The Caffeinated Falcon

5 Things I learned about shooting in the cold (or how I didn’t freeze to death)

1.  Dress warm.  No really. Oh, and you’re gear too.  -  It’s not so much the cold air but the wind in it that air that will make 19 degrees feel more like -10.   Fjällräven was kind enough to equip the crew with their jackets and at first, my biggest complaint was “how is that huge jacket going to fit in my already full luggage?”  Vanity aside, the jacket was perfect for Greenland.   I also purchased plenty of hand warmers, a 40-pack which I used entirely for the the gear cases.  Cold weather causes the chemical reactions in batteries to run slower and in essence, they drain quickly even when not in use. 

2.  Be prepared for the bad weather - Day 2 into our shoot schedule and we encountered bad weather.   Severe wind and snow delayed planes that were due to arrive in Nuuk.  This caused a ripple effect and we ultimately missed our flight because it simply didn’t show up.  We scrubbed our plans for a shoot up north and had to make due in Nuuk.  

3. Want to use a monitor? Better yet, use the Zacuto Gratical - There was snow everywhere.  Plenty to white balance off of, but plenty to reflect bright light that makes it difficult to see an image on the monitor, even with a shade. Zacuto was kind enough to send me the Gratical, an extremely sharp viewfinder (w/ peaking!) that also allows the shooter to send an additional feed to another monitor for the producer - because it’s ok if they have to strain their eyes. 

4.  Over-the-ear headphones make the best ear muffs - self explanatory.

5.  Wool is your best friend - Wool, especially super-soft merino wool, offers several unique advantages over cotton:

Unlike cotton, wool is an great insulator. When it's cold out your feet will be toasty and warm in your wool socks.

Wool can absorb a high amount of moisture — much more than cotton. Wool can actually hold a third of its weight in moisture before it even starts to feel "wet."

Wool keeps its insulating properties while wet, which is perfect for sweaty feet.

Not only that, but wool also dries much more quickly than cotton or other synthetics.

7 Days in Jordan, PART III - Shooting Yahoo! Travel’s “A Broad Abroad”

Day 5 - Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum, also know as the Valley of the Moon, is a valley cut into the sandstone & granite rock in South Jordan. Our shoot was aimed at taking a jeep tour of the valley and spending the night at the Captain's Camp, a Bedouin hosted affair with amazing views of the valley and stars.  By far my favorite night, filled with a meal that was cooked 3hrs in the ground, a campfire that roared to life, singing under night sky and finally a sleep under the starts, literally.  I opted out of sleeping in one of the goat haired tents and instead on a mat next the campfire as the stars gleamed above me.

Day 6 - Dead Sea

Covered in grit and dust, it was time for the crew to head to the Dead Sea for an episode on this amazing "Salt Sea".  The surface and shores of the Dead Sea are 423 metres (1,388 ft) below sea level, making it Earth’s lowest elevation on land.  Biblically, the Dead Sea was a place of refuge for King David. It was one of the world’s first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, even balms for Egyptian mummification.

Day 7 - Amman

With most of our work completed, we were back in Amman one last time to capture more sights and relax a bit before heading back to the states.  

Part I

7 Days in Jordan, PART II - Shooting Yahoo! Travel’s “A Broad Abroad”

Day 3 - Feynan Eco Lodge

Located deep in the desert of the Dana Bio Preserve is Feynan Eco Lodge, considered one of the top 25 eco lodges in the world powered entirely by candles and solar power. The Feynan staff is made up of all local Bedouins and the profits from the lodge go entirely towards the Bedouin community. I was sent out to capture the sunset as it cast a war glow across the valley and I ran into 4 men cooking tea on the side of the road.  Turns out they were drivers for 3 Americans visiting Jordan, in fact they were 3 Instagram photographers on a tour of Jordan: Cole Rise, Eric Rubens & Karan B who were walking the desert taking photos.  Of all the gin joints in all the world.  

