What a ride I’ve been on.  Literally.

Many of you may have noticed my lack of blogging in the past two months.  If you haven’t been keeping up with me on Facebook or Twitter, it’ll come as a surprise that I’ve been on tour with the one and only Justin Bieber documenting every facet of his life on his first headlining North American tour.

If you recall, last December I had my first encounter with Justin while shooting an assignment for the New York Times.  It was at that point I realized I had documented something pretty special as he played Madison Square Garden for the first time.

Long story short, after the assignment, I put together a prototype book with the help of my fabulous designer Laia Prats, and proposed a Justin Bieber documentary to his management (at the TODAY Show) and a number of publishing houses.  After a few months of hustle and luck, I was told to meet up with Justin and company in Nassau, Bahamas where he was performing at the Atlantis Resort.  That was in mid-June….and I’ve been on the road with him ever since.

The bus tour has taken me all across America from the east coast to the west and as far north as Minnesota and as far south as Texas.  Soon we’ll be traversing Canada, Justin’s homeland, eh?

So what’s happening with my pictures?  Many things!

First and foremost, Harper-Collins is publishing an illustrated book with about 150 of my photos along with text written by Justin himself talking about his transition from a normal kid to international social media celebrity and touring music sensation.  The book is hitting the presses very soon and will be on bookshelves worldwide beginning in October.

Beyond the book, I’m creating an exclusive archive of Justin at every one of his 80+ North American shows both on-stage and off.  Those photos will be released in some new and exciting ways to his fans and media.  More to come soon on all that!

I’ll be on tour until at least the end of his North American tour, which ends in early January 2011.  Rumor has it a world tour is in the works!  Until then, the best way to keep up with me is through Facebook and Twitter.

I hope to continue blogging from the road, so if you all have any questions or blogging requests, please let me know and I’ll try to answer them as the tour goes on.

Thanks for all your support!  I’m really excited to see what comes of all this.

I’ve always dreamed of becoming a jet-setting travel photographer commissioned to explore the world displaying my work in publications and galleries. And every-so-often the stars line up and I brush up against that dream. My most recent example starts with a little hustle and luck.

I was on the phone with my awesome photo editor over at the New York Times Travel desk soon after the earthquake in Chile. A separate client of mine had just reached out and was in need of a photographer in Chile to take a portrait and he’d love if he could hire me, but unfortunately his budget couldn’t cover the costs of physically getting me there (the pricey plane tickets, hotels, etc.), which is understandable considering the distance.

Thinking I might be able to kill two birds with one stone, I called the NY Times to see if they happened to need anything shot in the Chile, which would enable me to get down south. She took a look at her planner and informed me that there was nothing in South America slated for publication anytime in the near future, except for a few assignments in Colombia.

“I’ll take it!” I said, which resulted in laughter from both of us…then a bit of silence… “No, seriously…” I encouraged.

After chatting a while longer, I was able to arrange the timeline and budget to make it work and I was tasked with two separate assignments in Colombia slated to be shot April 5-11.

The first assignment I shot was Bogotá 36 Hours, a weekly Travel column that gives travelers ideas of places to see during a quick visit to random destination cities around the world. I recently shot one of those in Palm Beach, Fla. But, I’ll talk more about that one after the NY Times publishes the article….

After bouncing around Bogotá three days shooting my first assignment, I hopped an hour-long flight to the coastal Caribbean city of Cartagena. Cartagena’s Old City is completely surrounded with a mammoth cannon-studded fortress wall and a massive castle that once protected the Spanish port city from English pirate attacks in the mid-1600s.

My job was to illustrate a story about famed author Gabriel García Márquez who wrote many fictional novels, one of which won him a Nobel Prize. Nearly all of his novels took place in a cities heavily inspired by Cartagena, a city in which Márquez still lives. Cartagena is a truly beautiful city, has stunning architecture, vibrant colors, amazing people, and stellar flavors…a place certainly pleasing to all of the senses.

I must admit my favorite stop, though ever-so-short was to the Basurto Market that was mentioned in the article…it was a complete contrast to the tourist vibe in the old city and was a winding path of stalls that sold produce, meats, fish, grain, food, booze, and more.

I was fortunate to have a wonderful fixer, Dayro Reyes, who helped me along the way arranging transportation and my entire schedule so I’d be able to get to all the places mentioned in both articles. I tip my hat to you, Dayro. Thank you.

I had a total of 35 hours on the ground in Cartagena before I had to catch a red-eye flight back to Bogotá and sleep overnight in the airport to catch my early AM flight back to NYC.

What a great trip. I hope you enjoy my pictures!

Check out the NY Times story ‘Love and Cartagena‘ as written by  Anand Giridharadas.

You can see more photos of Cartagena in my archives. Below is a slideshow with a much broader take!

Cartagena, Colombia – Images by Robert Caplin

A few weeks ago I was in Florida visiting my grandparents in Naples and was able to also squeeze in a “36 Hour” travel story in Palm Beach, FL for the New York Times. Every week the NY Times Travel Section publishes a column called 36 Hours, which highlights a different city every week and essentially gives a laundry list of thing to do and places to visit should one spend a quick weekend visiting the city. I was tasked with finding pretty pictures of the beautiful, quirky Palm Beach.

