The Friday Philosophers

annual happy birthday post

2011-03-10T15:46:00.000-08:00

here

Diptych 2zdayz: black, white, & blue

2010-12-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

Diptych 2zdayz: open space

2010-12-21T11:07:00.000-08:00

from The Mission, SF.

twinkle. (the friday photo)

2010-12-17T17:25:00.000-08:00

tk & em (inyo county, ca)

The Friday Photo

2010-12-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

one from the film files

Diptych 2zdayz

2010-12-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

film.

Diptych 2zdayz: JM

2010-12-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

portrait : tfp

2010-12-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

PhotoShop 1 final project

2010-12-11T08:50:00.000-08:00

Diptych 2zdayz: melody hands

2010-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Images by JM.
(I didn't spend time on these- just wanted to throw them up.)

upon suggestion: LOST FOCUS

2010-12-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

Aran had an idea to do a series of images where the main subject is out of focus. I liked the idea and realized that I had a few of these in my library, so I took a second look at them. It is an interesting aspect for sure. I hope he adds his to this post. Here is my first installment.

I love JR. (part 2)

2010-12-04T19:30:00.001-08:00

The Friday Photo.

2010-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

(casey on 'waterboard', indian rock)

The Friday Photo

2010-12-03T07:28:00.001-08:00

one I liked based on the light and line.

I love JR. (shanghai)

2010-12-01T17:45:00.000-08:00

guerrillas.

2010-12-01T17:44:00.000-08:00

One from the memory banks.

JM & 510iso.

Diptych 2zdayz (2)

2010-12-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

The Road.

(A little something I tried.)

Diptych 2zdayz

2010-11-30T22:30:00.000-08:00

Fa Sho Sho!
(west oakland, ca)

Diptych 2zdayz

2010-11-30T08:50:00.001-08:00

PHOTOSHOP...first attempts.

2010-11-29T10:58:00.001-08:00

this is my first crack at graphic design. So far I have been using photos, brushes, filters, and fonts.

I can really see the potential here to do some interesting things (including designing our new logo!) These images I guess would be posters. The phone one is kind of personal, and the 'how do you see...' one I thought of as a flyer for the class at RYSE. Let me know what you think!

the final project....wow.

2010-11-28T16:05:00.000-08:00

here is a quick look at the final project for the artschange photography class at RYSE, fall 2010!!!!

accomplished in 5 hours, with the hands/brains/eyes of aran, tim, manuel, david, and myself. came out beautiful. after tim and aran left, david said 'we should get a door knob" and manuel said "we should all sign the door knob!" brilliant ideas, so i went to omega salvage and picked up an old door knob....and a key! we sat around and just stared at it for about half an hour before I left to get the knob and key...the fellas said that they wanted to go find more doors, I suggested other found objects that would go well in a series. they were very inspired. I felt proud of my work with them, i hope to see the piece on a gallery wall soon.

the piece is stunning, as nice as anything I've seen out in the photo/art world.

The Friday Photo

2010-11-19T20:54:00.001-08:00

7am day one with the m8.

The Friday Photo.

2010-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

One from the files... afternoon, Fridays!

btown, we trade spots...

2010-11-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

I noticed that as soon as I came back to the site, you were gone! Maybe that happened before, and/or in reverse. This threesome is not always the most comfortable system to function in, eh!?

Onward, forward, comrades.
With love,
510iso

sampler from the white mountains

2010-11-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Fridays,

I'm working on two small essays to post, but wanted to share the latest from the bristlecones (more up on flickr, but I'll post 'em here with some thoughts. I miss the essay aspect, that is the words and images together. I just re-read some of our longer posts, including my 35L lovefest, and remembered how enjoyable that was. Hope to take some time this holidays to really write somethings and share some projects. I would absolutely love to see some similar from you both, as time and desire allows.

my lightroom crashed just now...

2010-11-17T20:21:00.000-08:00

my catalogue is all f'd up. I may have just lost every single one of my photos.

I will find out tomorrow when adobe cust. service opens up.

