i like to tell stories

lens fog, never seems to last once i decide i like it, but when you go from AC to outside in FL, it is just unavoidable.

my niece and my aunt.

chili’s

my brother’s daughter, the closest thing to my own daughter i will likely ever have.

seeing another image i made of her and my brother in my brother’s wife’s wallet made me feel good, this feeling is why i mostly make images anyway, it just isn’t as obvious as an example like this.

shoal river clays – july 4. free sausage and hamburgers and a borrowed golf cart, i love america.

shooting clays in florida in april-october, or even being here and going outside, has got to be one of the most inhospitable environments i have ever experienced. it is simply intolerable.

it feels like another planet on the course, a good course, but damn is florida an odd/beautiful place to look around.

poolside

pool

gulf of mexico

fireworks

today, monday, july 2, 2007.

queens, new york.

new york city – atlanta – destin

27th st. – nyc.

i remember long before i ever worked for a major magazine, how cool the notion was to be a photographer, intimately involved in and a major part of the publication of a piece of cultural history…. the reality is really different then i ever imagined of course, but i have these, and these are still cool to see, even tho i have had them for years and to many in this world i bet they mean little, but i have them still, hidden in stacks of this important that or that important this. time & people magazine envelopes…. digital seems to have killed my interaction of any actual object exchanging hands, no paperwork or magazine or film.

#1RN

i always shoot all ten polaroids as fast as i can, don’t look, don’t edit, just pop them off, $1 at a time and hope hope hope you never run out. i broke it into two rounds of 5 this time, i cheated on my own rule, 5 getting ready, 5 when ready, here are three when the painting was done… and then the film ran out.

i tried really hard to not take a picture of the rainbow, i managed to ignore it for 30 minutes driving north on the turnpike, but the damn thing kept showing up thru the trees and then doubled, fine, ok, i’ll take a fucking picture.
rainbows can be a bitch like that.

i have eaten at rialto 4 times, each time was a night to remember, each time for a totally different reason.

that’s my friend john justus hutchison’s father johnny jaxson hutchison.
i shot that at john justus’s first wedding back in 1994.
i just heard johnny jaxson is getting married a 4th time in a few weeks. he proposed on Xmas, he got her a new digi point and shoot, a new GLOCK and an engagement ring – awesome, altho hard to top next year. i dunno what says love more then buying the woman you love a handgun, more or less getting 4 women to marry you, i haven’t been married once and i am only getting older…. i bet if i had an H in my name, the ladies would be lined up at my door…. carrying guns!

today i got a love candle in the mail unexpectedly (sort of, i thought she was joking) from my friend carolyn.

so it seems after dating me, girls marry the next guy they meet, or meet sometime shortly thereafter, i dunno if that is good or bad, but it has happened more then once, twice, or was it three or four, i have lost track.

that’s amy, she just got married, on the beach, in tall heels, sweet. i asked to see the pics and she sent me the link, then i stole these off flickr.

immelt, ceo, ge.

i shot the guy twice now, once just before he started to annouce his position, once a few years later, both times for TIME. i get good resale off these, well, i use too, G gets it all now. there is something i like a lot about the green ones, i don’t know what, prolly the smirk. i think i would smirk too if i was in charge of one of the most powerful companies on the planet. i asked him what his hobbies are, he said, hobbies? work is my hobby. i guess that’s how you do it.

there is certainly no shortage of shell pictures at every course i go to.
texas.

i photograph my friend ariel like once a year, she is moving away from nyc, again, so we did one more shoot, i asked her what we should do, she said paint her gold, so i did. now i keep finding random gold all over my apartment. the spot she stood is of course covered, there are little tinker bell like footprints all over and even a nice ass print on the back of my already gold door.
all the right kinds of class here at 1RN.

one image from fear on a first date long ago, almost forgotten. one of ariel’s new tattoo, i am suppose to photograph her again soon, before she moves away from nyc.

i haven’t touched it since january 2005

KERRY COPPIN was the first professor i ever had. he was far too important an influence to really get into here, nonetheless, i wish we actually could along, our relationship was odd to say the least, two odd ass people in an unusual conversation that means too much to each of them never goes well, but if i didn’t have him in my life for the first 20 weeks of school, i wouldn’t be me, whatever i am.

my point is a positive one, if it can indeed be read thru these lines. kerry and i briefly had a good email exchange going, he sent me images, i responded, then it abruptly stopped on his end.

so be it. the invitation is open open open.

texas, 2 weeks after my niece was born, 2004.

texas.

true love = pennsylvania.

san francisco, a few years ago.
i worked for richard from 1995-1997, the guy literally kept me in food and shelter with assisting gigs. i don’t think i was all that great of a help, but man, did we have some fun….
RICHARD is one of the koolest people i know.

