Why Doesn't MY house look like that?

When people look at home magazines, they always say, "Wow, my house doesn't look like THAT!"

Coming from the production side of these magazines, I have a secret to reveal to you. Are you ready? Lean in a little closer, I'll whisper it so none of my editors can hear: NO ONES house looks like that!

When we walk in to a house to photograph it, we can tell immediately what needs to be taken out. Lets think about your kitchen counter for example. Bread box, dish rack, dish soap, ugly toaster, toaster oven, coffee mugs, Mr. Coffee coffee maker: GONE. What about the bedroom? Alarm clock, box of tissues, old magazines: GONE. The list goes on and on. Often when we are shooting, there is an entire stockpile of items that we have pulled out of the shot, and when the home owner walks in they wonder, "Why doesn't my house always look like this?" Adding to the removal of unwanted items is the beauty of working with a stylist. They arrive at the photo shoot with an SUV chock full of perfect little red pillows, Simon Pearce vases, antique bowling pins, fresh flowers, red peppers, green apples, and the obligatory lemons and limes. (If you look at kitchen photographs closely, you would think that the only thing rich people eat are green apples and limes) Check out the photos that I took in the recent issue of Home Remodeling. The styling was done by Bernadette Pothier, and it was fantastic. The home which was built by Chris Childs and the team at Patriot Builders was newly remodeled, and the homeowner hadn't quite finished furnishing it. For the cover shoot, the homeowner did not own anything blue that was in the picture, which ended up being the color theme for the cover. It is amazing what a few bold accessories can do. Aside form hiring a professional stylist, the moral of the story is, if you are looking to make your home look like it is straight out of a magazine, don't look for what you can add, look for what you can take out! And a well placed bowl of limes in your kitchen can't hurt.

 

 

Jacob and Katie in Corvallis!

My wife and I just flew out to Corvallis, Oregon to photograph Jacob and Katie's wedding. Here is the slideshow that played at the reception from earlier in the day. Congratulations guys!

Cape Cod Stove Farm

My first foray into the wood stove world started last December when I decided that those lazy dead trees in my yard were going to make themselves useful and serve as fuel to keep my wife's feet warm. So after some searching, I decided that cheapest was best, and went with the lackluster standard square model at the local Home Depot. If I had known about Steve Pacheco earlier, I can guarantee you that one of his period stoves would have found its way into my 1849 farm house(shed?). I photographed The Barnstable Stove Shop for the latest issue of Cape Cod Life HOME, and came away with some of my favorite photographs all summer. Outside, awesome heaps of detailed iron, rusted out and looking for some TLC. Inside, the finished product, completely refinished and ready for installation. The natural light shining in on these old stove parts made for some nice graphic images. Steve was a sport as well, posing for me in the doorway of his shop with a White Lightning and umbrella,

hidden behind that big sliding door, giving him that rim lighting which makes him pop from the black background of the inside of the barn. Examining the detail of these stoves helps me understand why someone would bother restoring an old stove as opposed to just getting a new one. Steve breathes new life into stoves that were made over a hundred years ago as close by as Taunton. When compared to my anachronistic square box with lovely gold trim from Home Depot, it pains me to think that for a couple hundred dollars more I could have had a beautiful little potbelly (beside from the one I sport under my shirt) built in the same time period as my house, while at the same time helping a local artisan get rid of some inventory! Oh well. Regardless of what stove I'm using, I still have a lot of wood stacking to do, and maybe that will help get rid of a potbelly of my own.

You can read all about Steve and his stoves in this issue of Cape and Islands HOME .

