They’re the little theatre company that could.

For years, Paper Wing Theatre Co. has been persistently producing the most challenging theater in Monterey County, California. They do their plays on shoestring budgets, with beginning performers and in venues that sometimes lacked heat (and often lacked big crowds). This theater company has heart.

And for years, I’ve been photographing their productions in both Salinas and Monterey for their publicity campaigns. The photos went out to local publications; some were printed and hung in the theater’s lobby. Today I’m adding a new place they can be found: in my Photoshelter archive, available for purchase and download.

Over the years, many actors have asked me about getting prints of photos from past productions. They’re all available now, and I’m offering a special coupon to get things started. The first 15 people to use the code “PAPERWING” on checkout will get 30% off their order. I’m keeping the print prices really low, so there’s a real bargain available here for people who hurry.

So whether you appeared in one of the many infamous productions of Rocky Horror or you were part of the huge cast of Guys & Dolls, or you were in the recent multimedia musical The Wall, head on over to the archives and poke around.

Here are a few of my favorites.

I lived in Florida from 1996 to 2000, and one of my big regrets from my time in the Sunshine State was never seeing the Florida Keys. So when my parents said they’d be spending the winter there, I knew it was time to make the trip.

A little background: Around the time I moved to Florida, my parents ditched the house in favor of a 41-foot sailboat. They live on it full-time, spending summers in Maryland and winters where it’s warmer.

This was going to be a short trip for me: Fly into Miami, Greyhound to Mararthon, spend time with the folks, see Key West, go sailing, all in four days. Unfortunately, it rained during two of them — and Florida’s water temperature hadn’t recovered much from the coldest winter in recent memory. Still, I arrived for a beautiful sunset, we went for a great sail (during which dolphins frolicked under the bow of the boat) and the skies parted enough to give us a day of sun in Key West — through late-arriving clouds obscured any sunset.

This was a vacation trip so I didn’t spend a lot of time focused on serious photography, but are a few of my favorite snaps.

I did some band photography this week for my favorite Golden State secessionists, the mighty Cali Nation. These photos were shot on location at Z Minor Sound Studio, owned by Andrew, the band’s frontman and my compadre in audio recording for several years running.

For the above group photo, I used my newest toy, a painter’s pole with a metalhead, allowing photo gear to interface with something from a hardware store. Using the painter’s pole, I dangled a small softbox over Andrew’s head while his daughter pushed the shutter release on my tripod-mounted camera. (So technically, Sarah and I are sharing photo credit.)

One of our end-of-the-decade stories at my newspaper, The Salinas Californian, was a look back on how cellphone technology had changed in the past ten years. I volunteered for the assignment and came up with the above photo.

This was one of my first real attempts at tabletop photography, although I grew up seeing it done frequently. My dad, an accomplished photographer himself, was known as the king of tabletop photography among members of his color slide club. He’d turn our dining room table into a beach, or a winter wonderland using 30 pounds of sugar, but I barely noticed because I was too busy skateboarding.

For this photo, I figured out the lighting for this as I went and took shots at each step.

	STEP ONE: Establish a base exposure for the iPhone screen. Even though I’m in a studio with a bunch of powerful strobes at my disposal, I’m going to use mainly modeling lights for my exposure. I want the live view from the iPhone’s camera to be my starting point, then I’ll light everything else based on that.		STEP TWO: Add a light from above. I’m using a medium softbox, slightly back and angled forward, modeling lamp only. This provides a nice rimlight on the top of the iPhone and a bit of a forward-facing shadow.
	STEP THREE: I aim a light with a grid spot at the front of the old Motorola, which I found by putting out a call to the entire newspaper for old phones. A little Internet research told me that this guy is from 2000.		STEP FOUR: Another light with a grid spot is added, this one from behind, pointing toward the first one but aimed so it hits mostly the Motorola and some of the iPhone. This gives me good separation between the Motorola and the background and a nice highlight on the iPhone.
	STEP FIVE: Now I add the only flash in the photo: A speedlite on very low power, shooting through a Honl snoot, aimed to hit the right sides of the Motorola and the iPhone, as well as light the tabletop. Firing the flash didn’t affect the live view on the iPhone until a moment after, when it winked at us.		STEP SIX: The iPhone actually belongs to photographer Travis Geske, a recent graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, who was hanging out with us at the office for part of the day and gave some pretty good suggestions about lighting. He got a text from a friend during the shoot.
	STEP SEVEN: The flash was lighting too much of the tabletop, so a bit of Cinefoil taped to a light stand formed a nice gobo, casting a shadow across the front of the frame.		STEP EIGHT: All the photos to this point were shot with my 24-70 lens, at about 70mm. I tried my 70-200 from back farther, which made the Motorola appear a lot taller than the iPhone. Which is true, but kind of disorienting in the picture. So I stuck with the 24-70.
	STEP NINE: We’re almost there, but I need a little light on the front of the iPhone — I want to see the button. I add a reflector, white paperboard stuck to a light stand. My first attempt shows some pretty poor placement.		STEP TEN: The second attempt with the reflector is better — a touch of detail is now visible in the iPhone. Remember, it’s not that the reflector is bouncing light into the phone, it’s more like we’re seeing the paperboard in the reflective front of the phone. As in, the reflective surface needs something to look at.

