Welcome to jjtiziou.net -
I'm a photographer based in Philadelphia. This (somewhat out of date) site is here to share images from my work and everyday life. Have a look around- and check back later for the new site.
update:
May 8 - It's been a bit of a crazy week. I was up in New Haven teaching some workshops, then back here putting together all of the pieces for the How Philly Moves application - paperwork is due tomorrow, then I run back up to New Haven to photograph Good Egg for my favorite Dorothy. Then James and I present to the panel on tuesday. From there, not sure how long exactly it will take until we hear if we've got the commission or not, but either way HPM will move forward in some way shape or form. Did I mention that we're producing it as part of the Fringe? Incidentally, the HPM site is getting updated way more frequently than this one is, so you should check it out.
April 14 - With less than a week away from the first preliminary photo session for How Philly Moves, I'm running around a bit frantic. Going from documentary style photographer to large event coordinator is quite an adventure! There's a great group of people helping out and I'm really excited about this.
If you missed my first appearance on the evening news (first one where I was actually speaking rather than in the background with a camera that is) then you can catch it here. I've still been a bit held up on the Philly CasiNO! Voices project as the audio component has been more of a handful than expected. And of course I'm taking on another huge load of unpaid work, as per usual. But as you can probably gather from that video clip, this is an issue that I think is really important for our city.
Mar 20 - Just got back from a brief but beautiful visit to Portland, OR - I was super sad that the trip meant missing Joshua Marcus' cd release for Reverse The Charges - nevermind that I had a lot of fun taking the pictures for the cover- the music inside is what it's all about, and it's freaking beautiful.
The main excitement these days here is www.howphillymoves.org - the proposal that I put together with James Penistion has been accepted as a finalist for a dance-themed permanent public art installation at the 46th & Market El Station. If our project is selected, it's going to be a whole lot of fun, spending a few months trying to photograph every dancer in Philadelphia. We're looking for all ages, all styles, all level of experience and ability to celebrate this city's thriving dance community, so please refer dancers to the project website.
In the west philly cultural department: we're hosting another house show this saturday night- featuring several of our local faves: Devin Greenwood, Gillian Grassie, Scott Pryor, with some new electronic works by JoeNotJoe. It should be lovely. Next weekend (28/29th) is the grand opening celebrations at Studio 34 - if you can't make the opening events, make sure to check out the space- it's pretty fantastic, and lots more good stuff will be going on there. (Not to mention a week of all the free yoga and pilates you can handle between now and then)
Feb 13 - It's the first day of my 30th year, and I'm excited to announce the launch of www.phillycasinovoices.org - this site will build on this week's article in Philadelphia Weekly as we collect more stories from the people who are standing in opposition to the threat of casinos in the middle of neighborhoods. (if you're in Philly, make sure to check out the print copy of the weekly- The legendary Sara Green did an excellent job with the layout (of course!)
Please spread the word, and support Casino Free Philadelphia, Philadelphia Neighborhood Alliance, and Neighbors Allied for the Best Riverfront. Thank you!
January 4 - You may have heard about what's going on in Kenya right now. It is heartbreaking for me to hear of such turmoil happening there when I remember my time there last year as such a joyous thing. Of the many amazing people that I met while there, John Bwakali was one of the kindest and most thoughtful.
Please take a moment to read his Update from Kenyan Post-Election Crisis: Ten Things You Can Do.
You can also listen to his report on Free Speech Radio News.
Please help disseminate this information far and wide, and consider his suggestions for help. Thank you.
Dec 24 - Greetings from Washington DC, where I'm spending a bit of time with my father and friends. If you read this before Dec 31st, all I want for Christmas is for you to click this link and take ten seconds to create an account and vote for my friend Jessie's idea. She's in the final round for $10k of funding that will help her start up a line of clothing specially designed for the needs of children with sensory sensitivity associated with Autistism, Aspergers and Sensory Processing Disorder. It's a pretty great idea, and she's a pretty great person, and I hope you can take a few seconds to help her get the funding. Click here now please.
