Category On Location

Transforming Global Health with Data and AI with Dr. Joan LaRovere

October 29, 2024 0 Comments read Blog, On Assignment, On Location, Portraits

Last month, I had the chance to photograph Dr. Joan LaRovere, Associate Chief Medical Officer for Transformation at Boston Children’s Hospital, for The Financial Times of London.

LaRovere is co-founder of the Virtue Foundation, which harnesses AI and data science to improve healthcare access worldwide, particularly in underserved areas. Inspired by her work at MIT Sloan and Boston Children’s, she’s launching a data-driven platform in 2025 to map healthcare needs in 72 low- and middle-income countries, helping clinicians allocate resources and address “medical deserts.”

We met at MIT Sloan, where LaRovere earned her Executive MBA and began to scale up her foundation’s impact. My goal was to capture several distinct portrait looks, balanced with elements of MIT (and Boston, if possible). Navigating crowded halls, armed with gear and pressed for time—common constraints for an editorial photographer—we worked together to create portraits that I hoped would give a sense of LaRovere and her work.

It’s inspiring to meet and photograph people like LaRovere, whose work impacts health outcomes for so many around the world even as she saves individual lives back in Boston.

–30–

Joan LaRovere, photographed at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. *© Brian Fitzgerald*

Coal Miners, Coding and Coffee in the Age of AI

August 29, 2024 0 Comments read Blog, Industrial, On Location

Blue Collar Worker — *Hardhat and ladybug © Brian Fitzgerald*

I met with the marketing director of a non-profit for coffee this week to discuss a pending project. Face-to-face meetings like this rarer now, even more than a year after the WHO pronounced the Covid-19 Pandemic officially over. He mentioned he’s noticed that the way people interact has changed—not always for the better.

Aspects of his job, like mine, can’t be done remotely and must be done in person. Eventually we talked about AI tools. When he started—in the mid 2010s—he was told how critical Excel skills were, yet much of that can be easily done with AI. “Remember when they talked about retraining coal miners to code? Now ChatGPT 4.0 can code better than most coders,” he said.

That gave me pause. In my photography and video world, AI has made retouching and editing easier. For planning and pre-production, it’s an indispensable tool. But I don’t worry about it replacing what I do. While AI can create credible portraits of non-existent humans, it can’t replace the process of connecting with a person on a human level. With AI there’s no exchanging of stories. AI is all about results, not the journey.

Storytelling and moment-driven portraits are the outcome of an in-person process. Visual storytelling is about the dance between the camera, photographer, and subject. An AI prompt requires you to know exactly what you want, but a good portrait or documentary requires sensitivity, a willingness to listen, and the ability to ask questions you don’t yet know the answers to.

AI is a tool, not the main event. Connecting over coffee, walking in nature, or capturing a true moment—that’s the good stuff. I’m not willing to trade that experience for expediency. The antidote to AI efficiency is to do what it can’t—be more real, more authentic, more connected, and more human.

–30–

Lessons from the Trail: Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail

July 25, 2024 0 Comments read Blog, Editorial, Inspirational, On Location, Personal

Laugavegur Trail Iceland — *Overlooking Aftlavtn Lake, Laugavegur Trail, Iceland. © Brian Fitzgerald*

This week, I returned from hiking the Laugavegur Trail in Iceland. The 34-mile (55 km) trail winds from Landmannalaugar through the Fjallabak Nature Preserve to Thorsmork (Þórsmörk).

The landscape is otherworldly: high-altitude snowfields, boiling geothermal vents, emerald-green mossy slopes, and a miles-long highland desert coated in black ash and volcanic rock. After two years of planning with my friends—two from Washington State, one from Southern Maine—I thought I knew what to expect.

Yet, Iceland blew my mind. The trail was more demanding than I’d imagined, and the scenery more beautiful and extreme. I took a single camera and lens to document the journey. Though I’m no landscape photographer, Iceland made me feel like I could be.

We spent four days hiking, fording rivers, crossing snowfields, and scaling over 5,500 feet of elevation. We met Icelandic folks, hikers from around the world, and stayed in a hut with a group calling themselves Viking Women.

*Trail to Hrafntinnusker. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Three takeaways from this trip—my first significant international adventure in 20 years:

The Value of Attempting Hard Things
Hiking 5-8 hours for four days straight was a challenge, and it felt great to finish. Just getting there—lining up transportation, reserving huts a year in advance, packing and repacking—was also a challenge. In the end, the effort made for a truly satisfying experience, unlike any other I’ve ever had.

The Importance of Maintaining Relationships
Many men I know have strong family ties but have let longstanding male friendships go. For over ten years, I’ve gathered annually with a small group of friends from both coasts. Some of this group went together to Iceland. Long-distance relationships can be maintained via text or Facebook, but getting together in person keeps them growing. Spend four days backpacking with someone, and you get to really know who they are. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything.

