I recently had a few shoots for TimeOut Chicago’s series highlighting unique and valuable Chicago eateries that are struggling in the nonsense economy we have. I was also exposed to some cool new places that I might just have to go check out on my own time. This is an outtake of Bobby Syed, owner of Bhabi’s Kitchen in Roger’s Park. This frame didn’t make it, but I liked it nonetheless. Bhabi was a very personable guy with some interesting stories and if you go in to have a bite there’s a good chance you’ll leave having had a personal connection with the owner. If you’re nearby you should check it out.

I took out the lights the other day for a little essay I’ve gotta shoot this weekend. Thanks for the colors yellow and orange.

The book release is coming. I can’t wait. I remember in my first college photo class, after I came back from an assignment with a bunch of pictures of a white truck in the woods, shot for no apparent reason other than I always jogged by the site and found it curious, my professor Luke Batten of New Catalogue suggested I look at the work of William Eggleston. I checked it out. I hated it. At that point all I wanted to do was make overly lit, commercial looking images with a fisheye lens, often times of skateboarders flying down handrails. I thought Chip Simons was fantastic.

Thanks to photojournalism I’ve fallen in love with honesty in photographs, but really get frustrated by the sensationalist content often produced. People like Eggleston, Sam Abell and others who focus on the “normal” in life, and not the always the pinnacle moments represent the world best, I feel. I can’t wait for Eggleston’s new book. I’m not really a “book head” or totally in touch with the photo art world, generally I would rather be out making pictures, but this will be the first book that this nearly broke kid ever pre-orders. Maybe the new Alec Soth book will be the next.

Check out the brief Telegraph Article and video

Nikki Jason is a woman I met recently on a freelance assignment. She’s put her passion for skateboarding into goodwill gestures towards her community, organizing skate events and a skateboard camp for girls. As someone who grew up skateboarding, and who credits it for no less than changing my outlook on life, it was really inspirational to meet an adult who is still skating (I wish I could say I skated more than a few times a year now) and doing really good things with it. Plus she was just really cool, and her husband skates. Their trips are to places like Mammoth, CA just for the skateparks! Kindred spirits it seems. I photographed her at the Athens skatepark where she knows how to cruise around those walls behind her pretty well.

It’s not common that I get distracted by the subject during a portrait shoot, I try to maintain control of the situation. Frank was good at the classical guitar though, I had asked him to play while I tested my lights and maybe snapped a few. He’s the owner of the Blue Eagle, the local music store here in Athens and he was the teaching for the ex-lead guitarist of that big rock band Taking Back Sunday that, if you were my friend senior year in high school, you were heading to the city to see every time they came through. Frank was a great guy and we had a fun little shoot. I shot this to add to my rural progressives portrait series, something I’ve been trying to build on before I have to leave the area with all these great people. Somehow this would just turn out different if I were trying to do this project in the ‘burbs.

This morning I visited a woman, Amy Abercrombie in New Marshfield, who, among other things, plays the cello and loves to garden. I’m gonna miss the places and people around OU when I leave in June.

Gilbert – from the Bryan House project.

Last week I had the privelege of photographing local professor Dr. Damien Nance for an upcoming article about his (in the ’80′s) radical theories of continental drift that are becoming more widely accepted. He was a great guy and the shoot was fun and easy because I actually had someone help me moving lights around. Thanks Kevin. Here’s a pair that I liked.

It’s been snowing a ton the past week, but last Thursday in a bout of clairvoyance decided to suck it up and spend the afternoon putting the snow tires on my car…well worth the frozen hands and muddy, slush soaked jeans it cost me.  Later that weekend I spent some time at Bryan House again, photographing details, interiors and some portraits. It was about -7 outside and a family had visitors, creating a lively but cramped experience for me and my light, tripod and hasselblad trying to move about different rooms. Here’s Jean-Paul who spoke briefly of hoping to become a Senator one day. He is sitting at his desk in his room at home (he’s on break from school), which is pretty stark with only the books he studies … and I noticed one of his younger siblings earlier thinking of the outdoors …

The snow is a beautiful thing that’s limits are completely worth it, most of the time. Now, if it stops my family from seeing other family in Ohio for the next few days … I may sort of rescind my statement.

I rarely ever go black and white … but that was the request here.
A few more shots, in a different style, for the artist mentioned a few posts ago. I think I can dig the b/w for portrait stuff though. It’s just the music I’m really anxious for.