Wednesday, February 10, 2010
MyMidwest, the Midwest Airlines flight magazine recently wrote up a little piece about last year’s Soul of Athens project where I had some portraits included in a project called “Rural Progressives.” Jenn Poggi, formerly of U.S. News and World Report and now working in the White House photo department helped me produce the online piece. Other photographers in the MyMidwest article were Jenna Schoenefeld, Drew Angerer, Joel Prince, Andrew List and Rachel O’Hara. I can’t wait to see what Soul of Athens brings this year from people still hanging out in that unique little town. 
January was a pretty good month and a decent start to the new decade in this little corner of the world. Some of the images I shot won’t be published for a bit though, so I’m going back to a cold night in the middle of the month. I’m lucky enough to live with my brother at the moment and this probably won’t last for a very long time. In preparation for an eventual move and in an attempt to clean ourselves of the endless nonsense that piles up over the years we had a little bonfire. What was best about this was that we both have this desire to be mostly free of our material possessions, and while neither of us can truly realize this at the moment with our respective career paths (there’s no way I’m getting rid of my photography equipment!), shrinking down the necessary storage space was a nice feeling. Striking the balance between what you want and what you need is a continuous challenge, but the evaluation of it alone can sometimes help to clarify what’s important. 
Browsing the shelves of a book store last night I found a new publication called Respect. Magazine.
It’s a photography centric hip-hop publication featuring lots of great portfolios of people who have photographed hip-hop for years and isn’t juiced with ads. Not sure if it’ll be around for the long haul but it looks good and I’m already looking forward to issue #2 of this quarterly publication. Wouldn’t mind a few photos of some of the lesser known folks like Tajai and the Souls of Mischief who are currently filling my speakers but we can wait for future issues to see what they come up with. I’m guessing 2-pac on the cover is a good sales move. This is the type of magazine that just wouldn’t work on your iPad, iPhone, or iBook. It looks great printed and wouldn’t be as good in any other medium. 
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Was lucky enough to have back to back assignments within the general Milwaukee vicinity the past few days. Took the chance to see a good friend from my brief stint at Marquette University and get a nice couch near big windows to pass the night time before rising with the sun. I was once again reminded of how cool a city that place can be, and how most people don’t know it, and I can’t quite shake the notion that maybe I should live there again for a time.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Recently toured the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Ill. for the Wall St. Journal doing a story about the bullwhip effect and was happy to see it on today’s front page. Story here and reporter Timothy Aeppel’s interesting piece worth a read. If you’re not a subscriber you can get to it by googling Wall St. Journal bullwhip. Here’s an outtake:
I’ve put a few miles on my car this week with shoots in Peoria and now Pella, Iowa. I always photograph my hotel room in some way. 
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A good friend of mine, Neil Osborne (currently in Toronto) is doing some really cool things within his niche lately, like landing an adjunct teaching position at Queen’s University teaching conservation photography and visual communication within their school of environmental studies. Some lucky students there…
But the point of this entry is to point you towards his blog where he is now interviewing other prolific folks within the field of conservation photography…and featuring some of their work. You can probably see some of the best photography of our natural world with a point that goes beyond looking pretty…which is a fantastic thing if you ask me.
His blog is here, check it out for his first interview with Spanish photographer Daniel Beltra.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A new photo ‘zine out of NYC called Tag Magazine used some images from my little personal essay of nightlife called “Nocturne.” It’s a strictly digi mag at the moment but print should be coming soon, at least to the NYC folks. There are some other really talented folks in there as well like Hawaii’s Elyse Butler, who I’m happy to share some pages with. If you go looking, I’ve got the last essay in the issue.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
There’s something better to be found here…maybe when I’m not hurrying to a meeting and remember my gloves. 
