fotografico

an interlude

2012-01-12T13:12:00.002-05:00

The swimming pool / Nashua, NH

I'm sitting on a stinky pile of undigested primary photos, but wanted to post this one for now. A moment snagged between Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich at a fancy hotel where a county GOP party took place.

day one, part two

2012-01-07T14:51:00.000-05:00

a few days behind because things are so hectic. tonight i'll be at the the first of two national debates in 24 hours. brad and i heard this great line on the radio today. it was something to the effect of "enjoy this circus while you can, because after it's over, it's just winter."

waiting on newt

arrival

lobby at newt event

manchester police at mitt rally

media at mitt rally

the mayor of manchester introduces mitt

mccain endorses mitt

ask mitt a question

an audience

ron paul supporters

outside manchester central high school

leaving petersborough

the hunt

2012-01-06T01:33:00.000-05:00

these images are from the first day of a week long stretch of chanting, clapping, sign-waving and slogan-slinging. the huntsman campaign bypassed iowa's caucus and focused on new hampshire. my wednesday was spent split between a few candidates, but here's what came of the hunt.

sign waving at four degrees

huntsman getting in the caravan

speaking at an employee town hall in manchester

mary kay huntsman

sydney at campaign hq

unveiling the first tv ad

the campaign's 'secret weapons': the huntsman daughters

the campaign HQ in manchester

campaign HQ in manchester

the candidate

2011-12-31T15:18:00.001-05:00

new year's eve stop / hampton, nh

well here comes the primary.

backyard

2011-12-01T23:58:00.001-05:00

matt warren / backyard woods, glouster, oh (may '11)

Editing work from earlier this year, all wrapped up and trying to keep warm in my new apartment in Concord. Its on the third floor and on a busy residential street. I don't have a yard.

Matt lived on that little compound that the McKees claimed on that first bend on Town Street in G-Town. Three houses pressed up together that spilled toys, broken lawnmowers, four-wheelers on to a hill behind the house that stopped abruptly at a creek bed. A couple heavy wooden trusses connect it to these woods. They seemed endless.

Blankets and shawls pale in efficacy compared to memories to walking out the door and being nowhere and everywhere. Desperate for Ohio times.

small town still life III

2011-11-29T16:22:00.001-05:00

thousand-piece puzzle / whittaker place, penacook, nh (nov '11)

tots / community center, penacook, nh (nov '11)

landscape / community center, penacook, nh (nov '11)

Ripping a door off its hinges can help get things moving. Work has been busy and as usual its all piling up into one undecipherable mess that I'm not sure is mine. This highly understructured and wandery series is like a smoke break for my brain. Sorry for all the non-smokers out there that don't understand that similie.

small town still life II

2011-11-15T00:55:00.001-05:00

church of immaculate conception / penacook, nh (nov '11)

duty

2011-11-08T20:47:00.001-05:00

election day in ward 1 / penacook, nh (nov '11)

small town still life I

2011-11-07T13:02:00.002-05:00

beauty queens / deerfield, nh (sep '11)

There's no pretense about how fast things need to be turned around here.

There's no excuse as to why I couldn't spend a few minutes staring at a corner.

first firsts

2011-11-05T16:02:00.002-04:00

bertrand / manchester, nh (oct '11)

Here is the first of my work at the Monitor that I'm sharing. This project is one I did with reporter friend Tricia. It was tough and we were both lucky that our editors allowed us time away from daily work to pull it off. It's a series of testimonies from new citizens voting for the first time.

You can see the project (words, images and handwritten thoughts) here.

This post is for some outtakes.

gustavo / merrimack, nh (oct'11)

helen / exeter, nh (oct '11)

carmen / manchester, nh (oct '11)

seshank / durham, nh (oct '11)

last week

2011-11-03T22:16:00.001-04:00

kevin / monitor parking lot, nh (oct '11)

weight / home trash pile, nh (oct '11)

fatty's gone / concord, nh (oct '11)

Last week was tough.

snow in october.

2011-10-28T01:06:00.002-04:00

quilt shop next door / concord, nh (oct '11)

93 north / near bow, nh (oct '11)

snowed today. leaves still be on trees making this the weirdest looking snow globe on the mind shelf.

comet

2011-10-25T00:25:00.004-04:00

brad at the initial point of concern / random wv road, sep '11

negs immune to the cat tranquilizers / conneticut rest stop, sep '11

duct tape and shoddy american engineering will get you places. my move to new hampshire had all the right elements: hot boy, decent tunes, string cheese. everything except a reliable vehicle. towing a 4x8 trailer full of my shit is what finally did her (the jeep i'm still mourning) in, but not before her final act: a multistate relocation. the cats did well, despite my best efforts to sedate the crap out of them, they were good company and only bolted towards the gas/brake pedals once and even kept us warm during a cold snoozin at a new jersey rest stop.

an oil/fluid drip landed on hot metal in the undercarriage and caused a dramatic smoke trail on our entire 14+ hour trip. we came into concord like a comet.

migration patterns

2011-10-24T02:28:00.003-04:00

glass door, white house/athens, ohio, sep '11

ATF ranch / athens, ohio, sep '11

before the move towards the mountains, my post-nyc eyeballs were so happy in ohio.

jamón

2011-08-20T18:12:00.007-04:00

41st street /NYC (June 2011)

need to ease into this again, so as to avoid silly rambling, here is an update in bullet points

two weeks till i'm done interning at the new york times
the city is not what my 18-year old self dreamed about, but the food is awesome
accepted a job as a staff photographer at the concord monitor (NH)
the cats and i are going on a road trip soon (!)
i'm going to update my website very soon

eggs

2011-04-16T18:05:00.004-04:00

Easter party / Glouster, April '11

In light of certain things, a new fierce fire under my ass is directing me to try a new and less-half assed look at my work. Enigmatically speaking, its the difference between hand-dyeing hard-boiled eggs and scrambling around for plastic, candy-filled shells.