973 shotgun shells, one steak, one giganto bowl of oreo’s, ice cream, fudge…. all the ingredients of a good day.

crazy cell phone companies. i was about to pay a ton of cash to get out of my verizon contract and start over elsewhere rather then even try to deal with the system of repair/replacement/service. i have been freaking out over my cable company, my phone line at home, my cell, my coned, my host company, my landlord, my clients, on and on and on. everyone bullies everyone, it’s the way of the world, i used to have faith that good work or service would make customers loyal, be it your phone company or your photographer, but i am wrong.

so in the midst of fighting with V online and on the phone, who do i get assigned to shoot? the CFO of verizon at their world headquarters for a magazine cover, perfect. make it interesting, but leave all that space for logo/headline/whatever, so i did, the mag was happy, i was happy. the PR and CFO were actually super super nice, the shoot went crazy smooth all things considered. make up and shoot done in less then 15 minutes….. nice.

i bit my tongue all day about my issues, kinda. my phone came up, i alluded to trouble, the PR hooked me up with the corporate help squad. it helped, i got the problems mostly fixed, for awhile, but now there are troubles again. sigh…..

i just hope they like the images, buy buy buy…… i got a new cell service to get into trouble with.

i got 2nd place a couple weeks ago in the 5 stand event at factoryville, pa, my first C class money:
$8
jealous?

it’s rare, but every so often i wish i did graffiti, sometimes i just see the right thing in the right moment and i wish i had sprawled it….

maybe that’s what this is, these stories are just graffiti on your internet.

take that.

ali didn’t really change expression once, well, i got maybe 2 frames that are almost a smile. he was the first child i photographed today, he just stared at me even as i tried to give direction a little, he seemed indifferent to the whole situation, i cannot imagine how i would be in his place.

deshaun was all smiles, i asked him to relax for a few frames and caught these.

rodney was the most relaxed, more so then me even, not that i think i am ever relaxed. i tried to get him talking with me, football, sports, scars, whatever… it wasn’t till i did a mini slide show of the images in my camera of him for him that i felt i actually saw a glimpse of what he really may be like….

i had been up for over 24h already and photographed the girls during the middle of the night, i guess it was a good warm up or distraction for the images i needed to make today. a friend asked me to photograph for the HEARTgallery that works with kids that are up for adoption and using photographs of the kids, tries to find them loving homes.

i thought about it for weeks and at the last moment agreed to take part. tall order, make a photograph of someone in 15 minutes that you have never even met or seen before that is powerful enough for some stranger to see, fall in love with, and then offer them a home. such responsibility to have on ones shoulders, but it works. many kids have been adopted using this method and it gets to the very basic reasons i first realized the power just one photograph can have. the right picture in the right place can change peoples lives.

practically falling asleep at the wheel, i got to NJ over an hour early, pretty usual drill, but had the start time wrong, so was even earlier then intended. i had begged poor L to help me, not so much help, but be around and keep me as chill as i can be. the girl hates having her picture taken and at one point while setting up and having her stand in, we got video taped, as this happened, i thought she would pass out, the room was hot as hell and she was already almost crying from the fear of having me take her picture at all, now she was being video taped while i took her picture, classic….

this is us, trying to do our part in a very good thing.

another good reason to miss using my T3

S in the rain & the way to hertz

061607_2.mov – watch slideshow

a & s moved in across the hall for the summer. they wanted their picture taken before i ever had a chance to ask… sure, just knock on my door whenever. then they did, we shot the first round at 7pm, i made the last one around 2am, the night before i had to shoot for the heart gallery in the morning. we didn’t shoot straight thru, there was much goofing around, must be nice to be 18/19 again….

i didn’t give them direction much at all, i just let them pick their own music and pointed the camera at them. 1198 images later, we were done.

