Featured – © Gatesman Photography

Breaking Bread

To break bread is to come together informally for social interaction, usually over a meal or drinks. Breaking Bread is a web series I developed with Gina Ruccione. The concept is that a group of strangers come together over a meal prepared by a great chef in a comfortable surrounding, and potentially leave as friends.

Our first episode, which featured an Italian Modern meal prepared by Dustin Trani of Doma Restaurant in Beverly Hills had it’s premiere at the San Pedro International Film Festival. The meal was seafood driven and finished up with a wonderful duck breast, and was served at the Studio of Eugene Daub and Anne Olsen in San Pedro, CA (as were the still photos of Gina). The epsiode can be streamed below.

Breaking Bread episode 1: Italian Modern from Jeff Gatesman on Vimeo.

The web series Breaking Bread was developed by Gina Ruccione and Jeff Gatesman
Hosted by Gina Ruccione
Cinematography and Editing by Jeff Gatesman
Hair and Makeup by Janice Bremec Blum

Poison Ivy and Madame Butterfly photo shoot

Some images from last week. A couple of themed shoots: Madame Butterfly and Poison Ivy.

Black and White Madame Butterfly with Red Wings

Black and White Madame Butterfly with Blue Wings

For information on prints or licensing of these images, click here.

Manhattan from Brooklyn

Here is a new image I just finished, though I took the photo almost 2 years ago. Click on the image to blow it up.

Hong Kong apartment building

I almost got arrested taking this photo of an apartment complex in Hong Kong. Apparently the security police there don’t quite understand long exposure photography.

This is part of series of images I have been making designed to be hung on ceilings.

The road to Delhi

I spent 48 hours in Delhi India which is a world of contradictions. Overcrowded and loud, traffic zips by you at breakneck speed, or is at a complete standstill. Driving seems tactile: all flashing headlights and blaring horns mixed in with a little dare-devil-may-care attitude. Brand new, high tech architecture rises out of dirty, broken-down streets. And yet there are moments of complete serenity.

Red Sari and Blue Door — Woman in red sari and blue door

Chicago Skyline Panorama

I made this panorama of the Chicago skyline using a Zeiss 50mm prime lens on my Canon 5D MkII. The full size print is 75″ X 14″

United Terminal at O’Hare Airport

Handheld, long exposure shot of the concourse between United Airlines terminals B and C at Chicago O’Hare airport.

My Image honored in 4th Photography Masters Cup

One of my photos from the Derby Dolls collection has been honored with Nominee status by the International Color Awards’ Photography Masters Cup.

This is an enormous honor for me as my image has been selected by some of the greatest names in photography, publishing and advertising from National Geographic, Phaidon and Esquire to Christies of New York. As a Nominee my image will be featured in a film presented by World Photographic Arts Films, and may be chosen for publication in The Photo Paper magazine.

This image comes from a series shot during one match between the Sirens and the Tough Cookies of the LA Derby Dolls roller derby league. You can see the entire series here. My focus for this collection was to capture motion through still photography, but I also managed to capture some nice intimate moments. None of the moving images have been photoshopped beyond normal tone adjustments as has been suggested: they are simple “old school” in-camera effects achieved using a flash and dragging the shutter.

Joshua Tree enroute to Phoenix

In keeping with the theme of Joshua Tree, I was recently driving from Las Vegas to Phoenix along route 93 and stopped by this Joshua Tree when the sun was setting. I thought it was a very dramatic scene and so I made this shot.

click on the image to see a larger version

Night Photography in Chicago II

It used to be a writers town and it’s always been a fighter’s town. For writers and fighters and furtive torpedoes, cat-bandit, baggage thieves, hallway headlockers on the prowl, baby photographers and stylish coneroos, this is the spot that is always most convenient, being centrally located, for settling ancestral grudges. Whether the power is in a .38, a typewriter ribbon or a pair of six-ouncers, the place has grown great on bone-deep grudges: of writers and fighters and furtive torpedoes.

—Nelson Algren
Chicago: City On The Make

On a blue moon New Years eve Night in Chicago I wanted to get some more images of my hometown, so before going to the year end celebrations I wandered around the downtown river front until it got too cold. And at 17 degrees, that was a very short time and made the long exposures seem much longer.

The thing I like most about making images in a city at night are the colors, and in Chicago that generally means a golden straw colored hue juxtaposed with cooler tones in the buildings and sky.

Click on the images to see a lightbox of larger images.