I am understandably so upset right now. so fucking upset.

Diptych 2zdayz

2010-11-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

man and tree.

Diptych 2zdayz

2010-11-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

fence links and paint spills

The Friday Photo

2010-11-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

The Friday Photo.

2010-11-12T08:44:00.000-08:00

diptych 2zdayz (on wednesday)

2010-11-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

From our trip to the mission on saturday. Manuel and the chair builder. artisans at work.

new thread : diptych 2zdayz

2010-11-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

whose watchin'.

graf/montreal

2010-11-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

("I've been gone for a minute, now I'm back...")

Finally (finally!) had an afternoon off with nothing to do. It's been a very long time. Took my new little device out around the town as I explored the streets of Montreal. Man, Quebec has some serious graf writers: creative and prolific. Shooting with such a tiny camera (size and sensor) w/out using a viewfinder was a totally different experience, something I feel perfectly ambivalent about. The grainy, high depth of focus pocket experience is disappointing when thinking of portraits or landscapes, and just super awesome for the city. Anyways, enough of the ramble, here's a little sample.

version 2....hmmm

2010-10-28T22:41:00.001-07:00

yeah, I can't tell...now I think I'm leaning toward this one with the two gazers...(same guy, different shots..)

photoshop project 1

2010-10-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

wow. Okay, slowly but surely we are getting to some interesting things in photoshop class. The graphic design stuff is coming slowly, but I am now starting to learn collage using gradients, filters, and opacity/luminance. Sounds more complicated than it is. But this is what I really want to do first with photoshop; collage images together like multiple exposures to tell a story...or more like convey a feeling...it is a feeling in this image that I went for...I will also post an alternate version soon with a fourth image in it. for this one, I had like 5/6 images working together..but I ended up liking the three here. This will be the one I hand in. Pretty exciting new world/tool. let me know what you think!

two new diptychs: 'artist at work' and DaKiddaob'

2010-10-28T15:27:00.001-07:00

These are two new diptychs from the field trip on saturday...

one is a long exposure of a graffiti artist touching up a piece. the others are two photos that I think work well together of the ever-ready Xavier Polk aka DaKiddaob...

artist interview with Remedy cafe...

2010-10-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

hey all, here is a quick interview with Remedy Cafe in Oakland about the piece I did for them...
enjoy.

-JM
http://iartremedy.blogspot.com/2010/10/asking-artist-joseph-mintz.html

rich

2010-10-08T14:07:00.001-07:00

retrofit (sneak preview).

2010-10-07T10:57:00.001-07:00

I did a fashion shoot for my friends Jenny and Julia a few weekends ago... J&J have started a sustainable vintage clothing store called Retrofit Republic, and they wanted photos for their "look book" and website. It was an awesome, ridiculous, slap-dash photo shoot at the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park- me the photographer, Jenny the artistic director, and two of Jenny & Julia's friends whom they'd recruited to model their outfits, 12 outfits in all.

It was a chilly, overcast morning whose highlights included (1) Jenny slamming her thumb in my car's trunk door before the shoot even started, and then carrying on by wrapping her bloody thumb in a tourniquet made of a napkin and a hair tie, (2) Julian, The Male Model, changing outfits and standing around in his underwear right out on the walkway in front of innocent passersby who just wanted to look at flowers on a Sunday morning, (3) Melissa, The Female Model, who just fucking carried herself and looked like a professional model despite the fact that she is a currently-unemployed financial analyst in Real Life, (4) a photo that I snapped of Melissa's terrorized expression as I nearly toppled off of a tree branch while taking a photo of her, and (5) coffee. And laughing our asses off. And being treated to a breakfast, including bacon, afterward.

Behind the scenes:

2

2010-10-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

up and down the block (b/w)

2010-09-29T09:05:00.001-07:00

BM 2010.

