The below article is a guest post from photographer John Lund. His photography career has taken him many places and he’s had the ability to photograph many different subjects. However, few prove as humorous as when he photographed Truman the Lion. Here’s his story.

King of Beasts

The animal trainer told me that I would have to get rid of the sandbags from my studio. She was explaining the rules to me for photographing a lion in my studio. She went on to explain that he might think they are rodents and would be possessive. “Well, he can have them if he wants them!” I joked. “No” she said, “You don’t understand. He would have to kill you to keep you from taking them”. OK, lose the sandbags!

Lion Trailer

I had decided that not only would it would be fun to photograph a lion in my studio, but that shooting the big cat for stock would payoff as well. I certainly hoped it would pay off, because the cost to shoot the lion was $5,000. I asked Stephanie, the trainer and owner of Truman, the lion, how long I would get with him for that amount of money. “As long as he wants,” was her wry reply.

Lion in the Studio

Back to the rules. There were five of us. Collette, an art director (I had pre-sold a greeting card idea to a greeting card company), Tiffany, my assistant, two friends and me. There were also three animal trainers each with a can of mace and a pick handle, though if you saw the lion you wouldn’t think any of those weapons would mean much in a pinch. Stephanie told us that none of us should “separate” from the pack. She admonished us that if any pieces of meat from the lion’s “treats” happened to fly in our direction, don’t try and pick them up. Avoid sudden movements, and, oh yes, if there was anything we didn’t want marked we’d better cover them up. It turns out that the lion can “spray” for fifteen feet!

Lion Standing

Truman arrived in a trailer, which had brought into my studio. We made sure that there was no way he could end up on the streets of San Francisco before we let him out. As Truman stepped out of the trailer there was a collective gasp from all of us. His regal bearing and taught muscularity was far more impressive than I had anticipated.

Shooting Lion in Studio

I had once asked an animal trainer who worked with both of Stephanie’s big cats, Truman the Lion and Safari the tiger, which one was more dangerous. She had told me that Safari was more dangerous because people thought of him as a big kitten and tended to let their guard down, but when Truman was around there was a more palpable sense of danger. I now knew what she meant!

Photographing the Lion

The two main images I wanted to create included a lion on a throne as the “King of Beasts”, and a shot of a lion trainer with his head in the lion’s mouth. We needed to have Truman in a standing position, sitting on a pedestal, various shots of his body parts, and a photo of him with his mouth open. To get a shot of Truman in an upright position I improvised super heavy-duty camera stand reinforced with a light stand. I was still nervous, as Truman weighs over four hundred pounds. One of the trainers enticed him to stand up and rest his paws on my makeshift stand by hold chunks of beef heart, on a stick, over his head. We used the same method to get him to stand on the pedestal. For his open mouth I just had to be ready for those lucky moments when he might yawn.

Lion Trainer

Most of the time he spent pacing in circles. After about forty-five minutes his circles started to get larger bringing him within a few feet of me. Stephanie said he was being sneaky about getting closer to me because he was curious. She also said that he was starting to get a little assertive and it was time to end the shoot. My $5,000.00 had bought me forty-five minutes of the lion’s time. It wasn’t long, but it was well worth it. Oh yeah, and before he left he did manage to “mark” the art director’s car.

Lion In Waiting Room

John Lund has been shooting professionally for over thirty years.  He was an early pioneer in the digital world using Photoshop 1.0 in 1990 and digital capture as far back as 1995.  Over the years Lund has taught digital workshops, written numerous articles on digital photography, served as DIGITAL IMAGING’s Digital Photography Editor, been a Photoshop columnist for PICTURE magazine, served on APA”s National Digital Committee, lectured extensively and written a book on Photoshop:  Adobe Master Class Photoshop Compositing with John Lund.  His stock imagery is licensed through Blend Images, Getty, Corbis, SuperStock and Kimball Stock. He currently works out of his studio in Sausalito, California.

More of John’s work can be seen at www.johnlund.com.

It’s Friday! And with Friday comes Friday Favorites. This week we want to make a shout out to Drawing Day 2009, which is tomorrow June 6th, and the celebration of the fabulous weather we have been having here in Seattle!

Drawing Day 2009

Illustrators of the world unite! Tomorrow is Drawing day 2009 so get out your pens and papers (or whatever your preferred medium is) and start drawing. The goal of Drawing Day is to have over one million people upload images that they create on June 6th. At Imagekind we have created a group just for this purpose. Art can be uploaded at any point over the weekend but should be created on June 6th, 2009. To find out more about Drawing Day click here.

