Over the years I’ve had two major printers. One was Par Excellence in Shreveport Louisiana, the other was Ken Leiberman in New York. There is no doubt Ken was and still is a great printer. If you’re going to have a show at MOMA, or a San Francisco gallery, he may be your choice. Par Excellence is unfortunately out of business. My partner and best friend JoAnne Kalish is a master printer “and one hell of a great photographer,” she produces some impeccable “Giclee” prints to die for. As great as they are they just are not a photographic process per se. Without telling JoAnne, I made 60-20×30’s, and 12-16×20’s. They are awesome and if you would like to come by our Learning Center to look at them, make an appointment and I will gladly show them to you. The key is – the blacks are black, the white are white, and the skin tone is dead on, it does not get any better then that. Info on this photo is, Shutter Speed-1/10 second, Lens-100 mm macro, ISO speed-50 and it was taken on the new Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod 190cxpro3.
Category Archives: Photography
Angelo Dundee: A Dear Friend.
The first rule you learn in journalism is to stay totally objective and never become close to the person you’re photographing or writing about. It isn’t an easy thing to do. In the case of Angelo Dundee, it was absolutely impossible. I met Angelo back in the 70’s and did major stories on him for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and Ring… too many to mention.
I think anyone who’s been around boxing can tell you there’s a dark side, and at some point everybody either goes there or experiences it. Angelo Dundee never had a dark side. He is the epitome of sportsmanship, a true gentleman, and the ultimate motivator. He was the total package. One of the most gentle people God put on this planet. He made a perfect ambassador for the sport of boxing. I met several hundred people in boxing over the years, from the very top to the very bottom and never heard one bad word against Angelo. Whether it was Budd Schulberg, Bert Sugar, or a journeyman fighter in Mississippi, they all loved him. Angie treated everybody like they were an important person. He never forgot a name and he had that beautiful smile and those beautiful eyes. He was always warm and attentive. Did I mention his sense of humor?
Here’s an Angelo quote sent to me today from one of my students, Steve Ellis:
“Joe, just want to tell you how much your call meant to me. Really nice gesture.
I was sorry to see the news about Angelo. He seemed like a really interesting guy. I remember when he was a commentator during the ’88 Olympics. During one of Riddick Bowe’s fights he was really critical about all the obvious mistakes Bowe was making. Angelo said ‘If this kid’s lucky, he’ll have a spasm of lucidity.’ I always remember that expression.
Steve”
Anyone who knows me knows that I can go on and on. I’m going to bring this blog to an end and I will revisit Angie and his memory at a later date. One of my last experiences with him is when he was kind enough to give me a few hours of his time for an interview for my documentary In this Corner.
P.S. In an interview I did with Jake LaMotta, “The Raging Bull”, he told me that he gave this kid Dundee one of his first jobs.
I can see Angie with a water bottle and a towel, cooling down Saint Peter as he’s entering the pearly gates. Rest in Peace, my friend. You’ve got a lot of champions on the other side.
F/2.8 and be there ISO100- WINTER IN SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright Joe DiMaggio
Jono: Side lit exposure for cheek closest to camera. 24-70 at 70. iso160 1/400 of a second at 2.8. Sony Camera Zeiss lens
OK, what happens when you take a visionary from Berkley and a bright, beautiful Harvard girl and put them together? You get Julian and Elias, my nephews. I’ve known Jono Korchin for twenty maybe thirty years… oh forget it. It’s a little known fact that Jono had a hand in inventing Itunes. Gil Amello (yes, the despot of apple computers) wouldn’t exactly agree, but I’d better not go there . Jono is a true visionary. His beautiful wife has a distant relationship to the Grateful Dead and is an extremely bright business woman who managed to found a corporation called “Korchins Inc.”. Here are the two front men.
Copyright Joe DiMaggio
1/500 of a second 2.8 70mm almost into macro zone. Intentionally shot back-lit and 1/2 a stop over. Sony Camera Zeiss lens
Sony 24-70 2.8 2/50 intentionally allowed hair to blow out. Red reflection from red wall, I chose not to correct (just my preference). Sony Camera Zeiss lens
Copyright Joe DiMaggio
Copyright JoAnne Kalish
Group shots: High noon at Berkeley campus, only shade to be found. 1/250 5.6 50mm Sony Camera Zeiss lens.
I could have flew a silk, but Jono didn’t have the budget
Copyright Joe DiMaggio
Sony 24-70 ISO400 1/200 seconds f/2.8 70mm Sony Camera Zeiss lens
The Day The Photographic Earth Stood Still
© Joe DiMaggio
The day the Photographic earth stood still one second later went into light speed. I had a dual assignment to photograph Joe Paterno in 2002 for Time Magazine and my agent who had clients in Europe and Asia. We broke out all the big guns total 7 cameras. Both JoAnne and I were the prime shooters, 2 assistants and one security PA. Started at approximately 6AM shot all pre-game ceremony (lots of partying young and old) When we actually got down to game time the prime lenses were 400 f/2.8 and 600 f/4 and 35-350mm. We did the post game and turned the film over to our assistant who was getting ready to transmit a few frames before we returned to the studio. Total 7 cameras, 5 film cameras 4 of which were never loaded. The one loaded had 28 frames, the two digital there were approximately 1,000 frames. Without knowing it the third reincarnation of DiMaggio now as a digital shooter was born. The story was on Joe Paterno and he died yesterday from complications from Lung Cancer age 85. I will not comment on his dismissal from Penn State. Our son Dylan spent 4 years there and any communications I had with the administration was absolutely miserable. Oops I said I would not comment. Whatever Paterno’s sins were he was one hell of a football coach. RIP Joe I hope things are get better on the other side.
