5/1/11 Libya in SF
This entry was written by , posted on May 1, 2011 at 12:10 pm, filed under Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/29/11 Untitled 106
This entry was written by , posted on April 29, 2011 at 12:07 pm, filed under Street and tagged San Francisco, Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/29/11 Untitled 104 &105
This entry was written by , posted on at 12:06 pm, filed under Personal, Portrait and tagged David Lynch, face painting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/25/11 Thinking about color
I almost always see photographs in black and white, but color street photography has a new appeal to me with summer on the way.
This entry was written by , posted on April 25, 2011 at 5:00 am, filed under Street and tagged San Francisco, Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/24/11 Untitled 103
This entry was written by , posted on April 24, 2011 at 7:25 pm, filed under Street and tagged Downtown, Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/24/11 WSJ: Jejune Institute
Article on the Urban Scavenger Hunt known as the Jejune Institute, created by Jeff Hull. I would love to describe the experience and the idea of the project. But it’s complicated, and better you find out for yourself.
Also, closure of the Jejune Institute.
“There’s the thing, and the name for the thing, and that’s one thing too many.” -Octavio Coleman Esq. ?
This entry was written by , posted on at 1:42 pm, filed under Commissioned, Street and tagged San Francisco, Street, The Wall Street Journal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/16/11 Carmel
This entry was written by , posted on April 16, 2011 at 10:46 pm, filed under Landscape, Travels and tagged Beach. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/14/11 Cocktails
From a Market street cocktail crawl last month.
This entry was written by , posted on April 14, 2011 at 12:32 pm, filed under Commissioned and tagged Nightlife. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
4/13/11 Leica Project: Hollywood
From a post last month on the Leica blog:
I’ve always thought of America as the teenager of the world. And if you roll with that frame of thought, then Los Angeles would be comparable to the cool kid in high school that didn’t care about education, drove a fast car and was headed straight for a quarter life crisis. Yet I really love Los Angeles. Let me rephrase that: I really love visiting Los Angeles. Throughout my teenage years I made frequent summer trips to LA. Two-week stretches accompanying family on business trips. My mother would spend most of her time in the hotel room and told me not to leave Santa Monica and Venice Beach. I quickly learned the bus routes and soon was exploring Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and other unsanctioned neighborhoods. Back then (1996-1999) I had a red point-and-shoot camera and I knew nothing about photography. I took pictures only so I could remember, validate my experience or process what I was seeing. As a teenager from Sacramento (with fairly strict parents), sneaking through the city with a camera was like being on a drug; it was a mad barrage of experiences like nothing I had ever experienced, and most of which I was unable to comprehend. When I visit LA now, it still feels that way.
Recently some friends and I took a weekend trip from San Francisco to LA to attend a 20th anniversary party for David Lynch’s seminal ’90s TV series Twin Peaks at the appropriately creepy-campy Clifton’s Cafeteria. It was good to get out of San Francisco for a bit and revel in the LA light. I spent a Saturday afternoon walking around Hollywood taking photos. No matter how many times I’m there, it is always a bizarre experience. And it’s particularly bizarre after living in San Francisco (which you could fairly describe as the antithesis of LA). I am drawn to the city today just as I was drawn to it when I was younger. But now, along with a deeper vision that comes with age and education, I’m able to retrace and revisit the additional layer of a particular time in my youth, a time when I was so excited and naive about photography that every place I went the light felt like gold and a photograph was to be discovered.
After talking to my friends about the city, what struck me the most about Hollywood was its immense facade, which in many ways is the social currency of Southern California. The heart of LA, after all, are the movie studios. An empire built on fiction and dreams. Even the city itself was conjured out of the desert, like a trick of magic. Appearances and impressions play an important role here and like mirages, are not what they seem. For me, the city itself is an obscene dream. A convoluted script unraveling block by block, scene by scene. Its characters ridiculous, emotionally disproportionate yet enticing. Every time I’m there, I’m anxious to leave and every time I leave I can’t wait to go back to take more pictures.
