[drumbeat]
MARIA: Hey Joe, it's Maria from B&H! JOE: Hey, Maria from B&H
How's it going? I heard you were here in your apartment,
so I wanted to ask you 21 questions. Do you have some time?
Yeah, awesome. I was just going through some prints
that people have ordered for their special days
that they want to remember.
And, yeah. I'd love to talk.
MARIA: Awesome, cool! So can you tell us, where are we?
We're here, we're in Weehawken, New Jersey. We're directly across the Hudson River from Times Square.
MARIA: And, can you tell the audience a little bit about what you do?
I'm a photographer and a filmmaker.
MARIA: And, I know you're taking on a huge project. Can you tell me a little bit about it?
Yeah, I'm shooting a 30-year time lapse of the skyline of New York City.
MARIA: And why take on such a huge project?
[Joe laughs] Because I'm a crazy person
[Maria laughs]
Living here in Weehawken, New Jersey, we're up on a cliff of the most outrageous, beautiful views of New York.
And, I lived here for about 10 years now,
and every time there's a sunrise, or a sunset, or the moon comes up, or just even a cool storm,
you just want to shoot it.
And I did. I wanted to shoot it.
And so, I was like "I have to figure out a way that I can shoot this, just, all the time."
And then, it became about capturing the days
because I wanted people to be able to have a day.
Maybe this is the day that your nephew was born.
Or this is the day you adopted a dog.
Or, in some cases, this is the last day that your grandfather was around,
so you might want that sunset to remember him by.
MARIA: That's awesome! And what got you started in photo and video?
When I was 10 years old, my dad gave me his camera to take to boy scout camp with two rolls of film.
MARIA: Wow, and what drew you to time lapses?
Time lapses are funny. I didn't even know the word time lapse.
I was about 13, and I was making a video for my uncle, an anniversary video for my aunt.
And I knew, like, someone had told me how that time thing happens.
You know, you take a picture every once in a while.
So, I i had this, like, really rudimentary, like, a three megapixel digital camera
that I spent all my money on.
And I went out with a tripod, and I had a stopwatch,
and I took a picture every minute of the sunset.
And I've really been shooting time lapse since then.
MARIA: And, you don't just sit home watching your cameras shoot time lapses, right? What else do you do?
Um...
I shoot a lot of fashion. I shoot Broadway and dance.
And I shoot a ton of music.
I shoot music videos and live music as well.
MARIA: And, what's your favorite thing to photograph or shoot on video?
My favorite thing to photograph is performance.
You know, live music, or live dance, or a play.
It just... You know, that's where I come from.
I used to work in theater. That's what I studied.
So I love to get back into the theater and take some pictures.
MARIA: And what was your first camera?
My first camera was the Pentax K1000.
MARIA: And, what's your go-to camera and lens now?
My go-to camera and lens now is the Sony a7R IV
There's one here shooting the city right now, actually.
And the lens that I love to use with it
is the lens from that K1000: 50mm Pentax lens with an adapter on the Sony.
It just... Incredible things happen.
MARIA: And, do you have any other projects going on, except for the pretty obvious one.
I do. The next big project for me, I'm shooting stills and video for a hairshoot for L'Oreal.
MARIA: So, what are some tips for somebody getting into time lapses?
If you're just started getting into time lapses, my best advice is just start immediately
because you can now with the cell phone.
Most cell phones, right? You just put it on a little tripod and go.
And if you get into it from there, like, if you continue to get excited about it,
you'll start learning. You know, you'll start going online,
and you'll start finding answers to the questions that develop.
MARIA: And I'm sure everybody's wondering:
what is your hard drive situation?
How do you store 30 years of time lapses?
[Joe laughs]
My hard drive situation is, in one word, obscene.
[both laugh]
This specific drive is by Western Digital,
and it's from 2014, when I was first starting to figure out how to do this.
I was on the GoPro.
And so, I've recently been going back to that footage to see when I started and how it worked.