discipline

2011-01-23T21:36:00.000-05:00

nykki, blue and uncle earl's finger / trimble (dec 2010)

Words elude me tonight. The dog days of winter in a shack full of felines. Dalé.

start / finish

2011-01-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

sally / glouster, oh (july 2010)

It's hard to see when you're so focused on the end. I'm in the middle of trying to finish my master's proposal.

idle

2011-01-15T22:22:00.001-05:00

lindsay waiting for her brother after the school bus dropped her off / oakdale alley, oh (feb 2009)

I originally posted this last week, but fell asleep before I could write anything. I let it sit because I was too busy trying to employ my words in other places: talking to people about my photos, writing about my photos in metadata land, talking with Brad about the merits of 30 rock, playing road trip games on the way to washington dc, accepting an internship. That's the magical thing about the internet though. We have edit buttons.

Glouster, the town in my white whale of a project, has been perpetually pushed back while I handle these things I sort of need to handle on this side of my computer screen. The new year has been a lot of work, but no shooting. I had a chance to go through everything I have shot up until this point and found little moments like these that were brought into the largest and, yes, most comprehensive edit of this work so far. While that kind of retrospective progress has been made, however, I've idled on my shooting. Next week, man. Next week.

eight seconds

2010-12-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

Nykki & Brandon in the backseat / December 2010

Girlfriend and boyfriend sitting, texting and smoking cigarettes for eight seconds. So much of this between them. Plans for the night, staging a fight, forwarded jokes about men and women to their flip phones. Its electric in how mundane it is.

fotovisura

2010-12-21T13:50:00.000-05:00

The winners of the FotoVisura grant and award were announced today. The whole contest and entering thing are very new to me, so this experience, while within the same realm of being a young working photographer, is a new one as compared to CPOY for example.

FotoVisura is a great platform for community-based sharing of work. This year, I entered a more recent edit of the work I've been doing on the girls and was selected as an honorable mention. The selected work is a diverse and evocative selection of projects and its pretty sweet to have even made it to honorable mention considering the caliber of the winners, including my favorite photographer.

Don't know how many other of these I'll be participating in as I'm still feeling out what I'm trying to do. The main focus right now is to finish this dang master's project. Made some strides that I'm pretty excited about recently, but wrapping it up is the hardest thing I've ever tried to do with my work, both financially and conceptually.

drive

2010-12-11T19:56:00.000-05:00

Jess / Thanksgiving 2010

Feeling like a sedan in a land of pick-up trucks, you know what I mean? Soon enough it will come together.

outside

2010-12-11T19:12:00.000-05:00

smoke snake / glouster, july 2010

Found this in the middle of the pile of images from my last year in Glouster. It was in the summer time when the Chili Pepper Festival was going down and I couldn't get myself together enough to actually catch any of the activities, but hung out with these boys while they released lots of sulfur-smelling trails outside the high school.

Been cooped inside for a while. Its going to drop into the single digits here in Ohier soon which means the people I'm photographing will also be inside for the next few weeks.

but i'm trying to show the stillness and light

2010-12-05T20:30:00.000-05:00

glouster / dec 2010

from jameska's window

roxy's lunch

While spending some time with some of my favorite people, my camera battery crapped out on me sixty frames into what was a wonderful day. The moment left me unusually dissatisfied with seeing and not shooting. I made a few things tangible with the help of my awful cell phone camera.

watching mason

sammy on the roof

free go

2010-12-05T13:11:00.001-05:00

Click screenshot to visit

If you haven't already, please visit the Free Go facebook page where you can learn about how you can hopefully help the effort to free photographer Go Takayama from Cambodian imprisonment. Go is an OU alum and a friend to many friends. People in the community have been rallying for his release. He was arrested while photographing a project for the Angkor Photo Workshop, read the details here.

stacking days and ways

2010-12-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

Supermarket / Athens, Nov. 2010

The holidays are coming and the snow is starting to happen. Signs of the end of the year take place and I hope that this calendar will mark other things ending also.

isolated

2010-12-04T11:02:00.000-05:00

Dirt on Z's door / Thanksgiving night 2010

Her hairbrush / Thanksgiving night 2010

The drain / Thanksgiving night 2010

Gin and tonic / Thanksgiving night 2010

seeing past

2010-12-04T01:09:00.000-05:00

One perspective / Eclipse Company town, 2010

we can hang our discontent on the cheap hooks of reason. they will buckle and rip leaving a dark gap we can't stop looking into. the reality is and always will be that our roles are decided. we can only author what we control and we can't control others.

spare time, spare change

2010-11-30T11:29:00.001-05:00

Robert & Leslie's wedding / Nelsonville, OH (nov 2010)

Shot a wedding for the family a long lost friend of mine photographed during his first-year of grad school. It was a long day full of kool-aid powered kids, seven-layer salad and appalachia's finest force cooking up the whole party: the ornery matriarchs.

Of course there will be more pictures to come.

legacies, manifest destiny and the black hills.

2010-11-24T16:47:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen this yet, you should set 16 minutes aside now for a bone-chilling history lesson from photographer Aaron Huey.

warm and real

2010-11-19T13:10:00.000-05:00

our bed / athens 2010

"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."

sage advice from everyone's favorite ira glass
(via michael rubenstein)

jordanspiration

2010-11-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

fear of failure? listen to mike.

artifacts

2010-11-12T22:41:00.000-05:00

Post-flood corner / Ottawa, OH (2007)

Its important (and maybe self-absorbed) to look back through the past and remember what the photographs say about you also.

persistence

2010-11-10T17:11:00.000-05:00

Miranda's hair / © Maisie Crow

(probably my favorite photo ever)

This year's World Press Photo Masterclass galleries are up and have so much inspiring work. It was great to see stories relating to issues regarding women, including abortion in Kenya, their roles in a still-struggling Liberia and marginalized lives in a trailer park in Athens (a story Maisie shot this summer that I'm very close to). There was also beautifully shot personal work and important news stories (one shot by a girl reppin' El Salvador like a boss).

