It's in their jeans

There's a new billboard in New York's SoHo neighborhood causing a bit of controversy, because -- oh, heaven! -- sex is being used to sell something.

Here's an image of an image that I love because the woman in all black staring at the billboard appears to be caught in a trance. Maybe she's waiting for the light to cross the street. Maybe she remembers a time in college when she had drunken sex with three men. Maybe she just needs new pants.

Photo: Chris Hondros / Getty Images

Sticky subject

Of all the anti-war bumper stickers I've seen over the last 5 or 6 years, I really appreciate the design of this Iraq/Iran one best. It's pretty simple and even gets the point across (with the odometer design) about some people's concerns about warring over oil.

David Carradine: 1936-2009

Bless Quentin Tarantino, five or so years ago, for bringing back yet another forgotten actor from the brink of extinction. Having just watched "Kill Bill" again last week, and as a big fan of "Kung Fu" in the '70s, I'm saddened by David Carradine's passing today. Here's a great scene from "Vol. 2" of the Tarantino saga.

And how many TMZ videos have I watched of dipshit photogs interviewing jet-lagged celebs? Too many. And this is another. But I love Carradine's spunk at the end of this clip. And the kick to end the shot is a fitting final frame.

Tanks for the memories

I'm a day late on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Everywhere I looked on Wednesday I saw the famous photo of "tank man," the protester who defiantly stared down the approaching Chinese military.


The next day I was interested to read a New York Times Lens posting about a never-before-published image of the same man from a different angle. Go there to check it out. It's a cool, ground-level perspective.

From Russia with love

The Guardian has a wonderful little 10-picture slideshow keyed to a London gallery opening for Russian photographer Boris Savelev. I've never heard of him, but I was attracted to his images. And you should be, too, right here.

Photo: Boris Savelev; Broken Slide, 1982

Go ahead and shoot

So, I think my friend Katherine Dynes has one of the best eyes for photography of anyone I know. She loves William Eggleston and Stephen Shore and other folks who I have blahgged about here. She loves my work, gives me compliments and says I inspire her to shoot more. And then she doesn't.

You can cruise quickly through the couple hundred photos Katherine has posted on flickr. You'll see inspired trips by plane, train and automobile. You'll hitch a ride with a couple rock bands and a fun grandma and you'll be in more than one bar and more than one bar bathroom. And through it all you'll admire the composition and attention to color from someone who might share only one or two photographs a month.

I told her I would post an item with a couple of her photos, provide a link to her site and tell my vast audience to urge her to take more pictures.

So go check it all out right here ... and encourage more of the same.

Stephen Shore

American made

There's a beautfiul photo project by Tadd Myers linked off a site I visit regulary, A Photo Editor.

The project is A Portrait of the American Craftsman, and it's really beautifully laid out and captures the true essence of quality craftsmanship. There are portraits of a ballglove maker, a guitar maker, a cowboy boot maker and more.

It's just a nice little project to reflect on as American auto companies, spewing out inferior products for decades, continue to look for government handouts.

Eggleston and the Book Review

I'm not much of a blogger, I guess, if I have to link to other blogs that are blogging about something I would like to have blogged about. But, it's my blog, so, I'll link to whatever I want.

The New York Times never ceases to amaze me with the nuggets of goodness put forth everyday online and every Sunday in print, on my doorstep. I noticed the photo on the cover of the Book Review this past week and was pretty sure I knew who took the image, but didn't bother going inside to check the credit. My friend Eric took care of that for me and forwarded this link.

I certainly count William Eggleston as one of my favorite photographers and am not shy about admitting that I try to recreate a lot of what he does when I frame my own photographs. It's nice to see that other people out there, including Eric, appreciate his eye.

Photo: William Eggleston, “Los Alamos Portfolio” (1965-74).

Helen Levitt: 1913-2009

In my job as an entertainment producer for msnbc.com, I read a lot of stories about a lot of meaningless people. I don't have to name the celebrities -- you see their faces every week on the magazines staring back at you in the grocery check-out line.