This entry was written by , posted on April 13, 2011 at 11:16 am, filed under Leica Project, Street, Travels and tagged Hollywood, Leica M9, Los Angeles, Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/29/11 WSJ: Hacker Dojo
Earlier this month I photographed Jay Liew, a software engineer, who recently quit his job at a software security company so he could pursue his own start-up interests. Not surprisingly, he decided to move from San Diego to the Silicon Valley and one of the main reasons he made the move was because of the Hacker Dojo. The Dojo is a large and inviting tech community space that prides itself on being more than desks for rent. It’s more akin to a familial style start up incubator and computer-engineer haven. The Dojo had a feeling somewhere between fun-house and science lab, which in my opinion, is perfect for nurturing an imaginative and productive work environment. For example, one member rigged a cowbell labeled button into the wall that, when pushed, actually rings a cowbell attached to the ceiling. 3-D printers sit in one corner, and in another, gadgets and tools and a robotic spider that is in the process of being put together. If you’re living near the Bay Area Peninsula and ever find yourself needing to take tech classes or use community office space, you should definitely stop in and check the place out.
Read Story about the Hacker Dojo
This entry was written by , posted on March 29, 2011 at 5:49 pm, filed under Commissioned, Portrait, Still Life and tagged Hackers, The Wall Street Journal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/20/11 WSJ: Fremont vs. Union Pacific
A few weeks ago I was sent out to photograph a piece of land between a proposed BART station and the old NUMMI car factory now used by Tesla. The city of Fremont wants to use the land to build tech oriented offices in hopes of boosting the local economy. But the Union Pacific railroad recently purchased the land, to the City’s surprise, and isn’t interested in building offices.
It sounded like a piece of cake assignment. I mean how hard is it to photograph a field? Well, after walking through the mud, running across train tracks and driving in circles trying to find a vantage point offering more than ugly grass and midday sun, I realized maybe it wasn’t so cake. After a few hours of giving it my best I made a last ditch effort and pulled into the parking lot of Sunstate Rental, a nearby construction equipment rental company.
“Hey, I don’t suppose there’s any way you could take me up in one of those cranes outside do ya’?” I asked.
“Ummm, I’ll have to ask the Manager about that one.” The guy said.
Luckily, the staff at Sunstate Rental are awesome. They busted out one of their biggest cranes, put me in a harness and took me up, way up. When we got to the top I could see the whole area and (after thinking I was going to die because I’m scared of heights) was able to take a shot that illustrated the story much better than anything else I had captured on the ground. So thanks to the guys at the Fremont Sunstate Rental yard. If you ever need to wash a window on your 10th story flat, paint a mural, base jump, or do whatever people do with 80-foot cranes, go see those guys.
Read Story in The Wall Street Journal
This entry was written by , posted on March 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm, filed under Commissioned, Landscape and tagged Fremont, The Wall Street Journal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/16/11 WSJ: Plastic Bags
A few weeks ago I went to the the Sunnyvale Materials and Recovery Transfer (SMaRT) Station to photograph the issues they’re having with plastic bags. San Francisco took the lead with banning carry out plastic bags and now nearby cities, thankfully, are making the same push. Other than plastic bags being horrible for our environment they’re also, as I learned first hand, very inefficient in the recovered materials sorting process. They fly away from trucks and garbage piles then get caught on plants, wires and fences. They also clog the large machine they use to separate materials before they reach an assembly line of workers that does the final sorting. Everyday, a team of workers has to climb in this huge separator (that looks uncannily similar to a scene in Event Horizon) and pull the hundreds of plastics bags out by hand. In addition to this, the SMaRT station, which technically no longer accepts plastic bags for recycling, has been unable to find a viable market for recycled plastic bags.
After receiving a tour of the station and crawling into the separating machine, I was somewhat horrified by the amount of plastic disposed of on a daily basis. Plastic bags aren’t just unsustainable, they’re a considerable detriment to our environment. I encourage everyone reading this to make an effort to use reusable cloth bags, it really does make a difference.
Read article in The Wall Street Journal.
See also: a short film titled Plastic Bag, that tells the story of a plastic bag’s life. Narrated by Werner Herzog.
This entry was written by , posted on March 16, 2011 at 9:37 pm, filed under Americans, Commissioned, Landscape and tagged Bay Area, Environment, The Wall Street Journal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/9/11 Untitled 102
An image taken in 2007 in Flint, Michigan, at a christian teen-center in a rough part of town.
