Recently I was on assignment for Bloomberg News photographing Sir Richard Branson and his new SpaceShipTwo spacecraft and its ‘mothership’ WhiteKnightTwo as we flew into the newly remodeled Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport. It was a treat to meet this guy and hear some of his stories as well as his new ideas for sustainability and space travel. It really is pretty amazing to think that in a short period of time you and I might have a chance to go into space. Having grown up with Star Trek and Star Wars it really is a pretty cool thought. Here is a small slide show that I put together showing some of the images I shot.
Richard Branson Virgin – Images by David Paul Morris
Apr 112011
Greetings, Today is the national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who would have been 82 on January 15 if he was alive today. The nation remembers him every year and today the San Francisco Chronicle published a very nice multimedia piece that features 8 people from San Francisco. Starting with a 7 year old the participants ranged in ages from 7 to 81 representing a decade each of Dr Kings life. Photographed by Mike Kepka and Lacy Atkins and produced by Judy DeHaas this video is a very nice tribute to a remarkable man. Please have a look.
Check out this film by Behnam Attar of Contact Press Images that was made back in 1978 featuring David Burnett and Contact Press Images. This was back in the day when smaller agencies such as Contact were major players in the market of photojournalism and there were outlets for stories that were produced on speculation.
Nov 032010
The San Francisco Giants won the World Series on Monday night beating the Texas Rangers 3-1 in game 5. It was an emotional game and the fans that gathered at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco watching on the large jumbotron screen were very enthusiastic. They watched, cheered and partied together. There was a great feeling in the air as the Giants dominated the game held down with the pitching of Tim Lincecum and the defense on the field. When Edgar Renteria hit his 3 run homerun in the top of the 7th inning everyone knew. The torture was over. The party was started and everyone was pumped up knowing that this was going to be their World Series.
Giants Fans Celebrate World Series Win – Images by David Paul Morris
This was not going to be a repeat of the 2002 series when what looked like the Giants were going to come away with a victory in game 5 and win the series only to have the Angels come back in the 7th inning to win the game and eventually going on to win the series with 2 games in Anaheim. This was the one championship that eluded the Giants and their beloved fans for 56 years, ever since the Giants moved from New York to San Francisco. It’s been said that the fans, the 10th man on the team, and their support helped to carry the team all the way to the championship. On Monday night, November 1, 2010 at about 7:27pm PST the fans, the 10th member of the team, the ones off the field but with the loudest voices were rewarded for all their patience and belief. Congratulations to the Giants organization and all the Giants fans, you deserve this. Well done!
Oct 302010
The San Francisco Giants are in the World Series playing against the Texas Rangers for all the marbles in the bag. It’s been a long time since the Giants won the World Series, since 1954 when they were still based in New York. The Texas Rangers have never been to the World Series so for both teams this means something. But for the fans it means everything. The Giants fans are a very devoted bunch having survived the 2002 series when they lost the series to the Angels after seeming to have it won after game 5. The Angels came back in the 7th inning during game 5 and ended up winning the game, sending the series back to Anaheim and winning the next two games to take the series. The time before the 2002 series that the Giants were in the World Series was back in 1989 when it was the battle of the bay playing against the Oakland Athletics where they lost in 4 games that was interrupted mid series by the earthquake that flattened a lot of Oakland and San Francisco and knocking out the Bay Bridge. I went down to AT&T park on opening night of this series to photograph the fans and their excitement.
The 10th Man, San Francisco Giants Fans – Images by David Paul Morris
Oct 262010
Recently on a trip home to San Francisco while I was sitting waiting for my Singapore – Hong Kong leg to take off we had some time to kill due to an unexpected minor engine repair. I was sitting in my usual seat, well the one I always try to get, 44C on the Cathay Pacific international flights (isle seat exit row) and noticed the two men next to me breaking out their reading materials. 44B with his Financial Times and 44A with his iPad. I thought it was a pretty good example of the two mediums being used side-by-side so I got up to take a few frames. What I didn’t know was that the guy behind me in 45C was into what looked like a 500 page manifesto. Now the triangle was formed. iPad, newspaper and book. I got off a few frames from the hip before hearing the captain’s voice over the intercom telling us the engine was fixed and to buckle up. I love the unexpected.
Jul 232010
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and co-founder of Facebook, is the youngest billionaire on the planet. At 26 years of age he has a net wealth of US$4 billion thanks in part to his 24% shares of Facebook, the social networking site he launched from his Harvard dorm room on February 4, 2004. He says the idea for Facebook came from his days when he was at Phillips Exeter Academy which publishes annually a student directory with head shots of all the students, faculty and staff and was known simply as “The Facebook”. Zuckerberg’s version of Facebook started as a “Harvard-thing,” he says. He decided it would be cool to spread his site to other ivy league schools and enlisted the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz to get the it rolled out. They first signed up colleges such as Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, New York University, and Yale and from there it took off.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook – Images by David Paul Morris
Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto, California, with Moskovitz and some friends where they converted a small house into their first office. According to the young billionaire, he and his friends always intended to return to Harvard but eventually decided to remain in California. As of this writing has not returned to college as a student, and who can blame him. His site just passed the 500 million user mark, up from 400 million in just 5 months and is growing rapidly especially in places outside of the North America. In fact it is one of the fastest growing companies in history. Facebook has become such an integrated part of everyone’s life and it’s not just for teenagers but is also being used more and more by hundreds of millions of adults all over the world. Along with the networking ability it offers it has also been noted that Facebook was instrumental in political protests in countries like Columbia, Thailand and Iran. I photographed him last night for Bloomberg at a forum where he was grilled on the stage from author David Kilpatrick who’s recently published book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting The World, which is a look at the inner workings and start-up of Facebook and Guy Raz, weekend host of the National Public Radio show All Things Considered. A lot was said about where the internet started, where it is now and where it is going in the future. It seems to me that we have only scratched the surface of where we are all going with this amazing technology. Check out more images.
