The Truthiness of SteveDepino.com

Steve Depino is a truly gifted photographer. One of the things that impresses me most about him is that he is constantly pushing himself and his style. You look at his work over the last few years and you see growth. Impressive and amazing growth. Growth that didn't need to occur because his work was so strong to start with. You see the growth of someone who is driven to change, adapt and break new ground, whether they need to or not. His photos consistently blow me away and the fact that he has the balls to always be pushing himself and not be content- to always be restless- is very admirable and most of all, inspiring. Very few artists, in any field, push themselves when they are already working at the top of their game, but Steve does. It's not just something to be commended, but to be emulated. Go to his site and check his work out. You'll see. Check out his blog too, he posts more than the Drudge Report, but he's struggling for readers, unlike this robust site, so help the brother out. Any-who, I decided to hitch my horse to his wagon, literally, not figuratively, and make a mini-documentary about him. We shot for 2 days. One day was interviews and the other was shooting Steve shooting a wedding. Then I tucked away into the edit room to try to piece together the puzzle that is the Steve Depino Photography experience. The result is below. Feel free to make any comments - good or bad - I welcome all.

I want to thank a few people who helped me immensely with this piece. I want to thank Adrian Correia, who is a superbly talented Director of Photography, for his time and beautiful lighting. Also, Mary, Brian, Jeff & Dawn, who all gave up a saturday in april to sit down with us and put up with my questions, requests and admittedly diva-like behavior. I want to thank Kelli & Petter who were kind enough to let me follow Steve around at their wedding. Thankfully, they have accepted my apology for knocking over their wedding cake. It was an accident, no matter what any of their guests say. Carla ten eyck, another amazingly talented photographer and super cool person, lent me some incredible photos of Steve rolling around in the grass taking pictures, all from her own collection of work. This was not something she had to do- she just did it out of the goodness of her heart and the segment wouldn't have been the same without them. She also took the photo of Steve featured at the top of this post. Sonia Baghdady was generous enough to also give up her saturday to do makeup for our interviewees as well as Steve. I think she'll agree with me when I say that Steve got a little carried away with the makeup. Some touching up is fine, Steve, but purple lipstick and neon yellow eyeliner is just way over the top, and frankly not very becoming on you. Speaking of Steve, I want to thank him for his patience with my busy schedule this summer and understanding that filmmakers need time to procrastinate and self-doubt. Actually, I think he was patient, I mean he swore up and down it wasn't him who slashed my tires, sugared my gas tank and spray painted "dick" on the side of my house, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Last but certainly not least I want to thank Bob Sylvia. His help was invaluable. He gave up 2 of his saturdays to help me on this project as well as many hours on graphics. He also listened to my bullshit on the train in the morning. "The stupid HDV footage is breaking my balls" "I need to find more music" "The room I edit in at home has no AC and it's hot as hell" and so on. Bob is also responsible for the presentation of Steve's photos in the video and he had the great idea of scanning Steve's business card to capture his signature graphicly so we could use it in the video. He was also responsible for animating that signature. He shot second camera, ran sound and transferred all the files on set. To say he's an exceptional utility man is a massive understatement.

Thank you again to everyone.