There was actually one more step, because at this point I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. A wind-up LED flashlight provided a touch of blue on the inside rim of the Motorola. You can see it in the setup photo below, along with Travis.

Click the thumbnails below to enlarge.

Really, Venice shouldn’t exist.

The city’s existence is based on a series of extremely unlikely events: Barbarians invade Italy around 500 AD, so the people of Venice sail out to the lagoon to get away from them. Then they drive a bunch of tree trunks into the lagoon floor, build some platforms on top and start building a city that, amazingly, doesn’t sink. Then the Venetians (great sailors) establish trade routes around the world, become filthy rich and powerful, conquer some people, and for a time the small strange unlikely city is one of the world’s greatest superpowers.

Or something like that. Regardless, Venice is just so … bizarre. Not a car in the whole city. Some streets are so narrow you can nearly reach out and touch both walls on either side. The entire place sits just slightly above sea level, so high tide means a flood. And everything is decaying, slowly and elegantly.

Although Venice is (and has been for centuries) a touristy place, it still feels authentic. I loved wandering around the strange little streets, allowing myself to get lost, then reorienting using signs that just point in the general direction of major landmarks. I loved wandering with Amber to St. Mark’s Square after dinner, listening to the orchestras playing outside the historic cafes (like Caffe Florian, in business since 1720!). I loved the odd twists and turns of the city, the way shafts of light snuck into the narrow deep crevices that are the city’s streets, I loved the dead ends, the hidden plazas, the bridges, the crowds and the slow bustle of a living monument to a grand and strange past.

(Click the thumbnails to enlarge … )

Amber and I got married in Big Sur, a wild stretch of the California coast where steep mountains plunge into the sea. Well, if Big Sur was a little warmer, had a smattering of quaint villages clinging to the cliffs and the mountains were stacked with vineyards, it would look a lot like the Cinque Terre.

Something else about the Cinque Terre reminded us of Big Sur: It was on fire. California is the land of wildfires, and Big Sur had some pretty substantial ones a couple years ago. When we arrived at our first stop in the Cinque Terre, Corniglia, we were greeted by smoke rising from the hills and a water-carrying helicopter buzzing overhead. The town wasn’t threatened, but the phone lines were down for awhile.

The five towns of the Cinque Terre are connected by a wonderful walking trail — it hugs the mountainside above the coast. Stretches between towns range from a 20-minute walk to two hours.

The whole time I was in the Cinque Terre villages (except resort-y Monterosso) I felt like I was on a movie set. The streets, more like pathways, were narrow and windy; the buildings, like row houses from the middle ages, stacked together like four-story jigsaw puzzles. The place seemed so unlikely. And so likeable.

(Click the thumbnails to enlarge … )

It’s hard to grasp what it means for a city to be nearly 3000 years old until you go there and walk around. And walk around we did: Amber and I ended every night of the first stop on our three-week Italian honeymoon with sore feet.

In the Roman forum, we walked along a stone road that the ancient emperors walked on. We saw the mound where they burned Julius Caesar. Piles of ancient rubble and remnants of buildings thousands of years old stood around us, all around the city. And all around them, modern Romans lived out their normal lives, the monuments to history not just tourist attractions, but an integral part of the living city. A Roman might say, “To get to my apartment, turn left at the light after to Colosseum … ”

In the U.S., an “historical attraction” might be only 100, 150 years old. If you want to see something really old here, you go to Philadelphia and see things about 250 years old. In Italy, that’s nothing.

In addition to all the history, Amber and I were struck by something else we saw during all our walking: People. People outside, enjoying public spaces, being social. Sitting on the steps and sharing a bottle of wine or strolling along a street, the amount of outdoor social activity we saw in Rome made us feel like we’re really missing out on something in American culture, where we so often stay inside, and where gatherings of large crowds are often viewed by authorities with suspicion.

So I left Rome with a changed worldview. And it was a great place to start a honeymoon.

(Click the thumbnails to enlarge … )

It’s the newspaper photojournalist’s monthly ritual: When the calendar page flips, you flip through the last four weeks of photos and enter the monthly clip contests.

Some months I’m stoked: Great stuff, hard to narrow it down. Some months I suck. (Some months I suck so bad I don’t enter.)

This month I’m stoked.

(Click the thumbnails above.)