I’m slow as always in updating this site, but there’s been a lot going on… There were some big developments in August, but that story is going to have to wait for a bit later… so let’s just say I had a nice quiet month with some lovely time on assorted beautiful farms, both shooting Alfred & Jenny’s wedding in upstate NY and spending time with friends and family in the most beautiful part of Normandy where my mom’s from. It was good to have a bit of rest, because things are getting crazy again…

The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe are in full swing, and just yesterday I went  back to re-photograph “Urban Scuba” by Brian Sanders’ JUNK – since I still haven’t yet developed the abilities to stop time, teleport, or just levitate invisibly, it took another pass to get the overhead views of this performance that I wanted. A remote camera clamped into the lighting rig, and voila!

Today I took care of prepping some framed pieces that will be included in the Bread and Roses Community Fund’s 2009 Tribute to Change. I’m quite honored to be included in this tribute to the most excellent documentary photographer Harvey Finkle.

Speaking of framed prints and documentary photography – I just put up some of my photos of the CIW’s work for farmworker justice at the White Dog Cafe in West Philly, just in time for their Dance of the Ripe Tomatoes event. Do you know where your tomatoes come from? The prints will be up until Nov 5th.

Tomorrow morning I’m speaking to a class at the Art Institute, and then running off to shoot a rehearsal of ‘Postcards from the Woods’ by Merián Soto/Performance Practice. Wednesday will be a bit nuts, as I’m flying to Minneapolis at the crack of dawn, hitting the ground running (or rather the ice, slipping) to photograph “Being Branded”  for Deneane Richburg. I’m very much looking forward to seeing her work, but the last time that I photographed for her, a little wipeout in the ice rink resulted in a very swollen elbow for six months or so, so the goal is to not break anything while shooting.

Sadly I won’t get to hang out in Minneapolis, because I’m flying back at the crack of dawn on Thursday in order to be back in time to shoot ‘Small Metal Objects‘ – hopefully the forecasted rain won’t be too much of a problem.

Then I get a little bit of breathing room again, although not really, because I’ve got this big exciting secret project in the works… but it’s got to stay on the down-low for a little bit longer, so stay tuned, OK?
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Dates worth noting:

• September 20, 7pm – Photographic Memory – Film program at International House, featuring John Pettit’s documentary about my archive among other things…
• October 10 & 11, 12pm-6pm – Philadelphia Open Studio Tours – I’ll only be there on saturday, as I’ve got to bop down to VA  to shoot another friend’s wedding on sunday – but some friends will be holding down the fort. But come saturday if you can, I’d love to have you over.
• October 15, 6pm – Tribute to Change – Bread and Roses Community Fund celebration featuring two of my prints.
• October 17 – House of Cars – Innovation and the Parking Garage opens at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Keep an eye out for one of my images from Kate Watson-Wallace’s CAR somewhere in there…
• Nov 4th – last night to see my prints at The White Dog (or go tomorrow…)
• November 13, 7pm – house concert featuring Pezzetino and other special guests TBA.

While I frequently spend my time photographing people out there in their ordinary spaces, sometimes I like bringing them into a special space to be photographed. Something like a magic photo booth…

This Saturday, as part of Nichole Canuso Dance Company’s 1st Annual Benefit Cabaret, I’ll be running a little photographic operation that I’d love you to be a part of. I’ll setup the photo booth, but we’ll need you to help make the magic happen. The event at Johnny Brenda’s will be hosted by Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey and Jeb Kreager, with special performances by Headlong Dance Theater, Martha Graham Cracker, Rainpan 43, Charlotte Ford and more. Come join in the fun!

For another opportunity to come out and be photographed, please come out to Casino-Free Philadelphia’s West Philadelphia Town Hall Meeting on Casinos on May 21st where I’ll be running another special photo booth, with slightly higher production values than our last improvised one. More important than the pictures of course is the future direction and sustainability of our fair city, which is why I want you to come out, learn, and get involved. 

In other news, I’m continuing my zigzags back and forth to Washington DC – this week I’ll be presenting on an alumni panel at Washington International School. I’m continuing to seek out more contacts in DC in an effort to expand my work in the district, as I’m making an effort to spend more time with my father down there. My exhibit there is up through the end of May, so please encourage your friends in the DC area to check it out.

