Tag Archives: Twitter

It’s All Good

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

Let’s see if I got this right-I don’t like Photoshop, right? Right. I don’t like software where you can manipulate images…right? Right. I believe everything should be done in the camera…right? Right. Never crop, right? Right. Less is more, right? Right. Digital will be just like 8-tracks, it’ll never last. So let’s check out the reality, I guess it’s impossible to be right all the time.

The photograph of this young lady catching a cod-fish off the coast of Prince Edward Island, up until today, was flat, muddy, indistinguishable and almost two stops under. There’s a technical  term in photography for a photo like this…it’s blank blank blank blank. Well through a little bit of work in Photoshop and NIK software it came alive.  The young lady’s name  is JoAnne Kalish.

All the Best,

Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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The Missing Angel

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

I remember the first time I heard the words, “Photo” and “Hills and Valleys”. It was at TIME magazine end of year party. A  great up and coming assistants decided to quit. When I asked him why, he said too many hills, too many valleys. The valleys are just too deep. I’m gonna take a 9-5 job. Suffice it to say, I was totally shocked. He was poised to be a staffer in a few years. Well we all make decisions we have to live with. The last 2 weeks I’ve been in a valley. This morning I went to the gym and watched the sun come up. It was glorious. I closed my eyes and I could still see every bit of that sunrise. My iPhone was playing an angel, Mary Travers. The combination of her voice, my eyes shut tight and that sunrise, I got out of the valley and onto Kilimanjaro. It’s amazing how music and photography really go together. No sooner I said that- I went looking for this Mary Travers photo which will be the first photo in my new book. The problem is I can’t find the negative and I’ve been looking for it for about ten years. I made a litho print and hand colored it…not my strong suit. That’s all I have for you today guys. The moral of this story is take real good care of your originals, make sure they’re put away properly so  you’ll be able to retrieve them when you’re getting ready to do your memoirs.

All the Best,

Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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Shooting From the Inside Out

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

This photo of Arturo Gatti will be featured in my new book, “Shooting From the Inside Out”. Tentative publishing date is late September, 2013.

All the best,

Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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Will a Rainbow Put a Smile on Your Face?

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to All the Ships at Sea,

© Joe DiMaggio

© Joe DiMaggio

It’s a little known fact that JoAnne and I had an illegitimate son, by the name of Dylan (just joking.) Please understand across the studio just came a comment…”You’re out of your mind what are you saying?.” So let’s just be honest, I am out of my mind, I agree, it’s just the nature of the beast.  Dylan at a very young age had a babysitter, by the name of Dennis Wheeler.  Dennis’s art is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. In my humble opinion he is one of the finest artists of our time. In those days we lived on the sea and rainbows were relatively commonplace. They usually happened after it rained…I never quite did figure that out. One day Dylan decided to paint rainbows. He painted, I don’t know, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty different rainbows. I think JoAnne said to him one day, “Why don’t you sit outside on the stoop and maybe you can sell the rainbows to people who pass by.” (You can tell who the mercenary business person is in our small company) That’s why she is the brains and the beauty.

Dylan sat outside with the rainbows as people would come by and pick them up for 2 cents each.  The timing on this was approximately ten months after Musician Doug Stegmeyer went on to playing bass on a different plateau. There was a knock on the door and it was Peggy Stegmeyer, who lived down the street.  In her hand was one of Dylan’s rainbows. She very softly said, (I am paraphrasing) “Joe, this is the first time a smiled in almost a year.” I’ve been known to say, all the great things in the world are free and occasionally a great piece of art may only sell for 2 cents. But it made some one very happy.

All the Best,  Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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Easy to Destroy, Difficult to Build

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to all the Ships at Sea,

When you slip a CF card into a digital camera, you plan on going out to make a great photograph and that’s a great motivator.  Question remains, can we do it? The answer is, yes, we can. There’s truly only one judge of YOUR photography that counts, and that’s YOU. If you can satisfy yourself and you’re happy then you’ve accomplished what you set out to do and no one, I mean no one, can tell you different. We have had thousands of people, that we’ve taught in our workshops, lectures, Photowalks,  and the majority of them want to be critiqued. The simple fact of the matter is, it’s the most difficult thing in the world to do. Here’s my analogy: Imagine standing on a sidewalk, holding a beautiful piece of Murano Glass, and you pick it up and smash it onto the cement. I’m not sure I could do it, but there’s no doubt that it can be done. You look down and there are thousands of shards of colored glass in hundreds of different angles and pieces. My question is, how many of us, could make that piece of Murano Glass?  The simple answer is, there are only a small amount of artists in the world that could make it. They take 20, 30, 40 years to perfect their art and their trade. By now you’re asking yourself a question, what the hell does this have to do with photography? That’s also simple, go out, perfect your style, make it YOURS. Put your heart, soul and passion into it. Don’t let anybody, smash it on the sidewalk.

Did anyone slip me serious pills this week?

©Joe DiMaggio

©Joe DiMaggio

All the Best,
Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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It Never Snows in Amalfi

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

Hi to all the Ships at Sea,

SONY DSC

Both JoAnne and I are putting together the cover art for our new, exciting, travel adventure, photographic DVD. Yes, I am the King of the run-on sentence, sorry. The above photo JoAnne took of me with one of my students in Amalfi, which is helping the photographer re-think the options that he may have. Let’s remember one thing, when I’m teaching a workshop, when I’m giving a lecture on a TV show/internet TV show, what you’re getting is my opinion, it is not necessarily a fact and it is not cast in bronze, brass or gold, it’s just my opinion. Because I am one the luckiest people in the world, my opinion has been formed with the knowledge of some of the greatest photographers in the world, W. Gene Smith, Carl Mydans, Alfred Eisenstaedt, John Dominis, Irving Penn and the list goes on and on. I believe artists, regardless of the medium, whether it be oil ,watercolor, pen and ink, poetry, a novel the blues or the jazz, no one goes out with the idea of copying someone else. But “OUR” ability to learn from each other is critical, it’s simple communication. It’s really not about F-stops and apertures. It’s really how we see, what we see, what we look for-and then go to the next level. You can think of photography, videography and filmmaking as probably the most important thing in the world of communication. And oh my God, let’s not forget the Ernest Hemingway’s, the Budd Schulberg’s, the Elia Kazan’s, the Al Maysles. For most of us it will just be plain fun and in this complicated, sometimes bizarre world, fun and a light moment may just keep us alive a bit longer. This blog started out very light and airy and I have no idea how it got so serious.

Health and Happiness to Everyone, Great Shooting.
Joe D

You can now follow me on Twitter @dimaggio_photo
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The Fire Within

Posted by Joe DiMaggio on

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.

022213_dibroseland_58783

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
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