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?
(If you’re not on the mailing list, you can sign up here for updates)

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.

 Just got back from setting up the exhibit in DC, and tonight I’ll be presenting at the University of Pennsylvania as part of ASAP ( Artist Speakers At Penn ) – info here

The very next night, I’ll be doing another presentation at Penn, this time as part of Talk20 - 

In other education-related news, I just did a really fun shoot for the Philadelphia Cross City Campaign for School Reform. Check out the recap below-

†

I’ll be joining four other philly dance photographers tonight for a panel discussion at Drexel University.†

The event is free, at Mandell Theater (34th and Chestnut) – well each be showing some work and talking about our different approaches to capturing movement- then there’ll be an informal discussion and Q&A session.†

Deborah Boardman, Gabriel Bienczycki, Bob Emmott, Bill Hebert will be presenting, and of course I will be too.†

Come join us if you can- or if you’d like to forward the official invitation to a friend, you can download the fancy card here.

I’ll probably be doing some more informal workshops in west philly this month. Make sure to sign up on the new list if you’d like to hear about them…

After a quiet New Years with a friend in London, I continued with my crazy zigzag itinerary -> two days in oxford, a day in paris, landed in Philly and photographed a friend’s wedding the next morning, ran off to florida for a wedding in Immokalee, and then barely enough time home to backup my data and run off to Kenya for three weeks if Radio Building adventures. I also ended up teaching some impromptu photo workshops while, there, among other things..

After all this intense running around, I would be pretty fried once home…

After the insanity that was september, I chose to lay low for some of the fall. I was offering some workshops in photography basics, digital photography, and a photoshop crash course out of my home, and those were really fun.†

I also got some good press this month, with a feature on me in the City Paper coming out back to back with an interview on Phillyist.

August brought me back out to Pittsburgh for a friend’s wedding, then out to Los Angeles for more photo workshops with the Brentwood kids, on my way up to Oregon, where the Prometheus crew were helping build KPCN for the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Treeplanters and Farmworkers United of the Northwest)

At this point I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed and not quite up to plunging into the intensity of the whole crowd at the barnraising, which is why it was good that I spent most of the time high above most of it, hanging out with the crew on top of the water tower where the antenna was being installed.

I’d almost convinced my surgeon to let me photograph *during* the actual vascular surgery procedure that I was undergoing, but at the last minute, he changed his mind. It would have been fun, because there were a couple of really great shots to be had.†

Other than a return to New Haven for photo workshops with 5th & 6th graders, May 2006 was mostly spent in Philly, catching some roller derby, shooting the wedding of some friends, and photographing for some more philly performers.

In the spring of 2006 I finally started paying a little bit more attention to some of the vascular problems that I’ve had going on in my right leg. The MRIs and ultrasounds were pretty neat. Nothing much has changed, and part of me is concerned that someday the blood vessels in my right leg will get so messed up that it’ll really hinder my mobility (and hence my photography) – but hey, they’re making lots of progress in prosthetics, and I’m doing fine in the meanwhile.†

In Philly, my friends the Reactionaries had picked up on my involvement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and used the issues of farmworker justice to inspire a dance piece presented in a series focused on modern day slavery, previewed in this article in Philadelphia Weekly.

Meanwhile my friends at the CIW were gearing up for some actions in Chicago,following up their victory in the Taco Bell boycott with increased pressure for the rest of the fast food industry to follow suit and take accountability for the human rights conditions in their supply chain. The next target was McDonald’s-

On the way to Chicago, I swung through Madison to do a quick photography workshop at the University of Wisconsin, but unfortunately due to some communications mixups, it was rather sparsely attended. And so it goes!

August 2008 brought a Fringe-themed exhibit at the Off The Wall gallery at Dirty Franks. This got some nice coverage in Philly Weekly’s Editor’s Picks and City Paper’s Artpicks.†

I was up to Maine for more adventures as traveling wedding photographer, and out to Los Angeles to do photo workshops with my friend Felicity’s yearbook students at The Brentwood School. It was my first time working with Highschool students, and I found it really rewarding. They were young enough to have a lot to learn, but old enough to be able to really focus on the technical challenges involved in creating the images that they wanted to shoot. It was great to see them learn so much so fast, and I hope to be able to do a lot more work with highschool kids in the future.

The end of August was time for getting into the Live Arts / Fringe Festival again…