------

I'm sitting in front of the shack with the cats psyching myself up for my first trip to New York for editor meetings. This is a very small step I'm taking to making a full-on commitment to trying to make it in this life doing the photographic work I'm alternately inspired and intimidated by. My own personal persistence waivers in the face of limitations often. But with nothing but breadcrumbs in my checking account, I've decided that tomorrow I'm taking my half tank of fuel in my gas guzzler and going to Glouster to finish what I've started.

recently

2010-11-09T18:00:00.000-05:00

confrontation / athens, sept 2010

Recently I've wanted to have fun with my photography again, so I put down the camera I took out a few loans for and have been spending time with a plastic Yashica point and shoot I found at a thrift store in Athens. Recently I've survived solely on the love, attention and help of great friends. Recently I've doubted, succumbed and hid from myself. Recently I started diligent list making.

First item: Quit being so crazy

home/road matters

2010-11-07T18:22:00.000-05:00

Waffle House on Halloween / Indianapolis, IN

Brad and I abandoned Athenian Halloween rituals this year to head to Chicago for his twin nieces' baptism. 20 hours in Chicago/16 hours in the car/1 Waffle House/1 IHOP.

somewhere in Indiana

Madison

missouring

2010-11-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

group photo time via the yashica p&s / macon, missouri

Back in September, I had the opportunity to attend the 62nd Missouri Photo Workshop in Macon, Missouri and was awarded the Mary Clerc Scholarship to cover tuition. It was an amazing time that taught me a lot about giving and taking. The environment was nurturing and inspiring in a way that continued to push me even beyond all of my grad school hang ups. A lot of that had to do with the fact that my faculty members Chris Wilkins, from the Dallas Morning News, and Peggy Peattie, of the San Diego Tribune, were constructive and kind in their approach.

The story that resulted goes to show that. The edit of my 3.5-day shoot that we came up with, along with help from Team E, is up on the website and is a playful embrace of my strengths in storytelling. I put up a larger edit on my portfolio site.

My story focused on three kids who shared an apartment in town. I met one of them hanging out on the street and they were incredibly receptive quickly. I was worried after having the gift of access and rapport in Glouster for so long, I would have trouble working on a new story. Korie, Jackie and Timmy were a blast to hang out with and were always surprisingly generous.

Here are some outtakes:

Korie and Jackie

Jackie on a Kit Kat run

Late night TV

Tyler and Dustin in downtown Macon

The gang looking at my photos at the workshop's photo exhibit for the community (a really brilliant idea).

the strange return

2010-11-02T13:07:00.000-04:00

Logan Fair Demolition Derby, Sept 2010

Finished grad school at OU in June. Athens life since then has consisted of a serene decompression period tossed with sharp-edged reality of few plans and resources. Still pursuing my master's project these days (more details later) and navigating how to get that done. For now, I'm just going to be sharing the photos that have happened along the way :)

I am DAIN

2009-06-04T20:50:00.000-04:00

Brooklyn artist DAIN: living with art, a cane and a kitty. Love it. and the sporadic harmonica tooting in the background makes me happy. (via Wooster Collective)

nelsonville, ohio

2009-03-27T17:51:00.000-04:00

The Gobles

2009-02-21T13:06:00.000-05:00

New Marshfield, OH.

I met the Goble family [nine kids, product of four marriages between the two parents] through my Glouster friends Paul and Kathy. They were telling me about how they wanted to get their family portrait taken but were fearing what size chunk that would take out of their increasingly-shrinking budget. I offered to come to their house and practice my kiddie-wrangling and umbrella-light-rigging skills. They kept asking me how much I wanted to get paid for my work as I continued to reassure them that this was more fun and practice for me. I'm glad I got to meet and spend time with this sweet bunch of folks.

windows in glouster

2009-02-15T23:07:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you're inside, sometimes you're outside.

another fun ohio winter

2009-02-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

Things go up and they go down. This season is good at reminding me of the true pace of the universe. While I was in Florida, things got stagnant for me, not because living near the ocean and under the sun are un-stimulating, but because I haven't been tried in the ways I have been since I moved to a place where seasons change. I realize I'm being vague, but after sitting at a desk with my elbows pressed on the tabletop and my fingers pressing my eyeballs all day today, these kinds of vagueties feel like I'm squeezing the release valve on an overblown beach ball.

update: my car, she still runs!

now

2009-02-04T19:37:00.000-05:00

"Seeing is Forgetting
the Name of the
Thing One Sees"

The title of a book about Robert Irwin,
the installation american artist.
[via Exposure Compensation]

--

Things on this side of productivity alternate between cloudy and clarity. A conversation with Dr. Stan today helped, but I just really need to have this conversation with myself.

I've long been a reader of [former Ohio grad student] Tim Gruber's blog and couldn't believe that I missed this post when Josh e-mailed it to me following one of our conver-sessions.

loving the stop motion

2009-01-29T09:43:00.000-05:00

My friend Kaela posted this lovely video on her blog and I just had to share it here [watch it! it makes you smile]. I'm really fascinated by stop motion expression and production beyond any gimmicky applications. Maybe when I'm not busy trying to get my life together, I'll give it a try.