And for now, I have a redundant hard drive situation.
So the computer...
Camera shoots to the computer, which goes right to a hard drive,
and then, every day at midnight, it's backed up automatically to a second hard drive.
At this point, just for the main camera--there are now seven cameras--
but for the main camera, I have about 18 hard drives,
and I'm in desperate need of a new solution,
and I'm working towards having a company help me.
Someone like Western Digital or Amazon Web Services would be incredible,
so I could get this all onto a server
and I could start doing things that I otherwise wouldn't be able to do.
MARIA: So, because of this project there's no chance of you moving from this apartment right?
Well, there is and there isn't.
I bought this apartment when I started the project,
so if I needed to move for some reason,
it's within reason that I could rent it out to someone.
The camera itself is extremely low profile.
In fact, when people first walk in, I have to kind of point to where it is.
MARIA: And, what do you do when you go on vacation?
[Joe chuckles] Well, it's a funny story.
When the project started, there was a software that allowed me,
for a hundred dollars a year, to remotely access the computer,
and I could check on the time lapse to see how it was doing, etc.
That program-- [chuckles] The software recently has, like, quadrupled in price.
It's no longer affordable.
So now when I go on vacation, I just kind of sweat until I get back.
[Maria laughs]
But, the beauty of the system, with all these cameras, is that there's redundancy now.
There's full redundancy on the main shot.
So it has its own camera, its own battery, its own computer.
Everything's doubled, essentially.
MARIA: Sunset or sunrise?
Sunset.
MARIA: What has been one of the most creative shoots you've ever done?
The most creative shoot I've ever done is a short film called The Pond.
which I did with director Regina Harris and Gerald DeCock.
And we were out in the woods, and it was totally wild and imaginative.
We drove up to the Catskills.
And it's based on a dream, and it's just my favorite thing I've ever shot.
MARIA: If you weren't a filmmaker, what would you be?
If I wasn't a filmmaker, I'd be a stage manager in theater.
MARIA: What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
The best piece of advice I've ever received is "it's just another show."
I went to college to be a stage manager,
and my mentor, Toro Parazzi, he taught us "it's just another show."
Whether you're a stage manager, or you're working in a restaurant, or whatever you're doing,
it's just another show, and I've used that, actually, much to my advantage.
At one point I was shooting Christy Brinkley,
and we had all these people diving into water,
and I was underwater above water and everything.
And I often tell people that at that point I was, like,
99% stage manager and, like, 1% percent cameraman
because it was more about all of the moving pieces and keeping it all together.
MARIA: And, aside from your camera, what's your favorite piece of gear
My favorite piece of gear is actually a funny story
because I went into B&H in a terrible rush to get a tripod,
and I spoke with this guy at the video desk,
and while we were waiting for it to come up,
he said--you know, I tell anyone who will listen about my 30-year time lapse project--
so I was explaining it to him,
and he said "You've got to check out this Syrp gear."
And I said, "Listen, I'm in such a rush. I mean--"
And he pulled it up, and he showed it,
He's like, "Look it up, just look it up, just look it up. Promise me you'll look it up."
[Joe laughs]
From that point, I bought everything that the people at Syrp make.
And it has hugely affected a lot of my shoots,
including the pond, which I mentioned earlier.
I did a thanks to the person at the desk at B&H.
I did a 300-foot-long, cable-cam time lapse over a 12 hour period,
which is, like, the backbone of that film
as it goes through the woods over a river and then over a pond, like the name of the film.
And I really have him to thank for that.
MARIA: Wow! And if there were to be a movie about your life who would play you?
Edward Norton. MARIA: You even sound like him a little!
[both laugh]
MARIA: And last question, who should we interview next?
Next you should interview Emmerich time lapse.
MARIA: Perfect, we'll call him right up,
and thank you so much for answering all of my questions.
And , I'm outta here!
Fantastic, thanks for stopping by!