Last Night of The Year

Well this certainly was an eventful year. In life, in work, and in every nook and cranny.

It is New Year's Eve. Always by choice I do nothing. The new year is going to arrive whether I cheer it on or not.

It's Eli and Wilson and myself here tonight. We made a new barbeque chicken recipe on the grill, we heated frozen corn, we ate it with garlic naan. We mixed a cocktail of ginger ale and orange juice and watched the film Avatar. That wasn't nothing really at all. It was everything.

Leaving this night with two images that surfaced from our Nokia Holiday Realness campaign we shot for Geometry SF that seem fitting for the year past. The top one seems melancholy, kind of worse for the wear but still standing. Beaten not broken, but screaming with color. Hopeful for all that lies ahead.

The last one is an inspired Dada-ist moment that makes me smile every time I see it. I love every detail and will note this simple little gesture that suddenly changes everything.

Amen.

Nokia Holiday Realness Campaign or #TTDOX

The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Also known as #TTDOX.
Selections from the Nokia Lumia Holiday Realness campaign
Elegantly produced by Daniel Dobers
Props and Wardrobe by Shannon Amos
Creative Director was John Munyan
Art Directors Jess Andrews and Monica Mattson
We really never had more fun than this.

Wilson Edward Archibald / 9 Years Old Today!

Who has the cloak of invisibility?
Who can move without a sound?
Whispering to animals
Listening to grass
Whose feet don't touch the ground?

Happy Birthday Wilson. Nine years old today!

When You Least Expect It / Happy Birthday Poem

Elijah James Archibald

Born today, 12/3/2001

 

When you least expect it...

Expect it.

 

Where you never think you'll find it.

You found it.

 

Each and every day is a surprise.

Happy Birthday!

 





How To Focus On What's Real

The creatives at Nokia brought film maker Matthew Bookman to our shoot last month. Bookman was invisible in the best way. Even when you asked him politely to leave the set he did...but still got it all.

An honest observer with a sense of humor, he created this wonderful film and really let the subjects just be.

See his film HERE.

And if you wondered if I really loved my job, you now will have your answer.

What Are You Thankful For?

Well I'm just so thankful for so much right now.

The Bay Area is more beautiful then ever this fall and it feels so special one just has to take note. We've had access to such great artists over the past months lectures and shoots, and then super excited to take my kids to share the holidays with my girlfriend and her kids, who have begun to define family in a new way as well. Everyone has highs, everyone has lows, but the world never stops turning.

But that is life.














Back in the working world there is nothing I'm more thankful for than the absolute kick-ass issue of Smithsonian Magazine on the newsstands now. Alessandra Petlin, Brian Smale and myself got to dig into the 2013 American Ingenuity Awards recipients, dividing up the 9 profiles.

A blast to shoot over the month of August and September with tight collaboration with photo editors Molly Roberts, Jeff Campagna and Brendan McCabe, it was great to see the ideas start small and solidify into the real.

The support and production on the images was everything a photographer could want really. Fortunately I got to bring Shannon Amos in to create the Voices Of Witness set, as well as being a creative force on the Carolyn Winterer / Benjamin Franklin production.















Great art direction and page spreads...this issue is a keeper. I am thankful and proud as well.
From top to bottom: Carolyn Winterer, Voice Of Witness, Carolyn Winterer, Jeff Aitken, John Rogers.

Enjoy.

No More I Promise

Last two snaps of myself and Shannon Amos of Amos Styles bringing the love and receiving the love at the ASMP Professional Photographer Event last month.

Photographs by Barbra Walker.

Peace.

Amos Styles, ASMP and Beyond

Photographs from the ASMP Professional Photographers Series
Photographer : Timothy Archibald
Props and Wardrobe : Shannon Amos / Amos Styles
Talent Courtesy of The Blackwell Files
Talent, Top to Bottom:

ASMP Professional Photographer Series #1

Do you want a white elephant for your shoot? I'll get you a white elephant for your shoot.
- J. Michael Tucker, ASMP President

Enthusiasm can really allow a person to make something out of nothing. ASMP did that and more with this truly kick ass event. Great time and super thankful to be involved in the ASMP Professional Photographer Series #1 at the historic 16th Street Station in Oakland. Photographers Robert Houser, Michael Copley and myself each presented a lecture and picture making demonstration.

Great support by practically every player in the business: DTC, Mark Gordon, Blackwell Files, Phase One and on and on and on...I am so sorry for those I missed from that list, because it just seemed that everyone was in the house. Long time collaborator Shannon Amos of Amos Styles worked with me here, handling props and wardrobe and more of that making something out of nothing stuff...and helpful assisting from Barbra Walker.

