Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

Death of Journalism/Laid off in Tulsa

What do you do when you get laid off in Tulsa? Make movies...

Someone please hire this guy.

planning, New Britian

So many of my pictures are the result of elaborate planning. This one is not. I was in a helicopter while it flew expedition supplies into Ora village in central New Britain. The clouds kept getting lower so the pilot was forced to fly lower and lower. Eventually he ended up flying up the Iso river gorge to stay out of the coulds. There, out the left side of the helicopter was a huge 40 meter waterfall as  Megeni cave empties into the gorge.

The cave ended up being significant, and this picture ended up as an important one in the story. 

So make plans but pay attention to what is happening around you while your plans go astray...

-Stephen Alvarez

Resource not found / File corruption

 Geof has been talking about storage and back up lately. I need to reiterate a point that gets lost in the discussion. A RAID array, or a series of RAID arrays is NOT A BACK UP. All that they do is protect against hard drive failure. They do a great job of it, but if you are going to loose data, loose pictures it will probably be to file corruption rather than drives going down. 

It happens to everyone, eventually. It is happening to me right now. 

Think Fixed Tech: Review: iPod Nano

As an Apple Consultant group, we have some access to the occasional discount coupon.  Apple is pretty stingy about these things, but this week we needed some beefier equipment for our mail servers.  But the way they work is that you have to spend a certain amount before getting the discount.  In our case, the Server Drive Modules didnt quite crack the ceiling, so I added in an iPod nano, just to get the discount (questionable move but I lost my last one and rely on it for the Nike+ integration).

And I then didnt really think that much about it.  I have been living with iPods of all stripes since they came out and, although a necessity, they arent really that exciting anymore.

Well, I got my new nano, and I got excited again.  I dont know why, its not like there was any surprise.  Its just that, for $129, I have a device that holds the same amount of data as my iPhone, is small but has a surprisingly large and clear screen, and looks great.  Maybe its the industrial design (again, from Apple should not be a surprise) but I have that rare sensation that I got way more than I paid for.

Elegant design, super focused functionality and tiny form factor.  And you get to pick from a rainbow of colors.  I dont know, maybe I am just having a good day. 

Oh, and it does color, video and pics.  Some things are right in the world.

Geof Bowie
www.thinkfixed.com

Miracle of Catfish, Oxford Mississippi

I don't even remember what magazine I was on assignment for when I shot this picture of Larry Brown in Oxford, Mississippi. Photographing one of my favorite authors wasn't part of the assignment, but I had met him at a bar the night before and then seen him on the street -headed to the same bar. 

I shot a couple of frames while we talked about fire departments, his home town, my home town and if I thought the Sewanee Writer's Conference would ever ask him to come teach (they missed their chance). 

It was still pretty early in his career (before Father and Son, Joe, or A Miracle of Catfish ). Large parts of Larry's books and stories were still about his burning desire to be a writer, to be more than who he was expected to be. That desire spoke to me in a huge way. He was the only person who wrote about wanting to be something as much as I wanted to be a photographer.

We made it to City Grocery and it ended up being a long night, one that only the Bar's owner remembers clearly. But that is a different story for a different blog...

-Stephen Alvarez

Commercial, Buenos Aires Argentina

A frame from my visual diary. The art director and her assistant "las chichas de arte" watch the filming of a Sony-Ericsson commercial in Buenos Aires. 

-Stephen Alvarez

Frontline: the best TV on the internet

 A friend who used to work at Frontline told me that their research budget for thinking about new stories is 2 million dollars a year. Good journalism is expensive, but they spend the money well.

-Stephen Alvarez

has anyone been watching this Honda film series?

This is a rather incredible series of short films from Honda (here) by videographer Derek CianfranceI realize that they are basically a long series of ads for honda. What is interesting is that in this world wide recession Honda has turned to documentary film to give the company legitimacy. Will other companies follow?

-Stephen Alvarez

Canon 5D Mark II sound

read an extended post about the MK II and sound here

The Beachtek adaptor for the 5D MK II is coming but their engineers agree that quality sound out of the MK II is difficult...

Island Cave, Palau

The other day I said that sharpness wasn't everything. Here's another of my fuzzy pictures. It is a 15 second hand held exposure -in a rocking boat. What sharpness the picture has comes from my assistant firing a strobe inside the cave. 

-Stephen Alvarez