As for me- I've been doing a pretty good job of getting myself a little bit better grounded at home in Philly. Once I finish ticking off some things on the to-do list and the new website launches, I'll be ready to hit the road again. I'm specifically going to be looking for more work in DC, NYC and Europe in 2008 so as to have excuses to spent more time with family. In the meanwhile, if you're looking for something to do for New Year's, I highly recommend heading to Lansing, MI for the Nervous But Excited New Year's bash. On the Philly front, we might be hosting a special accoustic house concert on Saturday Jan 5th, featuring Kevin Holland of the Citywide Specials, Birdie Busch, and Tim Howard of Soltero. Please check in if you're interested.
Nov 9 - I've got some work up in the Rittenhouse Square area through the end of the month. It's the same prints and lightbox installation of my work with the Prometheus Radio Project that have been shown elsewhere, but if you missed them then you've got another chance to check them out. They're hanging up at my friend Yikwon's frame shop at 2016 Walnut Street, accompanied by some lovely urban landscape photos by fellow west philly photographer Andy Brownstein.
I'll be heading to Miami briefly at the end of the month, as the CIW is taking the next step in their campaign for Fair Food with a march on Burger King's HQ. Due to a bit of conflicting timing, i'll miss the second half of the celebration there to dash back for the house concert that we're hosting in west philly. We've added Joshua Marcus and Jack Ohly to the lineup as an extra bonus to the already fantastic Gillian Grassie and Tinsmith. It should be great!
Oct 29 - There's some really scary stuff going on for Halloween, as the FCC is moving to allow ever expanding corporate media consolidation. Join the Prometheus Radio Project and Free Press in Washington DC on wednesday morning for a costumed protest... download the flier here and spread the word to your friends in DC to come out wednesday!
If you've been wondering what I've been doing with most of time here in Philly, you should come to the screening of "The Archivist" - Local filmmaker and photo archivist John Pettit's film about my archive just won third place in the First Person Festival's Five-Day Documentary Contest. The winners are being screened on Nov 7th, at 5pm.
Thanks to everyone who came to visit during Open Studio Tours - and don't forget to check out this week's City Paper feature on Gillian Grassie, who'll be gracing us with a house concert on Dec 1st in conjunction with Tinsmith from DC.
On another note- I just hosted a pair of Toronto-based filmmakers for a few days of their year-long journey throughout the continent. They're on their fourth month of a year on the road, on a budget of zero, exploring ideas of goodness and whether it's possible to rely on the kindness of strangers. They're currently zigzagging south along the east coast, and will be making their way back up through the rest of the country over the coming months. They're looking for folks along the way to house them, feed them, and help them find odd jobs to do for gas money. It was a pleasure hosting them, and nice to be able to do that favor since so many people have similarly helped me out during my journeys. If you know anyone that would be interested in helping them out, check them out at www.quidproquofilms.com
Oct 22 - Open studios in west philly are coming up this weekend- I just got a very nice little plug by Matt Blanchard in the Inquirer's weekend section, which was kinda cool.
To facilitate your visiting of many west philly artist's studios, we've made this nifty little map. As you can see, there's a lot going on right in my neighborhood. Click here for a bigger version and you can find links to the artist's websites and start planning your tour. Remember, our studios are open to you from 12-6 on Oct 27th and 28th!
Sept 21 - The opening at Studio 34 has been postponed due to L&I complications. I'll probably be showing work there in November or December when the opening happens. In the meanwhile, I'll have some work up in Manayunk at Mugshots. They've got a lovely space there, so if you're in the area, check it out! I'll definitely be out there for their Second Saturdays "meet the artist" reception from 4-6 on Oct 13th, so come keep me company..
