Joe McNally Photography

I have worked in Russia many times, and it remains a place of eternal fascination for me. It drips emotions and imagery like blood from a wound. It is vibrant, tough, wonderful, unexpected, and impossible. It’s beautifully ornate, but also, at turns, the very definition of austere.  It is raw, and wary of outsiders. But, once you gain a measure of knowing and make a bridge, there is very little that is not possible. I have been eyed with the keenest of suspicion, and embraced like a brother. The pictures you make there have a special echo, as sometimes, anyway, they were very tough to shoot. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently shot for a new book called Big Data, which gets a handle on heavy seas of ones and zeroes we navigate everyday of our modern lives. The book pops from the ever prescient noodle of author/photog/entrepreuner Rick Smolan, who long ago helped forge what was for a period of time, an almost yearly photographic gathering of the tribes called the “Day in the Life” book projects. Beginning with Australia, the projects reeled off an impressive number of countries, all willing, apparently, to host 100 of the world’s top photogs for the photo equivalent of a quickie. (My thought, at least occasionally, was something on the order of, “Haven’t these poor people suffered enough?”) Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, and welcome to all for 2013. I hope the whirlwind known as 2012 deposited everyone on the doorstep of this new year in good shape. Mildly frazzled perhaps, but whole of mind, body and spirit, ready to start turning the blank pages of these new twelve months, with all the unknowns and things hoped for. I remain blessed, I feel, in that I start another year with a camera in hand. Three days of shooting this week. Four next. So it goes. It will not always be thus, so I treasure the moments behind the lens with increasing fervor. I joke about the passing of time and frames with my buddy Bill down at the National Geographic. Another year for him living inside the land of the yellow border, indeed, a place where the wild things roam. Me, being a freelance content provider, I’m just the occasional interloper, trouble maker and, dare I say, problem solver. Though it’s completely open to fair questioning as to whether I’ve created more problems than I’ve solved. Best not to dwell on such matters. Read the rest of this entry »