Some other rad examples of stop motion:
Tim Lytvinenko's Day in Pictures
Monoptik

'I hate Millfield'

2009-01-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

Isiah says he hates the town where he lives [Millfield, Ohio] but loves building snow colonies there. As much as I wanted to stay and talk Pokemon with him as him and Uncle Jerry expanded the kingdom, my fingers nearly fell off while shooting this for my lighting class in the wet cold in Athens County today. We got inches of accumulated snow and ice these past few days. I meant to shoot a photo of the steps that have disappeared in front of my house but its way too cold to go outside.

feelings < talent < perseverence ?

2009-01-27T07:54:00.000-05:00

The athlete got good not by reading reviews of headbands, but by waking up early, lacing shoes in the dark, and hitting the track to train hard. While the surgeon got good not by watching reruns of Trapper John, M.D., but by slogging through medical school, residencies, and hundreds of hours of face time with patients, colleagues, and mentors. “Feeling” had nothing to do with it.

But is it fair to compare creative work with physical and mental achievement? Having strong legs and support from a young age helped the athlete, and any aspiring doctor who couldn’t pass 10th grade Biology is likely headed for a career outside the surgical theater. But, what about artistic “gifts?” And “talent?”

"The problem with feeling creative" | Merlin Mann, 43Folders
Via Tim Gruber

dave jordano

2009-01-25T16:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the absence of something helps us understand it better.

This idea was spoken about in class and piqued my interest, but I don't think I processed it and fully understood how resonating it could be until I looked through Dave Jordano's Web site of personal work today. He shoots portraiture, interiors, exteriors, details, everything you want to say about a place in a poetic kind of way.

I don't think I would have appreciated this kind of vision as much as it should be a couple of years ago when I thought success was to become a fast-shooting telephoto-slinging news photographer. It got to point where I was convinced that producing a quiet photo was a failure in retrospect despite channeling what I felt when I was shooting.

Jordano presents us with silence and allows us to search for the echos. His photos seem to use color and light so deliberately. They engage my interest through a door in my head I rarely access.

I chose this photo to post, from his ongoing work Prairielands, because I couldn't get over how much he is saying in one photo about the subject I'm breaking my head trying to produce a whole essay about.

Take your open mind, some time, a cup of tea and explore his work.

little girls

2009-01-24T15:10:00.000-05:00

Peyton and Cheyenne.

Jazlyn

---

I'm really enjoying working on this project idea, but with school eating up most of my week I get panicky that I'm not going to have time to cover everything I need to be covering. People in Glouster have been seemingly open to what I'm trying to do and I made a contact at a basketball game last night that I hope will help me in keeping up this momentum.

Brenda Ann Keneally (read: kind of a bad ass) came and spoke at OU last week (thanks to Johnny Simon who interned with her over the summer and helped bring her). Her presentation did all kinds of good things to my brain that has helped me a lot in keeping up my motivation and realizing that there is more than just editorial importance in these pursuits I'm undertaking. Look through her web site if you haven't already.

I wish I could truly articulate something profound beyond that, but a mix of hunger and realization that I'm losing daylight here is driving me to peel my butt off the couch and go back down OH-13 to Glousterville.

your eyelids close when you're around me

2009-01-20T00:48:00.000-05:00

I check my horoscope on almost a daily basis because I like to read it and try to garner some insight. Oh silly human impulse to have control in life, why must you resort to such teeny-bopper solutions in my case? Here is what it said today:

It's challenging for you to admit it when something isn't working, yet pride will only get in the way of your success now. Other people have come into your life and are eager to help you along your path. But if you appear too self-sufficient, then there's no place to make a meaningful connection. Although you may be uncomfortable, sharing your vulnerabilities may be the best thing you can do.

Blue | Trimble, OH. Another from the first shoot.

Perm

2009-01-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Wet | A photo from our first shoot this quarter.

My project in developing well in the ole' head, but not so much with the clicky click machine. I'm wishing I was in DC letting my trigger finger feed off all that wonderful energy. I really liking David Walter Banks's multimedia piece on a Georgia marching band traveling to the inauguration for the NYTimes. I'll be witnessing all of tomorrow's excitement from my digital imaging class.

Today, I continue chasing this story in Glouster. I had a wonderful evening last night with some nice folks and am meeting today with a homie there to continue this coming of age discussion. Wish me luck.

abrazito

2009-01-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

The new quarter at Ohio feels very different from the last. These last weeks have brought energy to me that herald a quarter of what will hopefully be productivity and perspective.

In our photographic essay class with Prof. Stan Alost, we'll be covering the theme of community. Everyone is pretty excited about it. All of us have had to apply a butt ton of critical thinking to make sure we're undertaking a topic that we can address thoroughly and eloquently.

We're also learning how to express what we like about photos using words beyond the conventions of the technical elements of an image. It is understood that it is much more than composition, color and light, but I feel like we tend to turn to those ideas when discuss for one reason or another. Maybe its like its a traditional kind of language between photographers. But there's that need to communicate thoughts to the masses, not just other visual people. It's learning to talk about those things that we respond to inherently in an image. It's something I never realized I had trouble doing.

We had this assignment last week to go out and try to just touch on community visually somehow and I wound up in good ole' Glouster, Ohio again. I've been going back there a lot, but with no real game plan. This trip, I went to Moore's Diner and to a Trimble/Nelsonville York JV basketball game. This image is the first I've made in 2009 that I liked.

So for my essay, I was considering trying to focus on the younger part of the community in order to say something about the future of a community that has changed so quickly in the last couple of years. In my poking around, I found that Sonya Hebert sort of did a piece about this already for Soul of Athens a few years back.

Immediate reaction was to be discouraged. I was already sort of feeling silly because of all the great work that has been done on Glouster by Matt Eich (many of his Carry Me Ohio images are from the town) and stuff that class homie Josh Birnbaum worked hard on producing last quarter in the hollows of the town. But I don't know. It has been done?