Jul 092010
Lately I have been having fun with my iPhone 3Gs. No, I don’t have the iPhone 4…yet….but hope to get it sometime soon. I have heard that Verizon might start carrying the iPhone 4 after the first of the year. If that is the case I will wait until then to check out my options. I love the device for what it is, the interface with the apps is fantastic and very user friendly, but for a phone it has little to be desired as I am sure many out there will attest. I think that AT&T simply does not have the bandwidth to accommodate all the users. Hopefully that will change once brand red gets access to the phone. Anyway the reason for this blog today is to post a few photos from my iPhone that I have been taking lately. I am really having a good time using this as a creative outlet and feel remarkably free to be able to produce the images I see in my head with this phone. Granted it is a very limited pixel capturing device but if you have decent light and can compose a photo you get some good results. Have a look at these 20 images produced using the “ShakeIt Photo” application in this slide show and tell me what you think.
iPhone Photos – Images by David Paul Morris
Jul 082010
Greetings.
Recently I had the gastronomic pleasure of accompanying my good buddy Getty staff photographer Justin Sullivan to review a burger joint for his new-ish blog simply called, The Hamblogger. This is a great resource for anyone who loves to savour burgers at their best. Featuring about 3 posts a week, Justin and his partner Josh Weisberg, put out a USDA quality blog with great reviews of some out-of-the-way and unexpected places you might not expect to find tasty delights of meat between buns in your neighborhood.
We went to the Broken Record, a bar in front eatery in back sort of place located close to the Cow Palace at 1166 Geneva Street, San Francisco, California 94112. In the back room behind the bar is a kitchen and dining area with out only a couple of items on the chalk written menu. The reason for our visit was simply known as the Beef and Bacon burger.
When I arrived and Justin was already there at the bar. We ordered a couple of beers, had a chat for a while and then at 6pm when the kitchen opened Justin left to get to work. After drinking one of the many beers on tap and making a few pictures in the bar area I went back to check on Justin and how his shoot was going. When I got back to the kitchen area he was almost done documenting the cooking process. Now the only thing left to do was shoot the burger and then dispose of it in the usual way that you would dispose of a burger. We split the burger in half and I have to say it was pretty darn good.
A few weeks later we went to another location that he reviewed in his blog called Don Pistos in north beach, San Francisco. We had the hamburguesa which was by far the best burger I have ever tasted. Read Justins blog for the details. As he says, “it was awesome”!
Check out the Hamblogger when you get a chance and thanks for looking!
A line of pool cues sit on the wall waiting for the game at the Broken Record in San Francisco.
Inside the bar area of the Broken Record the game goes on.
A wide range of whiskey is lined up on the wall.
Justin waits for the decisive moment as the bacon burger is being prepared.
Justin has a look at the progress of his report.
Justin gets to work shooting and savouring the Bacon Burger at the Broken Record.
The final test…Yum!
I was recently in Beijing for about 36 hours on the back end of a trip to Seoul and Hong Kong. It came about unexpectedly as the possibility of a new opportunity lurks on the horizon. More on that later. The main thing about this post is to mention how much I think I really like Beijing now. I know you can’t experience much in such a short amount of time…but I know Beijing. I have been going up to Beijing since I moved to Hong Kong in 93 and I was never a big fan. I always preferred the electric buzz of Shanghai and cool, fresh calmness of Kunming over the dry, dusty and hazy capitol. But in these 36 hours, after a very interesting meeting of about 6 hours with some very professional journalists and hanging out with my good friend Ron I have warmed up to the place. I could feel a real energy in the air. I am not sure if it was left over from the ’08 Olympics but it seems that Beijing has come into its own as a destination city that people would enjoy coming to. The people smiled a lot and walked with sense of pride in their step. Of course there was the cyclo driver who tried to double the price once we got our destination, but that’s normal. With the ultra extreme positive persuasive talk from Peter and the very dark and devilish comments from Fred I was left to figure it out for myself. The air is the only thing that I could “see” that could be a problem with living there. It’s thick and hazy and obviously not very healthy to breathe. My throat always felt dry and I went through plenty of water. But is this enough to keep someone from moving there? To look past opportunities? I don’t know. Perhaps after a few months of being immersed in the culture and thrown out on the streets one would know the answer. More to come.
A stroll down Ritan Lu. I was amazed at the tree lined streets throughout the city. 
A man has a power nap in Ritan Park.
Serving it up in Ritan Park.
Ron takes a photo of some guy having a snooze in Ritan Park.
Still sleeping after all these years.
Climbing the wall in Ritan Park.
All in a days work! He was happy to have his picture taken.
He was not!
The man that got me there.