New editorial publications

New editorial publications in the spring issue of Naturally Danny Seo

In the first week of January of this year I photographed Kara Thoms here in Santa Barbara. Kara is based here and operates her boutique from a dreamy A-frame house in the mountains overlooking Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands. I happened to know Kara from a shoot (she used to model) from may years ago for the Walking Company so it was fun to reconnect.

In mid December of 2020 I drove through the Santa Ynez Valley and crossed the ranges into the Cuyama Valley and ultimately into the town of Cuyama to photograph the revived Cuyama Buckhorn. A historic roadside motel the Buckhorn is under new ownership and has been receiving an amazing refresh. Close proximity to the Carrizo Plains, a National Monument containing the largest single native grassland remaining in California, makes the Buckhorn a great escape from Los Angeles, Ojai or Santa Barbara. The drive along Highway 33 between Cuyama and Ojai is one of the prettiest drives and supposedly one of the best areas to view fall colors in California.

And finally I drove down to Chino and visited Eastern Leaf Nursery to photograph their Bonsai operation. The depth of history regarding Bonsai is remarkable and I even received a little gift in form an olive tree Bonsai (I love Olive trees).

You can view all of these stories in the current (Spring 2021) issue of Naturally Danny Seo.

Carey Hart for EasyRiders

Editorial shoot featuring Carey Hart for Easyriders Magazine

Carey Hart mid air

Before the shut down resulting from the Covid epidemic I photographed an editorial for EasyRiders Magazine featuring Carey Hart. Maybe you’ve seen the short film we shot at the same time in a previous post but here are some still portraits and action shots.

portrait of Carey Hart

portrait of Carey Hart

This was a small crew shoot but we managed to shoot stills and motion of three different scenarios that day. Portraits and lifestyle stuff around Carey’s hangar, some motocross action and some streetbike stuff on his Indian.

portrait of Carey Hart

Carey Hart being the motocross rider he is, the dirt bike part was just crazy to watch. He has his own track on his property and we followed him out to it, him of course getting there before us. When we came up to it he was just flying over the massive table at the center of it. He then proceeded to jump over a fence for fun. Watch the film for some impressions, its good!

portrait of Carey Hart

Right before our shoot Carey had finished an asphalt pump track behind his hangar. It actually was so new the edges were still soft, but it was rideable. So my assistant (the great Tate Larrick) and I took a BMX and a skateboard out there and had a fun little session in the late evening light to finish up the day. Amazing!

Many Thanks to the crew at Easyriders and Carey Hart and his team who were incredible nice, supportive and accommodating!

Scooter in the Skatepark

Scooter in the early morning hours in the Santa Barbara Skatepark

This image and light was the inspiration to that earlier post with the black and white image of the skateboarder in the Santa Barbara skatepark. This is at around 6am and that soft light coming from the left was natural sunlight filtered through some light clouds. Just so pretty…

Glacier Point and Half Dome

Glacier point, Half Dome and a contemplative mystery woman

Actually, this isn’t a mystery woman in the sense that I don’t know who it is, I am well aware of who this is. But Half Dome in the background is (or should be) a feature that does not need to be explained, and I liked the juxtaposition of that.
This was taken during a recent road trip. Trying to stay socially distant while traveling…

Portrait in the Pacific Ocean

A moody portrait of a swimmer in the ocean in Santa Barbara

I kayaked along an early morning swim of friends of mine the other day and took this image at the beginning. It wasn’t particularly warm and it was definitely moody. Low hanging marine layer but a little wind as well.
The swim left Hendry’s Beach and went to Shoreline Beach in Santa Barbara, about 3.8 miles. In the kayak it was a comfortable cruise but swimming looked a little painful. Especially when they had to swim through thick kelp beds. More images coming soon…

Portrait of Skateboarder in Santa Barbara

Black and White portraits of a teenage skateboarder doing tricks with some attitude in the Santa Barbara skatepark.

I’ve been spending some time at the Santa Barbara skatepark recently… at six in the morning… My son likes to go early so he has the place to himself. Lucky for him I have been in skateboarding for the past 30 years so I am willing. I noticed how beautiful the light is in the skatepark at that time so I asked another friend of ours if he’d join to take some action shots and portraits.
For any of you who are familiar with my work, this is the kid from the Flying Baby photograph that was published in Friendship, Family, Love & Laughter in 2009.

Editorial Publications

Editorial publications in the current issue of Naturally Danny Seo Magazine

I have three stories in the current issue of Naturally Danny Seo Magazine and this one is a odd one. This was the first editorial job I photographed after the shelter in place order in March and nobody could travel or put together photo productions. So Danny came up with the idea of printing out photos of products that needed to be photographed for this story and then placing them around my property here in Santa Barbara. A creative solution to a complicated challenge. Shooting a commercial production like this is a little more nerve-wracking and logistically complicated but for this editorial I was left to play around and just over-shoot it a little.