I'm also participating in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours again this fall. It's two great weekends of exploring new spaces and seeing artist's work in their own habitat. There'll be a preview reception at Freeman's Auction House in center city on Oct 11th. The studios East of Broad street open up october 20th and 21st, while those of us West of broad will welcome you in on the 27th and 28th. Please come by and visit, and check out many other spaces as well!
Aug 30 - It's Festival time in Philly again! The Live Arts / Fringe Festival starts tomorrow, and there's going to be tons of good stuff happening over the coming weeks, so get out there and check it out. Unfortunately I have to take a break from shooting it this year, which was a hard choice, as it's become such a huge part of my life the last few years. I'll miss the first weekend as I'm headed up to Rhode Island to play wedding photographer for some friends up there, but once back I'm hoping to go catch a lot of shows as an audience member, and hopefully going to put some of the energy that would have gone into shooting the festival into finally redoing this website, as that's ever more overdue. So check back, or if you want to be notified when it's finally done, then sign up. Also, mark your calendars for a visit to my studio Oct 27 or 28 for the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.
The Honduras trip was amazing, and most of the adventure was in just getting there. I hadn't expected to find myself driving, and let me tell you, driving a big yellow schoolbus through the mountains of Guatemala by night is *terrifying*. I also hadn't expected the trip down there to take two and a half weeks, but we ran into some pretty wild setbacks with bureaucracy, breakdowns etc. Getting across the Mexican border took eight days! Another two to get into Guatemala, and then three and a half days more stuck on the Honduras border. And that's not even with driving time... But finally we got there, and the station is well on it's way to being completed. Unfortunately I had to come home for some other work before the tower went up, but you can find more updates on the project on the RadioPCP blog. There's a little animated recap below, of course it's mostly just photos from the bus.
Even with all our setbacks, it's still easier to build a community radio station in Honduras than it is in Philadelphia. But that might change in the near future! There's now a great opportunity to bring LPFM community radio to our cities (currently it's limited to certain stations, only in rural areas) - this would be huge. Please help support the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, and do it now!
July 27 - Greetings from the airport in Austin, TX! I'm about to embark on a crazy journey aboard a big yellow schoolbus packed full of radio gear, driving across Mexico and Guatemala to set up a big AM station in Honduras. You can read about it on the Primary Communication Project's blog. It was another hectic departure, with trying to squeeze in the turnaround for a shoot for the Network for New Music the night before, then getting an MRI of my knee, and scrambling to pack the hour before heading to the airport. When I get back to Philly, we'll be hosting a house concert on Friday, Aug 24, so mark your calendars and join us for Barn Burning from Providence, on tour with Vivian Linden, and joined by west philly's own Scott Pryor. Let me know if you'd like details, or just come over on Aug 24.
On another note, if you didn't get a chance to check out the little Prometheus exhibit in west philly, it's now moved to the Art Museum area- you can find the prints and lightbox installation at The Flying Saucer at 26th and Brown. My friend Elena, who usually works there on sunday, tuesday and thursday mornings, was part of the team in Kenya and might be able to tell you some of the stories that accompany the pictures if you ask nicely and tip well.
The summer photo workshops haven't quite materialized, as I've been focusing on laying low and getting caught up on my own work- which has been good. This whole running away to Honduras thing is also setting that back a bit- so hopefully they'll materialize in the fall or some such. If you're on the workshop list, I'll keep you posted.
Oh, and you know that website update that I keep promising? The one that's supposed to make this site actually look a bit different than the current three+ year old version? It's almost done. My excellent friend Ilya has put in place all of the back-end infrastructure, so now it's really just the ball in my court in terms of finishing organizing the actual content. The new site should be a bit cleaner and easier to navigate, certainly a lot easier to update, and will feature cute little things like online print sales and a search box. Woo hoo!
Lastly, people have started asking me about Fringe time-> unfortunately I won't be doing the all out manic massive photo documentation of the Live Arts / Fringe Festival as I have in the past few years. I'm going to miss it, as it's been a huge part of my life, but I can't afford to keep self producing such a venture. It's time to dedicate that time and effort to other things, like this little radio venture in Honduras...