I spent my Friday night at the Guyer Barn in Hyannis with an exhibit by Jenny Fragosa. Her and her husband Jonathan are close friends of ours, and we were excited to see such a great turnout for the show! Truly a breath of fresh air on the Cape art scene, the piece above must be viewed in person to truly appreciate. Layered collage covered with shiny epoxy resin, it has an amazing 3-D effect. There was also an amazing installation piece, along with some of her prints. Check out her work at www.jennyfragosa.com

Over the past year, I have said SO many times, that my favorite weekend of summer 2008, was the weekend we spent on Martha's Vineyard for the Oak Bluffs fireworks. Part of what made this weekend great, was that I got a taste of what it's like to live on Martha's Vineyard, and see what all the fuss is about. I arrived on Thursday, and rented a "Smart" car. For those of you that don't know, they are those painfully cute two seaters, that are also the most painfully terrible cars to drive. But as with all rentals, it was kind of fun beating it to a pulp, and doing some light Aquinnah off-roading (hey Hertz, I said LIGHT, don't track me down after this confession).
I was shooting a ton of assignments for Cape Cod Life while I was there, but after work, it was off to Ben and Meghans for an evening beer. The famous fireworks on Friday were literally the most gut-bustingly loud, beautiful fireworks I have ever seen! And the beach! From the moment I bought the Vampire Weekend CD, in the cold hard month of February, I thought,"This is a great beach album"; so when Cape Cod Kwaasa Kwaasa started blaring underneath that Katama sunshine, it sealed the deal.
But what REALLY sealed the deal (just now am I getting to my point)is my time spent at Morning Glory Farm. I met some really cool kids working hard during their summer break, as opposed to working on their tan in Cancun(they got to work on their tan here too). I also ran into legendary island photographer Alison Shaw as she was working on her latest book, about Morning Glory Farm. But the greatest part of shooting at Morning Glory was waking up at the crack of dawn to photograph a group of young ladies picking flowers. There they were in the field, dew covered flowers, big straw hats, golden morning light, such a sickeningly quaint moment that if I wasn't there myself, I would be annoyed hearing about it :) Here are some photos from Morning Glory that didn't make the Cape Cod Life article. But you can check out the article, and my photo of this morning flower picking session on the cover of the August issue.

Sear and Poaching on Cape Cod

Bands play music, and bands break up all the time. But there are only two bands, who when they called it quits, I almost shed a tear (I was alone in my car, if I did shed a tear, no one can prove it!)

These two bands are Pavement and Piebald. I recently ran into Andrew Bonner, former bassist of Piebald, and told him this exact thing. He replied "That's a pretty good list to be on".

Piebald to me, was basically the soundtrack of my life between the ages of 18 and 26. So many good times spent going to their shows, and shouting to their songs at the top of my lungs ("And you've got the sexy legs!!") on the way to the beach. If you were a real Piebald fan, at some point or another through the years, you run into one of the guys around Boston, or after a show, and say "whatsup". Real Piebald fans never really viewed them as "famous", but as old friends, that you've already hung out with hundreds of times.

Yesterday I had a photo shoot in Buzzards Bay, and unexpectedly ran into an "old friend". It was an event hosted by Bay End Farm, and The Blue Room of Cambridge. It is a dinner where the chefs from the Blue Room, came earlier that day, picked which vegetables they wanted cooked that afternoon, and then prepared an organic fresh meal for about 50 people sitting at One Long Table (the name of the event)

To my surprise, when I arrived, Andrew Bonner, of Piebald fame, was one of the chefs from the Blue Room! It was cool to see him, away from the crowds, bringing his skill and banter from the stage to the kitchen. He obviously has a good time doing what he does. Observing him and chef Jorge Lopes trading barbs and working in sync as good as any musical duo, was alot of fun. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather see him throw down the opening bass notes to "Holden Caufield" instead of throwing down garnishing on a scallop ceviche, any day of the week. But until 2014, when Piebald has their 20 year Anniversary tour (huh? whatdaya think?) you can catch Jorge and Andrew putting on a show at the open kitchen of the Blue Room.

Here are a few photos I took of of Andy and the gang playing a show at the Worcester Palladium in the summer of 2001.