This entry was written by , posted on March 9, 2011 at 8:07 pm, filed under Americans, Commissioned and tagged Flint. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/7/11 Chinese New Year Parade
This entry was written by , posted on March 7, 2011 at 10:45 pm, filed under Street and tagged Chinatown, Parade, San Francisco. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/4/11 Untitled 101
My friend Brianna on our way to swim during a trip to Lake Tahoe with friends in August, 2007. I remember swimming in Lake Tahoe for the first time and being frightened because the water was so clear that you could see every rock and shadow. Ignorance is Bliss.
This entry was written by , posted on March 4, 2011 at 12:43 pm, filed under Landscape, Portrait, Travels and tagged california, Lake Tahoe, Swimming, woman. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
3/3/11 Untitled 100
Came across a frame from one of my first photojournalism assignments back in 2005. I distinctly remember agitating the film too long in the darkroom and being really disappointed that I blew out the highlights.
This entry was written by , posted on March 3, 2011 at 12:46 pm, filed under Americans and tagged Beauty Queens, california, Portrait, Queen, Rodeo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/24/11 Untitled 99
An old photograph from 2006 I recently rediscovered. It was taken while I was working on a project about the Yountville Veterans Home.
This entry was written by , posted on February 24, 2011 at 3:24 pm, filed under Americans, Still Life and tagged Christmas, Lonely, Yountville Veterans Home. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/22/11 Tiger Lily
This entry was written by , posted on February 22, 2011 at 7:28 pm, filed under Still Life and tagged flower. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/22/11 Leica Project: Embracing Your Photographic Naïveté
Some thoughts and images from the Leica Project as featured on the Leica Blog.
The more I invest my energy and time into street photography, the more pronounced a certain question becomes. What is street photography? This is by no means a new question as countless discussions and conclusions about what street photography is and is not long haven taken place before I even existed. With that said, what is interesting about the question for me, is the question itself. In other words, do I want to define what it is I do? What would be the purpose of this? Will it help me better understand who I am and where I’m going, or will it distract me?
After a good conversation about street photography with Mark Murrmann last week, photo editor of Mother Jones and avid Leica street photographer, he suggested I sit down and read, “Bystander: A History of Street Photography.” So I went to the San Francisco library and spent some time with the book. I was most engaged by the conversation in the back of the book with Joel Meyerowitz. It was fascinating to hear about his experiences with Gary Winogrand and Diane Arbus. (On a side note, I was comforted to learn that Winogrand was right handed and left-eye dominant, as I am, which ostensibly caused his frequent use of the tilted frame).
While looking and reading through the book, I was quickly overwhelmed by the vast history and evolution of the genre. Photographs I had never seen, important photographers I had never heard of. Again, I found myself in a position where I had to ask, “How much do I want to know?” Skipping through the text I was drawn to a quote from a photographer named, Robert Doisneau, whom I had never heard of until reading:
“If I took apart my old alarm clock, I could find out how it works, but afterwards I might not have a way to get up in the morning.”
It reminded me of a quote from David Lynch, a significant creative inspiration in my life:
“It’s better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you’ll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced to certain neuroses or certain things, and since it is now named and defined, it’s lost its mystery and the potential for a vast, infinite experience.”
There is undoubtedly a wealth of information in the history of street photography that would potentially make me a better photographer, artist, maybe even human. But I don’t feel a need to explore what others have done or learned and I think this is a legitimate feeling. Does this lack of information or education result in a photographic naivety? Yes, and that is exactly what I want. A lack of awareness can be helpful in finding your own vision, or your own way, because it forces you to reference the personal and the honest and the authentically felt. Does this show in the work? I don’t know.
A friend of mine who is a writer recently told me that he thinks the writing workshops he attended as a teenager were detrimental, that by listening to others, his literary voice was set back years of potential progress. I feel much the same way. I am not saying we cannot or should not learn from those that have gone before us, because obviously there is much to learn. But that we should only search for inspiration where it feels natural. That we should be careful about what we might let into our subconscious and more importantly, why. I’ve come to learn that the more analysis I do, the less honest and instinctive my work is. And the less I think about what I’m doing, the more satisfying the results.