May 31 - If you thought you'd missed it, you get an extra week to check out my photo exhibit and lightbox installation at The White Dog - it's been extended through June 2. Furthermore, if you'd like to be photographed, I just donated a portrait shoot to the Painted Bride's silent auction this sunday. And, a quick plug for some friends: I just caught a preview of Machines, Machines, Machines and it's pretty brilliant- go see it!
April 11 - Big things are afoot in the fight for Fair Food - I'm in Chicago where the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are preparing to celebrate their victory in their two year campaign against McDonald's - The fast food giant fell into line just a week before the offiical announcement of a boycott, now the big question is whether the rest of the fast food industry will finally follow suit and take accountability for the conditions in their supply chains.
In other news- I've mostly been laying low in Philly since the Kenya trip - The winter's adventrues brought me a little bit too close to the burnout point, and I've been trying to recover and figure out how to keep doing what I'm doing in a healthier, more sustainable way. I'm going to be trying to spend a little bit more time at home in the coming months, focusing on building some better infrastructure to support this work (and maybe even working on the often postponed overhaul and update of this website) - I'm also getting to the point with my work that in the coming months I may be looking for interns and assistants. So I'll be sticking around Philly a bit more, and finally I might be regularly available for photography work in my own town... If you know anyone that I can be of used to, send them my way. I'll also probably be doing another round of workshops at some point; if you're interested in those, sign up for announcements on the workshop page.
If you do want to see some fresh new stuff, I have an exhibit of my work with the Prometheus Radio Project up at The White Dog through May 26. It includes prints and a new lightbox installation. I'm particularly excited about the lightbox, as it's the first that I've made since my undergraduate thesis, and this one is powered by a Ceelite panel, which is pretty damned cool. If you missed it in print, you can click here for an article about the Prometheus trio to Kenya in the Philadelphia Weekly. Otherwise, if you're new to this site, please bear in mind that most of it is now three years old... So really, go see that exhibit in person if you can...
One last random thought: I'm looking for a venue for a house concert for may 25 (preferably in west philly, but anywhere with a good space will do.) The wonderful Kate and Sarah of Nervous but Excited will be coming through town with their friends Lazy Sunday and they're looking for a place to play. I really wanted to do a house concert at our place, but due to a conflict with my housemate's plans, we can't do it. I'd love to find another opportunity for them to play in town, so if you have any ideas, let me know. Speaking of housemates, I may be looking for a new one this summer, so same thing, if you know anyone suitable, then please send them my way.
Jan 19 - Greetings from Nairobi, Kenya! I'm down here working with the Prometheus Radio Project and the Kenya Indymedia Center - the World Social Forum starts tomorrow. Things here are going great, we've been meeting wonderful folk, and everyone's been learning a lot. Transmitters have been built, an antenna is coming together, and we're hoping to start broadcasting live coverage of the forum tomorrow. I'll get back Feb 6, and will organize a second series of workshops later in February.
Dec 29 - The trip to Oaxaca was intense. The stories of abuse and torture are hard to hear, and it's surprising that it's gotten so little coverage in the mainstream media. For a quick summary, see this video report on Democracy Now!. More information will be following at the Oaxaca Solidarity Network site -
I continue to be rather swamped, and the rest of this site continues to look the same way that it did 2.5 years ago. And I keep on appologizing and postponing the overhaul. Someday.... but first I'm running off to Kenya with the crew from the Prometheus Radio Project, and will be there until Feb 5. Stay tuned...
Dec 16 - I'm headed down to Mexico this morning with a human rights delegation sponsored by the Oaxaca Solidarity Network. If you haven't been following what's been going on down there, here's an update. It was really hard for me to turn down the offer to rejoin my friends from MSMI for another medical mission to Honduras; I'm hoping that whatever bit of extra international attention that we can draw to the conflict in Oaxaca will make it worthwhile.
