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 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

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!

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

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.