Blog

Bill Walton & Scout Bassett Team Up

I have been working with The Challenged Athletes Foundation for many years shooting portraits and events. A few weeks back, I had the pleasure of photographing Bill Walton and CAF athlete, Scout Bassett, together in my studio. These images will be used to promote CAF's annual Million Dollar Challenge, a 620-mile bike ride from San Francisco to San Diego from October 16-22. http://www.challengedathletes.org/compete/MDC_2006.htm

Scout is currently a student at UCLA where Bill led The Bruins to National Titles in 1972 and 1973. They both are avid cyclist and each have custom made bikes by Holland. To learn more about CAF, Scout and how you can help CAF, please visit http://www.challengedathletes.org/ You will be inspired!

Scout Bassett and Bill Walton


3 Cheers from Prairiefire on 3-D Contrast

 3d contrast revised front

 

Here is a link to a review on my 3-D Contrast lighting video. Thanks to Steve and crew for the kind words about our hard work. He has posted a video sample as well. We still have a limited supply at the studio for sale if you are interested, just drop Luis Garcia an email: Luis@mantoani.com

Check it out here : http://prairiefireproductions.com/2009/08/review-3-dimensional-contrast-principles-of-lighting-for-the-digital-age/

3-d graph ball

Tintypes, something old is new again.

At the beginning of the year, I enrolled in a wetplate collodion workshop with Will Dunniway (www.collodion-artist.com) in Corona, California. The class, which lasted two days, was a crash course on the basics of making tintypes and glass negatives. This process was invented by Fredrick Scott Archer and dates back to 1851. For the life of me, I can't believe he figured out how to make this process work. It is a time consuming process that requires you to sensitize, shoot, develop and fix the plate while it is still wet. A bit toxic, but the uncertainty of it all is magic.

I went back to work with Will again to see how I could create some tintypes of my athlete portraits and to shoot some tintypes of some model cars for a book project. Here are a few images we created.

O.J. Mayo

Darren McFadden

Deadly Comet

Dwayne Jarrett

"ULTRA" Mark Murphy Mini Zine in Progress


I had a fun shoot this week with Mark Murphy for a new project entitled "ULTRA". We shot a large collection of Japanese toys from the original "Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot" and "Ultraman". I can't believe the creativity and imagination that went into these characters. It took me back to my childhood and we were laughing all day. I love my job.

If you want a flashback check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0RgWnkQ0_s

If you are going to Comic Con this year, stop by booth 4833 to take a peek. This photography will be featured along side of the amazing artwork of Joel Nakamura.