2010 – a retrospective
2010 was somewhat of a crazy year. I worked my fingers to the bone to make Haiti projects happen. It was some of the most exhausting, yet most rewarding work of my life and has defined the year.
While the early part of year was spent travelling a lot, since Sept I’ve divided my time between New York where I am interning with photographer Annie Leibovitz and breaks in Florida for private commissions or to celebrate various holidays. I’ll be in New York until March at which point I return to the UK, then 2011 will really take shape.
I took a minute to go through all of my photo projects, flight receipts and projects and made a list of all the trips and shoots I did this year. Below is an outline of my trips, with the reasons for those trips given below. Not all shots are included, but noteworthy occasions and projects are included. Where published, each item includes a link to the final work. A lot more is in existence and will come out of the next few months.
This list is mostly for myself, something I want to publish so I have a record of it in years to come but you might find it interesting. It starts on 1 Dec 2009 because I feel it was the start of the travel craze that didn’t take a break until the summer of 2010:
All links (in blue) open in a new window
1 – 7 Dec 09 – Monterrey, Mexico &
7-18 Dec 09 – Outlying, Deserted Islands, Belize
- Fashion photographs for model Barbara Schneider in Mexico and on a yacht in the Caribbean.
24-31 Dec 09 – London, England
- Christmas and New Year’s break
5-7 Jan - London, England
9 Jan – London, England
1 Feb – 6 Feb 2010 – Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- First trip to the earthquake zone to document relief efforts – this trip was self-funded and involved flying via New York to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and then taking a 7 hour bus ride into Port-Au-Prince, a surreal experience. See all of my Haiti related posts here.
7-12 Feb 2010 – New York, USA
- Met Lara Jade for the first time. She introduced me to Joey L and also got me a contact at Annie Leibovitz Studios that eventually lead to an interview for an internship there – which I’m now doing.
14-21 Feb 2010 – Berlin, Germany
- Thorsten Overgaard’s fantastic photo seminar. My images from that time are here.
3 March – Philadelphia, USA
- Covered a fashion show and fundraising event for Haiti, organised by Isabella Garcia for Help for Orphans International, a charity that helps improve the life of orphans worldwide
4-12 March - Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- Haiti trip #2 – this time squarely for the Future of Haiti orphanage and Help for Orphans International. See all of my Haiti related posts here.
14-15 March – Los Angeles, USA
- - Kerri Kasem and Nikki Sixx studio shoot during the recording of ‘Sixx Sense’ for Getty Images – the image of Nikki Sixx is now used widely online.
- - Jack Osborne, Cassandra Hepburn, Kerri Kasem, Josh Hawkins, Haiti interview on the KPod Podcast.
- - Kerri Kasem and Ashley Marriot Malibu shoot – ‘Goddesses of Radio’, now published in H Magazine in the US.
20-21 March – Berlin, Germany
- Family Reunion and snapshooting around the city
26 March – London, England
- Inspire Photographic meetup, organised by Lara Jade and myself. – Press release for the event is here. It was featured across the web. We also have a twitter feed for it here
30 April – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA
- The Future of Haiti Fundraising event exhibition, I went to support my friend Brad Kugler in his efforts to help the orphanage with an exhibition in Florida
30 April – 22 June – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA
- Stay in Florida with a bunch of portraiture, a trip to Houston, Texas to photograph Isabella Garcia personal images, another trip to Miami to photograph the opening of Geebin Flores‘ store opening on South Beach, another trip to Orlando to photograph the launch of Rebuild Globally, an initiative to build up healthier environments in distressed communities. They promote recycling and eco-friendly development, gainful employment, agriculture and education. The trip was however mostly focused on portraiture.
26 June – Brighton, England
- An exhibition featuring 8 of my pieces from Haiti, exhibited to benefit the Future of Haiti Orphanage. Under the Banner of ‘Unite Brighton’ and attended by the Mayor of Brighton, the exhibition drew 7 local artists who all exhibited their works in the seafront Umi Hotel.
1-5 July – Roskilde, Denmark
- Coverage of stage acts and atmosphere at Europe’s third largest Music Festival. The full Getty coverage is here. The acts included Muse, Biffy Clyro, Prince, Florence + The Machine, Alice in Chains, Bad Lieutenant, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni BA, CV Jorgensen, Den Sorte Skole, Efterklang, Gorillaz, Jack Johnson, Julian Marley, Kasabian, Pavement, Patti Smith, Pendulum, The Prodigy, The Temper Trap, Vampire Weekend and many others.
9 July - London, England
15 July - London, England
- Shot the album cover for Derek Booth’s debut album – unpublished
16 July – London, England
- Photographed the Leuka Mini Masters for Premier Medical Group, attended by Hugh Grant, Phil Glenister, Nigel Harman, Mark Foster (Olympian and swimmer), Dougray Scott, Rob Brydon, Diana Stewart, Jamie Bamber and many other celebrities. Images are also on Getty Images.