I had a meeting with Terry, the program director, about my master's project yesterday and we talked about getting over the idea of the "it has been done before" excuse. That there's no problem in continuing and expanding a visual dialogue by 'piggybacking' on other's work. It makes sense what he says. I'm still not 100 percent committed to the idea of this as my expression of community and have yet to really develop a strong mission behind it.

This should be a good weekend of photographing if I stay disciplined and don't spend too much time holding hands with guapo or making grilled soy cheese sandwiches. Here's some more stuff to look at --

dissolution

2008-12-25T17:26:00.000-05:00

[if you've run into me in the past couple of months, you know what a debbie downer i've been. the mere thought of confronting my abilities as a photographer triggers an uncontrollable emotional response in me that makes people uncomfortable. that compounded with the unfortunate attitude about journalism these days that i've misguidedly absorbed has put me in this...weird place.

whatevs. a new year approaches. a perfect excuse to toss all the bullshit out. including this rotting sandwich of a blog. a new one will come in a hot second.

introspection will be productive, no longer self defeating. shooting will be for the greater good, not the greater grade. ]

---

Brian Storm, of MediaStorm, spoke at Mizzou's school of journalism commencement ceremony and articulated positive things about the future of journalism that i'm keeping close to me during this time of personal change. take the time and read it here.

mah-car-ena

2008-07-15T13:25:00.001-04:00

LA LLORONA - JUNE 15, 2008, BELLFONTAINE, OH.

her transmission just wont hold up. my car's final resting place will be athens, ohio. at first, i wasn't comfortable with that, but after thinking about what a fulfilled and exciting life she's had as a vehicle, i feel like it might be okay. when i picked her up in 2004 for 8g's, she only had a shitty sound system and cigarette burns on the roof --- evidence that she's always been taken for granted a little. after four years of me, most of her exterior is being held up with a complicated duct tape and string system. right turns mean listening to liquid roll across underneath her hood [it sounded like automotive tears and is how she earned her name "la llorona" -- the crying girl]. hills are a no-go. none of the passenger side doors work.

i know its just a thing, but i will miss my car. from miami to michigan, yo. i can't help but feel sentimental about my ride. i need to get rid of her and i know that no price can truly match up to how i will feel without my carrito and being that she is in bad of a state as she is, i will be lucky if i get $1000.

postcards from the space between

2008-07-03T20:57:00.000-04:00

to break past the on-the-job tedium involved in being shy, i force myself to establish face-to-face relationships with the individuals and objects i photograph. i was very tired my last month in northwest ohio and made a lot of these kinds of images. i'm unsure what i was responding in these situations, but looking back at them will always speak volumes to me about how in the time around the shutter release.

at the end of the road

2008-07-02T20:51:00.001-04:00

my last month in lima was much kinder to my soul than the nine preceeding months ever were. these are from my last week.

ladies nite!

2008-06-28T15:11:00.000-04:00

so there's this kind of cheeseball club in lima that i had always been curious to go into. my last weekend there we slipped into their ladies night for dollar margaritas and amazing...atmosphere.

its actually this kind of amazing space in an old theatre that has been glammed out with 80s style geometric and glittery gimmicks. there was hardly anyone there, but the couple of girls on the floor danced away.

brynn, second-most enthusiastic proponent behind this field trip and avid shirley temple drinker.

oh, lima.

in the move, v1

2008-06-17T17:52:00.000-04:00

LOS ANGELES, CA. JUNE '06.
in my recent move to athens, i found some images i had forgotten from a trip to the west coast.

smoke break scrapbook v1

2008-06-05T14:50:00.000-04:00

MIAMI, FLA. JULY '07.
travis: boy toy extraordinare. i braved the hot rain that steamed the sliding glass doors outside his first apartment to puff on tobacco while he opted to stay dry and eat almonds as we both kept an eager eye on the oven heating up our breaded chicken at 1:14 a.m.

italian dinner

2008-06-04T18:25:00.000-04:00

2008-06-03T05:26:00.000-04:00

softball

2008-06-03T05:14:00.000-04:00

discus thrower

2008-06-03T05:09:00.000-04:00

more baseball

2008-06-03T05:04:00.000-04:00

out my elida window

2008-06-03T04:46:00.000-04:00

2008-05-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

this weekend boys and their toys rolled into lima for all kinds of large truck related activities. i spent a couple of hours in the sun and light beer atmosphere for the sake of cultural understanding. here's some fotitos.

insights

2008-05-21T02:30:00.000-04:00

the internet is wonderful:
here is a photo of my roommates fish, fausto carmoma. he's named after a great pitcher for the cleveland indians. he's very people-shy and likes to jump out of his vase. i spent the weekend feeding and watching it.

st. rose church festival

2008-05-20T02:11:00.000-04:00

when i was assigned to cover this on saturday, i asked my boss:

"what's the st. rose festival?"

and he said:

"oh, its the festival at st. rose."

thanks man.

shhh

2008-05-17T01:15:00.000-04:00

quiet snaps from my feature hunt/softball game yesterday

beisbol

2008-05-15T19:12:00.000-04:00

some frames from a temple christian game that got rained out in the third inning.

the labor that comes with spring

2008-05-08T10:45:00.000-04:00

my old r00mmates, matt and craig, doing manly manual labor around the house.

conveyance

2008-05-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

its been a while. ive been on this exile from working at the paper of which the details are unspeakable for a little over two weeks. in this time, i moved out of my room in man-ville [the old smelly house i shared with two boys] and into a sweet little townhouse apartment with friend/coworker kelli. it was a desperately needed change.

there's been a lot of spare time with my thoughts. however since i arrived in ohio, i've had a hard time expressing myself verbally. so i'll allude to words spoken by people who are generally successful at the form.

i was listening to an old episode of the public radio international show to the best of our knowledge today and came across some interesting posturing about the mid-20s search for validation i seem to be perpetually signed up for during an interview with author jonathan lethem on his book you don't love me yet.

