from the bus...

Whenever I travel abroad, I find myself planted in a bus crossing some state, or county on a dusty highway. Without stopping, I'm drawn to photograph what we pass as if to slow down the speeding bus. There are so many things that go unnoticed. I tend to photograph the ordinary or unnoticed as a general and often repeating theme. Anyhow... here are a few recent examples from our honeymoon in Mexico. Always working in one way or another.

Back to it...

The last few months have been great. Work has been pretty steady, and hopefully will continue to be, but that's not the best thing that's happened. Liz and I got married! It was a great day, that took a lot of planning, and a lot of help from family and friends. Big thanks to all. (Tony for the shot above)

We set up a few lights for people to take their own pictures (thanks to Jason Varney) and got a lot of great results. People had a great time posing, jumping, shouting...





I'll get to the honeymoon soon enough. Back to work!

life is funny...

I legitimately try to produce photographs every day. If I'm not shooting personal work, I'm scanning old film, retouching, or editing the digital deluge of the last 5 years. Images come fast and loose and in all directions. My goal for the next year is to focus on areas of my portfolio that are lacking, namely, my studio work. A more unified look? Like the ones below? Light and Dark? That's one way to go. We'll see how it works.

Anyway. It's easy to get distracted these days. I've got a whole lot of important things to focus on: wedding, career, day to day work, and normal life (bills, food, fun?). The wedding planning is taking precedence most days if I'm not tech-ing or assisting, shooting happens when it happens. My lovely fiancee (below) AKA turtlebird prints (her etsy) has been the more active planner/blogger, but I'm doing my part. Trust me.


I've got about 7 rolls from my rolleiflex to develop which still holds all of the excitement of developing my first rolls. Everything old is new... sometimes. So here are a few from the past few rolls.

out and about...

New images!

I've been on the move lately. Mostly just to get out of the house and shoot. So, business is uneven, not surprising, and there's only so much NPR and retouching I can handle (not that I don't love Leonard Lopate and Terry Gross). I mainly wanted to get in to the crowd, right smack in the middle. I wanted to walk in the rain.

Soon I'll put up some new old camera/new phographs post.

new images, and old cameras...

I, like many other photographers, have a bunch of old cameras. Some are cheap and worthless, some hold curiosity value, and some are fully functional. One camera lingered between worthless and functional - my Grandfather's pre-war Rolleiflex Automat (all the way down). Milky glass, shot shutter speed spring, a missing fine focus lens, and a de-silvered mirror were some of the problems this machine had. On a lark, and a persistant nostalgia kick, I took it to Photo Gizzmo -who's phyical store closed but retains a web presence- to get it fixed. His fix-it guy restored it to working order. I've been really excited about the results (above and below). There are more images coming, as scanning takes a long time, and I'll share them here soon.

These images were shot on outdated Fuji NPL, a tungsten based film, so daylight has blue overtones. I left some of the blue in, but made the image a bit more neutral. Not sure which I prefer. Maybe I'll post the blue versions at a later date.

Better late than...

So, I've been neglecting my blog but that doesn't mean I haven't been engaged in photography. Lately, I've been shooting a lot with a pre-war Rolleiflex Automat which has encouraged me to step away from my digital camera and the crutch of the LCD screen. Of course, because things are slow and money is tighter than ever, I have yet to develop these 12 rolls of film. It doesn't necessarily matter if I ever get the rolls developed. What I'm (re)learning throught this exercise is; I have no separation anxiety from digital's immediacy; great pictures are more about getting the right connection than the right exposure; I truely enjoy waiting to see what I've got. Now, when I step away from my archives for a while, it's fun to discover new images that I may have passed over before

Recently, I met up with a friend of mine, Brad Hamilton, to shoot around and visit some galleries in NYC. This day made me realize something else. My street work hasn't been connecting. I've been too distant from the people I want to be shooting. I think some of that comes from paying too much attention to the back of the camera. Looking at my exposure takes me away from paying attention to what's going on around me.

I'll have to bring these rediscoveries to my personal work on the street, for sure, but in the studio it's different. Back in the day (oh how long 4-9 years seems) when we still used polaroid in the studio, we had a semi-immediate, imperfect representation of our shot. Now, I like to use the monitor as a polaroid to get my shots close, but then work as if I were shooting film, exploring different angles and moving with the subject. Capturing straight to a computer is actually a great way to work, so long as you're not checking the monitor too much as you shoot.

The shots above were shot with a 5d (without burying my head in its LCD).

older work...

I'm looking to the past again. Looking to find out what the heck I'm doing when I'm out on the street. The older work tends to be still, organized, and "more purposeful." These days I stay moving, never stopping to check focus, exposure etc. The pictures I love from this work have a sense of stillness even if there is motion (blur) evident. [above older work, below newer, Feb. 09]







Currently, there are more people visible than in some of my older street work. Two opposing reasons come up; I'm doing this because the city is full of movement and I want to slow it down; I'm kinda freaked out to actually interrupt them from their day. There's always an element of serendipity when shooting on the street and I'm allowing for more of that to seep in my photos these days. The problem is, I'm not sure if I'm happy about it.

Another look at Valentines day.

It was a strange one. Not so much Hallmark as Futureshock. My brother, epic sci-fi fan, concept artist extraordinaire, and webcomic artist got married. Ordinary enough right? Nope. He lives California while most of our family is on the East Coast, so he webcast his wedding so we could all attend. My parents must have been freeking out at the technology.

Here are a few non Hallmark Valentines. StopLove (on top) and a lonely look at Vday.

the benefits of working at home.

Not putting pants on until the afternoon and being grungy, hanging out with my girlfriend, her illustration and help looking at my photographs. It's nice to have our little artists community without ever leaving home. Of course if we went out in to the world, Brooklyn and Manhattan aren't the worst places to see artwork.

One of my favorite artists from Brooklyn is Chris Oh. Check out his work and I promise you won't be disappointed. Below is a portrait of Chris that I shot a few years ago.

self-referential.

To a degree, referencing your own work is good. It's important to know where your work comes from through your process, though being inspired by others is quite helpful. I find, looking through my older work, (ah, film where are you in my life?) themes and styles that show up currently. Shallow focus, layering, centered images, and deep rich colors are part of the language of my photography. That being said, here are some of my favorites from the last year. I'll try to keep up with at least a photo of a
month. It takes some time for me to decide that the images I take will make it to my website, but these may if they're not already.



January


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September



October

In the bump now I'd say.

November


December