Preparation Is Everything
A year ago, I was physically unprepared for a hike like the Laugavegur. It had been decades since my last multi-day backpacking trip. In my 20s, I would have winged it. Now, I wanted to enjoy the trip. I started walking daily over a year ago, racking up more than 2,400 miles in 2023, often with a 20-lb pack. I joined a Facebook group for trail hikers, researched, and asked my Icelandic neighbor for advice. Preparation made the trip smooth and enjoyable instead of painful and anxiety-filled.

So I’ve gotten my feet wet, and I plan to keep it up. Not just with big, multi-day hikes in exotic places but also hikes here in Maine and New England. Being outside is medicine for my soul. To me there’s no more apt advice than this, attributed to Pythagoras: “Leave the roads; take the trails.”

–30–

*Laugavegur Trail, Iceland. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Weaving Art and Function at Heide Martin Studio

June 12, 2024 0 Comments read Assignments, Creating Spaces, Creative, Creativity, Editorial, Mainers, Mainers at Work, On Assignment, On Location, Video

As part of my ongoing Creating Spaces series featuring Maine artists in their working environments, I had the opportunity to work last fall with Heide Martin and her husband, co-founder Patrick Coughlin. The couple operate Rockland, Maine-based Heide Martin Design Studio, creating unique and functional furniture and housewares.

I was drawn to the studio because of the strong sense of style that permeates their work. Working with natural, simple materials available here in Maine, the two produce exquisite pieces of art that happens to double as functional furniture.

In particular, I love how Heide incorporates the art of weaving into many of her pieces, drawing for inspiration from an out-of-print book on traditional weaving patterns, among other sources.

I’m happy to be able to show the video we produced that day, along with a few stills from my visit with Heide and Patrick in their spacious and well-ordered studio.

*Heide Martin and Patrick Coughlin at the Martin Design Studio. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Behind the scenes at Sappi’s Somerset Mill

April 23, 2024 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, Industrial, Mainers at Work, On Location, Showcase

*Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, ME for Sappi Global. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Last fall, I collaborated with the marketing team at Sappi North America on Project Elevate—a $418 million upgrade at Maine’s Somerset Mill. They’re overhauling Paper Machine No. 2, expanding its capabilities, all while the mill’s day-to-day operations churn on. Having struggled myself to simultaneously construct my child’s Ikea desk and binge watch TV, I couldn’t help but be deeply impressed by this achievement.

My task was to capture elements of this

massive project over the course of one day. This involved shadowing Sappi N.A.’s president and CEO, Michael Haws, as he toured the bustling construction site. I created environmental portraits of Haws and his team, and photographed him with Sappi workers.

I love creating images in industrial environments like these–while challenging, the opportunities for amazing and dramatic visuals are worth the effort.

Paper Mill — *Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, ME for Sappi Global. © Brian Fitzgerald*

Photographing AI leader Amanda Stent at Colby

January 16, 2024 0 Comments read Assignments, Blog, Client Work, Editorial, Education, Mainers, On Assignment, On Location, Showcase

Female Scientist — *Amanda Stent, inaugural Director of the Colby College Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence. ©Brian Fitzgerald*

I’m excited to share one of the assignments I did for Colby College recently. This was to photograph Amanda Stent, the inaugural Director of the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Colby—the first such cross-disciplinary institute at a liberal arts college.

Professor and student discussion — ©Brian Fitzgerald

Stent, a renowned expert in Natural Language Processing (NLP), transitioned from her role as NLP architect at Bloomberg L.P., where she led their AI team. She has authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and is co-inventor on more than 30 patents in NLP. In short, Stent is a big deal in the world of AI, and her leadership of the Davis Institute will allow Colby to fulfill its goal of integrating AI and machine learning into a liberal arts framework.

Luckily, the Colby Campus provided a number of interesting environments for portraits and for interactions with students. It was important to try to give a sense of the academic environment as well as the innovative work being done there at Colby.

Neon Dave: Shining Bright in Portland’s East Bayside

November 14, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Creating Spaces, Creativity, Editorial, Mainers, Mainers at Work, On Location

Dave Johansen, known as Neon Dave, pauses and surveys his workspace in Portland’s East Bayside neighborhood. Filled with piles of cut glass tubes, a various boxes and hand-drawn designs on paper, the cluttered area is one of three he utilizes in a shared space. “As a self-employed single person, it’s nice to have other people around sometimes,” he says. “Other times, it’s nice to rock out by yourself and get a lot of work done. But having people around makes everything more fun.”