A little exhibit in DC, with a stellar musical opening:

Opening Reception
Saturday April 11, 8-10pm
w/ special musical guests
Gillian Grassie and Scott Pryor

Modern Times Coffeehouse
@ Politics & Prose Bookstore
5015 Connecticut Ave, NW
Washington DC, 20008

Exhibit runs all of April & May
Mon – Sat: 8pm – 10pm
Sun: 8am-8pm

P&P is a legendary community establishment, and also a very sentimental location to have an exhibit… Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got a print up in the 2009 Focus Philadelphia exhibit hosted by the Philadelphia chapter of ASMP. There’s a load of great work up through March 18th in the ehxibit space in Dorrance Hamilton Hall at The University of The Arts, 320 South Broad Street.

In other exciting news… you never know when a 300lb fugitive will kick in your back door, storm through your house, and trash your bathroom while trying to escape through a skylight, causing a flood. But when it does happen, you consider yourself lucky to have stepped out to run an errand.  [video] - It could have been really bad, but instead it worked out fine. However, had any real damage been done, I’m relatively comfortable as I’ve got extra copies of my data a) on a shelf, b) locked in an impact resistant waterproof case in my basement and c) off site. So ask yourself-> Have you backed up your data lately?

In other news, I turned 30 in February, and we had an amazing house concert. Many thanks to all of you!

I’ve got a little pair of prints up as part of Theresa Rose’s 24 friends project at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.

In conjunction with Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, The White Dog Cafe is featuring an exhibit of west philly based artists who are participating in POST.†

If you swing by that most excellent establishment, you’ll find a print of one of my favorite pictures from one of my favorite pieces at this year’s Live Arts Festival – Nichole Canuso’s “Wandering Alice”

The prints from the first two sessions of the How Philly Moves project are still installed in the former EMS storefront on 36th street (between Walnut and Sansom, next to Cosi and Urban Outfitters) – I didn’t think they’d be up there this long, but since they are, you can walk by and check them out..

I photographed my first wedding of 2008, and had a lot of fun with it. A few big events here and there are totally manageable, and the two that I was going to be doing in 2008 seemed a lot more manageable than the twenty or so that I did in 2004!†

While still pretty overextended, I was starting to feel like I might be able to live a little bit of a healthier life- I’d been carving out good chunks of personal time, eating better, going to yoga and pilates at Studio 34, and finally getting better at saying “no” to things rather than trying to always take on entirely too much.†

On the How Philly Moves front, I set up a streetfront exhibit on 36th street, and CityPaper’s John Vettese gave the project a great writeup.

October means Open Studio Tours in Philly, and the Inquirer’s Matt Blanchard was kind enough to give me a shout-out in their POST preview:†ìÖ you shouldnít miss photographer Jacques-Jean Tiziou, known for his brilliant photos of the Fringe Festivalì – a bit ironic that this praise came right after I had to sit out the Festival – but I’d be back the next year…

A couple of friends had some big things going on this month- James Peniston unveiled his Keys to Community sculpture at 4th and Arch, and Gillian Grassie released her album Serpentine. Meanwhile, I was getting an itch to photograph concerts again (I did a lot of this in highschool), and had a lot of fun photographing She Wants Revenge at the Trocadero. Their show full of dramatic spotlights and haze reminded me a lot of Mark O’Maley’s lighting in the Reactionaries pieces…

At the end of the month, in a bit of a role reversal, I had my turn in front of the camera as John Pettit filmed me for First Person Arts’ five day five minute documentary competition. He’d been assigned me as a subject rather randomly, and by complete coincidence it turns out that he works as a photo archivist, and the object that I’d chosen for their “object of my affection” theme was in fact my photo archive… the world is full of funny coincidences…

I was supposed to be laying low in Philly and working on getting caught up on things, but couldn’t resist the chance to chase after my favorite CIW crew for their big rally in Chicago. Much like in the Taco Bell Boycott, their victory came unexpectedly quickly, and the big protest was reorganized on the fly into a celebration at the House of Blues- It was an honor having a slideshow including a lot of my images projected in front of that huge crowd..

I was also preparing a little exhibit of the Prometheus Radio Project pictures at my favorite White Dog Cafe- and made another custom lightbox for this one. The new lightbox was a lot sleeker than my first one, this time using a special LEC panel from Ceelite as the backlight source. It got a brief little mention in the Weekly…