1500+ lit portraits in less 24h on no sleep, it was a good weekend, i should be doing this 3 times a week, minimum.

only my 2nd time here, it’s the closest place to shoot clays to nyc, but only has a bastard form of skeet and trap. i shot 4 rounds of skeet after photographing for the heart gallery and being up who knows how long, i didn’t break my record score in a skeet round of 25, dammit, but did 85/100 for the day, i’ll take it….. remembered my camera this time too, 18 self pics of 20 clubs visited, altho they are becoming less fun to do, that or i hate the camera, most likely, it’s both…

so awhile back, i made some killer pictures at a target portrait studio. too good for words. now this seems to have motivated my sister in law to take her portrait sessions at the local whatever store with her daughter/my neice, SIDNEY to a whole new level, she had sent me some of the regular/what you expect ‘nice’ ones…. but these, i just don’t what to say….. other then of course, when can me and sidney be together in one?

i posted the video here once before, but i changed it and now it feels better:
watch it : THE CREEK

so yeah, i gave some images to getty exclusive. this is the first time and place i ever let anyone or anyplace take part in my images……. i dunno what else to say.
GETTY

i keep reshuffling these, i dunno what to do with them, but they aren’t dead yet, maybe they just are here to get me ready for the next, maybe more then that, maybe part of it, maybe nothing…..

maybe i just miss CA.

i had a chance to listen to in person and possibly meet william klein recently. i got a job (how rare) and had to leave town, but i had been really nervous and excited to see him. there was a point when all of his work was still new to me, 1993 is when i found it actually. it changed the way i looked at everything and sure as hell changed the way i looked at everything through a camera. i couldn’t get enough, the guy was awesome. the way he got it in there, composed, and simply made the people almost explode out of his images. it seemed in contrast at the time to everything the photo school was telling me about making pictures and how they should be about the subject and tell a picture story and blah blah blah. it doesn’t matter what you photograph, just get in there, and then make whatever is ‘there’ explode, seemed such a better approach, get lost in the act itself and see what happens.

i have been kinda lucky, i have met or seen in person almost all the photographers who changed me simply by doing what they do and making what they make. it’s always in waves and their relevance and influences always fade or come around again, and for this i thank them all. but these days, the few left that are alive i almost rather wouldn’t meet. now sometimes it kills their work for me and sometimes it raises it. other times it simply wakes me up to path i didn’t see they were on. it isn’t that i worry that meeting them will ruin my feelings of their work, it’s that there are so few people’s photography that touches me so heavily anymore, i will miss knowing that the opportunities to meet or listen to them will be gone, and that longing to get more won’t be there……..

klein is still influencing, just ask john galliano, klein sued him, and won:

dyke march, 1993, dupont circle, night before the march on washington. it was dusk, i was standing on a street divider and walking against the flow of marchers. at one point, i just stopped and started shooting in the face of everyone that came my way, i just kept shooting, even when nothing in particular caught my eye, i was lonely, upset, lost and surrounded by thousands of women who literally didn’t notice me, on many different levels. i shot rolls, just from the one spot. later, looking at frame by frame with a loop on a light box before printing or contacting (i hate contact sheets, i look at every frame for the composition first, everything else can just fall where it falls) this one frame jumped out, i remember seeing it and moving the roll to some of the first to be printed. i don’t remember taking it, it was one of the few times i had indeed gotten lost a little in the act and just reacted without thinking.

i loved the picture, i printed it 16×20 right away. this was 1993, it would be the first frame of my ‘journalism’ portfolio for the next 6 years.

in 1997-1999, i cannot remember exactly anymore, it was just after i moved to nyc. i dropped my portfolio at OUT magazine, this was still the lead image in my portfolio. i couldn’t get an appointment, (i still don’t know the secret knock to actually meet a photo editor in person, to this day, at least half i shoot for i still have never met). a few days later i get a call from OUT, it isn’t the PE, it’s another editor. she’s kinda shy and quiet and first and doesn’t say much, then it comes out, “i am the woman in the picture.” my heart skipped a few beats. the central figure with the glasses, this was her, WOW. i didn’t know what to say, so i just listened, she went on to tell me the the woman whose hand on her shoulder had been her partner, she talked about the gleam of light off the ring on the hand on her shoulder, all the details i saw, but never focused like she had.

i mailed her a print, we never met, and that was that. i then stopped showing this type of work altogether, i always got hired for portraits, so i stuck with that, it was never on purpose.

sometime a few years later after seeing the print again, it hit me and i ran to my shelf to find the image, it was a klein like image, not in style, not in spirit, almost literally, and all chance, really, seems klein was more on my brain so many years ago then i ever realized.

the faces, the dusk, the drag shutter, the hands, the composition, even the event/situation was in a way the same…… it isn’t really the same, but damn is it similar. mr. klein, please don’t sue me, it wasn’t on purpose, and i am no galliano: