Former Photographer & Journalist
Most days when I share something on this blog, my father posts a comment — about how he thinks I’m talented, thinks I live a crazy life he doesn’t understand, or thinks my girlfriend is beautiful and that I should tell her I love her more often. I’m lucky to have parents who have supported me in many ways throughout my life and still today. So here’s are a pair of images of them from a visit they made to Austin. They’re pretty rad parents. Thanks for everything, Phil and Beck.
When American Minor began playing shows around Huntington in 2002, it was perfect timing for me. I was listening to a lot of Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown at the time, and American Minor fit right in with a similar alt-country sound. So I loved the band immediately. Eventually they changed up their style to be more southern rock, were signed to a major label, put out a quality LP, and toured the country enjoying some short-lived (but deserved) national success. More than 10 years later, though, I still listen to their first demo. Here are some image I shot at a show at The Stoned Monkey in Huntington, and below is that demo. Have a listen.
No photographer whose work I will share on this blog will have affected me more directly or personally than Donna De Cesare. I consider myself lucky to have gone to The University of Texas at Austin for graduate school where I studied photojournalism with the likes of Eli Reed, Dennis Darling and Donna De Cesare as my professors. It was Donna, though, who was my mentor and my thesis adviser for my documentary project in West Virginia. Last year, Donna published her first book entitled Unsettled/Desasosiego — a bilingual book uncovering the effects of decades of war and gang violence on the lives of youths in Central America and in refugee communities in the United States. The photographs (and words) are not only a beautiful and equally heartbreaking documentation of the lives of the book’s subjects, but the images also feel like personal snapshots of a family of which Donna is a part. That is exactly what Donna inspired me to do — to spend time with the people I am photographing, listen to their stores,understand their lives, and care about them and their struggles. If I do that, she taught me, my images will show that compassion. So go buy her book.
I nearly missed this show because I was unintentionally watching some jam festival on Pitt’s campus instead of being at the proper venue at Carnegie Mellon University. Eventually I figured out that I was at the wrong place, and I got to CMU just as Fugazi was taking the stage under a tent in a parking lot. I tried to use my college newspaper press pass to get on stage to shoot, but was denied. So I went to the other side of the stage and walked right up beside Guy Picciotto from where I photographed the entire set. I shot a number of images I liked at that show, but this is the only one that has survived electronically. One day I’ll find those negatives and rescan them. Dischord seems to like this image and has used it in a few places, so that makes me proud. Fugazi is still the best band I’ve ever seen live.
I have so many images from Femme et vélo shoots that never saw the light of day, I figured I’d post another. Lindsey was the third model we shot for the project, which simply didn’t have enough (or any) pups in the photos. This is much better.
As I mentioned in my recent post about W. Eugene Smith, I love the city of Pittsburgh. I took this image with my phone from a hotel room in Oakland when I was visiting the city. If it wasn’t for the snow, I’d want to live there.
Inspired by the likes of Jim Marshall and Glen E. Friedman, I began photographing my friends’ bands around 1995 when I was 14. For nearly 15 years I took photos at shows on a regular basis until I became pretty cynical about the over-saturation of cameras at shows. Shooting punk or hardcore shows was always the most fun, though. My aim was to be close and intimate with the band performing and the crowd. That is why I most enjoyed small, stage-less shows like this one of Steel Nation playing at The Brickhouse in St. Albans, West Virginia.
Jim Marshall is the reason I became a photographer. It seems a bit hyperbolic to say that, but there is truth in the statement. As a child I’d take disposable cameras on school trips or borrow my father’s Nikon AF point and shoot to take photographs of my friends acting out or make them pose in different environments. Around age 13, I was getting heavily into Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival and other artists from the Monterey / Woodstock era. Through the music, I discovered Marshall’s work and the concept of documenting musicians. That influenced me to photograph my own friends’ bands. That got me deeply involved with the West Virginia music scene, which led me to writing for ‘zines, which led me to a career in journalism. So in the end, I owe my professional existence to Jim Marshall and his photographs of rock musicians. Thanks, Jim.
Photograhs via NPR
The Tour de France starts on Saturday, and like every year I’m excited. So I thought I’d share this throwback photo of Ryder Hesjedal despite the fact he’s sitting out this year’s race. This image was taken at the 2003 NORBA National Championship Series cross-country mountain bike race at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia. Hesjedal, a two-time world champion from Canada at the time, dominated the race on that wet, muddy day at Snowshoe. It was an exciting performance to watch. About a year later, he made the full-time switch to road racing. He won the Giro d’Italia in 2012, and finished ninth in last year’s Le Tour. As a former mountain biker and competitive cyclist myself, it was a lot of fun shooting NORBAs at Snowshoe in 2003 and 2004, and I even got to meet some of my childhood idols like John Tomac. I miss mountain biking in West Virginia.
