McNeil Collaboration with Sealaska

My work with Sealaska has always been very challenging from a creative standpoint, because we're both very ambitious about our collaborative work. It is very fulfilling, because we're both fully engaged with the communities in Southeast Alaska. Since it's a work-in progress, I can't really say more about it except it has literally consumed almost my entire time for more than a month and it is very socially relevant art. After Sealaska publishes the work, I can say more about it. All I can really say is that it has been a grerat honor working with them again and I can't wait to see it in print.

It was quite the task to travel to Juneau, Ketchikan and Anchorage in late February; they were having blizzards in each place, yet I had to go to each place to make specific photographs. As if that were not enough, I lugged along my portable studio strobes and bag of photographic tricks. My high-end Apple laptop was also an essential tool for the project, using CS4 and Lightroom 2 was critical for both technical and creative work. Especially on-the-fly in hotel rooms, like in this photo at the Goldbelt in Juneau. Notice the driving snow out the window!

What was really cool is that much of the new work was shot using the new Canon 5D MKII 21 megapixel camera. I had a chance to run it through some very rugged paces and I must say, it did a great job of keeping up with my demands. I'm very impressed with it. When I get a break from everything, I'll make an entry about the new 5D.

My iPhone really came through in a pinch on the road. I could not find a friend's house, so I entered her address into iPhone, and it took me right to her front door in the snowstorm. Cool.

All this work is a basic reason why I haven't been able to post anything lately. Anyway, back to the art...