2010-09-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

It was like watching the rise and fall of a city in fast forward. We arrived as camps were building up their stages and shade structures; by the end of the week, we watched as it all got broken down. In between those two endpoints, an entire city of 50,000 people existed and thrived. There was a "downtown" at Center Camp where you could buy coffee and ice (the only two commodities that could be purchased with money- priorities, priorities); there were "suburbs" of tents and camps stretching out into the desert; there were rangers whose job it was to keep order and there was a DMV that registered official Mutant Vehicles; there were workshops and events at all hours of the day, bars, clubs, art galleries, a Census, and services of every kind, based purely on human ingenuity and what could logistically be hauled out into the middle of an alkaline desert- which was, surprisingly, a lot.

There was also the equivalent of a place of worship, which was the Temple- by far my favorite place on the playa. The Temple, like the Man, goes up in flames at the end of the week each year. Before it burns, it is a place where people can go to leave offerings, pray, grieve, and write on the walls. I went out to the Temple every day, usually at dusk when the playa would start settling into the quiet transition between midday heat and nighttime revelry.

At the Temple, Burning Man was just as much about mourning as it was about hedonism- two different forms of letting go. And again, at the Temple, Black Rock City was a city, as with any city. If you open the walls to the people, they will write love poems, they will write regrets and I miss you's, they will write hopes for themselves and others. They will write declarations of pride, joy, heartache, and triumph. Some of them will tag with Sharpies and spray paint. They will vent anger. They will write responses to each other. They will write things that they find they can't say.

(What is it about sharing it that helps to let it go? It's like a large-scale, written attempt at integration, and comfort through shared experience and resonance- knowing that your experience is not unique, even as you are alone with it. It is as if, together, people are saying to one another, I hear you.)

We camped with Vulcantown, the Burning Man contingent of a lot of fire spinners, jugglers, and object manipulators who live at the Vulcan in Oakland. Vulcantown was a part of the "inner circle" at Conclave, the massive fire show that happens before the Man burns on Saturday night, so we got to be as close to the Man as it was possible to get. The fireworks literally landed around us, like showers of fireflies, as they fell from the sky. Then a blinding dust storm kicked up as the Man collapsed into a giant bonfire, and the storm turned everything around me into a windy, howling orange-black punctuated by the glow of the fire, the shadows of other people, and the disembodied techno music from passing art cars. I had never been part of such an alien landscape in my life. That was the point at which I stopped taking photos. I couldn't even try; I just wanted to be there; and suddenly there was a very clear limit as to what I could ever hope to document.

The Xavier Polk session

2010-09-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Xavier Polk: upcoming music producer, business owner, and photography student at RYSE center, all by the age of 16. He asked me to do a photo shoot with him for his promotional purposes, I was happy to provide a service. Here are what I consider the best shots of the afternoon.

Back from the burn.

2010-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

Burning Man was revelatory, you guys. I was planning on making it a big photo essay project, but what ended up happening was that I had very little desire to take photos while I was out there; I just wanted to be in it. It was a fascinating perspective for me to recognize in myself- that ultimately, my first priority is to experience something novel, not to photograph it. If I end up going back out there next year, that may change. I would love to set up a formal photo studio and concentrate on doing Burning Man portraits. I look forward to that, too.

Photos will be coming shortly, but before that happens, I'm waiting on a new Macbook to ship my way (!!!!!). The Burning Man photos will be the first photos that I upload to my new laptop and Lightroom will be the first software that I install. And then my head will explode.

Martin Herrera Soler

2010-09-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a great little set of photos from his trip to Cuba. Really nice selections.

enjoy:

http://martinhsphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/Cuba-Havana-Latin-America/G0000.4XxWHeAR9M/0/1

First shot of the M8

2010-09-07T16:21:00.001-07:00

Here is the first sample shot Ya'll. I got an early demo model M8, used, off of craiglslist. Wilfried the guy who owned it was great....originally from germany, and a lover of rangefinder cameras. So far, the images look great.

sf window!

2010-09-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

believe it or not, this is only a reflection. All of it took place in the reflection of a window, only adjustments were made to the tone. crazy, looks like a collage.

another Perspective on hands... (RYSE summer jam)

2010-09-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

we worked nicely together at the RYSE summer jam, and our vantage points seem to have complimented each other nicely. It was a great experience for the collective to do this event. Here are a couple shots in desaturated color...

trilogy of hands. (the friday photo)

2010-08-27T16:29:00.001-07:00

preview of an iphone installment

2010-08-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

I have a whole bunch of diptychs coming. I have been playing with new apps, and getting way deep into iphoneography.....too deep???? Not sure....we will find out. hehehehe.

RYSE Summer Jam!!!!

2010-08-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

This troupe was called 'Urban Prodegies' i believe, and they were awesome. (check out a up on the stage grabbin a shot!)

This Kid was nasty on the dance floor! Love the smile on his face.

Remedy Cafe!

2010-08-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Fridays, I got selected for the show at Remedy Cafe, that opens sept. 2nd! I'm pretty excited, it has been a long time since I have had a piece up on display...many years. I wanted to show you the pic of it. we will have to have a coffee there some morning for our regular meet up, eh?

The Friday Photo.

2010-08-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

(iphone dyp-tech, nightime SF)

(hipstermatic... yeah.)

still a nice thought

2010-08-18T12:33:00.001-07:00

esperanza

2010-08-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

The Friday Photo: self snaps in sepia

2010-08-13T18:06:00.001-07:00

No editing software but iPhoto these days... alas. (Come on UPS!!!)

reflections on oscar grant.

2010-07-29T21:15:00.001-07:00

Driving out to Richmond the afternoon of the Mesherle verdict, I could feel the tension starting to build already. I showed up at the RYSE center and Fred and some of the youth staff were already starting to set up chairs in the front lobby. There was an unusual amount of young folks hanging around the front of the building, and everyone was a buzz waiting for the 4pm trial verdict to be announced.

I was feeling anxious. Several thoughts were running through my mind- remembering Telegraph Ave up in smoke and glass during the Rodney King Riots, watching LA and cities all over the country burn, watching the media over the last few days get hyped and ansy about whether all the poor black folks from the avenues would wild out, and my thinking- sadly, actually- that the response would be more powerfully underwhelming them overly so. Seeing the faces of the young folks I work with, checking in with them as the trial went on, mostly they seemed more involved in surviving their own lives to really step back and take in what was going on around them. But the thought, or rather image, most in my mind was remembering the first time I saw the footage of Oscar being shot, in the back, on the ground, arms behind his back. Prince and I jumped. The jolt I felt through my body watching is still inside me. Execution, was my first and most prolonged thought.

As the verdict was being waited on on the TV, Fred gave a rundown for the younger RYSEers about Rodney King. Fred grew up in Inglewood and shared first hand experence of what the riots really felt like, and the longer historical context of their emergence. Che then dropped some local history about he and his father getting beat up by the police on 23rd street during Cinco de Mayo, and the subsequent community organizing efforts that changed city policy. Then the verdict came onto the screen.

God dammit. As it settled in, I felt a fire burn inside me. The sentence was too predictable, the consistency painful. I thought of little Bobby Hutton's grave stone where I would ride my bike as a kid, and of the dozens of young men I know who will spend more time locked up for MUCH less heinous crimes, whether mistakes or not. Bizarely, though he received the lightest sentence possible, Mesherle actually became the first officer in over 3 decades to be convicted at all in a homicide allegation. Oscar’s uncle was the most articulate: ‘I don’t even blame Mehserle. This is the product of a poisoned system.’ Later, a reporter asked him if he wanted to tell the people of Oakland to not react negatively to the verdict. ‘People are entitled to have their own feelings and choose their own responses to events. I know what I feel, and I feel outraged.’

