Happy New Year!

see previous years here

New 8 x10 from my travels

Dave, 2007. Finland


Birch Tree Forest, 2007. Finland


Ryan, 2007 Canada


Josh, 2007. Czech Republic


Piazza Michelangelo, 2007. Florence, Italy.


Jasmine and her family, 2007. Zwickau, Germany

Merry Christmas Everyone - Part 2

Decking the Halls...

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Cute Santa no?

Polish Fashion

Poland December 2007

Mullinville, Kansas 2005

I spotted these Gew Gaws along highway 400 driving across Kansas back in 2005. I pulled off the road and drove back to investigate and what I found was a truly original artist from the "heartland." These sculptures are handmade by a man named M.T. Liggett whom I also met there that day and I was happy to have the chance to photograph him. He also had a most impressive collection of coffee mugs shown here also. The subjects of his sculpture range from the whimsical to the politically populist. I was really blown away by this roadside folk art and thought to share it here.

The Theme Building

I love the way the Theme Building at LAX becomes a different object with all of the construction scaffolding surrounding it.

Trabant

The Trabant is an automobile formerly produced by East German auto maker VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau in Zwickau, Germany. Read more about it here

New 8x10 from Australia

Bryan and Thema - A lovely couple who owned a horse centre outside of Sydney. Fortunately, I have been able to sneak in a couple of these more personal shots during this job...

Who's got it?

TV Towers

are amazing. Project Anyone?

Berlin Fernsehturm

Sydney Tower

CN Tower

Fly Pair

By Committee

This photograph is from a discussion taking place between myself, an art director, art buyer, photo assistant, photo producer, and factory supervisor during a photo shoot in a former Trabant factory in Zwickau, Germany. If it seems like a lot of people it is! Sometimes there are as many as 14 people on these commercial photography shoots - me, 2 assistants, hair, makeup, 1 or 2 clients, an art director, the art buyer, a producer, a local producer, a production assistant, a caterer, talent (the subject), and a mobile home driver. There are a lot of people standing around on these "shoot" days and I really think they must be a little bored at times. This is all part of the job I am doing for an ad campaign for Microsoft. It is my first commercial shoot and boy is it a whooper. I will be shooting in a total of sixteen countries over a period of three months. I have never done anything close to the scale of this job and it has and will be an adventure and an education for certain. I have slept in 7 hotels in the past 10 days alone! They have me shooting on a very tight schedule with very little down town so it is quite the test of my stamina. I have a few impressions already about the commercial world but I shall wait to put that down in writing after this is all over. I have met some really nice people and I am making good work for them - though I would say it is obviously different than my own personal work. There are so many other people involved in this process and so many other considerations regarding things like page layout and client needs that it is really something different and honestly not wholly my own. I am sure I will take away from this experience some new tools and skills to assist me in my own creative process.

Another Apology! (see post 10/23)

At the Holiday Inn in Zwickau - the name tag translates to: "I'm still learning."

Neat Meat

Zwickau, Germany

Dry

This is a rubber band ball that was several years in the making made from the rubber bands the post office would use for our mail. The wildfires in California got me thinking about this photo because when we moved to LA in 2003 the ball came with us and over the course of our two years there it was so very dry that it lost all of it's moisture and shriveled up. I sometimes feel a little conflicted when I see the images of wildfires as they are incredibly destrucive and reprenstative of somebody's tragedy - but they are also beautiul and entrancing as fire so often is. I imagine many people feel this way.

In Berlin

I will be traveling quite a lot the next couple months for work. I am thinking of sharing some thoughts about that work in a later post. Right now however I thought it would be good to get this photo up. The situation surrounding it is that my tripod bag did not make it with the rest of my baggage on the Air France flight.. In fact they didn't even have the bag number in the system. Needless to say I was a little anxious about it. At the lost baggage counter we were helped by this lovely woman who is wearing a neckband that says in German "ich bin schuld" which translates to - I am to blame. Imagine that at JFK!!

Joan Linder at Mixed Greens

This is a beautiful show here in New York by a great artist named Joan Linder. If you like drawings you will probably love this work.

Tattoos

I thought I'd introduce my ink into the blogosphere and a related project I have been working on for a few years. The shots of the tree and the cherry branch are my leg and arm respectively. The photos were a collaboration between myself and my boyfriend Seth. People often mistake it for one piece - though they are seperate, unrelated and about 5 years apart - the arm being the most recent. The tattoo artist for all my work is David Sena. He designed both the tree and the bluejay/cherry branch peice and he is quite renowned and very talented. I have another tattoo on my right arm of a jellyfish that is a drawing by Ernst Haeckel - the German Naturalist Illustrator from the nineteenth century. As far as the other shot of Alex - it is the most recent from a series I have been working on called Tattoo Boys. I have been working on this project of men and tattoos since around 2003. Check them out here.

Alex

Autumn

I found you!!

Western Lives at The Nic

I currently have a show at the Nicolaysen Art Museum and Discovery Center in Casper, Wyoming. It is the only contemporary art museum in our least populated state and my first museum exhibtion. The lovely curator Lisa Hatchadoorian caught my show at Yossi Milo Gallery this past February and invited me to show my work at the Nic which was her inaugural exhibition there. I am sure not too many folks will be passing through Casper but if you do be sure to try to check it out. My friend Keiko, my partner Seth, and his parents all came out for the opening and it was a lot of fun and it felt really great to show my work from the West in the West. I also felt a genuine earnest appreciation for the arts "vibe" at the opening which was quite refreshing for us after being spoiled and inundated by so much art here in the big apple...

Loved this...

Autumn

Where are you??

Hotel Room Series

If you haven't seen any of this body of work you might want to check it out. I have been making portraits since 1999 of my partner Seth & I in various hotel rooms around the world. They range from sweet to funny to sensitive to a little bit sexy.

Hotel Room Portraits

Gayville

South Dakota. We were the only gays in the village. Why are they not marketing this place better?

Signs

some really cool, funny, and crazy signs from our recent road trip...