Kim Cook, Photographer

Just started a campaign for Danial James and David Uhl’s new T shirt line, Uhl Works.

Jeffrey Sauger and Jim West were arrested in December 2005 while covering the nazi demonstration in Toledo Ohio. Sauger and West agreed to lesser monetary awards in exchange for policy changes in the police department reducing the possibility of arbitrary and unfair arrests of journalists in the future. Both Sauger and West were charged with misdemeanors. West was aquitted and Sauger’s charges were reversed by the Court of Appeals. Read NPPA’s press release below.

Photographer settle arrest lawsuite with Toledo police

“My name is Robert but you can call me Jimmy!” was the first words out of Robert’s mouth when I hired him freelance as my first assistant a million years ago. He has kept me confused and laughing ever since. Robert just had his second child and recently he brought the wife and new addition by the studio. When he left, it hit me how much he had become family. Our kinship grew from surviving the unexpected that is inherent when shooting on location and from the long hours of joking and story telling while waiting on the clients, the sun, the model, the makeup artist (just kidding Kari) etc etc. Robert and I have eaten more meals together, saw more sunrises and sunsets, rode more road trips (survived more blizzards), and drank more triple shot americanos than most family members spend together in a lifetime. He met and commented on all my boyfriends and was my best therapist when none of them worked out. (I bet he is thrilled that I am engaged and that drama is over with!) So thank you Robert, for saving my lights in heavy wind, for being the best stand in ever, for working longer hours than expected, for occupying clients to buy me time, for carrying the heavy stuff, for being cool when lunch went into dinner, for driving when I had late nights, for all the gum, snacks and tootsie rolls, for your great stories and funny jokes, for turning me on to the most goofy Iphone apps, for loving to thrift shop as much as me, and foremost, thank you for your loyalty and friendship.

There are always nice surprises to unexpected photoshoots but this assignment was truly inspirational.  Last month, I received a last minute assignment from Der Spiegel magazine to photograph Daniel Albrecht in Beaver Creek during World Cup Race Week.  Albrecht, a Swiss multiple World Cup champion in alpine ski racing, crashed a year ago January during a training run in Austria.  The crash was so severe, he was induced into a coma for just over three weeks.  He suffered extensive brain injuries and spent months in recovery learning to walk and talk again.  In December, I met Daniel in Beaver Creek .  He was training for his comeback.  I asked him about his recovery as we walked around the lifts in Beaver Creek shooting him in spontaneous scenarios including the bunny hill.  He told me he has regained most of his physical strength and motor skills.  What he does lack is a sense of motion or speed which is quite dangerous for a racer.  He is working very close with trainers and hopefully he will be racing next year.  I have no doubt in my mind that he will be.  With the short time I spent with Albrecht, he reminded me how strong the human spirit really is.  It will take more than a coma to get this guy off the slopes.

Like so many other folks, I felt exhausted by the end last year.    With assignments dwindling with corporate budget cuts, magazine closures, and underbidding, I watched a slow death of the business of photography as I have known it.  However, this is not the first time drastic change has come around for some button pushers.  There is a generation of us that just paid off the 4×5 and medium formats when digital sensors made the scene.  We whined some, mostly because it cost so much to retool our young business during an economic bust of the dot comers and then 9/11.  Yet we jumped in with both feet to fill the demand of our clients for instant photos.  We will always reminisce of the good ole days of film and the time of plenty.  But this is a remarkable time in history where new opportunity arises with a few clicks on your keypad.  Instead of one agency at a time reviewing your portfolio followed by huge fedex bills , you have thousands and thousands of interested folks from all over the world reviewing your work  for one low monthly cost of a website.    It is somewhat of  an absurdity, but isn’t it fantastic!  There will always be naysayers and debbie downers complaining about the lack of business;  I have fallen for it myself after reading blog after blog with blah blah and more blah.  You cannot spit without it hitting a photograph in our consumer based economy.  Advertising, editorial and marketing cannot survive without photographs and they have to come from someone and somewhere.  I bet it will be from the same people who have adopted the word “action” as their middle name.

“People who want milk shouldn’t sit on a stool in the middle of the field in hopes that a cow will back up to them.” (curtis grant)