Neil Gaiman

Fantastic photographs, I espcially like the second one. And I like his book American Gods.

Color me impressed.

You lucky bastard!

... oh, and the photographs are top notch ;)

#4 is absolute money!

You're showing us FIVE?!? You never do that. Why five this time, instead of narrowing it down to your favorite one or two?

They're great! What an amazing opportunity.

Love how he's clutching his cell phone. He's such a minx.

Chris-

You sound disappointed that I'm showing you 5! I just couldn't decide and thought they were different enough from each other to show them all. The top one is my favorite.

awesome.

#3 does it for me. Nice, nice work.

Excellent. Very cool. One of my favorite authors too.

Nice variety for 5 minutes! I'd have to choose #5 as my fav... Gotta love shooting in theaters!

Hi Neil!
First of all, congratulations on your excelent work, I was a 365 regular visitor and a regular here too. I would like to know if you used a 24-70 for this shoot? I use Nikon and I'm inclined to getting the new 24-70 2.8 for my D3. I'm in the middle of a modest portrait project for a newspaper I shoot for here in Coimbra (Portugal), based on antique or facing extinction professions and find my 12-24 to be a bit soft, and thought maybe a "prime" zoom could give my pictures some extra pop. I know my post-processing (and photographic) skills are still basic, and this approach can feel a bit hard (harsh), but I like it and will stick with it till I have enough material for a small exhibition (but with huge prints, I hope). If you have the time, check the first 7 here: http://outpress.com/blog/fotos/SmallPortraits3.jpg

Thanks in advance and keep up your fab work.

Best regards,
Bruno Pires

Hi Bruno-

Hi did not use a 24-70 for these shots. While I do own one, I rarely use it. I'm not a big fan of zooms overall.

All of these shots were taken with a 28/1.8 I dropped my 50mm at a shoot a couple weeks ago and it's fried until I can get it fixed or upgrade to the 1.2.

Nice work on those portraits. I love the objects in the foreground.

Hi Bill! (sorry for the mistake on your name on my previous post, I don't know where my mind was...)

Since I got my D3, and being it a FF camera, I have been considering getting some fixed primes, like a 20, a 24 or a 28. Not wanting to mimic your thing, but after your answer, I think I will try a 28 and see where it goes (unfortunately Nikon only makes a 2.8 version, and its focus system is not very recent).
Just for a bit of chat, if you have the time:
Today I got a couple of Fuji Superia 120 rolls and my mother-in-law's Mamiya 645AF and grabed some shots around town. I'm a recent working photographer (4 years of sports & general news PJ work after graduating in journalism), and my experience with film comes from a couple of Velvia rolls when I got my Contax NX 6 years ago, 5 Velvia rolls during my honeymoon last year (on a Yashica FX-? with 2 Zeiss lenses, a 28 and a 50) and maybe 50 rolls of Tri-X before starting to work using digital and shutting down my chaotic home darkroom. Although I learned a lot with the digital advantages, I sometimes find digital files (in certain circumstances) to be a bit too "perfect", lacking some kind of organic feel I experience in film photography. Moreover, and as I experienced this afternoon, film (and medium/large format cameras) make me THINK a lot more before pressing the shutter, composing more carefully, and ultimately enjoying every click as opposed to my almost military-machine-gun-style approach on some journalistic assignments. Of course I wouldn't imagine shooting a soccer game on a saturday night on a film camera, but this is a great escape from those stressful and so often frustrating moments of target-shooting (which I also love to do and ultimately pay my bills every month). Anyway, and this is a huge post now, if you have the time check 2 results from my Fuji afternoon. Nothing special, but they illustrate my point: http://outpress.com/blog/fotos/Widecombo.jpg

Oh, and congrats on the Time shot, it's definitely your style and a great portrait. My issue arrives Monday, it will be nice to see your work on paper.

Best regards,
Bruno Pires

What an awesome set. Cool work, Bill!