See my images from this day HERE.

Well This Was Cool:

The Game That Moves As You Play : Free Public Lecture at CCA

The Game That Moves As You Play : Timothy Archibald & Photographing Family

An investigation and first person narrative addressing the complex emotional entanglements that are the basis of photographing one's own family.

This lecture will focus on Archibald's current body of works titled ECHOLILIA and Stereoscopy Photographs.

Friday, November 8th, 11:00am
California College of the Arts
Oakland Campus
Room Ralls 202
Oakland, CA 94618

Welcome Inside Kittens

Wilson And Onyx, 10/2013

Max Gerber: Time Capsule

Max Gerber photographed me with all the casualness one shares with the stranger they stop on the street and ask the time of. Polite and pleasant, you give him the time, you share the courtesy, and little do you know that you are captured in amber. This is the photograph for the time capsule. For your obit. For your moment in time.

Back in 2011 Max photographed me in a similarly impromptu manner. Life at that time was at a turning point- big decisions to make and act on, and I had the kind of clear eyed focus, thousand mile stare that comes when all you have is optimism and a plan, but no idea just how complex your task may truly be.

Years later, it all appears to me to be naïve innocent ignorance. That photo carries an intensity and a confidence that hides everything that was to follow! That guy thought he had a plan! What is that saying...make plans and God laughs...?

Here we are in 2013. I kind of like what I see. I think I like it better. Man, I’m worse for the wear. Time waits for no one…but I must admit I don't mind it at all. Max captured the thoughtful haze in my eyes this time which is more than accurate, as well as a sense of internal focus. Rumpled everything, late night the night before giving a lecture and socializing more than I ever do really. Social hangover withstanding, the photo does not lie.

And inside, beneath all of that and the five o’clock shadow I think I see a sense of peace. One that I never saw back in 2011...and for that I am thankful.

 

Photographs from top to bottom, copyright Max Gerber



Ghiel de Best : Much Love



Groggy Monday and I'm greeted by a Facebook message that made my day in ways I can't even explain. A totally honest and positive moment, and the details in Ghiel's work were doing the things only paint can do. The texture on the box and paint surface, in all its tangible quality is like...real. And his take on the curve of my son's stomach and the edge of his desk are just dead on.
If I could buy this piece, I would:

Hi Timothy -
My name is Ghiel de Best, I'm a visual artist from Holland. I stumbled upon the beautiful pictures of your son and I actually used one as an inspiration to one of my paintings. You can see it on my website http://ghieldebest.com

I hope you don't mind me using one of your pictures. I actually really hope that you even like it. :) Besides that, just wanted to say that I really enjoy your pictures!
Much love,
Ghiel de Best
See Ghiel de Best's piece in all it's splendor HERE.

ECHOLILIA @ BAASICS 3 "The Deep End" / An Exploration of Neurodiversities, Mental Disorders and Creativity.

Little hard to watch yourself on video, that much is true.

Yikes.

Very awesome to watch your kids on video, that much is true-er.

From our lecture at BAASICS 3 "The Deep End", An Exploration of Neurodiversities, Mental Disorders and Creativity, May 2013.

ECHOLILIA Spoken Word / Look 3 Festival of the Photograph, June 8th, 2012

ECHOLILIA / Spoken Word Narration by Elijah Archibald and Timothy Archibald from timothy archibald on Vimeo.

Print Trade PopRocks And Pepsi

Photographer Adam Ryan Morris and I crossed paths. One thing led to another and here we are, agreeing to trade prints. This is one thing I never really do. I always fear I won't follow through, I won't make my print, if I get his/her print I won't hang it...everything really that can go wrong will, so I often dodge the opportunity.

Now, come 2013, I have a showpiece home! I actually do hang art. So let's bring it on!

Adam requests his image and I request mine. Only when I put the two side by side to I realize the inspired mix that we now have.

Like PopRocks and Pepsi. Enjoy.

Edward Frenkel : Love and Math

Sometimes Wikipedia tells it best:

Edward Frenkel is a mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics.

Frenkel grew up in Kolomna, Russia.

As a high school student he studied higher mathematics privately with Evgeny Evgenievich Petrov, although his initial interest was in quantum physics rather than mathematics.He was not admitted to Moscow State University because of discrimination against Jews and enrolled instead in the Applied Mathematics program at the Gubkin University of Oil and Gas.