Palm Beach for blog – Images by Robert Caplin

The NY Times article gave a brief history of the small island just off the cost Florida and also served as my tour guide bringing me to museums, restaurants, beaches, resorts, and bars to make pretty images. I had a very nice time and crammed a lot into the brief time I had in the city.

My next travel assignment will take me to Bogotá and Cartagena, Colombia in early April…and I’m certainly looking forward to it. If anyone has any advice prior to my South American adventure, please reach out and give me some tips!

US Soccer – Images by Robert Caplin

October turned out to be one crazy month involving quite a bit of traveling.

I was commissioned to shoot a documentary assignment for ESPN The Magazine to photograph the US Soccer team in their quest to make it into the upcoming 2010 World Cup being held in South Africa. The assignment was to generally hang out with the team at practices and hotels prior to and during two qualifying matches, the first of which against El Salvador held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The following day I hopped on a jet AND followed the team to their next game against Trinidad & Tobago way down in the Caribbean. I cant complain about that!

Though I was afforded better access than most to the team, I still was very limited. I was given only the first 15/20 minutes of practices and the normal press access during games. I worked with the team’s publicist to photograph them hanging out in the hotel, loading onto and off of the bus, as I was also staying at the same hotel.

Beyond working, the highlights of the trip including visiting my pal and fellow photographer Chris Detrick at his home in Salt Lake and firing up the BBQ. Also, down in the Caribbean I was able to spend the day prior to the soccer match buzzing through the windy mountainous roads to the exquisite beaches in Trinidad. I also had the opportunity to try Shark and Bake (fried shark sandwich), which is apparently is the national dish of Trinidad. It was alright. :)

Check out the rest of the archives from Slat Lake and Trinidad.

Here’s how the spread ran in ESPN The Magazine:

Soccer Layouts – Images by Robert Caplin

Riviera Maya – Images by Robert Caplin

I’m swear I’ll get back into the swing of blogging…as for now, I thought I’d share some pics from one of my latest assignments.

I recently shot a fun assignment for the New York Times Escapes section about the Riviera Maya, the 100-mile stretch of beach that runs from Cancun south. The story is about the affordable (well at least to some) real estate in the area and to generally illustrate how beautiful the area is.

Let’s just say it wasnt a difficult assignment. :)

Take a peek at the NY Times article.
And the related slideshow.

Over the past 2-3 years I’ve had the good fortune to work regularly with the NY Times Travel Section and writer Seth Kugel for his weekly column “Weekend In New York”. Seth decided to give up the column to set up shop in Brazil and try something new.

In today’s Sunday NY Times is Seth’s final Weekend column and I found working on it bittersweet. The column’s purpose was to give readers a themed itinerary of things to do if they visited to NYC for a weekend. Everything ranging from the best bakeries to ethnic themed adventures. The column regularly brought me to very cool hidden NYC bars, restaurants, specialty shops, tourist sites, vast cemeteries, sailing, and so on.

The final Weekend column which is in today’s paper, it was an ode to the column’s writer Seth Kugel. He reminisced on his 15 years living in the Big Apple and how even he, a reporter paid to explore and experience the city, has not even come close to experiencing all NYC has to offer.

For the first time working on the column, I was given a handful of days to photograph the finale which had Seth checking out and doing those activities he’s always wanted to do, but never ended up having the chance. This ended up having us waiting in line outside at David Letterman, at mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to the Opera, chowing down of expensive steak at the world-renowned Peter Lugar’s Steakhouse, taking in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, and jogging through Central Park.

As I look back, I realize I got to be Seth’s eyes and really get a explore my city….I LOVE NYC!

Some favorites:
To the Trained Eye, Museum Pieces Lurk Everywhere
From the Days When New York Was Actually New
People-Watching: Here’s Looking at You
You May Now Kiss the Clerk
From Bi Bim Bop to a Huge Spa
Where River Views Are From the River
You Can Come and Go. They’re Staying Awhile.

Check out a whole slue of the columns I worked on here.

Seth snagged this shot of me shooting for THIS column

Seth shows up to my apartment unannounced with sweets purchased from bakeries all over the city for THIS assignment. That was a nice surprise!

My hometown paper in Athens, Ohio ran my article about my trip to Havana, Cuba in their most recent Sunday edition. To read the article you can read the original article on Sports Shooter or take a look at my first blog post.

I was asked to write an article for a photography website about my recent trip to Cuba….so I thought it would be a perfect first post on my new blog!

Link to article:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2028

Cuba, A World In A Time Warp

I grew up in a small town in Ohio and have always known I wanted to travel – to meet new people, experience new cultures, to see the world. When I did travel, whether it was to another city, state, or country, I knew I wanted to do it again…and again. During college I was able to travel outside the United States a few times, which truly opened my eyes to the amazing adventures that await me. Now I’m trying to make my dream of travel a reality.