the novel is about an l.a. indie rock band and the interpersonal obstacles faced in their creative rise. i haven't read it, but i really related to some of the answers the author gives during the interview about his characters and how their slightly desperate feelings were inspired by the path he walked while starting as a writer.

none of us knew for sure who was serious and who wasn't. everyone staked a kind of claim in the world. we put on a costume of some kind or another: graduate student or aspiring writer or bass player in a band and yet it was all completely provisional and it all might turn out to be a bluff that someone could call the moment they laid down a better hand of cards on the table.

i was fascinated by those feelings that i associated with the time i was beginning to be a writer and discovering that in some sense, however falteringly and however slow the progress might be that i was going to persist at this thing and find a way to bring my amateurish yearning into the world and make other people pay attention.

it's this sort of paradox that to become a thing you have to pretend to be it first. theres something very beautiful and also ludicrous about the way artists, musicians, anyone has to sort of bluff their way into that identity.

they want to be famous because it seems to them that to tells a truth about who they are that only they know and they want other people to recognize it. they want to make music that will become both the evidence but also in a way its the conveyance, its as if you have to build the magic carpet that you're going to ride on yourself.

when you're smilin'

2008-04-17T18:58:00.000-04:00

Linda Stringfield's smile is reflected into a mirror while chatting about her blush application during the "Look Good...Feel Better" program at St. Rita's Cancer Resource Center in Lima. "Look Good...Feel Better" is a free program that teaches beauty techniques to women cancer patients in active treatment to help them combat the apperance-related side effects of cancer treatment.

Being as averse as I can be to makeup sometimes, I wasn't sure what to expect when I got to this assignment. While there was talk about what brush is the best brush and all that bla bla stuff, there was also an unprecedented amount of honesty and authenticity from the women in attendance. Some women were having a more difficult time dealing with their cancer, getting openly emotional when discussion about personal experiences began. Some women have made amazing peace with their situations and were there to comfort the others.

It was an extremely sensitive situation that local media was press released about by a public relations office, so these women had no idea we were coming. Many of them had no problem with our presence while others begged not to be photographed in their current state. I felt happy /guilty about being there.

whatev.

2008-04-12T20:51:00.001-04:00

i feel like there's a new chapter or something about to begin...i might be wrong.

holy week.

2008-04-11T14:58:00.000-04:00

the holy week celebration at the lima civic center.

calma gatinha

2008-04-10T21:12:00.001-04:00

the girl who taught me great cuss words in portuguese and how to mandar o mundo para a merda flew through miami a couple weeks ago on her way from reno, nv back to brasil. i had to make it back home to spend time with a menina.

jenifer, lianette and i felt unstoppable when we all lived and breathed together in rio. it was an amazing reunion and exactly what i needed after a winter that kicked my ass.

it was still too chilly to really hang out on the beach, but wearing flip flops for four days straight was liberating.

sight seeing on sobe. random snaps.

mrclucky.com

most delicious sushi dinner ever.

needless to say, i was pretty bummed about having to go back home to ohio. thanks to my wonderful mom, i was flying standby on american airlines and was lucky enough to get bumped up to first class on my flight to chicago.

flight home photos.

track inside

2008-04-10T15:16:00.000-04:00

ive never shot inside track before, but i had fun shooting it. the ohio northern university track team, who hosted the ncaa championship earlier this month, es muy simpatico and were helpful when i was there.

update

2008-04-03T15:38:00.000-04:00

[fiona lazily taking a stand by planting herself in front of my only exit from steve and carly's apartment. ]
---
because i just spent like an hour and a half updating my links list, i wanted to make a post telling you to look at it. blogger needs to whip up some drag and drop function so that my need to alphabetize isn't such a drag to execute, yo.

its basically a list of sites i visit on a regular basis for inspiration/procrastination on my own work. it will be very helpful to me until i give into brett "how do you live life without google reader?" roegiers's peer pressure over getting an rss reader. maybe it will be helpful to you too.

also, if i haven't told you yet, and i probably have because its something i'm very excited about, i was accepted into ohio university's graduate visual communication program. go bobcats.

rrrraslin.

2008-04-01T21:04:00.001-04:00

the elida wrestling gym is old and wonderful. probably my favorite high school sports venue to date. the color in these photos is a little inconsistent because that single tungsten light fixture on an orange mat is too amazing for my white balancing skills. so forgive me.

lima and fashion : the sean john section at the local macy's

2008-03-30T21:31:00.000-04:00

i've been recently fascinated by these behind-the-scenes peeks at fashion shoots that have been posted by newspaper photographers i admire. they include tales of planning meetings, model castings, studios and software and other fancy things that can come from collaborative creativity. all so interesting especially considering my only brush with fashion shoots for the paper was one that was thrown at me half an hour into my shift and limited to an hour of shooting at the macy's at the mall.

the assignment was to shoot something for a feature on men's basics. john the model was a very nice boy who worked in a the men's department at macy's and volunteered his lunch hour to pose for us in some merchandise the store's manager had selected.

no location scouting, no stylists, two lights, a chair snagged from the dressing room and reporter/hottie kate the great to hold a reflector for me every once in a while.

i picked the sean john section because it had this goofy looking fence and i thought it would be easier to hide the fact that we were shooting this at the mall like a bunch of goobers. i was kind of happy with the way it turned out given the circumstances, but at the same time i don't know if i was trying too hard.

this was a while ago, since then, blog surfing has shown me the light.
---
erik lunsford posted an audio slideshow on his blog describing all the really cool work the staff at the st. louis post-dispatch did to produce LUXE. its great to see the people within the bureaucratic-ish system at a huge paper like that really value each other's contributions -- time and talent -- and employ teamwork to really work a concept.

