This Blog Has Moved!

Well, my fine friends, it's the end of an era over here at emilyshur.blogspot.com. As I discussed in previous posts, my website and blog have been redesigned, and as of today, relaunched. My new site, still at emilyshur.com, has lots of new work. You can now see the beginnings of my cell phone tower project, Nature Calls. You can see a body of work from Japan titled Shizenkan (which translates to "one's own perspective on nature" in English). You can see other new fine art images as well as all of my commercial work.

My Four Eyed Fantasy now has a new home at www.emilyshur.com/blog. I will no longer be updating this blog here. From now on, please go to the new blog, bookmark it, subscribe to it, love it. I'm still working out some wordpress kinks and teaching myself the ins and outs, so things might look and feel a bit strange for a little while. I have imported the entire archive of this blog over yonder, so all of the old goodies are there and hopefully you will find new goodies as well. Thank you so much for reading, and happy new year.

Reunited and It Feels So Good

Me...in My Bathroom on 5th St.

My Parents and Zoe

Lunch With My Grandma

Uptown on A Rainy Night

Bianca on Halloween

Two Dogs in The Bronx

Hank...Pretty Sure We Were at Kiev

My Living Room on 5th St.

A Kid Peeing on The Street

A Diner in New Jersey
All Images © Emily Shur

A long time ago, I had a camera that I loved. It was the Nikon 35Ti, and we were best buddies. I bought it sometime in mid-late 90's, not sure exactly when, and at the time, it was a pretty big purchase for me. It was an expensive point and shoot, made for serious amateurs and professionals who didn't want to lug around an SLR everywhere they went but still wanted that same image quality. I had the camera for years, and it was stolen from my assistant's car in Spanish Harlem, along with a whole bunch of other equipment and my purse, on September 10, 2001. When life changed forever the next day, I had no camera to document what was happening around me. This was definitely one of the hardest things to accept about 9/11 for me. At that point, Nikon was no longer making the 35Ti, and I never acquired the camera again after it was stolen. I made a claim with my insurance company for that camera and my Mamiya RZ kit and whatever other stuff I lost. With that money I bought the Mamiya 7 that I still shoot with all the time today.

So, the other night I was at a holiday party talking to a friend about cameras of yesteryear we have loved and lost. The 35Ti was that camera for me. The husband overheard my conversation and then went and bought me one on Ebay! It arrived a few days later, and I was completely surprised. Here I am, so many years later, able to enjoy this camera again. Then I thought it would be interesting to post some of the pictures I took with my original 35Ti. I've scanned 10 images, and above is a trip down my memory lane.

I chose these images specifically because of when they were shot. These were all made when I was around 21 years old, about 12 years ago. This is pre-9/11 New York. This is before I was ever paid to take a picture, before marriage, way before I moved to LA, before I ever went to Japan, before I fell in love with 4x5, before The Baroness. I look back on this time with very fond memories, but in reality I know there were problems just like any time in life. When all of my camera equipment was stolen back in September of 2001, I was most upset about losing the Nikon 35Ti. I think we feel connections to cameras based on our experiences with them, specifically what images those cameras captured. Sort of a "They were there when..." I will always associate this camera with the beginning of my life in New York. Just like I will always associate my Wista with my husband and the time we have spent driving around together, shooting cell phone towers and strange landscapes. I will always associate my Mamiya 7 with photographing in Japan, even though I've shot so many important images with that camera as I've had it so long at this point.

Anyway, one more year down. Sometimes it's good to look back. Now, I'm gonna look forward. See you in 2010.

In Case You Were Wondering

To everyone who bought my print on collect.give, your money really did go to The Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Research...

========= GENERAL INFORMATION =========

Merchant : Fisher Center For Alzheimers Research

Date/Time : 22-Dec-2009 01:50:46 PM

Transaction ID : 2765070787

========= ORDER INFORMATION =========

Invoice Number :

Description :

Total : US $800.00

Payment Method : Visa

==== BILLING INFORMATION ===

Customer ID :

First Name : Emily

Last Name : Shur

I made the donation in memory of my grandma, Ruth Shur.