You've heard of Lewis & Clark, but I doubt you have ever heard of Cutrona & Beavers. It is the great exploration team from the summer of 2008. Last August, Amy and I, and our good friends Bryce and Shanna went to Washburn Island in Falmouth for the night. I pitched this story to Cape Cod Magazine a while back, and then they said. "Do you want to WRITE it too?" Whoa. The last published item I had written was a Stephen Malkmus concert review for the Fitchburg Sentinel newspaper in 2001. I was rusty. But I accepted the challenge, and with a fabulous re-write by my wife (Shhh!!!) I think it is pretty darn good. You'll have to read the story for a full account of our harrowing tales, and the joys of camping without a fire, and being stranded on the island. So go to your local bookstore, have a drink of water instead of a Caramel Macchiatto, and cough up the four bucks to buy the magazine. :)

Just a little background on the photos: The photo of the glowing tent is a 10 second exposure with Bryce wearing a headlamp, and Amy and Shanna inside the tent furiously shaking around their flash lights. Then there is the silhouettes of our intrepid team, left to right, Amy, Shanna, and Bryce. And now I'm off to prepare for the convention!

I have a really cool baby. At the ripe old age of 3 Months, little Stella has already made her first apperance in the "People on the Scene" section of the latest Cape Cod Magazine. Amy and I took Stella to the Chatham Magazine launch party when she was 4 weeks old! She loved the jumbo shrimp. Stella also makes an appearance in the magazine before she was even born, as a two month old fetus in Amy's belly as part of the Washburn Island article, along with our friends Bryce and Shanna. More to come about that in the next blog posting! For now, I decided I would post the family photo, and the cover photo, which I shot at the end of last summer at the Sandwich boardwalk. Little boy with the net, I hope you are enjoying your fifteen minutes of fame as much as Stella is!

Photographers pretty much always complain about how their pictures look in magazines. "Oh they cropped it wrong", "The color is off", "It's too small"(Insert joke from The Office here)

But this months issue of American Art Collector features a photo I did of Wellfleet artist Rick Fleury as a DOUBLE page spread. I've never had an environmental portrait showcased as a "double truck" layout, so Rick, congratulations on being the first! Also, congratulations to Rick for being featured in a national magazine that is a pretty darn big deal if you are an artist. I think artists are my favorite subject, and this is the second time I've photographed Rick. It was a great session, and we hung clean blank canvases behind him, which I think is cool, and one of his paintings in the foreground. His work really is amazing, and if no one in my family needs my kidney, I will definitely own one of his paintings some day! Check out his work at www.rickfleury.com and he is represented by www.addisonart.com

Check out the new issue of Home Remodeling, it features a photo by the bald guy writing this, on the cover. It was a sweet couple days of shooting with one of the coolest editor/writers around, Jennifer DeFoe. As often is the case in the free-lance world, I had shot quite a few articles that she had written in the past few years, but we had never met. This was our first shoot together, and we have a slew of them planned next week for the fall issue, so stay tuned! This is an awesome resource for homeowners, and vendors alike.

http://www.homeremodelingcapecod.com/

Also, kudos to the art director for matching the type to the green apples on the counter, love it!

Since this is my first day of blogging, I'm going to back track a little bit to last month, with the release of the 2009 Annual issue of Chatham Magazine. This is put out by Rabideau Publishing, the same folks that put out Cape Cod Magazine www.capecodmagazine.com and South Shore Living. If you haven't seen this yearly edition, it is awesome!! Full page photo layouts, and paper as thick as fruit roll-ups, you just want to eat it. What I loved about shooting for this edition was the diversity of the assignments. From butt-cracks to bannisters, hot-mods to hot-rods (and that is why I am a photographer and not a writer) these assignments had me all over Chatham! I loved setting up my White Lightning strobe with Vagabond battery pack, and blasting it through the windshield of Bruce Cook's Chevy Nova to make him look tough. Another memorable shoot was standing on an eight foot step-ladder looking down on Molly and Cassandra while our art director Chris Lewis and assistant Bryce, perfectly placed the tennis balls around the models in the waning Wequassett light. Hurry up to Chatham and scoop up a copy before they are gone! Last year, not an issue was to be found by the end of the summer!

My First Post!

Well, it is 2009 and I am finally entering the "blog world". You can get to this blog at the opening of my website www.dancutrona.com. Here I will be posting recent articles and things of interest happening in my world! This blog will be filled with shameless self-promotion. However, it will also be filled with useful links to various partners that I work with, and always--some nice photography to look at! I'll try to keep the self-absorbed rambling to a minimum, but it is a blog after all, and if there is something that I am thinking about that I find important enough to write--I will. Please check back often!!