Day 4 - Petra

No visit to Jordan is complete without visiting Petra, one of the “new” 7 Wonders of the World.  Our plan was to take a tour of Petra a historical and archaeological city, famous for it’s rock-cut architecture and water conduit system.  What people should know is that Petra isn't just the "Treasury", that stone cut temple-like structure as seen in Indian Jones, it's far more.  Beyond that is a vast rock city that almost looks like a Hollywood movie set in Burbank.  I had the privilege to shoot Petra both day night, something I highly recommend.

Part III - Continued Here...

7 Days in Jordan - Shooting Yahoo! Travel’s “A Broad Abroad”

Day 1 - Amman

Amman is one of the oldest cities in the world that has continuously been inhabited with a population estimated at 2,842,629.  Our first assignment was it's nightlife.  We found "Jordan Bar", the first and one of the oldest bars in the country.  It was here I learned about the "finger clap", some sort of old Bedouin way of clapping by pulling on your fingers with one hand while they snap back.  

Day 2 - Street Art

We met with Laila Ajjawi, an amazing street artist whose work currently appears on the "Women on Walls". Ajjawi’s piece features a woman whose head is capped with symbolic images—a light bulb, a speech bubble, a rainbow, and a flying dove leaving an open cage. “It is a message to guys in general,” says Ajjawi. “Guys look at girls as objects. The media shows the girls as objects.”  From here we toured around Amman at the various "urban galleries" that have pooped up, walls in various spots decorated with artistic graffiti by local artists. These works have been a way of introducing art to the loal youth and even young Syrian refugees who have found a second home here.

While Ferguson, Mo., erupted after a grand jury failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, another story was playing out some 900 miles away from the cameras.

I recently traveled to North Carolina to shoot a story on a young boy who, in the open field of a mobile home park, was found hanging from a swing set.  The mobile home park was less than 1/4 of a mile from his home and the park's tenants are all white.  

On Assignment: Mexico - Real De Catorce

About 8 hrs drive from Mexico City, high in the desert mountains lies a town of a 1000 residents. Considered a 'ghost-town', Real de Catorce was once a thriving silver mining settlement many many years ago.  Today, "Real" has become a pilgrimage site for both local Catholics and Huichol shamanists, and more recently international tourists, drawn by the desert ambience and reputed spiritual energy. This ambience and energy is found in the form of peyote, which thrives in the lower areas that surround the mountain region.  

Sadly, many of these international tourists who come to "Real" are endangering the sacred plant (peyote is on the Conservation Status as G3) which many natives have been using for spiritual purposes for over 5,000 years.  

Our tour guide "Boni" took us on a "Willy" jeep down a road no more wider than the jeep itself to the desert to show us first hand how peyote thrives in the region.  Here we learned some delicate facts regarding the plant:

There are male and female peyote, determined by the number of "buds" that form its round shape.

It takes up to 10yrs for a peyote to fully grow

A more recent and very notorious story surrounding its use occurred when a young couple decided to take it together.  The boy, having started to hallucinate, began to envision his girlfriend turning into a black panther.  Frightened for his life, the boy killed her thinking she was going to kill him first.

On Assignment: Mexico - Oaxaca

Spent 3 days in Oaxaca during Dia de los Muertos and it was an amazing experience of tradition as well as culinary arts:

Day of the Dead is celebrated with alters that are truly works of art

Grasshoppers are a delicacy

There are several different types of bread in Oaxaca that are known as pan de muerto.

Mezcal is unoffical "Offical" drink.

Sand tapestries, known as tapetes de arena in Spanish, are common in Day of the Dead celebrations

On Assignment: Mexico - Hidalgo, MX

Day 4 into our 12 day Mexico trip had us arriving in Mexico City and traveling up north to Hidalgo for an unusual experience.  In the small unmapped town of Animas, which is part of the indigenous HñaHñu community, is an amusement park called Eco Alberto.  On the outside, the park is like any other: water slides, pools, cafe, playgrounds and even a "Grand Canyon" area etched into the beautiful landscape that surrounds the area. 