©Joe DiMaggio
©JoAnne Kalish
Lady Sings the Blues
I was recently interviewed by a French Magazine and they asked me to supply them with a short list of people I would have loved to photograph but never did. My partial answer was Buckminster Fuller, Roy Orbison, Janis Joplin, Alistair Cooke, and on that list was Etta James. I never met her but evidentally she lived the blues, sang the blues and died by the blues. If you need a photographic lesson out of this – never hesitate, seize the opportunity of make the opportunity. RIP Etta
Frame Grab
I’m not quite sure that the Lumiere brothers are not rolling around in their graves right now. Rapidly followed by W. Gene Smith and Gordon Parks. The more I know about this medium the less I know. If I’m running at 100 MPH forward, I’m probably in reverse. But, I promise myself I’ll try to keep up. This photograph is pretty amazing. Enjoy!
Following blog post by Vincent LaForet.
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What camera did I use to make this still picture?
Go ahead and guess what camera was used to make this photograph in the comments above. It was made with a new camera that many photographers have not yet heard of… I suggest you click on the image above to see it at full resolution (and make sure you zoom in to 100%) Some of you will guess right away and already know about it… Others will be astonished when I reveal what camera shot this photograph. It’s a camera that has the potential to change things – radically.__________________________________________________________________________________________ANSWER: This image is actually a FRAME GRAB. It was not shot with a STILL camera but with the RED EPIC M digital cinema camera at 96 frames per second. For the techies: The image was made with a Zeiss Compact Prime 25mm f 2.9 , natural light, at T 2.9 , 1/200th of a second at 800 ASA in RED’s RAW R3D format – a RAW format similar to aCR2 or NEF (for Canon and Nikon users respectively.)
The camera’s “cinema” resolution is 5K – more than five times the resolution of your HD Television (see chart below)… Other than a quick color correction – no enhancement whatsoever has been made to this image. Perhaps just as importantly : there were 95 other frames that were shot EACH SECOND that I rolled on the camera… 95 other shots to choose from… shot handheld on a moving subject – not posed.
Mermaid Parade
I remember my mother and father taking me to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sitting on top of my dad’s shoulders and looking at the giant floats, the beautiful colors, the great music, and here we are a couple of years later spending the day at Coney Island at the Mermaid Parade. My new policy is one camera, one lens, two batteries, two cards. This time, I chose to test a new lens, a 135 f/2. Last year’s parade, I used a 10-22mm. Obviously, a huge change! But, changing it up is a good thing. What I’m about to say is not a scientific fact. It appeared to me for every person in the parade, there were 3 photographers. I could be off, but I’m not that far off.
Photos © Joe Dimaggio
Pete Hamill: Perfection
As a working photographer for my whole life, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with writers. And I think most writers would not only agree, but they would agree with much finer pros. When we teach photography, invariably one word comes up, and that’s “perfection”. In reality, nothing is perfect.
When you think you’ve seen everything, all of a sudden Pete Hamill, with all of his great editing skills and a history of journalism that transcends 6 decades, you would figure he would go out to pasture. Or, do old writers put the cover on their Remington typewriters? Well, he didn’t do either. Tabloid City is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read. I read it once and I’m now re-reading it for a second time. He’s taken everything he’s learned in all those years and crammed it into a few pages. You can’t put it down! Pete, thank you so much. What a wonderful book. You’ve proved the old adage- you get better with age. It’s perfect!
Queue the Rapids!
I was contracted by the Canadian Olympic Association to photograph basketball, boxing, soccer, track and field, and kayaking. I fell in love with kayaking and proceeded to kayak for the next 20 years and moved to ocean kayaking. One of the things that I used kayaking for was eye-hand coordination and remote photography. Will try to dig out some of the film- Yes, Alice, there was film in those days! I’ll see if I can show you a few examples. But, in the interim, every once and a while I like to take the rust off and go photograph kayaking. Here are a few frames. Hope you enjoy them. Shutter speed ranged between a 500 and 1000, ISO 200. 80 to 200 mm lens. Pick a number- f4.5.
You Are The Future and The Future Is Now
©Joe DiMaggio
There is an old adage when all else fails tell the truth. It’s something I genuinely believe in. The new word today is “transparency” – tough to stay up with the brave new world! About 20 years ago I had a conversation with one of the most powerful women in the world of photography. She took a $50,000 corporation and turned it into the second largest agency in the world and sold it for upwards of thirty-million dollars. I said to Sally, I guess I’m 20 years behind the time and she said that it was the exact opposite and that I was way ahead of my time. It was a wonderful compliment but I’m not sure if I actually believed it. When the technology came for the motor drives, I did not embrace it. The next big leap was auto programming and I did not embrace this. Shortly afterwards, autofocusing came out and I did an interview and was quoted as saying my clients want me to focus the camera – I’m not a grandfather yet! Need I say, I did not embrace that technology either? I’ve been making photographs on film for 5 decades. When digital came out I did not embrace it. Is it possible that one man could be wrong about so many things? I’m afraid the answer is yes.
Of course, in 2011, I utilize all this new technology. There is no doubt that when you use these tools properly you’ll be rewarded. Wiebetech has given me an opportunity to not be 20 years behind the times but actually to be 20 years ahead of the time. The combination of the big three – The Double Barreled Derringer (ToughTech Duo), The Little Gun (RTX220-QR) and the Big Gun (RTX800-IR) give me a tremendous advantage in filing, storing and retrieving all of my photographs and films. It is definitively the best technology today and to be honest, probably for a long time to come. Wiebetech has allowed me for the first time in a long time, to be ahead of the curve. I strongly recommend that every advanced photographer and filmmaker incorporates this technology to protect their life’s work. We all travel different roads and have different motivations and needs but with your solutions we will have choices. Thanks so much. Keep up the great work.
Joe DiMaggio
Joe DiMaggio 