This is the beginning of a hectic six weeks for me: Family and holiday stuff will have me in NYC, DC, Normandy, London, Paris - all lovely, but each one almost too brief to enjoy. Then I'll dash back to Philly for one friend's wedding, and straight down to Florida for another's. From there, half a day home before setting off to Kenya for two weeks with the Prometheus Radio Project crew. It's going to be great, but exhausting- after feb 5, I'm hoping to stay put for a good while. There'll be a second round of workshops sometime later in Feb, since the first round was well received. And so, the website overhaul is ever postponed...
Nov 21 - For information on upcoming workshops this winter, go to http://www.jjtiziou.net/workshops - other than that, things are coming along well, slowly making progress on back-end work. I've got two invitations to head south for the week before christmas, and it's a tough choice. I might head back to Honduras for another medical mission, but there's also a human rights delegation headed to Oaxaca. I'm hesitant to go, because my mediocre spanish and injured knee are probably not the wisest things to have in a conflict situation. But the word definitely needs to get out about the ongoing situation there. See www.oaxacasolidarity.org
Nov 03 - Winter Workshops: I'm going to be organizing a series of informal but intense sessions to share basic skills in photography, digital imaging, web design etc. If you know any folks that would like to better understand their cameras, learn how to put together flyers, setup basic websites, etc, have them drop me an email. Specific details are yet to be worked out.
Also, there's an exhibit opening at the LAVA space tomorrow that features the largest print that I've ever made ( 4ft x 6ft - huge! ) - it'll be part of LAVA's permanent collection. Check it out at 4134 Lancaster ave.
Oct 11 - Thanks to everyone that stopped by during the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours - If you missed it, and are still interested in seeing some prints, drop me a line- My housemates want to keep the work up on the walls for a while, and since I'm going to be home a lot doing a lot of catching up on computer work for the next bit, you're welcome to swing by and visit.
Sept 20 - I've survived another festival. Click here for the pictures. Now am headed down to Immokalee, FL for the Student-Farmworker Alliance's Encuentro with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Next thing on the horizon is the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours - you are all invited to stop by my place to hang out, talk shop, and generally geek out over things photographic. Oh yes, and get there early, as I'm planning a hell of a cheese plate. Oct 7&8, 12-6pm. 4531 Osage Ave. I'm #51 on the map.
Sept 1 - It's Festival Time! hard to believe it's already been a year since the last installment of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe. I'm going to be running around like a madman trying to take in as much of it as possible. If you haven't already gotten your tickets, get a move on! We'll be running a daily updated slideshow at the Cabaret space, hopefully I'll see you there every night after the shows. For pictures from this year's festival, click here.
Aug 22 - Greetings from the west coast! I'm in Portland for a few days editing through pictures from this weekend's Radio Barnraising with the Prometheus Radio Project. I'll be back in Philly on friday, and have signed on to photograph the Live Arts / Philly Fringe one last time- this might be the thing that breaks me, but it should be good times. I'll be running a bit manic from now through october, then it'll be a little party at our place for the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.
July 5 - I'm off to France for a week for a family reunion; this might be the first real vacation I've had in a few years. Will be taking along some computer work, but am going to try to take it easy as well. The MSMI trip to Honduras was great- for a video recap, click here. With time ever flying, I'm looking ahead and it looks like it's going to be october tomorrow and I'm never going to get caught up on actually dealing with all of the pictures I've been taking.