I left work and headed right down to city center to see what was still going down. I know the major speeches were over, but I felt the need to be around people and feel the mood myself. After negotiating the illegal street blockades set up everywhere by the police to contain the crowds to a tiny, manageable intersection, I met up with a colleague Dzashe and observed the scene. A bizaare mix of 'hood teens, outraged Oaklanders, and masked white rebels were stirring up chaos every few minutes that had been contained into a single intersection by city hall. Stolen sneakers were being traded on the spot. There were as many photographers as there were protesters. Kind of interesting, kind of sad. Every potential window breaker or rock thrower was immediately surrounded by a horde of photographers trying to 'capture' the moment. I just put my camera in my pocket after awhile, I couldn't be a part of it. A young white girl got reprimanded by two older black men for spray painting on a city column. ‘Go take that shit to Danville, don’t do that round here!’ She looked scared and pissed and ran away into the anonymous safety of the street crowds. The spray paint, still drying, read: ‘Racism.’

As evening gave way to night, the police decided to act. They would lurch into the crowd and grab someone, then try and back everyone else away. I young 'hood walked right up to an officer who was swinging his club menacingly: 'Man, you look like an animal. You should be ashamed. Where you from? Where you from?'

I haven't really taken the time to fully digest the night. I must say the scene downtown was strange, to say the least. There was something circus-like about the environment. That could be felt in the media's preamble of fear prior to the hearing and the excited fear of whether the wild folks would come out and burn the city down. Sadly, Oscar himself began to be forgotten, it seemed to me. Or maybe just subsumed into a larger plot. I guess I just can't say quite yet... Let's see what the discussion becomes at Mesherle's sentencing.

The friday Photo...(one in color)

2010-07-29T20:36:00.001-07:00

images for the Remedy submission

2010-07-29T19:58:00.001-07:00

whats up fridays? Man, I have so much stuff to post on backlog: shots from my class at ryse, shots of the upcoming music producer Xavier Polk, aka da kidd, shots off the last leica roll. also, lots of thoughts about a new camera: 5d? ricoh grd3? sell the film leica and buy an m8.2???

new class starting in the fall, new projects, wondering what move makes sense in the equipment department. saw a 5d body on craigslist today that looked great, almost jumped on it, but decided to chill, maybe you guys can tell me about how your 5deez are going...awwww money and decisions...anyways, here are the two images that I will work with for the Remedy show, feedback is welcome.

-JM

throw back.

2010-07-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

The Friday Photo.

2010-07-29T12:37:00.001-07:00

(Edited with iPhoto. I've become hesitant to post without my Lightroom access, but here ya go!)

twin n i.

2010-07-21T12:21:00.001-07:00

Twin is an amazing individual i had the pleasure to work with for awhile in Richmond. I hope to do a photo essay soon involving him and his amazing story, but I wanted to first throw up these portraits we took of each other waiting for the BART train. More down the line.

just an old iphone shot

2010-07-20T23:05:00.001-07:00

the bomb!

2010-07-17T23:47:00.000-07:00

hey guys, one of my students, Manuel, took this shot and edited it. He's got mad skills.

the one in the photo is Xavier. I had to post this because it is just so nice.

The Friday Photo.

2010-07-16T19:50:00.001-07:00

The Friday Photo.

2010-07-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

verdict.

here's a little story...(orange rust)

2010-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

apple farm part 2

2010-07-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

crew battlin'.

2010-07-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

New homie numero uno: camera is there. Check out the site:
http://camisthere.exblog.jp/

I don't know what the characters say on the photo, but I think it says, 'I got TFP's back!' And, just to keep it real, I even through Kimozo42 a bone ("nice shot").

(doubt he'll comment me back though...)

world cup part 2. (ghana vs. uruguay)

2010-07-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

am-tracks.

2010-07-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

re-focus.

graf and light.

prince and stride. (portraits)

2010-07-02T15:45:00.001-07:00

how's that RYSE photo class goin, j???

world cup.

2010-07-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the best spots to watch the World Cup in the Bay Area is the Guerrilla Cafe, a local gem run by some friends and artists. Here's a series of photos from Ghana vs. US- support strongly in favor of Ghana. (Plus, peep the hot art show on the walls, Funk & Soul Collection.)

(taking a breather.)

