RECENT NEWS | KEN BURRIS STUDIO

The term “cinemagraph” was coined by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck for these animations. More than a photograph, less than a movie, they say. When done well, haiku like. You can see more examples at their site: cinemagraphs.com

Worked with the talented creatives at Jager Di Paola Kemp Design on a shot for the Jeremy Jones Monkeywrench snowboard. Best use of one of my photographs!

Recent shoot for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.

Bear & Erica

"Oscar", waiting for something better to happen....

Hard light on cool iced tea

The Simple Art of Eating Well was recently awarded a James Beard award for best cookbook in the healthy eating category. Jessie Price, author; designer, Michael Balzano. Food photography by Ken Burris. Congrats to all!

Very good time-lapse video of the “delivery” of the Wilis Avenue bridge connecting Manhattan and the Bronx.

Unique and a nice use of the medium. Directed and produced by Stephen Mallon. Congrats Stephen.

On a trip into New York last week, these photographs/apparitions appeared.

Malcolm Gladwell explains why talent has finally been getting a bigger share of the pie:

http://nyr.kr/ahWZxE

If you are in a creative business  you should read this.

If I lived somewhere around Tribeca, Williamsburg or the LES, and if I needed an axe, for some urban homesteading type activities, I’d be tempted to get one here:

Furthermore, if I could not decide which model was most suitable for my type of chopping, I would check out these amazing slow-motion videos, filmed by Finn O’Hara with the Phantom HD camera. If you don’t know about the high speed Phantom camera check it out here.  The NY Times recently ran a photo/video essay about women’s tennis, shot using this camera. Wonderful imagery, congrats to the team behind this. Check it out.

Reminds me, I need to sharpen my ax.

Does the average Joe even think about food photography. Not usually. But lately it seems the idea of “real” in food photography is gaining some traction, even among the general public. See this story in the Wall Street Journal. Editorially this trend started about 10 years ago. More interestingly, Dominos Pizza promises in their new ad campaign to not to use any crazy tricks to make their pizza look good. No tweezers, heat guns or model making tools. And they’ve fired the old team of photographers and got someone new, You!  Eight winners will be chosen for publication in an upcoming ad(s).  You can read the rules and see some submissions here. ($500. to each winner, 2 Mb file limit, surrender of copyright) It looks like real Dominos pizza for sure, no food stylists on these sets! But does the pizza look delicious, do I want to rush out and buy some? Not really. But appetizing is not really the point for this campaign. This is about the re-branding of Dominos pizza into a more authentic and honest product, more like a pair of Levis jeans than mouth watering and nutritious food. My clients usually want appetizing, but this is worth watching.

Pizza has never looked so good...

With Apple’s market capitalization eclipsing Microsoft’s, everyone wonders “what if I had invested early”. I certainly have, as I’ve watched Apple’s stock price climb and climb. A talented programer/student named Kyle Conroy has brought this thought to an even more painful point. What if you had invested in Apple stock instead of buying that Apple laptop/tower/ipod etc. You can see his calculations here. For example, let’s say you bought the original Powerbook G3 250 for $5900. instead of buying that Apple stock. Your “opportunity cost” is $330,253, as of today’s stock price. And how many of these things have I bought over the years? A good reminder that, from a business perspective, the cost of all that gear we buy is not just its initial price.

I have been shooting for 20+ years. Seen vast changes in the field, and for the most part, I love where we are now. I have a few friends who resent all the changes, new equipment to buy, software chops to acquire, new workflow. I personally don’t miss going to the lab, although I do miss the camraderie it used to provide. But now, in addition to being a photographer, there are many many more things to be: computer tech, retoucher, marketer, social media engineer, maybe videographer, and especially web site engineer. Unless you can afford a big staff. Daunting. I built my first few generations of websites. It seemed doable then, html, tables etc. Now though modern sites are database driven, css structured, and need to work on many platforms. I looked at several other services, but APhotoFolio met my needs best. They were running on the iPhone, had a mirror site for SEO, and a sweet user-friendly backend, making it easy to add or change site elements, or to build custom galleries for prospective clients. I have been very happy with the support as well, with inquiries being answered almost immediately, even on Saturdays. You can see my portfolio site here: kenburris.com, Check out aphotofolio here.

Now Rob Haggart has announced that they have their sites working on the iPad. Fantastic. Congrats to everyone there for an exceptional service.

The pace of change is astonishing, at least in the technology world. Looking through some old magazines I had hanging around (pulling out pages for the “archives” ), I came across this strange piece of advertising history. It appeared in a 1998 food magazine. The amazing Kitchen Assistant! It promised to store all your recipes, give you a shopping list, and even print them out.

1998 to 2010, let’s say 12 years. Remarkable to contemplate the vast change in our technological landscape, but even more interesting, the implications for the next 12 years. Maybe the iPad will indeed be making salsa.