Join the Drawing Day 2009 Group Now!

Bring in the Sunshine

Seattle is known as a cold and wet destination, but the last few weeks have been absolutely glorious. We even had a hot weather alert go out this week due to the irregularly hot temperatures. Schools are taking this in stride and there seems to be an abundance of school field trips to anywhere that involves the great outdoors. The office, on the other hand, has been a slightly different story – it is hot and sticky. To help refresh us a bit, I have chosen some great images from Imagekind member artists that celebrate the sunshine and the pleasures of these hot long days.

Have a great weekend!

Eileen

Trivia Tuesday is a weekly feature where I try and stump our readers with interesting art facts. Test your knowledge of the art world and let’s see if you have what it takes to be an art master.

Question: True or False? Art has surpassed the stock market in appreciation over the past twenty years.

Bull and Bear Business Metaphor by loveliestdreams

[poll id="15"]

**polls close next Tuesday, 5/26/09 and the correct answer will be shared then.

Last week’s poll answer: #4; Can cause a yellowish layer to rise to the surface

Friday Favorites is a weekly feature on the Imagekind blog where I share some of my favorite things found on – or related to – Imagekind over the past week. Sometimes there may be many, others, perhaps a few. It might be a single print, an artist, a group of artists, an article, different art styles; who knows! In any case, check out some of the cool happenings around Imagekind every Friday on the blog.

Travis Pitts on Apartment Therapy

ZOM-BOT (faux folded) by Travis Pitts

Imagekind member artist Travis Pitts got some fantastic coverage on Apartment Therapy the other day. Apartment Therapy is one of the leading decorating and interior design blogs that claims the be “saving the world, one room at at time.” Travis is a supreme illustrator and designer with some truly amazing work.

Display Imagekind Art on iGoogle

FriendsInteraction developed an outstanding tool for you to easily display Imagekind group artwork on your iGoogle homepage. The artwork featured is pulled from Imagekind Groups. You can also install the tool on your Google Blogger account. Find instructions on how to install it for iGoogle here, and Blogger here. If your saavvy enough, you can just click here, and add it to iGoogle easily.

To change which group artwork is displayed, follow these directions:

1. Click on the little arrow in the top right corner of the tool
2. select “Edit settings”
3. Go to your favorite Imagekind Group
4. Find the group number (gid=368) in the URL at the top
5. Go back to your iGoogle page and change the gid number at the end of the settings bar

Welcome to our series of interviews with some of our favorite member artists on Imagekind. They may be best sellers or up-and-coming artists. We hope that you can learn from these members and find some great new artists to love!

Our first interview is with the wonderfully talented Eli Halpin. Eli has a large fan base and buyers network, and has been featured in Sunset Magazine. As one of our best-selling artists, Eli has been making art like crazy!

Growing up in Alaska has given me a unique perspective on animals, trees and people and their cozy relationships. Studying painting at University of Alaska, Pacific NW College of Art and the Portland Community College in Oregon gifted me with the basic skills to paint full time. Attending a state, then a private and then a community institution blessed me with a broad range of academic experiences. After spending 20 years in Alaska and 10 in Oregon I now live in the heart of Baltimore City, Maryland where the contrast to the Pacific West Coast is fascinatingly extreme. My favorite artists are Jim Henson, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Theodor Suess Geisel, Janet Hill and Gustav Klimt. All my paintings are made on recycled wood and recycled paint is used whenever possible – Eli Halpin

1 ) When did you first realize that you wanted to be an artist?
I don’t remember ever realizing I wanted to “be” anything, except when I was five I did hope I would become a waitress. This horrified my dad!

I have always enjoyed and was prolific at any type of creative project. When I was in high school, on the first day of school, I was put in an overcrowded math class. I knew I was going to fail. I was on the verge of tears because it had only been 5 minutes and I hated it so much already. I walked out and saw my counselor and told him I REALLY didn’t want to take that class! He said I wouldn’t get into college if I didn’t. I argued with him for a few minutes trying to squirm my way out of the situation. I asked him if I needed that class to go to art school and he got out this 3 inch thick college book and we read the fine print for a few art schools and you know what? No! I didn’t need that stupid class for art school. So I got to go to sculpture class that day!

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2 ) Are you a full time/professional artist? What does that mean to you?
I am a full time artist going on my 6th year without waiting tables!
Hooray! Before that I worked in restaurants and sold my paintings only part time. Being a full time painter gives me a sense of responsibility to the people who buy my work. I need to keep the paintings coming. I need to have new work often and this means getting myself into the studio as much as possible.