(Gyan takes the ball down the left...)

(Gol!)

a taste of 'the apple farm' set.

2010-07-01T21:47:00.001-07:00

meditation room.

2010-07-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

The Friday Photo.

2010-06-25T09:08:00.000-07:00

untitled.

2010-06-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

quote of the day.

2010-06-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

"There has always been war. War is raging throughout the world
at the present moment. And there is little reason to believe
that war will cease to exist in the future. As man has become
increasingly civilized, his means of destroying his fellow man
have become ever more efficient, cruel and devastating.
Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which
has existed throughout history by means of photography?
The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance.
Yet, that very idea has motivated me..."

James Nachtwey

drag prom.

2010-06-21T22:21:00.001-07:00

(richmond, ca)

kodak easy...

2010-06-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

I took a few shots with the kodak easy-shares that I will be teaching a class with a the RYSE center starting next week! I am impressed, 10.2 megapixels and the image quality is better than I thought. Technology is crazy...Looking forward to the class, I edited the shots in iphoto, which is also what I hope to teach to the kids, at least enough to get their mojo flowing.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

2010-06-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

(posting just because it's been so long.)

36 frames on a roll.

2010-06-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

strangers & lessons in photography.

2010-06-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

I had literally just gotten back into Oakland from my 2.5-day drive from Denver when I was approached by a woman outside of A Cuppa' Tea. She asked if she could take my photo for a project she was doing called the Stranger Project, wherein every day she asks one stranger if she can take their photo. Her premise:

"I started this project primarily because approaching people and asking if I can make a photo of them is hard for me to do and it’ll become very easy once I’ve done it 365 times. I also started it because I want to improve my portrait photography skills, and my photography skills in general– the main incentive, in my opinion, for undertaking a 365 photos project.

The idea of doing a 365 featuring photos of myself seemed exceedingly boring not to mention narcissistic. And the idea of having to come up with a subject to photograph every single day seemed even more daunting than approaching a stranger every day and asking the soon-to-be un-dreaded question."

She introduced herself as Jen, and after she took my photo, I asked to take hers.

Then she handed me a little card that said strangerproject.org on it. She said that she hasn't been publicizing the site or the project at all outside of handing a card to each stranger that she photographs every day, but she's been finding that word has gotten around because her photo subjects will post the photo of themselves to their Facebook pages.

We talked for a while about undertaking photo projects "just because." Not because we're professionals, or because we aim to do anything specific with the photos that we take, but just for the love of taking photos and wanting to get better at it.

She was the perfect stranger to have a conversation with after my revelatory photo-taking experience in Colorado.

(One) lesson learned: Facebook = good viral publicity.

--------

Shortly after I got back, I also emailed a friend of mine who is running for Oakland City Council and asked if she wanted a photographer for her first campaign fundraising event. She said hell yeah, so I went and took photos for three hours. She had another photographer named Frederic there who had a 5D Mach II and a whole camera setup that far outstripped mine. He, like me, was using a 17-40 lens (whose quality, he said, was totally comparable to the 16-35, but he had a flash system that made it possible for him to take really sharp photos in low light). He also had a 50/1.4 lens to take close-up portraits, and one of those single-legged tripods for steadying his camera. I just had my 17-40 lens and therefore needed to use whatever natural light I could find. I feel kinda wary of relying on flash, but especially for a 'professional' gig, it was hard for me to not feel as though I was missing something- not just in terms of equipment but also knowledge base.

I think I got some pretty decent photos from the night, and felt pretty happy about kicking off a potential ongoing portfolio-building gig; I also learned a lot about what I still need to learn, which is maybe the greatest novel experience I have been having consistently lately (novel in that I feel it without shame, only determination and interest).

Then, the other morning, I was playing around with different settings on my camera and hit a very dangerous feature called "CF Format." And my camera, without any further confirmation, drew itself upright, did a military salute, and formatted my CF card for me by erasing everything on it.