18 July – London, England
- The first shoot on a project to photograph high-skill hip-hop dancing competitions with DJ D-LO – unpublished.
23 July – London, England
- Jessica Lauren Four project, shot album cover and publicity shots – unpublished
5 August - London, England
- Shot Barbara Lanik’s publicity images – they are the cover of an upcoming magazine which is unpublished yet, but her website has some of the images.
6 August – London, England
- Publicity production stills for Nadav Wiesel’s ‘Femme Fatalle’ a musical theatre extravaganza, produced by Frazer Brown. Most images unpublished as yet but there’s a preview below:
7-8 August – Lympne, Kent, England
- Photographed the Hevy Music Festival for the 2nd year in a row for Getty Images and Redferns. See the coverage here.
10-14 August – Copenhagen, Denmark
25 August – London, England
- Photographed the launch of Peroni’s latest campaign – unpublished.
27-29 August – Reading, England
- Photographed the Reading Music Festival for Festival Annual and Getty Images – It’s now out as a beautiful book called ‘Festival Annual 10′. See my post about it here.
1 Sept – London, England
- Photographed the Square Mile Magazine Masked Ball, hosted by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. Photographed at the invitation of Square Mile magazine and provided coverage to Getty Images.
2 Sept – London, England
- Photographed the new yearly publicity shot for Niki Lanik, international race driver and youth for human rights advocate. He passes the shot out as an autograph card, which is quite funny, I see it randomly when I travel around the globe.
5 Sept – London, England
7 Sept – London, England
11 Sept – London, England
- Alex Segal Publicity shot shoot – unpublished as yet. Unpublished as yet but a preview is below.
12 Sept – New York City, USA
- Start of internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios and 6 months stay in New York
16 Sept – New York City, USA
24-26 Sept – Tampa Bay, USA
- Various personal shoots.
9 Oct – Queens, New York
- Holt McCallaney Publicity Shoot. Holt is the lead of new FX TV show ‘Lights Out’ airing in 2011 – unpublished as yet but preview below.
15-17 Oct – Hamptons/Sag Harbor, Long Island, USA
20 Oct – New York City, USA
22 Oct – New York City, USA
- Publicity and product shots for a fashion brand revival – unpublished as yet, but more will come from this project in 2011.
24 Oct – New York City, USA
- Publicity shots for Matthew James Thomas, the alternate lead for the new Spiderman Musical on Broadway, with music by Bono and The Edge of U2 and directed by Julie Taymor, with the scoring by David Campbell. Check it out on my facebook page here or see preview below.
28-31 Oct – Tampa Bay, Florida, USA
- Photographed Halloween Party at a friend’s house in Florida and celebrated Halloween, such a wonderful piece of american culture.
31 Oct – 24 Nov – New York City, USA
- Returned to New York City to continue my internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios
7 Nov - New York City, USA
- Stage and publicity stills of Michael Hall’s alternative theatre project ‘Pieces of Paper’, an alternative treatment to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in 2011 – Unpublished as yet.
24 Nov – 6 Dec – Tampa Bay, Florida
- Came to the area to do a couple of personal shoots and to celebrate Thanksgiving.
6 Dec – New York City, USA
- Continue internship at Annie Leibovitz Studios
10 Dec – Philadelphia, USA
- Publicity shots, family portraits and portraits of private client – unpublished.
20 Dec – New York City, USA
22 Dec – 3 Jan 2011 – Tampa Bay, Florida
- Christmas Break
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2011 is a year that is wide open. I will finish my internship, return to London and see what happens from there. Many projects are in the pipeline or being talked about. Let’s see what the 2011 retrospective will be like when it comes to January 2012!
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H Magazine Editorial – Goddesses of Radio
We shot this editorial in Malibu, California in March with Kerri Kasem and Ashley Marriott of The K-Pod, a very cool podcast. It’s now a major feature in H Magazine, a glossy mag popular in LA and New York.
We shot this in a beautiful meadow in Malibu, with a great crew. I had come off a plane from LA a couple of hours before the shoot, having just flown in from Haiti with about an hour of sleep. Kerri had assembled a great team & with lots of coffee, great energy and great people we got a shoot together that I’m absolutely in love with. I’m so happy to be able to finally share these images. I’ve been itching to get them out for over 6 months…
Photographer: Felix Kunze
Make-up: Dean Bryant
Hair: Angelica Curiel
Assistant: Elijah Black
You can still get H Magazine on select newstands across the US.
Behind the scenes:
Hair/Make-up and styling in full swing.
Kerri being interviewed for a TV show while getting her hair and make-up done at the same time.
Ashley getting her make-up and hair done.