Chikadees in Pearl by Eli Halpin

3 ) Do you work at home, or do you have a separate studio?
I have a separate studio about a mile from my house. I am afraid I will eventually track oil paint from the bottom of my shoes all over my floor if I painted at home! This summer however I bought my own house and I am considering building a studio in the upper level. Now that there is no landlord I have a more favorable situation for risking paint stains all over the place!

4 ) Where do you get the inspirations for your pieces? Do you work from life or from photos?
My inspiration comes from people, animals and trees. I grew up in Alaska where there was a lot of distance between people. I experienced different boundaries pre-established there than when I moved down to the more populated parts of the Pacific NW and when I traveled to other countries. Animals and trees also had a different focus when I was in larger cities. I work from life and photographs. I used to use models in school, and would have my sister and friends pose for me. I like to tear out ladies in bridal magazines because of their big dresses! If I am painting animals I usually paint from photographs I took myself. When I visit my grandparents farm in South Dakota I make sure to get up close photos of cows, horses, sheep, donkeys… anything I can get about 10 feet from. My grandfather shears sheep so I am lucky to be able to stand in barns with hundreds of them at once.

Octopus in Gold by Eli Halpin

5 ) Do you participate in a lot of shows? Are you represented by any galleries?
I exhibit my paintings in about 5 shows a year these days. I used to book about 3 every month when I was first starting to be  “officially” full time just to make sure I could pay the rent. Now I have a lot of direct sales through my website so it isn’t necessary.
I am not represented by any galleries. I will do a show as a guest but I won’t sign a contract. I do, however, sell my paintings permanently at two stores in Oregon. Unfurl, an organic clothing boutique and Hunt & Gather, a fancy furniture store.

6 ) Who is your target audience? How do you get them to buy your work?
My target audience is people with a sense of humor and an attraction to bright colors. My paintings tend to be very thick, with drippy and messy paint . To me that is an upbeat and high energy thing to look at.
Like I said before, I used to do a lot of shows every year and from doing so I advertised the heck out of my paintings, leaving me with a history of buyers who tend to come back for more. People will often contact me saying their friend or relative has a piece and that’s how they found me. I have also been lucky enough to have a few magazines include me in their pages and that always helps a ton with traffic to my website.

cherry tree by Eli Halpin

7 ) Any marketing tips for your fellow artists?
Yes! Get a good website! I use Other Peoples Pixels and I highly recommend them. Get some good business cards that you can be proud of and always keep them on you. And have lots of exhibitions and leave stacks of beautiful business cards in your wake!

8 ) What is your online presence? (newsletter, website, MySpace, Imagekind, etc…)Yes, yes, yes and yes. I use all four. I have my website elihalpin.com, I keep my mailing list organized and send out newsletters regularly – its a really important component to my online presence. I have 600+ solid contacts of people who have asked to be on my mailing list or who have bought paintings. I use this contact to maintain and track who and where and how many hits I get on my site. On average I get 35 hits a day and after a newsletter I have a spike of about 700 for a few days.

I also use social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and I have had lots of success with Imagekind. My myspace and facebook pages are not focused on my sales, just a little more advertising,  and for fun. I don’t use ads.
Online presence is useful for facilitating transactions, but doesn’t necessarily generate sales. The exception of course is print on demand services for reproductions such as Imagekind. My business revolves around creating original paintings and displaying them. Until recently I relied only on art shows and retailers for my business. For 12 years I have been building a foundation of art buyers from my shows and retailers. I launched my website about 3 years ago. My website lets me show my new work nationally and internationally.
Almost all of my online sales come from people who have seen examples of my work in person.

9 ) You use a lot of recycled materials in your paintings. What makes you want to paint on some of the surfaces you choose? How do you find them? Where do they come from?
I like painting on wood interior hollow core doors. They are light-weight and after sanding off the varnish and priming them the surface is great for painting. They are easy to slice into sections and stay crispy flat for a clean professional canvas-like look. They are also easy to ship because of their weight and durability. I buy the doors at rebuilding centers. Homes that are torn down will often donate salvageable stuff to rebuilding centers where I pick them up.

Giraffe in Blue and Green by Eli Halpin

10 ) Who is your favorite artist (besides yourself!) on Imagekind?
Oh wow that’s not a fair question, aren’t there millions of amazing images?? My first artist I became a fan of was Sloane Tanen. I love the humor in those pieces!

Thanks for taking the time to tell us about yourself, Eli! It was a pleasure to interview you, and we wish you much success!

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