Neon Dave has been a neon artist since 2003. “I was already doing art and painting and was using a lot of reflective, fluorescent colors and metallics,” Johansen explains. “I started thinking about incorporating light into the art, then researched neon, and I just decided to do it.”

He clarifies that while ‘neon’ traditionally refered to the use of neon gas–which produces a distinctive orange light–the name has come to encompass the use of various gasses and chemicals that produce a variety of colors used in glass tube signage and artwork.

Johansen’s studio is divided into sections: administration, assembly and paint, storage, and a glass flash shop, where tubes are heated, shaped, filled with gas, and bombarded with electrons.

Dave likes his studio’s location, amidst other art studios in a now-trendy neighborhood peppered with breweries and coffee shops. “It’s been interesting to have a front-row seat to a changing neighborhood as one of the first wave of artists,” he reflects. “The character has certainly changed. But I like being close to the action. For my local clients, if something goes wrong, like a transformer failure, I can respond quickly without spending the whole day.”

Creating Spaces is a project that explores the connection between Maine artists and craftsmen and their physical workspaces-—places that are often hallowed grounds of creativity and solitude, far from the public eye or the gallery.

Gael McKeon: Inspired and Unbound

October 11, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Creative, Creativity, Editorial, Mainers, Mainers at Work, On Location

“As a young (bass) luthier, I thought I was going to make all of these innovative changes. You see people doing it all the time: they change (instruments) sporadically. It doesn’t work. If you’re going to make it different, (the instrument) still has to work,” says Gael McKeon.

McKeon, originally from New York City, has been a double bass luthier since 1998. He’s since worked and studied in New York, North Carolina, San Francisco, and Toulouse, France, before moving to Maine. In his workshop on the third floor of the State Theater building on Congress Street, McKeon repairs and restores traditional instruments while designing his own.

“Humidity and temperature control is essential. I’m ruined without that,” says McKeon of his tidy but cramped space, one wall dominated by views of Congress Street below. McKeon describes his shop as the ‘second best’ space he’s ever had. “I’m here mostly because of the windows,” he says. “It’s just big enough so that I can manage the amount of repairs that I can handle. If I had less space, I would have to tell people to hold on to their instruments while I finished other things. Here, I can juggle a little bit, and I can have adequate machinery.”

McKeon also builds his own instruments. He describes his approach as conventional, using traditional proportions, but with his own departures of design inspired by classic and modern forms. One bass on display in his shop sat broken for 12 years before he restored it with a paper fingerboard and a custom scroll that he first sketched in 1998. “I’ve added some innovations,” says McKeon, “but there are technical reasons for its aesthetics.”

Erica Moody: Forging Art in a Maine Barn

September 26, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Creativity, Mainers, Mainers at Work, On Location, Personal

*Erica Moody with Elio, © Brian Fitzgerald*

Erica Moody, a metal fabricator and artist, sits in the late-1800s barn that now serves as her workshop in Waldoboro, Maine.

Moody has been working with metal for more than three decades. After years working in Boston, she chose to move to Maine to forge a simpler life—and the handcrafted serving utensils she is increasingly known for. Moody uses traditional metal crafting methods to make spoons, knives and other wares from copper, brass and steel. Her work has been featured in local and national publications, such as Bon Appétit and Saveur.

After years of working with large pieces of metal, her scaled-down workshop—filled with vintage machining tools—is the perfect place to create her one-of-a-kind spoons, coffee scoops, and knives. It’s also attached to her home, built in 1854. “To be close to home, to be able to work right here is everything. It’s why I moved to Maine,” she says.

Metal Artist Erica Moody — *© Brian Fitzgerald*

Elevate Your Marketing with Aerials This Fall

August 15, 2023 0 Comments read Blog, Drone, Industrial, Marketing, On Location, Showcase, Video

power plant aerial — *Waste-To-Energy Power Generating Facility, ecomaine. © Brian Fitzgerald*

It’s incredible just how a small change in perspective can transform your view of the world.
Since early 2021, Fitzgerald Photo has operated commercial drones, offering aerial photography and video services for our clients. The elevated view shows familiar cities and landscapes in a new light, capturing details and scale often missed at ground level.

Summer is a great time to capture aerials, and we’ve been busy capturing imagery for many of our clients. Autumn offers unique opportunities for aerial imagery as well. Between the dramatic light and the fall foliage, it’s my favorite time of year to be photographing with a drone.

Safety and professionalism underpin all our operations. As an FAA certified pilot, I ensure our flights meet all regulatory standards. Our FAA certification has allowed us to secure permission to operate even in highly restricted zones, including near busy urban airports. We’re also commercially insured to further protect our clients.

If your business is considering commercial drone photography this fall, let us know how we can help create a plan that works for your specific needs and budget.