Still haven't been able to figure out if I'm going to be able to photograph the Live Arts / Fringe Festival again this year. I really want to, but am also a bit hopelessly overextended and could really use the down time. We'll see how things go before then... Here are a few things on the radar:
Will be jaunting down to dc to visit my dad, and check out a bit of DC's first fringe festival. Adventures in traveling wedding photography are taking me to Montana, Pittsburgh and Portland Maine. I'll be teaching some workshops in Los Angeles at The Brentwood School, and maybe also El Centro Cultural de Mexico. Then running up to Oregon for another Prometheus Radio Project Barnraising. Oh, and I'm signed up to participate in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, so you're all invited to come over and visit in october (Mark your calendars - it's the 7th and 8th)
June 21 - Just had a blast chasing after the Reactionaries at DanceBOOM! - for a quick video summary of the weekend click here. Next week I'm off to Honduras again for another medical mission with doctors and students from Mt. Sinai. To see what the last one looked like, click here. After that, a too brief jaunt to France for a family reunion to celebrate my grandfather's 80th birthday. Then back to the editing, and the ever-postponed overhauling of this site.
June 5 - I recently went on a few fun motorcycle rides with poet Samantha Barrow - I'm far from being the only person taking their show on the road and traveling the country - her book release yesterday was amazing, and she's gearing up for a summer cross country tour. Check her out at www.samanthabarrow.com - the site doesn't yet have specific 2006 tour dates, but she'll need your help to get people out to her gigs and line up new ones.
In other news - I'm heading back to Honduras with MSMI end of June for more adventures in medical photography. My own little surgical procedures weren't as visually exciting, but you can snapshots from the laser procedure here, and the sclerotherapy session here. Thanks to Kristen for documenting the process here. Being sore and bruised post surgery didn't stop me from chasing after Roller Derby kids though. Other fun things going on soon: Reactionaries are doing Danceboom. I'll be headed to France briefly for my grandfather's 90th bday- not much time to do anything else there, but my mom just got a job in Geneva, so I'll be looking for more european adventures in the future. August might have me in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles and both Portland Oregon and Portland Maine. In the meanwhile, still loads of back end computer work keeping me busy. Woo hoo!
April 28 - Currently in Bronxville, NY, to help document a play that a friend is directing, and taking a few headshots for the cast while up here. Will be dashing back down to philly for a hectic two days of many pictures, then running back up to new york to have surgery. (no worries, it's nothing too major) -
Here's the fun part: They're letting me photograph it. Not quite sure what it's going to look like, and it won't be nearly as bloody as some of the other surgery pictures, but it should be pretty wild getting to photograph a procedure on myself. Of course, I'll have to be lying down, but that's why they make remotes and interval timers and right-angle viewfinder attachments for cameras. I might also drag in a friend with a mirror. It's true, I'm a big photo geek.
The next day it's up to New Haven for a day of teaching workshops to sixth graders - back down for another little shoot in nyc, and then hopefully a bit more down time at home to get caught up on the computer work. But that never really seems to happen...
April 3 - hi from chicago- check out the Daily Updates from the CIW Truth Tour here. (I fixed the link that was broken earlier) - after effectively sprinting five miles across chicago and taking a heck of a lot of photos and not really sleeping for a few days, I'm pretty wiped out. Will be back in philly next weekend for a bit more downtime/computertime before heading elsewhere in mid april.
March 1 - I'm heading towards the midwest in late march for the SPE conference, the CIW's truth tour, and might be teaching some workshops in Urbana-Champaign and Madison. If you know anyone in the area that needs photos, send 'em my way.
Jan 21 - The Reactionaries show is happening the 27th and 28th. If you're in Philly, don't miss it. I've been in France for the week for a family obligation, but will be back in town on the 23rd. And probably at both shows. Hope to see you there. Tell all your friends.
Jan 10 - Happy New Year! I'm now really crunching through the back end computer stuff, not going to do much more to update this site until the big overhaul happens. Give me till sometime in february, it's a year later than I wanted to, but it's going to happen. In the meanwhile, if you want to see what the medical mission to Honduras looked like, you can catch a quick preview here: streaming video on google.