The below story was shot in Minneapolis and an image from it ended up on the cover of the magazine. Always nice! We shot this right before the Covid-19 shut down and I got back to Santa Barbara before air travel got restricted.

And finally a Yoga story I shot earlier in the year at Rancho Valencia resort in San Diego. We shot this early in the morning and I was wearing a Patagonia Puff Jacket… Erika Gibson (yogi) rocked it in the cold morning air!

Portrait of Caroline Marks at the Surfranch

Portrait and action shot of pro surfer Caroline Marks for Red Bull at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA.

When I was at the Surfranch for Red Bull photographing portraits of Carissa Moore (see post HERE) I also shot portraits of ripper Caroline Marks. We did a few different set ups but the one below was my favorite. Dark background and natural light is hard to not make look cool. And Caroline’s blue eyes just look stunning here.

portrait of Caroline Marks at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA

I also got a sweet little action shot of Caroline ripping it up in the water. It was amazing to watch her surf ALL DAY LONG. The amount of energy and endurance is borderline scary.

Caroline Marks surfing at the Surfranch in Lemoore, CA.

I’ll post the other athlete portraits I took that day of Jordy Smith, Kolohe Andino and Kanoa Igarashi soon. A fun day shooting portraits of some amazing athletes at the Surfranch!

You can find some of the images I shot on Red Bull’s content pool website.

License my images

From Portraits to Travel imagery, license my work on Gallerystock.com

I almost always have a camera on me when doing any sort of activity. This means I end up with a lot of random images that don’t really fit in my portfolio and/or general marketing strategy. I am a portrait photographer. That is my specialty. It does not mean I don’t photograph anything else though.

Just recently I received an email from a fellow photographer who appreciated me showing a “range” of imagery on my site. It was nice to hear but at the same time a little confusing since, in my mind, I focused on showing portraiture pretty heavily over the past years. But it also rang true, I do have range and it stems from always shooting. Especially for editorial assignments I end up photographing all kinds of different topics. From portraits to architecture and travel to food, I have shot it all. I photographed while riding an elephant, dangling on a vertical cliff hundreds of feet of the ground, underwater and comfortably in a studio. But I do consider myself a portrait photographer and that is what I market myself as. So what do I do with the thousands and thousands of images shot on location, vacation and in between? They go into stock.

I have been involved with the stock industry for over a decade and I have watched profit decline, it’s not been pretty. When agencies introduced the Royalty Free model it became a race to the bottom and I have a feeling that agencies are just now trying to repair that damage. Little late guys…

Anyways, you can find a selection of my work on Gallerystock.com. Portraits, documentary, abstract and travel imagery from locations like Japan, Sri Lanka, India, California, Austria and more…

Portraits at the Surfranch

Shooting portraits of surfers for Red Rull at Kelly Slater’s Surfranch in Lemoore, CA

Following up on the last post, here is a vlog documenting the shoot I did for Red Bull at the Surfranch. I took portraits of Carissa Moore, Jordy Smith, Kolohe Andino, Caroline Marks and Kanoa Igarashi throughout the day. Check it out!

portrait of Constantin von Jascheroff

Natural light portrait of German actor Constantin von Jascheroff in Berlin.

Constantin von Jascheroff by Jonas Jungblut

I was in Berlin recently and met up with Constantin von Jascheroff for a quick portrait shoot. We have been working on these portraits for over a decade now. Everytime I am in Berlin we meet and take some portraits. I’ll post some more over the next weeks, but this one stood out. We had shot for a while and ended up in this location (his front door with a long dark hallway behind him). He shaved his face except for his mustache for this last set up. and when he told me that he had just finished dubbing Tarantino’s latest release “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (starring Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie) I couldn’t help but tell him he reminded me of Pitt.

Natural light portrait

Natural light portrait of artist Nikola Bartenbach in Austria.

portrait of Nikola Bartenbach

I am currently in Austria working on a few personal projects. One of those is portraying local people and recently I photographed artist Nikola Bartenbach.

This was photographed with no light modification. He was standing in a doorway with a dark garage behind him and the light just wrapped around him like this. Finding the right light for portraits is often times easier than one would think, or maybe I have done it for long enough to where it just seems to be like that.

When you are on the road and can’t bring light modifiers or don’t have access to any being able to see the light is essential. Travel portraiture mostly relies on the right light but the same practice can be applied to a more organized portrait. Just spending a few minutes looking around the area and locating a spot that is naturally suited for a portrait can make all the difference.