However, there is another unseen attraction that the park has to offer.  The "Coyote Run" is a simulated border crossing acted out by residents for participants to experience what it is like to cross the border and face the same perils as those who do it for real, such as robbery by bandits, run-ins with narcos and ranchers, even evading the "US Border Patrol".  Ironically, this tour is over 700miles from the US-Mexico border, but it is an ultra real experience that had us running, hiding, crawling and even wading through knee deep water crossings - and we did an abridged version!  The actual tour is 7hrs long and starts in the evening.  No Lights.  No water.

"Freddy" is the tour guide and started the tour as an awareness program to deter it's surrounding residents from actually attempting to cross into the US.  Throughout the tour, we stop to listen to Freddy and his other "coyotes" talk to the group about the dangers and while switching back into character and yelling at those in the group who are slowing the rest down or simply giving up.   

It was an experience I will never forget, but one that I will appreciate for those who travel hundreds of miles through Mexico to the US for a better life. 

On Assignment: Mexico - Day 1  Casa Herradura

Tequila, Oaxacan gastronomy, ghost towns, Day of the Dead and a fake border crossing...who can say no to an assignment like that? 

Over the next 12 days we'll be criss-crossing Mexico with our first stop in Guadalajara and a tour of Casa Herradura.  

Now when you think of tequila you might think of these five things: worm in a bottle, cactus juice, shots, margaritas and bad hangovers.  My view completely changed by the end of the tour, in fact I realized it wasn't so much a tour as it was one of the best field trips I've been on.  And this field trip started at Hacienda de San José del Refugio in the Jalisco state where Herradura is located.  

Our 8am arrival was a series of introductions to some horses and Ruben, the master taster and brand ambassador for Casa Herradura.  Ruben has been sipping tequila before lunch every day of his life since he was 16, and he's never missed a day.  As for the horses? Well, these were our means to get to the agave fields where Ruben was to show us the first phase and the most traditional one in the tequila process: the harvest. 

On 22,000 acres of fields, men in heavy denim called Jimadors, use a tool called the "coa" to hack away at the agave, a skill that Ruben said takes years to master and is usually passed down the caballero-side generation.  And after seeing them do it you can see why, the plants themselves can weigh up to 80lbs after the leaves are hacked off and each Jimador must do at least 120 blue agave plants in a day to keep up with the production demands.  This harvest isn't like a wine harvest either...it's not seasonal.  It happens in all seasons, 6 days a week all year long. 

Our field trip continued back to the hacienda, which Ruben stated that Casa Herradura is the only one in its original location.  That says a lot when you consider that there are 156 distillers in Jalisco who produce some 1,300 tequilas - and to be considered a tequila, you must produce in a designated region.  And Jose Cuervo?  Their distillery is in the town of tequila with no agave fields within a few miles.  And this is what Ruben tries to instill in our minds.  Tequila is a fine drink that should be sniffed, swirled and sipped.  In fact, Herradura tequila is considered "organic", their airborne yeast is produced on site by sixteen types of fruit trees which provide the airborne yeast that make the fermentation process happen.  

Our final stop was in the the grand barrel aging room where we were greeted with a large round table surrounded by huge leather chairs and 5 flutes slightly filled with Herradura tequila. It was time to taste.  Ruben walked us thru these tequilas that ranged from blanco to reposado.  To hear him talk about Herradura tequila you can see why he's been drinking 2oz. everyday before lunch for a majority of his life.  Ruben can appreciate not only the final result of his life's work, but he respects the process by which tequila is achieved and that he says is important to remember when you taste a fine drink such as tequila. 

Ruben wants the world to know that Casa Herradura is the crown jewel of tequila and hopes that his plenipotentiary duties will change the way the world views this distinctive drink.  I myself will never drink tequila the same way again.  

this wasn't a tour as it was more of a field trip and as you arrive fashioned field trip.

The Rio Report - A tribute to the US Fan Fans at the world cup come in a variety of flavors.  Fans of Ghana tend to have drums, Mexico fans wear big sombreros and German fans love lederhosen - but there is one thing that all World Cup fans have in common: their flag.

Today the US played Germany and at Rio's Fan Fest, red, white & blue was the  dominating color with a smidgen of the red, yellow and black of the German flag among the thousands of fans who came to watch the match.