Happy holidays to everyone. I'm very excited about some new and exciting things that are coming in the wee beginnings of 2010. One of those things is a freshly redesigned website and blog (I guess that's two things). I'll share once everything is complete.

An Interesting Person

In October, I photographed James Spader for Esquire. It's now out in the January 2010 issue. This was the most nervous I've been before a shoot in a long time. Here's what ran.:

And here's an outtake...one of my favorites:

All Images © Emily Shur

UPDATE: After being asked why I was so nervous about this shoot in particular, I thought to elaborate. There are some subjects that I feel walk onto a set and expect a certain level of talent, professionalism, and confidence from the people around them. These people usually make me a little nervous because I know I have to bring the A Game. This is not to say I don't always bring the A Game on every shoot...blah, blah, blah...but there are times when I know that the subject is not going to want to fuck around. I kind of had this feeling going into the James Spader shoot. I'm a huge fan of his, and I wanted to make a picture of him that made sense. I wanted it to be weird and kind of creepy, yet flattering and sophisticated.

Now, I'm not professing to be the authority on celebrity portraiture, but there are some things I've learned in the past ten years that have helped me feel slightly more prepared and confident going into a shoot that I'm nervous about. There's a skill that good portrait photographers possess, and that skill is the ability to read someone upon first meeting. We have to pick up on subtle things pretty much immediately that you might not normally pick up on if you weren't trying to engage the person or get something out of them. It can't come off as insincere. We have to be endearing and trustworthy. We have to project that we know what we're doing and what we want, even if we don't all the time. I think I am pretty good at figuring people out fairly quickly. Some things I look for first are their desire to experiment and how patient they might be. Do they want to spend time making this right, or is it better for me to make it quick and stay on their good side? Should I push it and ask them to do something outside of their comfort zone or stay in the comfort zone because they seem to like what's going on?

I imagined James Spader as being similar in real life to some his on screen personas. I'm not sure if I was right or wrong, but one thing I did take away about from the shoot was that he wanted to have purpose within the photographs. He didn't want to make crappy pictures, and he didn't want to just get it over with. We discussed every set up beforehand. I think that people who take what they do seriously respond well when we as photographers let them know that we take what we do seriously. I left the shoot with the utmost respect for Mr. James Spader. Plus, we share a love of Top Chef. Food is sometimes really is the great equalizer.

Sad

All Images © Larry Sultan

Very sad today to hear about Larry Sultan passing away at the age of 63. Above are a couple well known images from Pictures From Home and The Valley, two monumental bodies of work that have affected and influenced so many contemporary photographers. I love his work. I am very sorry to hear about someone so talented dying way too young.

Big Baby

Big Baby © Emily Shur

One of many strange sights I saw and photographed in Arizona over Thanksgiving. There will be more soon. I'm not sure what to do with these pictures...I actually shot quite a bit over the course of that trip. I also actually like a lot of the pictures. Now, what becomes of them? Do they get lumped into the ever growing Emily Archive of interesting but singular images? If they did, is that doing them an injustice? I guess that answer comes from the question, "Why do I take these pictures?" If the purpose is to make an epic statement about Arizona, then I probably would keep them separate and go back to Arizona and continue shooting. However, that is not the purpose. The pictures are for me, but I am still not sure where they will ultimately end up.

Pretty Lady

All Images © Emily Shur

I thought it might be time to post a few pictures from my day job. Seems like it's been a while. Above are a few images from my recent shoot with the talented and beautiful Anika Noni Rose. Anika is the voice of Disney's first African-American princess (hence the last shot in princess garb) in The Princess and the Frog which opens this Friday. You can also check out my words of wisdom on celebrity portraiture along with a couple photos in the December issue of PDN as part of their cover story, "Tips for Making the Most of a Celebrity Shoot". It's true that not all celeb shoots are easy. One might say the above shoot was not the easiest I've ever had, but ultimately when you remain calm and let your pictures do the talking everything usually works out just fine.