Former Photographer & Journalist
I love New Orleans, but I don’t love Bourbon Street. On a visit to the city in 2010, my friend Gino and I had to walk from the W Hotel to Frenchmen, so we chose Bourbon as our path. With a point-and-shoot in hand, I snapped some photos of folks passing by on the urine-and-vomit-soaked street. (Note: I took these photos with a broken, cheap camera then edited them in my phone. Hope that explains the lousy, grainy quality.)
In 2008 I did a portrait session with my friends Meuwl and B. Rude of the Charleston, West Virginia-based hip-hop duo Rabble Rousers. Having recently posted a photo of Rabble Rousers, I had come across this image of the B-Rude. It had made me laugh, so I thought I’d share it. Now check out B. Rude’s current music project Dinosaur Burps and stream his new album below.
Freelancing for a small newspaper outside of Austin, I once shot the Texas Swimming & Diving State Meet. My assignment was to photograph one particular swimmer, but having been on the swim team in high school, being there took me back and I took some random shots as I wandered around the pool. Here are a few of those images.
Jay Adams passed away late yesterday. Adams and this photograph by Glen E. Friedman changed my life. In fact, it is tattooed on my right leg — that is how much it means to me. I’m gutted by the news of Jay’s passing. He lived a hard life troubled by family issues, drugs and crime, but he is one of the most important skateboarders of all time. I’m not a skateboarder, but it was Jay Adams and Glen E. Friedman’s photographs that inspired me to be punk rock, to be rebellious, to not trust authority, to live my life my way. Having moved to Los Angeles, I hoped I would run into Jay, meet him and thank him. He was an inspiration to me. Thanks, Jay. RIP.
Earlier this week I received my copy of Eugene Richards’s new book Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down after supporting his Kickstarter campaign. I supported his campaign because Richards is one of my favorite working documentary photographers who is doing what I believe is some of the most important work out there. In gradate school, I was lucky to have the opportunity to have dinner with Richards thanks to Magnum’s Eli Reed being my professor. It was an inspiring experience. All of Richards’s books (many of which self-published) are filled cover-to-cover with powerful photographs that remain in your memory. One of my favorite books of his that is sitting on my shelf is 2010’s War Is Personal, which is “an examination of the consequences of the Iraq War.” Here are a few images from that incredible body of work.
Continue reading “Photographer: Eugene Richards – War Is Personal”
Last night I saw the James Brown biopic “Get On Up.” I’m a big fan of Mr. Brown and his music. If I could see any musician at any point in history, he’d be in my top three. Much of my appreciation of the Godfather of Soul has to be credited to my graduate school friend Thomas, who is quite the connoisseur of Mr. Brown and as well as all things soulful and funky. So when I saw “Get On Up” last night, I naturally thought of Thomas, who also took me to the show pictured above. The image is of Blowfly — the sex-based parody funk rap persona of Clarence Reid, who like Mr. Brown is from Georgia. Though Blowfly is no Soul Brother No. 1, it was still quite an entertaining performance. Thanks, Thomas.
In March 2013, I was visiting New York City, and I took a train north to visit the Harlem Studio Museum where there just happened to be an exhibition of Gordon Parks’s project “A Harlem Family.” It was a very fortunate coincidence for me as that project was an inspiration for my thesis work in Appalachia, in which I narrowed my focus on two specific families struggling with poverty. All of Parks’s work is incredible and influential, and the Harlem Studio Museum exhibition was eye-openingly beautiful and heartbreakingly honest, as can be seen in just this small edit of images.
Somewhere off I-10 in New Mexico there is a gas station that loves American flags… and locally grown nuts, fresh jerky and Icees. I highly recommend it.
Also, here’s one of my favorite John Prine songs, which he opened with when I saw him perform at the Paramount Arts Center in Ashland, Kentucky, in 2004.
Taken nearly seven years ago to the day, this image is of the hardcore band Holden Caulfield playing at the YWCA in Huntington, West Virginia. The show was the band’s guitar player’s last performance, so it was a bit of a celebration. (Below is a video, in which I can be spotted taking photos.) Looking through the contact sheet, I see there was silly string, confetti, a blond wig, and a lot of goofy facial expressions. It was a fun show to shoot.
One of my favorite photo exhibitions I’ve seen was of Garry Winogrand’s “Women are Beautiful” at the Denver Art Museum in 2012. I’d always loved Winogrand’s street photography, but had never seen many images from this collection. (Probably because the book costs hundreds of dollars.) These photographs of young (white) women are fun, awkward, and always interesting. They’re also provocative and exploitative — and often say as much about the men in the images as they do the women. Looking at them in 2014, though, they’re socially relevant as a documentation of the changing of the role of women through the 60s into the 70s.