yoon byun has also been providing really great examples of these kinds of efforts on his blog that only emphasize how great things can be when the newspaper you work for uses their resources properly. he has got this great, clean style and it is showcased well in work like what he contributed to the globe's 25 most stylish bostonians.

their efforts are especially impressive to me because it totally breaks the very simpleminded perception ive had of underestimating the potential for incorporating techniques and efforts typical in glossy high-end fashion, something i thought was a world apart, and translating that on to medium like newspapers, a medium whose that ink rubs off on your fingers.
----
im pretty sure this kind of stuff isn't really my thing. i would much rather photograph overweight old ladies in moomoos petting cats on their porches than gorgeous women in expensive clothes. but seeing the creative and conceptual development in these examples is really inspiring and while i've been mostly embarrassed with my attempt, it was kind of fun.

where the sidewalk ends

2008-03-30T20:13:00.001-04:00

desperate to capitalize on a warmish, sunnyish day, i went on a parka-clad bike ride in my hood and cut through the cul de sacs that outline the growing elida suburbs. these are only a few blocks behind my house and are presently still developing and inching into the country.

it was like 11 am on a thursday so no one was really out in this residential area. everyone was probably at work or school.

this little pup was the only other life i encountered while rolling through there. he was sitting on the front yard and when i cruised by he sprung up with the momentum of an attack dog and started yapping in my direction. i thought maybe he'd run beside me while i rode around, but as soon as he got to the edge of the sidewalk, he halted abruptly.

thats when i realized that he had this goofy electric collar on his little cotton-y neck. poor little guy.

the wildkittens

2008-03-29T21:05:00.001-04:00

from the start of the basketball season, it was clear that these girls were going to succeed. during warm-ups, they were so disciplined and graceful, almost choreographed in their exercise. it was definitely a sight that helped the bath girls basketball team rise above the other teams in the area. every week for the last couple months, i was assigned to cover their games following them through sectionals, regionals, tip-off classics, etc. when they made it to state, i found myself feeling very attached and requested to shoot the game, even though it was on my day off. girl sports are fun and rewarding to shoot as a girl because its one of the few times you see high school ladies genuinely supporting each other in their highs and lows.

a few days before the road trip to columbus, i was assigned to shoot one of their practices. coach mauk and the girls were nice enough to let me hang around as much as i wanted to that day, presumably because of my fairly consistent presence on my knees at the baseline of their games. trying to seize on the established relationship, i asked to tag along on their trip down. coach said they needed "team time" which i understand. it seems like that kind of time has been instrumental in their success.

unfortunately, the wildkittens lost in the state semifinals in a crazy ass game that had me struggling to focus on shooting. they went into overtime, tied and tired. the opposing team, a team from an all-girls school that was much taller and much bigger than the bath girls [their biggest player is 5'10], was a tough match. and in the end, after playing so very hard, they were shuffled off the court to make room for the next semi-final game. no time for reactions. it was a great season ladies, i'll be lucky to cover a team this lovely again.

green.

2008-03-17T13:21:00.000-04:00

happy st. patty's day, yo.

strange things on the wall at a catholic school

2008-03-17T10:27:00.000-04:00

first there was this poster explaining how poop is made.

then there was the school's prinicipal duct taped to the wall.

wintery homies.

2008-03-13T16:17:00.000-04:00

outtake.

2008-03-13T14:45:00.000-04:00

figures

2008-03-13T01:17:00.001-04:00

a charm

2008-03-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

partial list of names for groups of birds.

voting.

2008-03-05T19:36:00.000-05:00

poker

2008-03-03T23:11:00.001-05:00

everything but

2008-03-03T22:44:00.000-05:00

i'm losing it. yes, my canon stuff has given me problems with backfocus before, but those were mostly the fault of my erratic shooting patterns. this nikon gear seems to be self-loathing. like freaking hates the successful execution of photography. it spitefully disregards my desperate commands --

please focus on the play. i have my focus point set right on the guy's face. i'm carefully following him. my breathing is controlled, my hands are steady, i'm totally zen. please don't give me more photos of the gym walls or some wayward referees or that mom in the audience with fifteen pins on her seasonal knit vest or that cool looking dude standing in the doorway of the gym.

whatev. t-minus three days until my camera comes back. i miss you, darling.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

edit: now that i think about it, all those things i listed that i don't want photos of actually sound kind of cooler than some of the games i have shot.

2008-03-03T12:28:00.001-05:00

every few weeks, we get a day with clear skies and a nice sunset. yesterday was one of those days. i almost drove into oncoming traffic staring at the sunset out my driver's side window coming home because it has been a while since i realized how much horizon you can actually see and how nice the landscape looks on the good days. its crazy what the orange glow will point out to you -- like how scary looking the hissing oil refinery just south of downtown i drive by almost every day really is.

rex!

2008-02-28T21:15:00.000-05:00

i know -- whoa, way to go. horses and silhouettes. way to be original -- but i like quiet photos of a man with a rowdy name like rex. he is a little old man that takes care of the animals on this giant farm compound thing. he invited me back in the spring when he says i can watch him wrangle the 20 + geese by the pond.

keegan

2008-02-27T16:52:00.000-05:00

he was not having as much fun as his older sister on this sled ride. it snowed like six inches of big fat wet snow yesterday and i was sliding around town in my boots with no traction and falling face down into piles of it while feature hunting.

this was one of the last photos i took yesterday. he would freak out every time he got snow on his face and the breaking point was when one of his dogs kicked up a bunch while jumping up and down. i definitely sympathized with how crabby he felt.

where you at, spring?

cutting reflections

2008-02-25T19:42:00.001-05:00

feature hunting at a glass and mirror store.