If you like this, you can follow me on twitter or get in touch on facebook.
Snapshots from Berlin #2
If you came to the blog looking for Haiti, click here.
I went to Berlin again, this time for a family trip. Here’s some images from my trip:
Reminds me of 1984 somehow
Sony Center
Jewish Memorial Jumper
Gefaengnis is the German for Prison
Friedrichstrasse Train station
If you like this, you may like my previous Berlin photos.
Haiti, Los Angeles & Celebrities – The Kerri Kasem Podcast
My recent trip to Haiti was concluded by a trip to LA to do a shoot with the beautiful ladies of the Kerri Kasem Podcast and to speak about my photography and work in Haiti.
We ended up recording two shows, the first was to talk about our fantastic Malibu shoot (watch this space for photos from that) and photography in general. We talked about everything from Poison Oak to Annie Leibovitz and Patti Smith. I even managed to throw in a bit of talk about my favorite subject – philosophy of photography.
Listen to it by clicking here – I think we’ll manage to make you giggle.
The second podcast was a little more serious. We got a bunch of people together that had been to Haiti and done great work out there. We had beautiful Cassandra Hepburn (from Tarantino’s ‘Hell Ride’), the fascinating Josh Hawkins who worked tirelessly to help in the Miami University Field Hospital and Jack Osborne, son of Ozzy and Sharon. He went to Haiti with Sean Penn’s group and is just a really cool down to earth adrenaline junkie. We chatted about what needed to be done to ensure the future of Haiti, what YOU can do right now to help prepare Haiti for the inevitable rainy season and the diseases it will bring and we told stories about our experiences in Haiti. A few tears were shed but we hope we communicated some of the optimism of the situation and the actions that can be taken by every one of us to help. I talked also about my work with Help for Orphans and the amazing Future of Haiti orphanage, both of which readers of this blog will be hearing more about.
To listen to the Haiti podcast, click here.
L-R Josh Hawkins, Cassandra Hepburn, Felix Kunze, Kerri Kasem, Jack Osborne
If you listen to the Haiti show, you can hear the moment when I took this picture.
If you liked this, why not check out the overview of my first Haiti trip on the blog.
Haiti Preview
I’ve just returned from Haiti on my second trip. I was there working with Help for Orphans International. I spent a lot of time at the Future of Haiti Orphanage which is where most of these images are from.
While I get all the images ready, I thought I’d provide a little preview here; incaptioned images just as a teaser. Keep connected on twitter, facebook or subscribe to the blog feed to keep updated on my images from Haiti and what’s happening with the orphans.
Haiti – An overview
One of the biggest hurdles we photographers face is the ability or indecision of how to accurately present our work. There’s so much that goes into each photograph, so many facets to each situation and so many stories. I recently gave a couple of slide-show presentations of my work in Haiti. I had just over 100 slides picked out to tell a bit of a story. The situation in Haiti is too complex to try communicate it in a short preview of images.
Having thought long and hard about how to adequately represent my work in Haiti, I went with Thorsten Overgaard’s suggestion of turning the slide-show presentations I’ve done in person into a voice annotated slideshow and put it on my website.
I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating these images. Watch this in full screen if you can.
Haiti – an Overview from felix kunze on Vimeo.
A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.
Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.
A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.
Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.
Felix is leaving tomorrow (1st of March) to go on his second Haiti trip. To follow along, follow on twitter at www.twitter.com/felixkunze
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There’s a digest of the images used in the slideshow, but without captions here: http://www.felixkunze.com/cache/haiti-overview-images/
To see further posts from me regarding Haiti, click here. Be sure to check back on the blog as more content will be added from my Haiti trips.
To give, please consider donating to the orphanage I was working with: TheFutureOfHaiti.org or to help internally displaced persons survive the rainy season, go to Shelterbox.org Another fantastic organization that is also working with the Future of Haiti Orphanage is Helpfororphans.org
Anything you give will help.
Travel travel travel
The next month will see me in no less than 9 separate locations on earth.
I’m putting aside commercial work and other commitments to embark on a second photographic trip to Haiti. I will be working on several projects, this time in a more structured fashion. I’ll be out there with Help For Orphans International as well as working with some other projects – more on that after the fact. I know that I will definitely be photographing about 100 more orphans in the same style I did on my last trip.
There’s also tie-ins with media and radio.
My trip will start on Monday, 1st of March, I’m headed to New York City. There’s something really cool happening there that I can’t yet talk about, but will reveal in good time.
On Wednesday, 3rd of March I head down to Philadelphia, I’ll attend a Help for Orphans fundraiser.
On Thursday, 4th of March, we’re headed out to Haiti via the Dominican Republic. I’ll be there for about 8 days, at which point I fly to Miami to spend around 24 hours on the 13th of March in the Tampa Bay area and wrapping up edits and loose ends from my Haiti trip. Then it’s an early morning flight to LA on the 14th where I will spend about 72 hours. I’ll speak on a big radio show and podcast about my work in Haiti. I’m leaving LA on the 16th, arriving back in London on the 17th.
