Summer Sabbatical

Summer Sabbatical. Shifting into a lower gear for a few weeks. Happy to produce a few forthcoming projects and listen to the cicada's buzz once the sun goes down.

Tied up in some messy logistics and my day was made by the late discovery, via Emily Nathan, of We Live Young. The words and photographs of Nirrimi, whose voice is that of an old soul and whose photographs of children seem to be processed with amniotic fluid.

Just wanted to share her work while I'm discovering it. More about her voice from me I'm sure...

Communication Arts Photography Annual 2011

Just got this copy of CA Photo Annual in the mail yesterday, so I wanted to bust it out here. Is anyone sick of hearing about ECHOLILIA? Ha, I might be. But I am so thankful for the attention and the doors it continues to open.

But what about the subject? Is this attention good for him? Does he love it? Hate it? Is he bored with it? I don't know. For the most part, he doesn't really know about any of it. Things come into the house regarding the project and he doesn't really take note of it at all. Forthcoming are speaking engagements that we are trying to wrestle with...would this be fun for him again? A learning experience? Or is it just like....a show, for all the wrong reasons? No answers now, but just food for thought as things evolve on this project.

None the less, the CA Annual was real interesting. Shout-outs to work by Christopher Capozziello, Montalbetti + Campbell, Chris Crisman, Erik Almas and Gregg Segal, all represented by great work that seems to have snuck in the contest thru the back door and subverted from within the expected norms.

fyeahcommercialphotographers



There is the Black Book...there is Workbook.

Then there are the contests....what would photography be without contests?

We got American Photography, PDN Annual, The Lucie Awards, then of course Communication Arts.

But never was I so psyched to stumble upon my work in ( while self-googling of course ) fyeahcommercialphotographers: an ongoing project for the search to find the greatest working commercial photographers.

Why thank you!

See fyeahcommercialphotographers HERE.

Shannon Amos Q & A on P.O.P.

Allison McCreery has a great interview with stylist Shannon Amos on her blog Photographers On Photography. It just hit on Monday and has been quoted and referenced on blogs throughout the week. It is no secret that there really wouldn't be a commercial career to T.A. if it wasn't for the hand and eye of Amos. I pulled a great quote here, but read the whole thing HERE.

I wish someone would have come to career day and talked about being a stylist. That would have been an Ah-Ha moment. It also would have made my parents understand a little better why I was compelled to redecorate and paint my bedroom on a weekly basis.

I am completely visually driven and have been since I was a kid. I would find a way to skip math class and go sit all day in the art room. Otherwise I was always reading design, fashion and art books in the library. Luckily, I went to a very liberal high school and actually felt a great deal of encouragement.

I finally put all of these interests together and started working at our local theaters doing wardrobe and building sets. And let me just say there is nothing that will teach a stylist to work on a budget like live theater. After high school I moved to San Francisco and got a job at the New Lab developing film. I had no idea when I took that job how greatly it would effect the rest of my life. Suddenly I was spending eight hours a day viewing the work of the photography world greats. It was a usual Saturday afternoon to sit around with Jim Marshall while he waited for his film and hear all the stories behind the legendary photographs that he had taken.

In the process of proofing film I started developing an eye for what works and what does not in a frame. How color and texture are effected by lighting. And how much is needed or not to tell the story or sell the product. There was also a lot to be learned from what photographers were leaving on the cutting room floors.

Subscribe and tune into Photographers On Photography HERE.

The Tree Of Life, Etc.

THE TREE OF LIFE by Terrence Malick is the impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father . Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. Through Malick's signature imagery, we see how both brute nature and spiritual grace shape not only our lives as individuals and families, but all life.

A couple days after Xmas last year I got a note from photographer Gabriela Herman with a link to this trailer. She had seen this preview and it reminded her of Echolilia in some intanglible way. I watched the trailer and was drawn to it right away. The world of boys, visited thru the memory of the eldest brother. Curtains, drapery, screen doors, lanky limbs, shirtless and fragile, these kids all seemed to carry the weight of family and all it's complexities with them.

Sunday was both Father's Day and my birthday. A strange intersection of holidays that happens once every ...oh...I don't know how often really? What better day to escape the family and buy a matinee seat to The Tree Of Life by myself and just try to take it all in. Before heading out the door I rediscovered a blog post written about ECHOLILIA by Angela Auclair, from her blog titled "From The Dock":

many people photograph their children.
photographers are no different.
but not all photographers photograph their children honestly.
you know what i mean. always clean, always happy, always perfect.

that is just not reality.

others feel that there is more beauty in the imperfection of childhood, but not just the umbrella of childhood...in the imperfection of the actual child. because none of us are perfect, for whatever that word means.
it is the very qualities that make a child different that makes that child so spectacularly beautiful to their parent. and frustrating.

and in his collection, echolilia, timothy archibald is both father and photographer and his son...well, he is just eli in all his wonder.

this series is a collection of photographs sharing eli's world.
it is much more than that...but i want you to discover it for yourself.
i can stare at these photos for hours. i see my kids in these photos. hell, i see me in these photos. i see a parent's struggle and i see a photographer using his medium to survive something really freaking hard in his life.

i see innocence, confusion, love...so much here.

So well stated. Thank for all of that, Angela and Gabriela.