But every few days I get to read about someone who was a true artist. More often than not it's in the form of an obit. Today, that person is legendary New York street photographer Helen Levitt. Read for yourself.

I chose the image above because, frankly, it reminds me of something I'd shoot myself. But for a truer sense of her legacy from the earlier part of the century, my friend Jeremy sends this link.

Eat, sleep, cry

Bryan Schutmaat is a Houston photographer who I found through flickr. He shoots everything I wish I was shooting when I'm not shooting my family -- which seems to be a lot of what I shoot since the birth of Henry. Nothing wrong with that. I just like Bryan's stuff -- a lot.

If you love the vacant, often depressing beauty of the American West as much as I do, please visit his Web site and his flickr.

Museum quality framing

Mary McIntyre show :: Greenwood, Seattle

Is it weird to try to make art when viewing other people's art?

I have a thing for taking pictures of people observing artwork. Or at least I like the idea of people being in the same frame as a picture in a frame (or a picture spray-painted on a wall, for that matter). Sometimes it's about scale. It's hard to get a read on the size of a sculpture, for instance, if the only thing in the photograph is the sculpture.

The problem is that museums and galleries that display art more often than not frown on you taking pictures of their art. I've been in some pretty killer museums in several different countries and I can't remember ever being encouraged to take photographs. Not that that stopped me. I wasn't being a total scofflaw and ignoring the museums' wishes, but I had a hard time not sneaking a few here and there to capture the spirit of places I thought I might never make it back to.

At art shows of a less grand scale, like those put on by your friends at coffee shops or what-not, there's a little different vibe than that projected by the scowling museum rent-a-guard. I feel like there's a tiny invasion of privacy going on when you photograph someone looking at art. Not sure it's valid, but if you're into getting lost a little in an artwork and some jerk is popping pictures, the moment may be ruined.

With all of that in mind, check out some photos that I find artworthy because they contain worthy art.


Floralis Gererieca :: Buenos Aires, Argentina


Public photo display :: Paris


Getty Museum :: Los Angeles

Developing story

The Sunday New York Times is the latest to stop for a second and say, "Hey, this cool thing is about to go away, won't you miss it?" with a look at the coming end of Polaroid film. The piece contains some nice insight on Walker Evans' and Andy Warhol's use of the cameras. Read all about it, here.

Photo: Molly Jasper with balloon

Buenos Aires, 2008

We spent a week in Buenos Aires before Christmas. It's hard to capture the flavor of a city with 14 million people living in it in just one week. But I concentrated on my usual suspects and subjects -- the people I was traveling with enjoying themselves, local monuments and architecture, street scenery and assorted modes of transportation. The city had a Paris/Rome/New York vibe with a little Mexico grit to hold it all together. Check out the whole big set over on flickr, as usual.

America the beautiful

There's no understating how happy I am and how happy many of the people I call friends are today. Barack Obama is the next president of the United States. Cheers to everyone who worked their asses off for this, everyone who hoped and everyone who voted.

Photo: Michal Czerwonka / Getty Images

They get my vote

I've looked at a lot of political material during this very long election season. And with just days left until the exciting climax, I wanted to point you toward a visual blog that I've come to love. Bagnewsnotes describes itself as "a progressive blog dedicated to visual politics, the analysis of news images and the support of 'concerned' photojournalism." What's not to love about that?

Photo: Callie Shell / Aurora for TIME

Teach a man to fish ...

I just spent a few days up on British Columbia's Vancouver Island. We were in a town called Tahsis, to be exact, and Tahsis had the distinction of being a mill town which no longer had a mill (or many people) in it. This made for a pretty depressing little locale, but thankfully it was plopped on a gorgeous inlet of water surrounded by the breathtaking scenery of snowy, tree-lined peaks.

I went to Tahsis with friends to fish for salmon. It'd been a while since I'd gone anywhere specifically with the intent of fishing. As a kid I fished every weekend on the Finger Lakes of New York State for bass and pike and little perch and more. I'd done some salt water fishing in Ocean City, Md., during summer vacations. But spending a couple days on a boat with bait in the water nowadays wasn't something I longed to do -- until this weekend.