a pow wow, a photo essay and a process

2008-02-25T18:05:00.000-05:00

click on the image for video

pow wow is a hard word to type over and over again. i kept typing powow in my captions after covering the 7th annual mid-winter pow wow here in lima last week. since it was a slow sunday, i decided to mess with video. i definitely made some goof ups -- couldn't find the good mic, so my interview audio was recorded with a shotgun mic in the loudest room ever; struggled a bit with making good photos and good video simultaneously so i feel like what i produced was just okay; still haven't figured out the exposure and wb settings on the video camera; missed some things in final cut that ended up in the final edit of the video [the weird video going on behind the stills in some parts] -- but its a process i hope yields improvement. just like typing pow wow over and over again.

click on the image for video.

one step i did make with the pow wow video was that i did it on deadline. my only other previous video attempt was part of a photo essay i did on alex evans, a kid with cerebral palsy that goes to one of the high schools here and loves his football team. this was my first attempt at messing with moving images and final cut pro, so the video is pretty imperfect and the editing [and figuring out the software] took forever and a half.

click on the image for video.
photo cred to matt

it feels like i might be getting worse with every subsequent attempt. yesterday marked lima's first brush with the presidential campaign when bill clinton came to town to campaign for hillary. seeing that i did the pow wow video fine on deadline last week, the paper asked me to do video for this event and matt did the stills. when we were leaving the house to ride to the high school together, i asked matt if we had packed a tripod. he said yes. when we get to the high school, he busts out the most special tripod ever. having really overestimated the value of a tripod covered in glue meant to hold a much smaller still camera, i found myself in a position where it seemed like the practical solution to ditch the tripod and just shoulder the camera.

as you can see from the video, this was a bad idea. i also forgot a very basic rule -- instead of being all over the place like i was, a shot should be held for five seconds without really panning or zooming or any actions of the like. my defense mechanism has generated a series of excuses for these technical shortcomings --- the first [and probably the only semi-valid one] being this tripod issue. i won't bother with the rest.

i also was totally ignorant to the concept of sound boards at events like this. this time i found the good wireless mic that i used for the interviews, but didn't plan on bringing a cord to plug into the board to get good speech audio. again with the shotgun mic.

the last thing on the short list of horrible things about this video is the glitches in the editing. having overwhelmed myself by filming too much useless footage i had to sort through, i was up until 9 this morning editing the video. sleep deprived people cant catch things like that freaky "unrendered" screen in the interview footage and the lower 3rd bar with the messed up text.

while i was uploading the video, i found myself searching through the mercury news' video stash lingering especially on their use of stills and video in their political coverage [having come off of this event]. i really liked their SUPER TUESDAY video and their Day in the Life of the Mayor. They have a very distinct style and a progressive sense of the use of the medium that I know not every one is receptive to, including our last videographer who scoffed at what he called "weird shit". In trying to break from television broadcast tendencies, i hope i don't end up trying to emulate some of this stuff and failing. I hope to get my shit together with a video camera and plan correctly so don't find myself grouchily tearing up my own work when the video is posted.

pioneer days in kalida, OH.

2008-02-22T22:24:00.000-05:00

hyper talented lady.

sitting alone on the spinning heart ride :(

mallorys

2008-02-21T11:02:00.000-05:00

tonya with navaeh, mai mai and pree pree.

i met tonya while dating her brother for a little bit. while that relationship is more than dead, i still get calls from tonya to hang out. we get along pretty well -- she likes talking about work and sharing cigarettes on the porch with me. we've come across some tension because of her brother, but now we both agree that he's just full of nonsense.

there's at least three kids [on crazy days, you can find up to seven] under the age of 8 at any given time at the house, all of them way too hyper for their own good. she lives in a public housing complex. the neighbors are mostly crazy and are always leaving their kids at tonya's.

she has two daughters, champreese [pree pree] and mainique [mai mai]. "i just made the names up at the hospital," she says.

she also takes care of her two of her sisters kids, ty and honesty. then there is her boyfriend gian [G], who works a ridiculous amount of shifts at olive garden and also has another daughter, navaeh.

i cringe sometimes watching tonya give pree pree pop tarts or letting her sip on mountain dew. while hanging around them now, being who i am today, i find myself judging her decisions sometimes. besides the junk food, she also liked keeping the oven running to heat the house and i would get nervous when the kids would be running around in the kitchen.

but then i remember that i wasn't raised that differently. my mom, not really knowing any better after getting to this country, never hesitated in keeping a steady flow of junk food in the house and would leave me to baby sit my two younger sisters when i was only eight. i really shouldn't be judging because i know what matters is that she's doing what she needs to do.

when it comes down to it, there's a legitimate reason that i enjoy going back to the house. her brother moved out about a month ago and that has made it much easier on me to just go back and play with the kids and let tonya vent about her shitty job at save-a-lot. she also makes some mean collard greens and stuffing for me.

tonya and g are 12 years apart. he's actually younger than me at 22. "man, tonya bagged up a young one," i said to him once. "bagged? tonya done snagged me with a harpoon," he said. he carries a lot of responsibility providing for four kids, but he does it without flinching.

and i have too much fun with pree pree. she likes playing with my hair, dancing with me to BET and pressing her face up to my lens when i bring my camera.

aquatic medley

2008-02-20T10:27:00.002-05:00

At first, I got really excited about shooting swimming because its the only sport I have first hand experience with. I was the second-worst swimmer on my team in high school. Primary role was cheering people and every once in a while they would throw me in a relay. I made the mistake of mentioning my past on a team to one of these actually-talented kids and was forced to share my lack of awesome battle stories.

I was good at making sandwiches for me and my teammates and lugging apples to meets.

it was pretty fun shooting this though. they were all very friendly and very supportive of each other and being around all that positive energy makes it hard to be grumpy photographer.

tick tock

2008-02-19T22:14:00.000-05:00