NEWS: Behind “Nikon Behind the Scenes”

As you may have gathered from our social-media post from last week, Nikon is rolling out an entire “Behind the Scenes” series of educational videos that features tips from professional Nikon pros like Tamara Lackey and Nikon Ambassadors – Joe McNally and myself. Beyond being one of the photographers featured in the spots, I was also asked to produce and direct this series which was a huge honor and a heck of a lot of fun.

I got to work with the insanely talented Joe McNally and Tamara Lackey—two of the great working creatives of our time. These two professionals have a gift for teaching that surpasses their already incredible reputations for photography.  And, really, that’s the spirit of what “Behind the Scenes” is all about.

As photographers and filmmakers, we’re a bit like magicians in that we have a bag of tricks that allow us to do our jobs—and do them well. To let someone in on the secret of what you do is quite possibly the biggest compliment you can give that person, and most egoless thing you can really do as a working professional.

I’ve been blessed to have many influential mentors in my life who have taken me behind the scenes and shown me how they work the magic. Guys like James DuPratt, Jim McNay, Greg Lewis, Al Golub, and Brad Mangin have shown me the tricks of the trade—and in doing so, they have exemplified a warm and generous spirit for passing on the fundamentals and skills to that next generation. As a result I’ve tried to exercise those principles in my creative life as a photographer, director and filmmaker. This Nikon BTS series really touched that sentiment for me.

Education—especially in its capacity for me to “payback” some of that knowledge and know-how—is important to me because it’s how I got ahead when I was just college kid with an old film camera. So, with all that said, I’m happy to share today’s installment of Nikon BTS featuring me. I am happy to provide several tips for how I’ve approach photography from a light-and-fast perspective.

Hope you enjoy this one, and stay tuned for more videos from Tamara, Joe and myself as they release over the next few weeks! And if you’re an experienced professional, I hope this post inspires you to find some eager young gun and bring him or her Behind The Scenes of what you do, too.

Like any production, none of this would of been possible without an extremely talented crew with whom I worked. It’s rare that we get to work in our own backyard but it’s the team that made it possible. Special thanks to: Dane Henry, Celin Serbo, Josh Marianelli, Julia Arcamone, Chris Stamey, Palmer Taylor, Sean Haverstock, Bryan Liscinsky, Bligh Gillies, and Marina Rich. Thanks to John Matthews and Corey Welsh for the amazing food on set, Todd Offenbacher, Andrew Eisenstark for their rigging and logistical support – safety first, Aisha Zaza for her sherpa skills and our beautiful talent Beth Rodden and Katherine Elliott.

The team at Novus Select and Tom Kranzle and the crew at Venture Visuals for putting all of the videos together and managing the entire post production process.

The biggest thank you to the entire team at Nikon USA, you guys are incredible. Also a big thank you to the crew at MWW for all of your tireless work throughout this series. Shout out to Emily Georgalas for summiting Luther Spires, to Mike Corrado for the BTS photographs in this blog post, and Sara Wood for the additional tech support –  it was awesome having all of you on location! Mike, Tahoe will never be the same again – love you brother!

Lastly, a huge thanks to our equipment sponsors and partners for helping us pull all of this together and making rock solid equipment we can always rely on out in the field. Clif Bar, Litepanels, Lowepro, Manfrotto, SanDisk, SmallHD and X-Rite.

Stay tuned for the next episode in the “Nikon Behind the Scenes” series, many more to come.