May Is A Beautiful Month

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on May 22, 2024

To all the ships at sea, my California agent always reminds me to never use terms like “the good old days”.

My agent is living in a world that he thinks theres privacy, and anyone with an IPhone, IPad or any computer knows theres no such thing as privacy anymore. The whole world knows everything there is to know about you and me. Im going to stop there and not give you my viewpoint on whether I like it or not… Oh hell, I dont like it.

All of my mentors back in the day always told me do not manipulate a photograph, do not crop a photograph, do not touch the photo, the way it is in the camera is the way you deliver it to your viewer. I have believed that for more years than I should admit.

The reality is that Im now working in the last part of my life on this beautiful, marble planet.

I’m absolutely fascinated with what you can do with a photograph. In a perfect world, you want to start with really a great image, and then do some minimal manipulations where it could transcend from a photograph to a piece of art.

The next photo is my interpretation of the way I would like to see it on my wall and there may be other people that love it, hate it or dismiss it… and that’s fine. The photo was done for me, not anyone else. So as long as I’m happy with it, thats just fine with me.

Enjoy the rest of May

Joe D.

Everything in Photography is a Compromise By Joe DiMaggio Sponsored by WD

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on November 25, 2013

Every once in a while the Moon and the stars align and life is good. Over the last twelve years I’ve been using WD exclusively for my studio, gallery, learning center, office (you get the idea). ABSOLUTELY! You are cordially invited to join me on December 11th at the B & H event space and a good time shall be had by all. To all the ships at sea, see you there.

Speakers: Joe DiMaggio

Event Type: Photography, Video

Skill Level: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced

Location: B&H Event Space

Photographers are creating more and more images and managing your archive so that all the images you create are secure and easily located is essential to the professional photographer. This task is of paramount importance and there are tools that can be of great benefit to the photographer/videographer but on the other hand, many creative’s can find this part of workflow daunting and potentially disastrous. In this seminar we will concentrate on the benefits and show you how to avoid the disasters while providing inspiration from Joe DiMaggio’s work.Joe DiMaggio, a lifelong photographer with an illustrious career shooting; sports, environmental portraits, stock, video content, photo illustrations as well as fine art depends on his vast archive to survive and thrive. This seminar sponsored by WD, a leader in digital storage and hard drives, will highlight Joe’s work and show you in a honest and straightforward way how to manage a state of the art workflow. While professionals will walk away with sound advice and archiving tips, this presentation will also be of benefit to amateur photographers who are concerned with saving the precious moments of their family history.

WD will have a product expert on hand to show off new features on their current drives as well as field the most difficult of questions.

Joe DiMaggioJoe DiMaggio is an internationally known photographer who’s been making award winning photographs for four decades. His dynamic photographs have appeared in Time/Life, Sports Illustrated, Time Magazine, HBO and the list goes on. One of his Sports Illustrated covers was selected by Time Magazine as Picture of the Year. DiMaggio made the obvious transition to advertising work for fortune 500 companies and was extremely sucessful doing photo illustrations for companies such as AT&T, AOL, Barclays, Xerox, Computer Associates, HBO, RJR Nabisco, Sony, Verizon, and Ford Motor Company. DiMaggio has contributed as an international pool photographer, to several Olympic Games. During his illustrious career DiMaggio’s done radio talk shows, television shows, magazine articles, and lectured at some of the most prestigious colleges and universities throughout the world.

DiMaggio has been part of the American Photo Popular Photography Mentor Series. He’s hosted several ABC’s World of Photography television shows and hosted numerous Canon Photo Safaris. He’s hosted Internet TV’s Visual Impressions television show and completed numerous episodes showcasing his skill as a world renowned photographer

Recently, Sports Illustrated selected one of DiMaggio’s photos as one of the third greatest photos in the last 100 years of the Indianapolis 500.

visit Joe’s website to learn more.

Embrace

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on June 3, 2013

Why would anybody put up this genre of photograph in June when obviously the photograph as taken in the dead of winter? That’s funny, I asked myself the same question. There are two basic reasons: the first is I just found this photo I had been trying to find for the last few years for my book, so I scanned it and now you have an opportunity to see it, and the second is I just liked the feeling. It makes me feel warm. Two lovers outside a coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Very cold and snowy night. One grabbed shot, EOS camera, 85 1.2, ISO 200, 1/60th at f2. No rhyme or reason, I just like it.

Paris, The City of Lights

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on March 5, 2013

©Joe DiMaggio

All the Best,
Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
Visual Impressions with Joe DiMaggio, Sponsored by Adorama
www.adorama.com
Adorama Learning Center

The Fire Within

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on February 28, 2013

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

Keisher McLeod- Wells aka “Fire”, is one of my dear friends. She is one of the most beautiful, lovely, talented, hard-working people I know. Unfortunately, Fire has had a major tragedy in her family. What she’s done, is taken all of the responsibility and done the absolute right thing. I wish her nothing but great luck and God speed.

After friends and family, photography and filmmaking is my life. The three photos above, in my opinion, are excellent. Unfortunately I have a problem with them, I don’t know who took them, there’s no copyright on them and when my studio manager put them in Photoshop, there was no copyright on the back. Therefore, the photographs then become public domain and the photographer, and I must say a very good one, is not going to get his/her credit. All fine photographers have to work very hard at their craft and their art, I really need to know who made these photos and then that photographer needs to protect them. Sir or Madam, you did a great job. For purposes of the blog ONLY, we’ll call it ©Fire 2013.