Dec 1 - Greetings from Atlanta - I'm just here briefly for the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, hoping to find some inspiration in the work of others far wiser and more experienced than I. The next big adventures are another medical mission with students and doctors from Mt. Sinai, this time to Honduras. I may manage to swing a return to Oaxaca in early January, but am otherwise trying to keep things pretty low key, doing jobs in Philly and a lot more catching up on back end infrastructure and archive stuff. I know that I keep on saying that the complete overhaul of this website is imminent, but progress is actually happening on the back end, and there will be something new to see sometime in the new year...
Nov 16 - Congratulations to The Prometheus Radio Project and the Urbana-Champaign Indipendent Media Center on the launch of WRFU - Radio Free Urbana. For photos and an animation from the barnraising, click here.
Nov 9 - I'm hitting the road for a weekend in Illinois to document the Prometheus Radio Project's latest barnraising. The crew of volunteers will be teaching workshops, building an LPFM radio station from scratch and starting it broadcasting by the time the weekend is over. After that, it's a bit more quieter time, shooting odd things in Philly but focusing on overhauling the archive and the ever postponed website overhaul. Getting there slowly...
Oct 5 - Hi from Rochester. Am here for a day, Albany tonight, Philly thursday and DC friday. Looking fwd to some quiet time at the end of the month. But just wanted to drop a line and point out that the animation of photos from the 2005 festival just went live on google video: click here . It's a lot more compressed, but streams pretty fast. The original large quicktime file will still take all night to download, but is available on ourmedia.org. Same goes for the 2004 files: fast and compressed on google or huge slow download at high quality from ourmedia.org.
Sept 30 - I am in the middle of the craziest inefficient zigzag up and down the east coast. ( philly to new york to white plains to new york to darien CT to new york to rochester to albany to philly to washington to philly to new york to philly.) The current adventures include shooting for The Flying Machine, Teens Living with Cancer, Kate McDonnell, Kalen Lister, and aa few friends getting married. After mid October, life should calm down; maybe someday this website will get the update I've been promising since new year's.
The quicktime movie of the entire Live Arts / Fringe Festivals is available for download: click here. (warning: it's a 350mb file, and may take overnight to download) - it zips through the entire twenty thousand frames of the festival in a little bit under half an hour, which is easier than clicking 'next' through all of my galleries. But all of the individual stills are up at http://www.jjtiziou.net/2005festival - scroll to the bottom for the complete unedited galleries. Eventually I'll make an index by show, but right now it's just by date.
Sept 2 - The Festivals have begun! I've already been running around shooting a lot, and photos will soon be posted at http://www.jjtiziou.net/2005festival - for the most recent stuff, come out to the Late Night Cabaret; I'll be there shooting every night, and there'll be a daily updated slideshow projected on the wall of the bar area.
Aug 25 - Greetings from Los Angeles, where I am teaching three days of workshops at the Brentwood School, and taking some photos for friends at El Centro Cultural de Mexico.
As soon as I'm back in philly, things gear up for The Live Arts / Fringe Festivals - the preparations have been going on for a while and the box office is already open... Look for a copy of the guide in this week's City Paper. For the third year in a row I will be running around shooting as much of it as possible, and posting everything online here.
Speaking of the festivals, Philadelphia Weekly's Leo Beletsky had a nice review of my exhibit of photos from prior festivals. (please note: the exhibit is only up until Oct 1, not Oct 7 as previously stated.)
July 23 - Update from Oaxaca: all is well and beautiful here except for one minor annoying thing: a nasty case of the regional government completely oppressing a major newspaper for daring to criticize them. If you haven't yet read about the case of the 31 Noticias journalists being barricaded in their offices for an entire month while goverment thugs waged a seige outside, you should read up about it, and spread the word. This kind of disregard for freedom of speech is abhorrent, and a free press is critical to any democracy. Click here for a bit more info on NOTICIAS.
also while here, I've helped set up websites for a very cool new club: http://www.elefanteoaxaca.com
and the posada that I'm staying at:
http://www.hostaldelbarrio.com
July 1 - I'm in Oaxaca for the entire month of July, with the primary goal being to work on learning some spanish. I do have some of my gear here with me, so if you know anyone in the area that could use some photos, do send them my way. The major website overhaul that I kept on talking about doing still hasn't happened, but if you want a sneak preview at what I've been up to so far in 2005, click here.
