Land Speed Racing, El Mirage Dry Lake, California. The high octane screams, the desolate landscape, the stainless steel against a moon-like surface. It’s an iconic, timeless visual that echoes the gritty determination of man and machine has no boundaries.
An epic night of music and mayhem from the mind of photographer, friend and (probably not yet realized to himself) music promoter David Fearn (aka @shitshowdave). Bravo young sir, what an amazing night of loud and sweat!
A bit late on posting this one but last summer I was sent to Napa Valley to photograph the iconic vineyards of Sloan Estate, one of the most exclusive hideaways in the famed wine region. It turned out to be a pretty productive one-day shoot and a nice little travel piece. Here’s the tearsheets from Le Pan.
They say everyone in L.A. has an Andy Dick story. This is ours. Der Spiegel contacted over a hundred people in Hollywood accused of some kind of sexual misconduct for a #MeToo story. All declined to comment or even reply, except one, Andy Dick; “Sure, sounds good!” The actor-comedian had recently been fired from two movies for licking and groping on-set. Yet, we found him to be quite unrepentant about it all, apparently it’s just kind of his thing. It was a wild roller coaster ride of an evening for our shoot and interview. Bizarrely, there was even a member of the band Happy Mondays sitting in the corner. As we began to make our exit, Andy decided to go ahead and leave his mark once again….on one of our crew! As was later reported in The Hollywood Reporter. Just another day at the office.
Congrats to Lizette Salas on clinching the winning point for the U.S. at the Solheim Cup this past weekend. What a win! Photographed here for Golf Digest (with a major wind machine assist by her Dad!)
I’m honored my portrait ‘Naughty America’, above, is a winner in Communication Arts 2017 Photography Competition. My third year in a row! The assignment: Naughty America, innovators in Virtual Reality porn. The Client: Forbes. My approach: ‘Office Space’ meets VR naughtiness! With much thanks to an awesome client who gives me enough rope to play creatively, but not quite enough to hang myself. Check out more from this project below and at gallagherphoto.com and get the very latest on instagram.
Rev. James Lawson, civil rights activist photographed for Time magazine. Lawson, a revolutionary figure in the civil rights movement, invited Martin Luther King to Memphis in April 1968 where he went on to deliver his famous “Mountaintop” speech. One day later he was assassinated.
The skateboarding legend and Vans Team pro, who’s gaze echo’s a lifetime of Liverpool backstreets and Californian concrete. Shot at Vans HQ in Cypress, California for Forbes. I’ve been subtly playing with animation in portraits, cool for the web I think. The trick is, in my opinion, to find a simple, clean visual in both the portrait and motion elements and then just play from there. Clutter is not your friend.
It was ten years ago this week that Hurricane Katrina almost wiped America’s most interesting city right of the map. I remember watching the drama unfold on TV, in disbelief with each day going by and still nothing seeming to be done. In all honesty, like everyone else, I never really thought it would get this bad and was kicking myself that I hadn’t found a way to get out there sooner, but after a couple of days I was relieved to get a call from People Magazine and I was on the next flight to Houston. I’ve been fortunate to cover many important human interest stories for People over the years and love working on current events with the deeper perspective a weekly magazine can offer, and with no story being bigger than this, I was excited to be a part of the team. New Orleans Superdome. Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans. Convention Center evacuation point, New Orleans. Houston AstrodomeAfter a few days in Houston I drove down to New Orleans proper, along with my buddy and longtime colleague People correspondent Ken Lee (which was an adventure), where I was shocked to find a city completely deserted and literally under martial law.
One sight in particular that sticks in my mind from my first day there; a pick-up truck casually pulls onto the freeway ahead of us, pretty normal, until I notice a passenger sitting on the flatbed, scanning the horizon, brandishing a shotgun, cocked and looking for action!
It was an unusual time to say the least and very grateful for the experience. There’s really nothing quite like witnessing real life in action; the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ve been back to New Orleans quite a few times since then, and happy to say it doesn’t seem to have lost it’s charm, or its edge. Hallelujah!
Earlier this year I spent a few days in Arizona on a controversial and emotionally charged Death Row story for Der Spiegel. Debra Milke, from Berlin, was convicted of the murder of her son Christopher in 1990 and had been awaiting her death until March 23, 2015, when her case was formally dismissed. I spent those final few transformative days with her, from going through the dismissal process, to facing the media and finally tasting true freedom again, as if for the first time.
As a photographer, this assignment called on all my skills; as portrait photographer, reportage photographer and news photographer. An intense and hectic combination, but I love to immerse myself in shooting real, honest situations with depth, and it doesn’t get much more real than Death Row. But it was a delicate situation and there was an awful lot of skepticism, doubt and questions flying around about her acquittal in general. This poor lady was literally out of the frying pan and into the fire with the world’s press! So they’re was a lot going on.
But none the less, we had a job to do to tell this story, and on top of that we needed to shoot a cover on a tight deadline, so we created a location studio in her house, as the rest of the world’s press was on her tail. Debra was clearly overwhelmed and emotionally taught with the whole thing. Not an easy situation, but with great help of my local assistant in Phoenix, Madison Kirkman, we pulled it all off.
In the end, our cover didn’t run as it was a busy news week in Germany and sadly a crazy German pilot decided to fly a plane into the side of a mountain. But here’s a mock-up of one option we were working on; Debra Milke before and after a long visit to the big house. To see more of my latest work go to gallagherphoto.com.
