clear enough to allow me to see the famous mountain. The first time I saw this scene, in May 2019, I knew immediately it was a photo. I mean, I knew immediately it was an interesting photo.

The 2019 Oscars are just a day away now. If you'd like a dose of visual inspiration, check out this 10-minute video by Burger Fiction. It steps through every single film that won the "Best Cinematography" Oscar over the past 90 years, from 1929 to 2018 (and 2019 nominees as well).

I'll say this right up front: what you’re about to read is not a review of the Fujifilm X100T. That’s a good thing, because I’m a lousy camera reviewer. So if that’s what you’re looking for, stop reading right now and hightail it over to one of the many excellent camera review sites instead. You know the ones. Just don’t forget to help support those reviewers’ growing families and camera collections by clicking through to one of their fine sponsoring vendors.