What does this all mean photographically? Well, I took pictures of course. Specifically I took pictures of dead fish. I didn't really think twice about it when taking the pictures on the boat and on the dock, I was just trying to document the catch, which included 8 salmon and 1 large halibut. Looking at the pictures now, I still see them as more beautiful than ... sadistic. I mean, there is the blood and guts of a living creature that I killed. But there's no waste going on here, the fish is all being happily consumed by us.

I've never hunted and I wonder whether I would do the same thing with say, a deer. There's so much luck and chance involved I imagine I would be caught up in the thrill of making a kill and would want to document it. But it feels so different in my mind, and I can watch a fishing show on TV but always change the channel when I see hunters going after big game.

Anyway, lots more pics from beautiful B.C. and the bountiful Pacific over at flickr.

Sea what i mean?

I like how this photo of Traci taking a picture at the Monterey Bay Aquarium serves a couple different purposes, in my mind, photographically speaking.

First of all, those jellyfish there are easily the most photographed exhibit at the world class aquarium. It'd be hard for the biggest photo numbskull to miss in that room of glowing blue and orange. Perhaps that's why I wanted to miss, sort of. I'd already shot the jellies on a previous visit to Monterey, and on this day I watched as dozens of people moved in front of the glass to capture the same moment - suspended orange spacelike creature floats against blue background. Oooooh. Click. Click. Click. I think when Traci raised her own camera in front of me I came to the realization that capturing the moment meant capturing someone capturing the cliched moment. Especially when you take into consideration my second point.

You can't go hardly anywhere these days and find a tourist shooting film. It's done. With the rare exception of photo buffs on vacation, what you get is folks staring at LCD screens in front of monuments, mountains, vistas, jellyfish ... you name it. I'm not saying that's all horrible. Look at my stuff - it stopped being (all) captured on film several years ago. Digital is easier, cheaper, quicker, etc., so when I shoot film these days it's out of respect for the novelty and the beauty of the process. But I can't do it all the time.

I guess I just like how this pic sorta sums up this moment in our hyper-digital age. Maybe I'll make a series. It won't be hard to find the subject matter on our next trip.

Life on film

I was struck this week by a couple of different Web sites pointing to the work of two photographers who did a remarkable job chronicling a subject over an extended period.

The site Very Short List shines a light on photographer Jack Radcliffe and his portfolio documenting the life of his daughter Alison, from infancy to adulthood. The black and white photos are beautiful as they capture the many phases of Alison's life. "I wanted to photograph her in all her extremes," Radcliffe writes in his introduction, “and to be part of these times in her life without judging or censoring.” See the work here.

The blog Mental Floss shares the story of Jamie Livingston, a New York man who took a Polaroid every day for 18 years, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. Livingston captures his friends, himself and his life up until his 41st birthday -- the day he died. Here's a link to the site where all the photos live. They're not remarkable images technically speaking, but it's very moving to look through all the months over all those years and see the progression, from the mundane to the monumentally sad.

Sunny dispositions

I liked these two photos from downtown Seattle this weekend. I've decided that if I ever get up the nerve to take portraits of strangers, I want to do it at downtown bus stops. The greatest cast of characters assemble at the bus stops. All have a unique story, I imagine, about why they were downtown and where they're headed on the bus. The lady in red was just standing there waiting with a bunch of other people. I was able to isolate her in the frame, which I like. And I think the perspective, with the grimy black wall, makes her look small and gives the photo a downtown feel.

The person with the blankets, who I think was a woman, was seated (passed out?) on a little ledge on another street downtown. It was a gorgeous day and there were lots of teenagers wandering around down there in shorts and t-shirts. This woman was wearing a hooded coat, and she had her legs covered with what appeared to be the softest of pink blankets. It seemed a perfect contrast to the harshness of being on the street.