The Rio Report - Evicted

The world cup is the kind of event that brings people together from all over the world.  In Rio, motorhomes lined the boardwalk along Copacabana from as far away as Chile and Argentina, cheering on their teams as they played in Maracana.  Parked along Copacabana  these dedicated fans have some of the best real estate where apartments can cost in upwards of millions of dollars. 

That all changed on Friday when authorities came to evict the motorhomes from their parking spots citing congestion and traffic jams as a result of their presence.

Rio police informed them of their intention to move them to a facility better suited for their vehicles.

No matter the obstacles that stand in their way to enjoy their national team, the journey alone is the adventure.

The Rio Report - Day...uh...it's all a blur.

Heat. Sun. Sand. Traffic. Meat. Rain. Water. - These are the things that quickly come to mind when I think of Rio thus far.  I've had more meat on this assignment than I have had all year.  I've sweated buckets of water shooting in fan fests and around Rio.  The traffic is miserable except, when the Brazil team is playing.  The rain here gives cred to the phrase "when it rain, it pours." And I continue to drink enough water to fill the hoover dam and yet I'm always pee'ing yellow.  TMI I know, but it's true.  I even got to meet Pelé - well, "meet" isn't really the right word. I got within 3ft of him at a Subway event and was able to interview him as a result, but still.  Oh, and the American team won.   It's been THAT kind of World Cup.  

I've been trying to take photos in between work to keep myself sane.  I'm also trying to come out of Rio with some "passion projects" which I've yet to discover but it's still early.  

The Rio Report, Day 5 & 6 - 5 Things I've learned so far

Only 6 days into Rio and I already feel like I've been here 2 weeks.  The days are long with sprints of video work followed by editing.  A typical day goes like this:

8:15am- Wake up

8:30am - Walk to the gym and workout for 1hr.

9:45am - Breakfast at our hotel - it's a buffet with various fruits, bread, eggs, meat and of course coffee

11am - Gear up and head to our Rio office where we prepare for the days shoots and will eventually come back to and edit.

12pm-...?: This is where the days become different.   Depending on our assignments, we'll quickly shoot then edit. Later in the day we'll head to Copa where the fan fest is staged for bigger game coverage.  

5pm - ...?: Usually back in the office till around 8, 9pm editing the bigger stories that we've shot.  

10pm - Arrive at the hotel. The lobby is usually packed with other media folks. Some are still editing at the bar. Others are just simply having a cold beer, sharing stories of the day or giving out nuggets of intel that will help each other navigate the craziness of World Cup in Rio.

12am - Bedtime.

Rinse. Repeat.

Here are 5 things I've learned thus far in Rio:

Meat.  It's by far the largest list of items you can order on any menu in Rio. 

Thumbs up!  - Brazilians don't do the "ok" gesture. They give thumbs up.  

Sunday - The best time to get around Rio is on any given Sunday.  There's no traffic or people. Everyone disappears.  Maybe it's church, or family retreats or they just stay in.  

Rio is home to the world's largest urban rain forest - and it's actually IN Rio.

The Rio Report, Day 3 & 4 -Goooooooooaaaaaaaaaal!!!!

With their first win of the tournament after a horrendous start, Brazilians can rest easy and recover from their hangovers this Friday.  Inside the fan fest area, an estimated 20,000 people gathered.  Outside however, it was announced that over 1.5million (not a typo) swelled along Av. Atlantico, the famous street that runs along Copacabana. 

The Yahoo! Studios/Sports crew went around Rio and Sao Paulo gathering game day reaction, I was assigned to Rio's Fan Fest to capture fan reaction to Brazil's national team. 

After the game was over, we rushed to our awaiting van and headed to our office.  There was no traffic. It was a ghost town everywhere in Rio but the beach.  It took us just over 5mins to reach our destination.  Any other day prior, it would have taken 20-30mins to go the mere 2 miles to the office. 

The crew is settling into a routine here in Rio.  We found a gym around the corner where we all head to every morning to run/workout.  Our mornings have been leisure while our afternoons hectic.