It seems street photography is merely a reflection of whatever you want it to be. For me, I am happy to keep it as a tryst, a dance with what I do not understand. It is a sacred space that is not about climbing the industry hierarchy, historical dialogue, credibility, producing “good” work, etc. It is a method of photographing that has the least to do with photography, and the most to with what it means to be alive, here and now.
This entry was written by , posted on at 2:19 pm, filed under Leica Project, Street, Writing and tagged Leica M9, San Francisco Street Photography. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/18/11 Twin Peaks 20th Anniversary and The Bunny Museum
Took a trip down to LA for the David Lynch Twin Peaks 20th Anniversary Art Show and Party at Clifton’s Cafeteria. Had a great time and saw the Log Lady, Lucy and Grace Zabriskie. Took the afternoon prior to spend some time walking around in Hollywood, more images from that to come. Also visited The Bunny Museum, home of 28,000 articles of bunny paraphernalia and two real rabbits. It’s a living museum so there was a bible study discussion about the different ways of sacrificing animals happening in the living room that added a completely unexpected layer to the experience.
This entry was written by , posted on February 18, 2011 at 1:20 pm, filed under Leica Project, Portrait, Street, Travels and tagged Hollywood, LA, Leica, Los Angeles, M9, Portrait, Street. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/18/11 Sacramento
This entry was written by , posted on at 12:23 pm, filed under Americans, Personal and tagged Funny, Sacramento, TV, Uranus. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/17/11 SF Magazine: Malia Cohen
On New Years Eve I had the opportunity to meet and photograph San Francisco’s new District 10 supervisor, Malia Cohen, for the February issue of SF Magazine. I met with Malia, seemingly always vibrant and energetic, at City Hall where would soon be working on a daily basis. She recalled a trip as a young girl to City Hall that inspired her and helped instill in her the desire to become a politician. It was obvious that same awe and inspiration she experienced as a child seeing City Hall for the first time was still with her.
This entry was written by , posted on February 17, 2011 at 1:32 pm, filed under Commissioned, Politics, Portrait and tagged City Hall, Malia Cohen, Portrait, San Francisco, SF Magazine, woman. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
2/7/11 WSJ: Planet Hunter
At the end of January I had the opportunity to photograph UC Berkeley Astronomy Professor, and planet hunter, Dr. Geoffrey Marcy. Professor Marcy spends much of his time using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii to conduct his search for exoplanets that are similar to Earth.
“…Dr. Marcy and his colleague Andrew Howard spent five years surveying the frequency of planets among 166 of the nearest and brightest sun-like stars. They calculated last October that there ought to be about 23 Earth-size planets for every 100 sun-like stars, meaning there could be billions of such worlds in the galaxy.”
For the photo shoot Dr. Marcy took me to the telescope dome atop the Astronomy building at UC Berkeley. It was a beautiful day and we could see San Francisco in the distance. Being an avid fan of Science Fiction, I was curious what films a scientist who spends his time searching for planets in space might like. ( I feel there must also be some obligatory relevance to a Sci-Fi film liked but someone who has discovered countless planets.) Turns out Dr. Marcy is fond of Star Trek IV, where Kirk and the crew travel back in time to San Francisco and communicate with whales. He also enjoys Contact, up until the part with the preacher man.
Read the story in The Wall Street Journal here
This entry was written by , posted on February 7, 2011 at 1:26 pm, filed under Commissioned, Portrait and tagged Astronomy, Berkeley, Geoffrey Marcy, Kepler Mission, Mauna Kea, Planet Hunters, The Wall Street Journal. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
1/31/11 East of Eden
This entry was written by , posted on January 31, 2011 at 2:51 pm, filed under Americans, Landscape, Leica Project, Travels and tagged Big Sur, Birds Island, Carmel, Henry Miller Library, Highway 1, Old Veterans Trail, Point Lobos. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
1/17/11 Leica Street Studies 2
This entry was written by , posted on January 17, 2011 at 6:00 am, filed under Leica Project, Street and tagged Downtown San Francisco, Leica M9. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
» Next Entries