Found a cool iPhone app the other day called hipstamatic. Snapped these yesterday on my way to Miami.

A few days ago I posted an intro into this post talking about my trip to Argentina. I wanted to update the blog right away but I had to take some time away from the computer to spend some time with my Mom and girlfriend who came to visit me in Boston over the holidays. So many things happened on the Argentina trip that I honestly don’t know where to start, but I guess I should probably just start from the beginning.

“These are some images I took while I was in Argentina with my Canon G11 point and shoot”

Before we left for Argentina we had a 2 day shoot for Nike’s House of Hoops in Washington D.C. where we shot two high school basketball teams. Due to that shoot we had to catch a red eye flight out of Washington to shoot in Argentina for Coca Cola’s global South American campaign. We were scheduled to be there for 9 days, 8 of which were shoot days with multiple shots scheduled for each day. The flight was 10 hours long, and I was sitting in Economy Plus in an aisle seat surrounded by kids. When I tried to stretch out part of my legs would hang into the aisle and I swear that right when I got comfortable enough to fall asleep I would get bumped in the leg by the flight attendant and the food/beverage cart. In other words, I got absolutely no sleep on the flight and that wasn’t fun AT ALL.

“This was at a street market they have every Sunday in an area called Boca. Click on it to view them full screen”

We finally land in Buenos Aires and it is already morning time there. I have been up for at least 20+ hours already and we step off the plane already having to get to work. When we get there, we tech spec the space and see that it is a pretty tight working environment and barely enough room to move. After we got there, it finally hit me that most people didn’t speak English when I asked where the bathroom was and no one knew what I was saying. This experience has actually inspired me to try to learn some Spanish in 2010. After being awake for 30+ hours straight I finally made it to my hotel room and just CRASHED to prepare myself to epic amount of work ahead.

“This is the absolute CRAZIEST shoot I’ve ever done.” – Gary Land

Everyday we started bright and early in the morning, and worked well into the evening. By the end of this trip we were all beat. On this shoot, there were a lot of things that made it more challenging than any other shoot Gary had done. First of all, most people working on the shoot did not speak English so we all needed translators. It makes things just a little bit difficult when the Art Director on the shoot is trying to make selects and can’t speak English. On top of all that, I don’t think there was a problem that didn’t come up on this shoot. One day we lost power for 3 hours due to a storm, AND experienced power surges for the rest of the day after it came back on. Then, we had 2 digital backs totally crap out on us on the shoot. One lesson I learned for sure is always have a plan B. We were using a rented Hasselblad H3D-50 II, a 50 megapixel camera system, and that all of sudden justr locked up out of nowhere. Then, we switched Gary’s personal camera, a Hasselblad H2 with a Leaf Aptus 35S back which is a 33 megapixel camera system and then THAT stopped working out of nowhere. Finally, we finished the shoot with an H2 with a Phase One P30 back. By the end of the job we had 3 different file formats, and 5000 shots had been taken which amounted to about a terabyte of hard drive space.

“Also at the street market, these people were rockin out!”

By the end of this trip I was definitely ready to come back home. It was nice to see Argentina, and after all that we were crazy enough to do a fashion shoot on the last day before we left. Like some true photographers, we left from the studio to catch our plane after doing an extra shoot. I hope you enjoy the photos, and videos. This month I already have two more trips overseas. You can expect the same type of stuff from that as well.

First of all, Happy New Year! I’m excited for the start of 2010. I would say that 2009 was a pretty good year for me. I graduated from Hallmark Institute of Photography in the top 10% of my class, got a full time assistant/retoucher/digital tech position with Gary Land, moved to Boston, and spent more time on an airplane traveling in 4 months than I did in all the 23 years of my life. I would have to say that that’s one of hell of a year, and I’m excited to only top that in 2010. So only after 5 full days into the new year I must say that I’m well on my way to having a prosperous and successful year.