Meetups:
For people in New York, if you want to meet up, I want to get coffee or dinner on the 2nd. I’ll be able to tell you all about my exciting news in NY on that day, but only in person. Message me for details and to arrange coming along.
In the Tampa Bay area, I want to do a meetup after another event I’m attending on the 13th of March. It will be late night chats and drinks somewhere. Message me for details!
For LA, my idea is to have a bit of a social on the evening of the 15th. I’ll have recorded my radio segment and will want to hang out, probably in Silverlake somewhere (close friends will already know the venue). Again – message me for details.
After that I’ll be heading back home to London for just over 24 hours and then it’s back to Berlin, this time for some family engagements.
That means I’ll be back in London properly on around the 24th of March, probably feeling a fair amount more tired that I feel right now, but with great stories to tell and many many pictures to show!
Sorry for the ambiguous blog post, the details will flesh themselves out as my trip goes on – My ‘placemarkers’ right now are my 7 booked flights, everything will revolve around those and updates will come daily on my twitter page or you can head over to my Where is Felix page to get location based updates.
Berlin February 2010
Berlin is the city of my birth, but this time I’m here for Thorsten Overgaard’s photo seminar.
I like to attend his seminars because they push me to do some street stuff, help me go over the basics and he’s always such sophisticated and intriguing company.
As luck would have it, I’m meeting him again briefly in NY soon.
Thorsten runs a series of Seminars that help anyone get started in photography. There’s more info on Thorsten’s site here. As part of the seminar there is a section on street photography. I enjoy it because I don’t do it enough. Of course I end up doing a bunch of other stuff and always gravitate towards the more portrait style shots as you can see below.
It’s all a bit of photo fun after the more serious (in comparison) work in Haiti.
More images after the jump
Documenting relief efforts in Haiti
You’ve no doubt heard of the situation of the earthquake that has devastated large swathes of Haiti.
I’ve put this all over twitter and facebook, but I’ve just booked my flight to New York as I’ve been asked to come document relief efforts in relief. There are efforts being coordinated in NYC that I’ll be photographing as well as following a team of volunteers and medical personnel to Haiti. I will be in Haiti for about a week. Aid flights are sporadic and I don’t want to assume that I can get on the first one out. A medically trained person has priority, as do many other’s more skilled than I. My trip to New York has been set up under my own steam, I will have assistance to get out to Haiti once I am there. Accommodation will likely be in tents outside, on a camping mat and sleeping bag, all of which will be in my luggage.
While there are lot of news photographers out there, I will be concentrating on showing stories, showing how the relief work is helping the people of Haiti. There’s a lot of good being done in the area. People’s lives are being rebuilt and medical assistance is getting through to some areas. The best efforts of all the international relief cannot bring food and water to areas that are desperately inaccessible but that’s no reason not to try.
I’ve heard about a team of film-makers following a doctor around Haiti as part of some documentary footage being filmed – I am not going to be involved in anything like that. I want to come back with images that show the hope and the grace that results form someone being helped put their life back in order, similar to what I did in India.
If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I’ll have intermittent access. My work is going up to various organisations that I’m working with I’ll also be putting some stuff on twitter and facebook. To follow me on twitter go to www.twitter.com/felixkunze
My ultimate goal is to help bring the good side of what is now happening in Haiti out, to show people that there is hope, and through this encourage more people to give, more people to do something and help put the situation into perspective.
I am looking for further funding too, there’s always more I can bring to the area. We need supplies of all sorts. But even if you can’t help this trip directly, please give to the red cross or any other reputable organization in your area that is doing something to help.
Stay tuned for more.
Snapshot – somewhere between Auckland and Sydney
This March I had the pleasure of being upgraded to first class in return for Quantas rerouting us via Auckland. It didn’t take much for the airline to ‘convince’ us to accept the terrible hardship of flying via New Zealand in exchange for a full flat bed on the way from LA to Sydney. We were at Auckland airport for a couple of hours and I was snapping away during the sunrise, the light in the southern hemisphere is so different. This shot came form the plane. Something about the way the light came through the aircraft’s window, the time of day and the angle of the sun created these beautiful hues.
The story of two Mumbai slum dwellers and what they taught me about photography
I was in one of Mumbai’s slums. I had made a point that I would visit slums and photograph. I would go into slums with an Indian friend and start speaking to families randomly, asking questions about how they lived, what they did for a living and asking to photograph inside their homes. Each one had an interesting story, each one was mind-blowing. On one of my slum trips my friend and I had gone off the beaten track to inspect a suspect-looking hump of discarded metal shreds. (more…)