So Many Things

So many things in the works right now that all will blossom in the fall. I'm wrapping them up now so piece by piece I'll share 'em here. Some of them on such a grand scale they kinda scare even me.

ECHOLILIA as a multi media presentation with imagery and audio introduction to the work by Eli Archibald and myself is in the works now for the Inaugural Show at Space Gallery in Denver. Curated by Sarah LaVigne and Julia Vandenoever, with works by us, Annie Marie Musselman, Michael Lewis, Sara Forest, Paolo Marchesi and Noelle Swan Gilbert. I think its really gonna be a blowout party to the likes of which we have never seen evening of art and culture.

More stuff coming, please stay tuned. Learn more about Picture Society HERE.

Kwikset Finals , Finally.

I almost forgot to post these final image from the Kwikset "There's A Smarter Way" campaign that we shot in LA back at the end of March. Great retouching by Rebecca Bausher or Pixel Chick Studios that really tied the whole project together. Super thankful to work with creative Kevin Cimo of VITRO as well as the Black Solid crew who really came in and took care of everything. I was so enjoying it all I took photographs of everyone I worked with on the set. See behind the scenes shots HERE, but linger here longer and enjoy these finals...right where you are.

Last Day Of

Summer is kicking in...

The Last Day Of Kindergarten, 6/7/2011 ( top)

The Last Lap Of Baseball, 6/8/2011 (bottom)

This is the stuff we gotta try so hard to preserve...try so hard to appreciate...even when it doesn't seem to let you.
Peace.



fototazo : What Makes A Great Portrait 2011

Tom Griggs of the online magazine fototazo dropped me a line last week asking if I could contribute and essay to his series " What Makes A Great Portrait". A great collection of interviews, including essays by Cori Pepelnjak, Anastasia Cazabon, Margo Ovcharenko, Shen Wei, Lucas Foglia, Susan Worsham, Steve Davis, Elinor Carucci, Mark Powell and Jess T. Dugan.

I was so enthusiastic by the copy of Maske by Phyllis Galembo that this essay really just flowed out of me. Hopefully it wasn't too easy. Here it is:

A great portrait is like a great book or a great song....it has the thing that it is supposed to be about, but then, at closer inspection, it can be about anything, everything, things that are personal to your journey and things that are universal.

It can be this thing you can project into and learn things from all at the same time.

How does a photograph achieve that? That...well that is the hard part...its just too hard to explain how to create it...one never really knows how to do it, but you know it when you see it.

A recent book that was filled with what struck me as great portraits is Maske by Phyllis Galembo. The attached image is titled "Surprise Box, Jacmel, Haiti 2004". There is no question that I would be able to look at this image time and time again and get something from it. The content is candy coated...the color and lighting gives us some visual splendor to suck us into the image. But look closely: a hooded man, shiny body, holding a box with a plastic E.T. in it. It's folk art, and pop art, and anthropology all wrapped up and presented to us...but that is just the candy packaging. Look at it long enough and its like looking at a Rothko painting. Is that guy me? Is that guy the photographer's alter ego? The body language and gesture...the act of giving a gift. Is it generosity...emotional and spiritual generosity....or is it simply American junk? And the pose...is it Madonna and child esque? Baby Jesus in the shape of E.T.? Really...I could go on and on and on. When that feeling overtakes me...the sheer enthusiasm in which I could really just spit out a stream of consciousness list of all the open-ended things in an image and their possible meanings and references...that is when I feel a portrait is great.

Explore all the is fototazo HERE. See my essay HERE.

Kwikset Campaign Online / Vitro

Just a sneak peak of the web ads created from the photographs we produced for the Kwikset campaign. Comedian John Little delivered the goods for the Hiding Place ad while Hunter did what he does best...and on command...for the Housekeeper ad. Print ads appearing over the summer on news stands and on this blog as well. Great retouching on these shots by Rebecca Bausher of Pixel Chick Studios.

Untitled from timothy archibald on Vimeo.


Untitled from timothy archibald on Vimeo.

Father's Day Is Coming

Editions of the second printing of ECHOLILIA / Sometimes I wonder are still available and can be shipped in time for Father's Day. This book has been celebrated in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Discover Magazine, CNN, Zeit Magazine in Germany, Photo + in Korea, Communication Arts, American Photography, Photo District News Photo Annual and blogs all over the effing world!

What do the critics say?

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It’s free of any sense of frustration and reverberates with love, acceptance and humor.

-Anastasia Cazabon / Fototazo

Echolilia is one of the most intriguing and revealing photography books on children. It goes beyond the lyrical and the physical to examine how his son Elijah, and children as a whole, think, see and behave.

-Colin Pantall

As an artist, Archibald easily slips into that half-world of alternate reality --the space between the echos-- appreciating and documenting. I've always felt autism's gift was the redefinition of language, and I've never seen if so beautifully expressed than here.

-Shanna Philpson

There is a very faint sentimentality in the photographs and a sense of eccentricty that result in an unusual beauty; you can tell that these are dear subjects to him, without feeling as if he is imposing his affection on the audience. The emphasis of form and shape and the anthropmorphic quality of the young boy's gestures and activities make for some of the most interesting photographs I have seen in a very long while.

-John Edmonds

Buy ECHOLILIA/ Sometimes I wonder HERE.

Makeshift Sculpture / SF

Just a snap while we are working for a living...