All the best,
Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
Visual Impressions with Joe DiMaggio, Sponsored by Adorama
www.adorama.com
Adorama Learning Center

Hannah

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on August 2, 2012

I had an opportunity to photograph Paul Newman six or seven times. One of the most beautiful things about Paul is he was a regular guy. He rolled up his sleeves (sometimes a sleeveless T-shirt), got dirt under his fingernails, and treated everyone as if they were his equal. Not pretentious, not a superstar (but of course he was!). In an impromptu environmental portrait I asked him why he was so comfortable in front of the lens; whether it was film, or film. He said to me when he was making a photograph, he tried to put the person at ease by saying “You’re beautiful, and you’re as pretty as you feel”. Please understand I didn’t tape record the conversation, so obviously, I’m leaving a few things out. He then said to me “Sometimes the camera falls in love with the person you’re photographing, and you cannot make a mistake. If the camera loves you, it’s all good”. Hannah is obviously no Paul Newman, but the camera loves her. I always remember that I am not the most important part of the photo; it’s all about the person you’re photographing, both their inner beauty and their outer persona.

Equipment used: Canon 7D camera, 24/105 zoom 100 macro lens, Dynalite 500 watt second Powerpack, studio head rhyme light, octagon modifier, Dynalite bare bulb, two silver reflectors, and a Manfrotto air lightstand.

ISO 100, 1/200th of a second, f8.

To Shop or Not to Shop

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on April 20, 2012

I’ve had an opportunity to spend ten years at the University of Arizona doing workshops and lectures, and in the day shooting some assignments and stock work. Funny how it all seemed to come around in January and February hmm…, first thing when I got to Tucson, would be I’d hire one or two assistants and interns. One of the best was Lee Ann Fox, extremely bright, creative and a lot of fun. As the sun was setting, I came up with a photo of Lee Ann her (nickname was the Fox) on her motorcycle. If you look closely at the bottom photograph you will see a hell of a lot of industrial stuff. In the day before Photoshop I would attempt to do a multiple exposure, shoot the background separate, another at speed, and then I’d have an assistant photoshop it. Camera 35mm, lens 35mm f/1.4, the platform was a moving rent-a-car,1/60 of a second, at f/5.6, ISO 50. If you look close, you will see me in Fox’s mirror. Photo tip of the day,is to make sure you have a great driver and a model that can take direction by hand motions. Do not try this while driving the car, it could be dangerous.

Kayaking with Murphy

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on September 12, 2011

You would think after several decades of making photographs there would be no surprises, but the greatest thing about photography is that there’s always a surprise. You can pre plan everything to the final millimeter, you can pick the perfect day for light, you can have the best athletes or models, but invariably something will come up and will bite you on the –whatever. This is a perfect example, of Murphy rearing his ugly head. We planned this shoot several months ago waiting for the right rain conditions so we could make great photographs on the upper portions of the Raymondskill Creek. Cue the cameras! Cue the kayakers, let’s go! But Murphy cued three logs that broke loose and were blocking the creek. Ya can’t kayak over a log, and you can’t kayak through a log, so we went to plan B. Plan B was a 44 foot drop. To put that into perspective, that s a 4 story building straight down. The problem with the shot is the extreme heavy mist. It was like putting a Tupperware cap over your lens. The front element of the lens was absolutely soaking wet all the time and as we all know, anything put in front of a lens will degrade the image. I was shooting with the Sigma 150-500 and I didn’t have the underwater version- OK that’s me trying to be funny again. One of the keys in photography is your ability to be flexible, when you don’t get what you want- you gotta get something. We hiked up one more mile to a tributary and were able to get a 30 foot drop shot with the 24-70 Sigma. ISO and exposure are approximately the same; the difference would be considerably less mist. Keep on shooting, it’s all good. Next time I see you- I’ll have a brand new set of wheels- half titanium and half ceramic.

Joe D

Lite Pads

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on August 29, 2011

I’ve been using electronic flash from the beginning of my career. In the 70’s I standardized by using Dynalite strobes. There is no doubt, in my mind, that Dynalite, pound for pound, penny for penny, is the best electronic flash system you can get. Broncolor is really cool, but it’s very expensive. I had an opportunity to experiment with a new product: Rosco lightpads. Rosco is a LED continuous light source that comes in many different flavors – 20×24, 12×12, and even circles.

You name it, they have it. It has a very simple

mounting system as well. The light the pads produce is sweet. When I take all the knowledge that I learned over the years, with the electronic flash and the bending of available light, I can do some really cool things. The greatest advantage of these lights, is that they last forever, the color is consistent, they’re relatively small & easy to maneuver. This makes them easy to use on location with batteries rather than with AC. Now, they may not replace all electronic flash, but they’re a great addition to your photographic repertoire. For the photographer who doesn’t want to go to electronic flash for whatever reason, this is a natural progression. Also see my partner photographer JoAnne Kalish’s blog and another example of what she did using these litepads.

Rosco

A Lovely Note from AJ Langer

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on August 26, 2011

Back in 2007, I received a New Years greeting from my dear friend AJ Langer. AJ is an extremely talented actress and beautiful young lady. AJ and her husband Charlie are the parents of two gorgeous children, Jos and Jack. AJ and I had an opportunity to do several tv shows together in Yellowstone and in Belize. I instructed AJ in the art of still photography. Little did I know, that she knew a whole lot more than she was letting on. When you grow up in front of the camera, you have the opportunity to learn what it’s like to be behind the camera. She taught me a few a things. I will fondly remember during our travels together. She paid me a lovely compliment one time and said “You’re a great teacher, and I’d go anywhere in the world with you.” I’m going to steal a few of AJ’s photos from her email and put them on my blog. Anyone who knows me knows, that I give credit where credit is due. The photograph that AJ did is a world class photograph, not a snapshot. She has become quite, the accomplished photographer.