HD Cinemagraph from Nojoqui Falls

High quality HD Cinemagraph by the creek at Nojoqui Falls

playing with a cinemagraph during a quick excursion to Nojoqui Falls. The trail was closed and we were told by the ranger not to disregard the closer since it was raining heavily and the hillside was in danger of sliding. Anyways, I set up the camera by the creek and took footage to create this cinemagraph.

This is an HD cinemagraph as well. Not a gif. I created it in Photoshop and exported as a video file. Some creative embed coding later and here you have a high quality hd cinemagraph!

Adventure on Santa Rosa Island

Beauty on the beach of Santa Rosa Island

Beach Beauty on Santa Rosa

yes, yes, of course this is a staged photograph… But it’s pretty, right? Wouldn’t you want to be there?

I photographed this on Santa Rosa Island during a fun adventure to the Channel Islands. Santa Rosa is about 30 miles off the coast from Santa Barbara and depending on your boat and the surface of the Santa Barbara Channel it takes at least an hour to get there. You can’t land the boat so be prepared to travel to the beach by means of swimming. Once that is achieved you will enjoy peace and serenity! …and maybe a wandering beach beauty!

Encounter at the Salton Sea

when a photograph magically presents itself

fisherman at the Salton Sea by Jonas Jungblut

A few years back I went on a photoshoot for L1 Premium Goods at the Salton Sea in California. I drove my Vanagon from Santa Barbara down there so it could be used as a prop. The moment I pulled up to the water’s edge this scene presented itself to me. All I had to do is press the shutter and take the photograph. The image was later selected by the Creative Review and printed in their annual book.

It’s amazing how having your camera always on your side can allow for images like these. In this case it was my Fuji Xpro1 rangefinder. The camera is small enough to just carry around with you all the time and I photographed many scenes with it and its follow up model, the Xpro2, simply because I had the camera on me when the image presented itself.

Santa Barbara trail running

photographing running on and off trail in Santa Barbara

trail running in Santa Barbara by photographer Jonas Jungblut

I am lucky to have a solid runner as a buddy so we head out every now and then to photograph some running for stock or portfolio images here in Santa Barbara. The terrain is perfect for running of all kinds. From trail running to urban running, Santa Barbara has it covered. Difficulty from easy to painful, all here…

urban running in Santa Barbara by photographer Jonas Jungblut

In addition to all the terrain, Santa Barbara also offers pretty ideal weather year round. Running in shorts and only a shirt is usually possible throughout the winter.

All these elements combined make for a perfect backdrop to photograph running around here.

trail running in Santa Barbara by photographer Jonas Jungblut

Portrait of Santa Barbara Supervisor Das Williams for The Town Market

Photographing local politicians

Das Williams by Santa Barbara portrait photographer Jonas Jungblut

I have been working closely with The Town Market here in Santa Barbara and part of what we have been doing is documenting (in this case taking portraits) of local people that are having an impact on the community. Das Williams came up and having run into him from time to time over the past decade I was excited to finally be able to photograph him.

We met at his house and I found a spot to put up this blue background. I lit him with a Profoto monoblock but then also decided to use natural light for a variation. The above portrait is the natural light version, it worked well with the pastel colors of the background and his shirt. Shot on the 501cm Hasselblad and Kodak Portra 400 film.

portrait of a spear fisherman in Santa Barbara

the challenges of underwater photography

There are some technical challenges to be considered when photographing with professional equipment in the water (and believe me I know all about technical issues. I once drowned $5000 worth of camera gear in a leaky housing off the coast of Tofino, B.C. during a shoot). But they can usually be solved with money. You just throw enough money at the challenge and it goes away. Not so with the practical challenges. You have to keep yourself above the water. But you are missing at least one arm and hand combo to aid with that since you are holding the camera. There are currents, waves, wildlife, all messing with you. Then you can barely frame through the viewfinder while trying to stay afloat. Changing any setting to adjust for exposure is a pain. There are drops of water on the front lens… the list goes on and eventually hits the point where you have to be cool with swimming where there might be sharks lurking.

But all that makes for images taken in the water being just kinda special. Underwater or in-water photography has definitely become easier over the years but it’s still difficult to master.

The above portrait was taken off the coast of Santa Barbara. I was following a friend around while he was spearfishing. He was actively trying to catch some fish so he didn’t waste time posing for me and I had to guess where he would pop up after being “under” for a while. Fun exercise…

Portrait of Cisco Pineda in Pasadena

One of the portraits from an editorial shoot featuring Cisco Pineda of Cisco Brothers Sustainable Furniture. Photographed at Cisco’s house in Pasadena.

Cisco cooked a fantastic lunch for us, one of the perks of being an editorial photographer: sometimes the subjects treat you to something truly unique…