I recently sent out my first mailer of the new year, of our former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. If anyone would like Mr. Greenspan's mug to show up in your mail, drop me a note with your address and I'll get one out to you.
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Now that the book is up on Amazon, I can proudly share a scan of it I lifted from the publisher's site. Back in October, I received a call about shooting a book cover. I soon learned it was for David Iglesias, one of the Attorney Generals fired by the Bush Administration for "performance-related issues." I couldn't help but think of another recent photo subject who unwillingly was made to stand up to the Bush Administration and suffered the consequences of doing so.
I arrived at our shooting location with a full kit of gear, knocked on Mr. Iglesias's door and was presented with our shooting location:
Taking a look around, I was reminded of Arnold Newman's great quote, "Good photography is 1% inspiration and 99% moving furniture." A rearrangement of the hotel room ensued as we cleared out a space and set up the backdrop while Mr. Iglesias was prepped by the makeup artist.
Shoots like these don't always encourage a tremendous amount of creativity (we were working from a book cover template that the publisher had sent us), but the setting presented its own set of challenges and I was glad to come away with a number of shots both the publisher and I liked.
click for larger version
A few of my images from the China Adoption story I worked on last year have been published. This was a story a long time in the making, and I remember when I first became interested in the rise of international adoption and its implications in a world that is more connected than ever. It took almost a month to find a couple willing to let me come along with them as they began this journey. Karen and Bob couldn't have been more welcoming, patient people as I accompanied them from their home in California to China where they met their daughter, Kailee. I'm very grateful to them for their being willing to open up their lives during those life-changing weeks in March.
In the end, I was happy about the photos I made that told this amazing and important story, and I came away with some new friends and a new understanding about the idea of family. I'm hard at work on a multimedia version of the story with the audio collected along the trip and hope to have that wrapped up by March.
Samantha Michele Voss
Posting's been a little sparse as I've been traveling a lot of these past few weeks, including assignments in North Carolina for New Scientist and Minneapolis, MN for the Guardian. This weekend, Charlene and I went up to NJ just in time for the birth of my brother and his wife's first child. We spent a wonderful couple of days visiting at the hospital getting to know our new niece and I worked on my baby photography skills (mouth open and screaming: bad, eyes open and reaching for teddy bear: good).