Lesson learned: Upload photos- especially important ones- right away, and then maybe even back them up if you feel ambitious. Do not count on keeping them safe on your CF card until you get around to uploading them in, like, a week. Because what will happen is that you will accidentally erase all of them while zealously pressing buttons, or drop your camera into a lake filled with alligators, or a very agile velociraptor will remove your memory card from your camera and eat it, and then you will have to tell your friend/client that you have no photos for them because _____ happened and they were totally right to have more than one photographer present at their event and maybe you can try again next time and actually have something to show for three hours of taking photos?

j.dub, unedited.

2010-06-19T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'd been wanting to do this photo shoot for months, ever since I saw that J owns a hoodie that is the exact color of the walls in his room. Here are a few of my faves. The rest are uploded here.

denver road trip.

2010-06-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

What to say about Denver. It took 20 hours to drive there via the 80 east through Nevada and Utah, 25 hours to drive back via the 90 west through Arizona and the 99 through the Mojave Desert. I spent three days in the Denver area itself with my friend Kimbo and her friend Bert. Bert is also a photographer- when I first got into Denver and met up with them, he had his 5D Mach II in hand, with a 50/1.4 lens on it, and we proceeded to talk photography for the next three days. Bert revealed that he had also brought a 70-200 telephoto zoom lens and a 16-35L. I ventured asking if I could maybe try the 16-35 sometime while we were in town, and he said of course. The disbelief I felt was maybe the exact feeling you'd get if you found a rusted-out lamp at the Ashby Flea Market and touched it and a genie came out.

anderson, ca.

2010-06-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

Hi tfp. I have lots of photos to share from the last few weeks. I'll work on posting a few photo essays to get started, can't wait to really go through these and do some photo editing. For now, everything I'll post here hasn't been touched or edited at all. I just downloaded the free 30-day trial of Lightroom 3 and haven't learned how to use it yet, but you can bet that soon I'll be editing the shit out of some photos. Yeah!

First photo essay.
j.dub and I went up to Anderson, just outside of Redding, to visit his maternal grandmother last month for a couple of days. She is dying of lung cancer, and j's mother's whole side of the family was there to essentially say goodbye. For two days I felt both entrenched and suspended in a quiet, focused observation of someone else's family and j's place in it- weird and illuminating in the way it will be when we do the kind of recovery work we do. While there, I took exactly one roll of Tri-X black and white photos on my Minolta.

inspiration.

2010-06-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Beautiful images in these essays, and in general at Magnum. I dig their style and feel.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/between-heaven-and-earth
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/world-cup-2010

Please check it out.

I like this guy's approach...

2010-06-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

http://photo.net/learn/wedding/wedding-photography-tips-with-jeff-ascough/

Shooting weddings like a photojournalist is his gig- voted top 10 wedding photographers in the world. I'd love to practice some of this with you guys- maybe early October? hehehe.

I can't wait to dust of my 5dees and start shooting this summer. I think I'm one week away from being able...

Dwight collage

2010-06-09T18:13:00.001-07:00

black and white

2010-05-25T12:28:00.000-07:00

some color

2010-05-25T12:26:00.001-07:00

Floating House

2010-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

SoFoBoMo.

2010-05-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

hey! let's each do this and see what we come up with. http://www.sofobomo.org
let's DOOOO IT.

a coupla portraits.

2010-05-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

guys...

2010-05-11T22:13:00.001-07:00

somebody please post something....its killing me. something old even.

The Herbalist In Oakland.

2010-04-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

I shot a class for a friend of mine who is an herbalist and plant specialist in Oakland. He teaches out if his small home kitchen. I took a part creative and part photo-journalistic approach. Here are a few black and white versions of the shots that tell the story of the afternoon. It was a fun challenge, and good for sharpening my professional chops.

Glow people

2010-04-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

Arsenal...

2010-04-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

played like absolute shit today, and last week. Two wins from the title, and we lose them both...
For fuck's sake!

Glow City

2010-04-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Hey all, here is a new series I did with some material from the archive.

KT and Faces

2010-04-16T11:24:00.000-07:00