Finally online with my Fine Art Print Website. And there was much rejoicing. Check it out!




To kick it off, I am offereing a selection of photographs from the August 2007 feature I shot for National Geographic Adventure Magazine, "Where the Big River Gets Lost."

Writer Kim Brown Seely, my sister Christine Kornylak and I spent a week on and off the river in the Delta region south of Memphis with riverman John Ruskey for the piece. I had no idea what a beautiful and untouched wilderness we have right along that mighty river. Ruskey is one of the few (if only) people to offer guided trips down the Mississippi, through the Quapaw Canoe Company. He also started an after-school apprenticeship program called The Mighty Quapaws. 25% of the profits from the Mississippi River print sales will go to this program.

Check it out - and do a river trip down the Mississippi with John sometime (or in a hollow log if you prefer a short one). You won't regret it.

National Geographic Channels is currently airing a show called Hard Time, a look at Georgia's paramilitary correctional system. From NGC: "Hard Time takes viewers on a yearlong journey behind bars, following the lives of those who work and serve time in two of Georgia's toughest maximum-security prisons."

Before the first airing, I was hired to shoot a few 360-degree panoramic photographs of the interior of a prison: the cells, the yard, the common areas, etc. I spent the day with Executive Producer Greg Henry of Part2Pictures at Hays State Prison, near Rome, Georgia.

Click here to see the resulting virtual tour of a prison cell and the yard.

Technically, shooting a 360-degree panoramic for this type of virtual tour is straightforward. Almost any camera and lens combination will work, but the wider the field of view of each shot, the fewer shots you will need to cover the entire 360-degree field of view. The critical part, if you want to do it well, is using a tripod that will allow you to rotate your camera about the lens rather than the camera base. This eliminates parallax errors when you are stitching the images together (Tricky to do handheld - try it.) Ideally you will use a tripod that can do this rotation horizontally (hula hooping) as well as vertically (jumping rope). Then you can get the sky and the ground while the camera is still attached to the tripod. Crank those images through some special software and voila: QTVR, or in this case, a Flash VR.



I couldnt get my hands on a true 360 "spherical" pano head in time for this shoot, only one that gave me proper offset horizontal "cylindrical" swivel. No problem: With a full frame camera and 8mm fisheye lens, you can get nearly full 360-degree coverage in 3 shots. Yes, I know, for you pano experts out there, there were some nadir and zenith issues. Don't sweat me. We nailed it.

I took the photos on a Nikon D3 with a Sigma 8mm lens, and a Manfrotto 303PLUS tripod head. The folks at Channels did the stitching. Temporary accomodations provided by the State of Georgia.

Just a note to check out the new website. Same Livebooks goodness, but it's bigger, with more new work. Check out the new Food portfolio, from a story on organic farming at The Cliffs Communities in North Carolina, some personal work from the holidays, and vegetable still-life. I love food.

End of a busy week and month. Here is some recent news:

In early winter I shot some stills and animation sequences in Mobile, Alabama for The Discovery Channel. The images were used for a Koppel on Discovery show called The Last Lynching. The one-hour special about three Americans profoundly affected by incidents of racism premiered on October 13. Here is a trailer. Note the big tree at the end. That's my jam! The effect was created by the wizards at Imaginary Forces, by cutting out stills and applying parallax effects over video and so on. Pretty cool stuff, and I've seen more if it around lately. Anyway, nice to have a hand in some cool effects and a great documentary series.


In the last several months I'd shot a lot of editorial portraits, and they have made to press recently, for (clockwise from upper left) Atlanta Magazine, AARP Bulletin, The Wall Street Journal, The Magazine Group, BusinessWeek, and Modern Painters. Check out this link to the WSJ article and slideshow, which came out just this week. It's an interesting story.

I made a cover and innards for a feature on Southern bouldering legend James Litz for Urban Climber Magazine. I shot with James, one of the strongest boulderers in the world, a couple times in between working on Heart of Stone this winter. Super cool, humble, and stupid strong. Glad he is moving back to the South. Obed ranger Rob Turan (a climbing legend in his own right) ended up spinning a tale for UC on James, so the shots were timely.

I just finished a third advertising campaign for WileyX Eyewear, which we shot over a week in Southern Arizona. It was fun as hell. I'll blog on it soon, after the ads are out.

The Cliffs sent out their beautiful quarterly magazine, published by Redwood Communications. It's around here somewhere and I'll scan some pages in when I get the chance. I've been shooting for the Cliffs for about a year now, mostly on their properties in South and North Carolina. If you know golf, you know the Cliffs. Tiger is building his first signature course there.

They had seen my work in (the now sadly endangered) magazine Garden & Gun last year, and have since hired me to shoot several advertorial stories, on Homes, golf, landscapes, lifestyle, etc.. They have some great properties in BC and Chile as well. better hit the driving range...