Although my most recent trip to Havana, Cuba was only 90 miles from the coast of America, I’ve never felt farther from home. When I’m an old man, I’m confident Cuba will have been one of the most amazing trips I’ve taken. Not just for the foreign experience, but it’s a time of change there. I’m certain within the next decade, the Cuba of today will be drastically different…and Cuba hasn’t been different for nearly 50 years.

Since I’ve posted my photos of Cuba, I’ve received numerous emails with questions ranging from…who was I shooting for, what gear I took, where did I stay, do I speak Spanish, what was it like, and most of all “How Did You Get There?” I hope this short article briefly touches on all of those topics.

I first decided on Cuba for a number of reasons; culture, people, color, light, but what intrigued me the most was the near half-century of embargo placed on the island by the United States. The mere fact that I was told I can’t legally travel there without the possibility of heavy fine by my government, made me want to go there even more.

I suppose one of the first thoughts that goes through many people’s mind when thinking about Cuba (Havana in particular) would be the old-fashioned American muscle cars, which I can certainly attest to – they were everywhere. But what I didn’t expect to see was that the majority of those beautiful antique automobiles weren’t just antiques, they were aged antiques…along with nearly everything else in the city – from cars, to equipment, the government, leadership, and infrastructure. The city is stuck in a time warp from the 1950s, but the wear and tear is definitely showing – from crumbling apartment buildings to a dictatorship that is near its end.

It’s really hard to describe the feeling of being in Cuba. Though the country is aesthetically beautiful, it’s hard not to notice the degradation too. The wear and tear on Havana, the capital city, is immediately evident. It’s a socialist society and it seems that most the people I met are living on the bare minimum to survive, especially where I spent my time.

For three weeks I stayed in Central Havana, what I would consider the slum of Cuba. I’m told that it used to be the main attraction, “the real capital”, but that’s hardly the case now. Children play, some in just their underwear, in the filthy urban streets covered in litter, dirt, animal feces, and oil that’s been dripping from those fancy, old American classics. Adults and children alike shamelessly beg, sometimes demand, any non-Cuban gringo for money, clothes, sunglasses…anything.

Overall, the experience there is very pleasant; the sense of family unity is great, as most live with their entire family. Because of their lack of communication devices, a Cuban’s neighborhood is the majority of their social network. Most people tend to hang outside their homes or in their doorways listening to music blaring from surrounding homes. They watch the stickball game in the street and people-watch as their friends and neighbors walk by. For the most part, the average Cuban home that I visited is rather small and usually a tight squeeze as they tend to be shared with a number of family members.

My original plan to visit the forbidden nation of Cuba was to just sneak in, but when I heard rumors of potential fines upwards of $50,000, I thought I’d peruse a legal route. I’ve gotten many emails asking how I got to Cuba, as it’s in a US-embargoed country. One way to get in is under a journalist visa, which was my first attempt, but because I wasn’t going while directly on an assignment from a publication, the US government told me that a journalist visa wouldn’t work – but I could apply for a “professional research” license, and I did so.

The government office to contact about legally traveling to Cuba is actually in the Treasury Department and is called the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). You must send a travel affidavit along with your reason for going. I sent in the affidavit along with a letter explaining that I am a freelance photographer, a letter from an editor that vouched for me, and a copy of my press pass. A few days later I received a phone call from a pleasant lady at the OFAC informing me that I could get in through the “professional research” license and a few days later she emailed me a PDF license. (Office of Foreign Assets Control 
Licensing Division, Cuba 
U.S. Department of the Treasury 
Tel 202.622.5790 
Fax 202.622.0447)

After that was settled, I decided to travel through Cancun, Mexico so not to raise suspicion of the Cuban government by being the only non-Cuban walking off a plane from Miami. I wasn’t trying to deceive the government about my intensions of travel, I just preferred they not know I am a journalist by occupation. Like I said, I really went for myself, to have an amazing life experience, and I did. I just took pictures along the way.

The first night I stayed at a “Casa Particular”, a bed-and-breakfast run through the government out of a Cuban’s home (http://www.casaparticular.info/). But the next day I checked into an inexpensive hotel because I thought it would be more secure for my gear. In hindsight, I think I would have preferred a casa, because living with a family is more conducive to learning the language and finding out tips/ information you might not elsewhere.

I decided to also travel light in Cuba and brought only a Canon 5D, a few lightweight, prime lenses all of which I carried in an extra small Domke shoulder bag. I didn’t bother bringing a flash…it would only ruin the already beautiful light. I kept my laptop and external hard drive in the safe at my hotel room. As it turned out, I spent the majority of my time just wandering aimlessly through the streets of Cuba trying to capture the amazing light behind each turn. The best part was that I didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, so I was completely in my own world, taking in the amazing culture, the people, color, tastes, and smells…(mostly unpleasant smells like exhaust from 50-year old cars cruising down the street burning unrefined, Venezuelan petroleum)…but there’s something special about the odor, something distinctly….Cuban.

When I arrived back home to New York, I found myself culture-shocked for the first time in my life. My trip and the people of Cuba changed me – while it was a truly amazing and memorable experience for me, it has made me profoundly grateful that I have the liberties to do anything I want with my life.

I hope to someday visit the island again and when I do, I believe I’ll find what I experienced in May 2008 to be a relic of the past.