June 2nd: Day One

After arriving at Zack's house I got to meet the whole family, offload all my crap, talk a bit and not have a seat compressing my knees for hours on end.

After that we walked to a pub called; "The Brickstore", for some beer and dinner. Had some awesome food and beer and then it was home time and bed time for me.

June 3rd: Day Two

Day Two saw me wake up at 5:30am with one son-of-a-b*tch headache and laying in bed waiting for everyone to wake up so I could get some painkillers. Two Aleve's later to alleviate my pain and I was ready to go. Zack had a 10am shoot with Alton Brown. No idea who that is? Neither did I. You can go check him out here.

We arrived at "The Lab" (Zack's studio) shortly before 9am to get things set up and ready for the shoot. Alton's publicist (Stephanie) arrived shortly before 10am. We all chatted a bit awaiting Alton's arrival, trying to get bits and pieces of info on him. Stephanie warned us that he would bust our chops, but told Zack to go ahead and bust his back, which is great. A lot of the time a client will do or say something and you don't know if you can chirp them back or if they'll storm off somewhere.

Alton is an interesting guy, very to the point and has a, "let's get this done" attitude. His YouTube videos are also pretty entertaining and interesting. Zack was photographing him for Guitar Aficionado, so if music is your thing, keep your eyes open for that in a couple of months. It's quite interesting to me how far ahead of time they shoot these things. Zack got some killer shots in my opinion and there is one specific shot he did with a strip light which he sort of back/side lit and it's great seeing him work and how he interacts with his subject.

An hour later it was done and Alton was off to the next thing. Caleb (Zack's eldest son) and I then got to filming video for the Fuji XT-1 review. Well, he filmed. I kinda stood around. That failed a little bit, coz we shot at the wrong frame-rate and in color instead of monochrome, so the next day we were at it again and it looked even better. Day one was a test run :)

They're currently using the Panasonic GH4's to do the video work and I had a little go with them on Friday night, but more on that later. They are rad little cameras though. They shoot 4K and the overall video quality looks great.

I won't bore you too much more with this. That was about it for the first two days. More coming up soon.

Thanks for reading

June 1st, 2014

As many of you probably know by now, on June first I embarked on a plane to America, to learn from one of the photography greats; Zack Arias (he would say otherwise), but we all know the truth right? :)

So, a hop, skip and a jump later I find myself in America the next day. Well, not entirely of course. 28 hours later I found myself here, only to find that the world had changed... All the people had become crazed zombies, like in that movie, remember? 28 days later? I would later find out, that it was just Newark, New Jersey.

June 2nd,

After not really sleeping on the flight to Heathrow, London, coz let's face it; - who the hell can sleep on a plane unless you're in first class? - I was waiting in line at the customs area, scooting along at a very leisurely pace not in any particular rush until I reached the ticket counter and the lady was like; uhh, you'd better run coz that flight just finished boarding. So with a 10kg (or 22 pound) camera bag and other little miscellaneous crap I was running down a bloody mile long corridor with no end in sight; I eventually made my flight. This felt even longer than the flight to London coz I was fully conscious the whole 7 hours instead of semi, like on the way to London.

Just before sprinting a damn mile to board the flight to Newark

Dehydrated and exhausted I await take-off

America!! Land of Eagles & Americans & Mexicans. That is Manhattan in the background (I think).

We eventually made it to Newark and getting to my next flight on time was a breeze, the customs folks were actually pretty nice and I didn't really have an issue, which was my biggest concern. Two hours later I landed in Atlanta where I was expecting great fanfare to my arrival, you know like in the movies where people are standing there with signs and balloons saying, "Welcome to America" or something? Instead, I was like a wild deer with big eyes looking for Zack and the terminal for baggage claim. No grand gestures or a white piece of paper with my name on it. Luckily Zack was easy to spot, with his signature goatee, a DedPXL T-shirt and for the first time I was like holy shit, Zack Arias is in front of my eyeballs. At first I was like; "what do I do with my hands"? "Do I shake his hand? Give him a hug? Fist bump? Come on man, react, make a choice"! In the end we had a firm handshake. Always default back to that when in doubt. So we grabbed my suitcase and drove to his house so I could meet the rest of the family.

I am happy to say that they are all flipping awesome human beings. Meghan deserves a medal and thanks to her I am here. (I stuck out my hand at first to greet her and she just gave me a big ass hug). She was like; "this guy", when they had received my letter and I am so thankful for that. On top of it she is a kick ass mom and Zack is a kick ass dad and the kids are rad.

From Caleb, to Joshua to Hawke "Danger". I am yet to meet Phoenix, but I am certain he is just as awesome :)

That's it for now though, but keep your eyes peeled and thanks for reading.