Also, I'm making an effort to be better about actually printing my photos and getting them shown- so there's going to be an exhibit of prints from the Live Arts / Fringe Festival opening August 7th and going through October 7th. Click here for the invite, and pass it along.
April 4 - I'm back from the Dominican Republic. Traveling with the students and doctors from MSMI - Medical Students Making Impacts was a pretty incredible and eye-opening expereience. A warning to the squeamish: the photos from the hospital days include some fairly graphic images from surgery. Click here for the photos.
March 08 - Congratulations to the CIW! The Coalition of Immokalee Workers just won a huge victory for farmworkers in southern florida; their agreement with Taco Bell ends a four year boycott, and sets a great precedent for the rest of the fast food industry to move towards becoming fair food. It's been a pleasure and an honor to be along on the 2005 Taco Bell Truth Tour - pictures are up at http://www.jjtiziou.net/2005truthtour - and everyone is invited to a massive celebration in Louisville on saturday, the 12th. See the CIW's website for details.
March 01 - I'm on the road shooting for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for the next two weeks. Your can find daily updates on their website.
February 19- Things are a bit frantic as I'm scrambling to get things together before setting off on a month of photographic adventures (see dates to the left) - I'm still looking for contacts and projects in Portland, so if you know anyone out there, send them my way. Sorry about the lack of progress on the website, most of this content and design is almost a year out of date... I can only assure you that progress is happening on the back end- if nothing changes by the end of this week, then the major website overhaul will have to happen sometime mid april...
January 14- Happy New Year! I'm still swamped in back-end grunt work. My 2004 archive spans 117 DVDs- that's about 500 gigabytes of data. Backed up in quadruplicate. I still have a bit of staring at the computer to do before more major adventures, but I'm trying to plan a trip to Seattle/Portland/San Franciso, so if you know anyone out there, send them my way-
Dec 24- Am in DC for the holidays. Early January will bring a brief fieldtrip through upstate new york, followed by some productive downtime for back-end organization, hopefully some solid work on this site. I'm now looking for suggestions as to how to improve content, structure and design, so if you've got any thoughts, send them my way.
Nov 15: Just got back from a short trip to Pittsburgh and am now planning for a fieldtrip to London (Nov 30 - Dec 14) - I have a few projects to keep busy while out there, but am still looking for more things out there so if you know anyone out there, send them my way.
Also - this site is a mess- put together in phases and last time I really tinkered with it was in March. I am hoping to do a significant update sometime in Dec/January. I would welcome your suggestions with regards to content, organization, design, etc-
September 28: The Festival Quicktime Movie is now online and available for download. Information on accessing it is at the festival photos page. This 12 frame per second animation compresses 18,000+ frames from over three weeks of the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe into a 26 minute turbo-slideshow.
September 24: Sorry that I still haven't answered any email- I've been totally swamped. I'm taking off to shoot a wedding in the Adirondacks this weekend, and when I get back I'll be able to get caught up. For festival folks, check out the festival photos page, I just finished uploading the rest of every damn photo. Have fun digging through them.
September 21: The Festival is over! The Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe festivals were another big success, and I took a hell of a lot of photos. You can find them here, with more to come soon. Now I've got a lot of catching up to do, getting thousands of photos from the festival distributed to people, answering three weeks worth of email, and planning out the next bits of my life. October will hopefully have some downtime; I'm shooting a bunch of weddings and a few other little projects, but am really hoping to rest up (the festival nearly broke me and I need to do some physical therapy to keep my body from completely falling apart) and also find time to do some real work on this website- but until then, the only new stuff here is at http://www.jjtiziou.net/2004festival
