Death Eater

Darth Vader and Death Eater, 10/31/2010

Happy Kids / TIME Health

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Time Magazine, 11/1/2010

Time Echo Book Excerpt

Mark Rykoff of TIME online put together an insightful ECHOLILIA book excerpt that went live today. Kinda cringed when I saw the headline...but it is what it is but still makes me pause a moment. Just felt very thankful about having this massive media entity throw support behind our simple self published book that was all shot within our house. It just shows what you can kind of do these days with an interesting idea and the technology to share it.
Enjoy it HERE.

TIME / Mental Health Series

ADHD #3

How do we do assignments that have a sense of discovery?

Is it possible?

Eli and I had the great experience of working on a series of photographs to illustrate TIME magazine's special health supplement "Happy Kids And Mental Health", appearing on newstands this week. Our published story looks wonderful- photo editor Crary Pullen was the midwife who encouraged me to make images to illustrate the story that tapped into the original impulse behind ECHOLILIA. We had some loose working notes, a few things to hang on to, a few solid concepts, but it was the tone that was the key. The results were new and refreshing, and the process utterly reversed. The issue is out but I don't have my hands on it yet...more when I do. For now I thought I'd share some out takes from the shoot.

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Mood Disorder #3
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Bipolar Disorder #5

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General Axiety Disorder #1

The Candidates, Redux

Julia DeJesus for Secretarym

Jenna for Vice President

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Jahnvi Doshias for Vice President

The Candidates, 10 / 2010

Ava Ahlstrand for Vice President

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Marc Bolibol for Vice President

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Mariell Kristine Micael for Vice President

Photographers On Photography Interview

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It didn’t look like my photographs…it looked better and more fascinating and had this “shock of the new”. And me, being the greedy photographer, wanted more of them. Who wouldn’t want fascinating photographs? - Q + A with Alison McCreery and TA.

Alison McCreery. What to say?

She is smart. She seems to know alot of people in the biz. She was in the audience at last years' Apple lecture. She writes and edits "Photographers On Photography", a super intelligent photoblog.

That's about all I know.

But this I do know: when she engages with your work, she does not let go...ever. There is no easy way out. Read her insightful interview about ECHOLILIA HERE.

Knucklehead Pumpkin

Raley's Supermarket, El Sobrante, CA 10/12/10

Tired Of Hearing About This Yet?

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Well it just is really exciting and cool for me to see what springs from this ECHOLILIA project. Me just doing something is one thing...its fun for just me. Me doing something and seeing how people interpret it, question it, use it, get inspired by it, get grossed out by it...now that is really interesting. That's when it starts spreading and evolving. Let's see where this can go? That's the good stuff the project is opening up to now.

Scientific American had this inspired use of an image and then sent us to Portland to finish the story. Then, just as my laptop was being stolen from us at the Oakland Airport last month, Alison Zavos of Feature Shoot runs this inspired Q + A.

And I haven't even mentioned the exhibition forthcoming at Live Worms in North Beach...have I?

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Echolilia Commission

Bedroom Aftermath, 10/10/10
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Sometimes just picking up the phone opens the door.

Bad day on Friday. Worn out from a corporate shoot and wrestling with all sorts of things personal and artistic. I don't think I got enough sleep. We've got the Tidepool Taking Liberties show on the horizon and we got to get to the finish line...Maybe I'm hungry? I dunno...I feel the dread.

A perceptive photo editor calls and throws out the idea that Eli and I make photographs together...with him as the subject...to illustrate a story about children they are working on. At first I hesitate...it sounds like I need to cast a model for talent, maybe have a set built? The p.e. asks me to pause...take a look a previous versions of the issue they've done...and sends me an issue with the work of Elinor Carucci. When I see it it's clear: Eli is the subject, my home is the set.

We bunker down for two days and start the process. Let's hope this works...

Essay: Summer Stretch

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Tidepool Reps Blog put together a really wonderful series of essays by, with and about their photographers and Kate and Brooke as well. Everyone's voice is in it, organized and at times written by Diane Eames. It really gets into the lives and heads of all that is Tidepool. Read it all HERE and enjoy my essay "Summer Stretch" below and HERE.

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The summer stretched before us…three long months with a trip at the end. My two boys and I had planned to fly across the country to visit my parents in Schenectady N.Y. just before that start of their school year. Schenectady had always held this iconic place in my mind and heart: I was born there, discovered photography there, went to the same school from K-12 there…and eventually the city was my first serious photography project. My first job was running a One Hour Photo machine in that city. My relationship with Photography and Schenectady had always been closely tied.

Due to co-incidence, due to planning, here I am with a friend from elementary school. She’s a mom, I’m a dad…6 kids between us. We are in a mini van taking the kids to explore Draper School on Draper Avenue. This fortress like structure occupies a city block and holds our childhood within its walls and doors: here is where I first got a speeding ticket…here is where I cried on the first day of Kindergarten…here is where I tried to smoke a cigarette…here is the playground where I really got into a fight with another kid. Oh, our prom was here too. Let’s see if my name is still here under this stairway…I wrote it here once.

We pause and make photographs. The kids are quiet, like they are in a museum. They seem to kind of respect the history they sense is here in this rundown building. My friend and I, we don’t know what to think…we just keep showing the kids the place, small stories about things that happened that don’t ever really have endings.

Two days later, here we are, back in California. My sons’ are in their school uniforms. Eli is in 3rd grade, Wilson is starting Kindergarten. The kids’ memory of my school still fresh in their minds, or so I think, as I drop them off at the first day of school. Again, we pause and make photographs.

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My Kid Made This Photograph

Rainbow Egg Iphone App, 2010 by Eli Archibald

Otto Bock Relationship Campaign

So what is this Otto Bock project you keep talking about?
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Otto Bock Healthcare is the client , Edenspiekermann Berlin is the agency, and the "C Leg" is the invention we are selling. The C Leg is a microprocessor controlled knee prosthetic that uses hydraulic cylinders to control the flexing of the knee. The science behind it is really striking, but our campaign focuses on the humans involved. All real people, all real prosthetics, we are shooting C Leg users around the country. Every now and then there is a project that does indeed stick with you...this is one of those projects.

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Here are some snapshots of the crew as we put together another ad and film series in Chicago with the generous Lezza family of Lezza Desserts.

History Of Photography

Shot this image at a wedding the whole family went to last weekend and couldn't shake the structure of Dorthea Lange's Migrant Mother photograph from the FSA project. Another reason the history of one's medium is so very important: these images are burned into our brains and inform our photographs when we least expect them to. Is my shot a great photograph? No. Is Lange's? Without question. But knowing where these things come from...thats the important part.