Why I keyword

In October, I received an e-mail from an editor looking for an image of a crane operator to support a story they were doing on operator training. Usually, in the assignments I have shot, the crane is the subject and due to the size of the crane the operator is a very tiny part of the image…if he/she can be seen at all. I had till the next morning to get back to the editor so that evening I filtered my images and from 10,000 plus finished images of cranes I had two featuring crane operators where I had releases. I found them in about 5 minutes and had them off to the editor that night. Four weeks later, the image was published. I never would have found those two images from 10,000 plus shot over the past decade had it not been that I had attached some basic keywords to those images. If you keyword when you input your images from your cards, it soon becomes a habit. A habit that just got reenforced by this experience.



American Cranes and Transport – March Cover

Cover-1I was flattered to have an image from the last ConExpo selected for the March cover of American Cranes and Transport, which also included their show guide for this year’s ConExpo. One of the largest construction equipment shows in the world, ConExpo occurs in Las Vegas once every three years and covers approximately 10 football fields of a variety of construction equipment. Thousands of copies of the magazine were given out to the roughly 400,000 attendees and it was pretty cool to see stacks of the magazine on display at their booth with this cover.



American Cranes and Transport

August is the annual tower crane issue for American Cranes and Transport.  I had been following the construction of a new building right along the FDR Drive and had shot a number of images as the building was going up in its early stages.  Tower cranes can be challenging to photograph when they are 20 or 30 stories in the air.  I was pleased to learn that one of the images was selected for the cover.

act_august_cover-1-of-1


American Cranes and Transport

The June issue of American Cranes and Transport is out.

June is their Annual ACT 100 issue and I was excited to have had the image I posted a while back, the “ass-shot” of the Terex AC-250, selected for the cover.

It’s also the culmination of quite a bit of work that I completed for them relating to Bauma, the largest construction equipment tradeshow in the world, held every three years in Munich. Even with all-access photo credentials, it was a challenge to shoot Bauma for a number of reasons. The weather certainly did not cooperate all the time, although the changing weather patterns created great clouds. Further, the show is BIG. The location of tradeshow booths can take up to a half hour to walk from one to another given the size of the show. And like any tradeshow, the amount of equipment packed into the show presents constant challenges in isolating specific manufacturers or products. And of course, with cranes being outside, time of day to take advantage of available light (when there was available light) created a shooting schedule in the morning and afternoon and, of course, the booths were never near each other. I set my personal best on my Fitbit the first day and then blew threw that on Day Three. Balancing between other commitments at the show and shooting added to the fun as well as the need to have all images processed within three days of the show ending – thank you Photo Mechanic and Adobe.

In addition to images that were selected for articles related to Bauma that appear in the June issue, “Dimmitt’s Bauma” is a 4-page selection of images from my submissions that were selected by the editor of American Crane and Transport to tell the story of Bauma from a photographer’s point of view. The article also includes a short article that I was asked to write as to how I approach a show of that size as a photographer. While I was aware that an article was in the works, the proofs arrived on my birthday and it was a great present to view what had been selected and how the article was laid out.

ACT June 16.pdfACT June 16.pdf



American Cranes and Transport II

I was pleased to learn earlier this month that one of my images made the cover of American Cranes and Transport and resulted in a cover story of the project. A second image was used in the body of the story.

While the image was straight forward using the Df and 18-35,extensive reflections caused from shooting from within the terminal where challenging to remove. Attending Moose Peterson’s Click to Click Workshop in NYC the week after I shot the image opened my eyes to a few techniques that I was able to use separately and in combination.

So after spending over a year with Moose working through his Master of Light Program, why would I spend a weekend at a workshop? Its real simple. I have never, ever, ever attended a Moose Peterson event that I didn’t pick up something that helped move my photography forward. Each Moose Peterson workshop or event is distinct, constantly updated and full of information that can take you to the next level.


American Cranes & Transport

Was very pleased that American Cranes & Transport chose one of my images for the cover of their April issue as well as featured my images from CONEXPO in a two page spread as well as in their Recap article.
The largest construction equipment show in North America, CONEXPO is very challenging to shoot given (a) the difficulty in isolating specific pieces of equipment from adjoining pieces of equipment that can often be larger and distracting, (b) the significant shadows thrown by neighboring pieces of equipment onto other pieces of equipment that may be the subject and (c) the set-up of the equipment vis a vis the sun and time of day. I usually spend the first day just walking the show (which takes place at the Las Vegas Convention Center over about 41 football fields of outdoor and indoor space) to make mental notes of which equipment is best shot in the morning or afternoon based on how the equipment has been set up. Then you hope for blue sky, some clouds, humans to provide scale and you are off to the races…