While a student there, he attended the seminar of Israel Gelfand and worked with Boris Feigin and Dmitry Fuchs. After receiving his college degree in 1989, he was first invited to Harvard University as a Visiting Professor, and a year later he enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1991, after one year of study, under the direction of Joseph Bernstein. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1991 to 1994, and served as Associate Professor at Harvard from 1994 to 1997.

He has been Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley since 1997.

The intro to the story, on the New Scientist website, starts off like this:

Mathematician Edward Frenkel wants to expose the beauty of mathematics, inspire awe at its power and challenge his colleagues to wield it for good.

And really that sums it up. Frenkel's energy is infectious. His new book titled "Love And Math : The Heart Of Hidden Reality" is available HERE.

 

There Is A Saying

There is a saying that gets shared around...well, it is shared around my little world and around the great big world as well. When someone has a child who has a challenge...be it something that has a name and a doctor's diagnosis or simply an extremely annoying child, someone always comforts them with a line that goes something like this:

The universe gives us things for a reason.
You wouldn't have been given this child if the powers-that-be didn't think you were up to the challenge...

Now is this true? Of course not.

People are handed struggles every day that they are ill equipped for. But after spending the day with Adrianna Hannon and her son Jayden at U.C. Davis' Mind Institute, I realized that here, maybe just this once, this was the perfect fit.

Adrianna had a hunger for life and a direct line to her son Jayden. They could love life and learn together, letting us photograph all of it, as they share the laughs and joys together. And at the end of the day...Jayden's her son, Adrianna's the mom...and her love is there in support and wonder for this fascinating child.

Monica Bradley, Scientific American photo editor and I have worked together for years. We fleshed out exactly what we wanted this spread to look like. Two tight face shots that brought the mother and child face to face, with the reader and with each other. After meeting everyone and we started shooting, I realized this was not going to happen at all...not even close. We had to let all these ideas go. They were never going to work out.

After letting go of that, I really just prayed that I could create a photograph that did justice to the two of them- two super special people who were thankful for each other, on this journey they will walk together for the rest of their lives. At the end of the day, I thought I had it.

See these images in all their splendor HERE.

Peace.

Keith Cotton Comes To Town

Photographer Keith Cotton comes to San Francisco, and of course we try to get together. The fact that we have never met doesn't damper our curiosity.

Saturday evening we have a shoot set up, a project my intern Barbra Walker and I have been working on, finally coming to life.

Keith and his wife Emily arrive, we say hello, and the sun is setting...we need to make our photograph. I never saw Keith move a muscle...never knew he really had a camera on him. The next day these images from Keith arrive: epic and biblical, with hints of painter Mark Tansey and photographer Gregory Crewdson. We are waist high in the flood, the waters are rising, but the show must go on.

I only hope our image can match these stills.

Enjoy.

Guest Artist Photo Ninja Suite

So it goes like this:

After a bit of negotiating you accept the offer, hiding the fact that you are more than flattered.

You ignore the task for a while, then you get antsy and realize you need to prepare.

You put off the preparation for days, weeks, and then are watching the calendar and counting the days. It's not really an issue of giving the institution their money's worth....that is a consideration but a secondary one. The stomach ache and sense of terror you feel as the days creep up is one of absolute unquestionable failure. A loss, a social humiliation, a chunk of public ridicule that threatens to strike you at your most personal space. It risks touching you at your core. A deep wound or even as a surface wound...either one will do the damage and be banging around your psyche for a long, long time.

The Guest Artist is the Photo Ninja: you sweep in with Yin and Yang. Exhausted and filled with adrenaline.

You find a reserved but willing audience. You cut to the chase- no nurturing, no hand holding, nothing like that at all. You deliver the goods, toss out your opinions and advice with little to no backround to their projects at all. It's all about you, sharing your steroid-driven opinions with them, letting them live with it, as you fly off into the night.

The next day, just like that...you are gone. Poof.

But it's the large public lecture, usually scheduled at night, that can destroy you. Small talk before the lecture about the challenges a known photo rock star ran into during his lecture...a guy I know is overflowing with charisma. These things sit in your brain and make you un-easy...and worse. You can hope for the best: attentive students, great questions, solid response from the crowd. But any sign of apathy, any sigh, any glance at a text message....it will dent your photo libido for months.

This time...I got away with it. I tricked them all...all 200 of them...with some form of mass hypnosis. Whew. You never know what next time holds....

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I flew out to University of Kansas on September 11, 2013. Having some time on hand at the airport, I posted this note to Facebook:

Here it is, 9/11 and I'm at the Oakland Airport.

Life as usual all around. Cliche as it sounds, one never forgets.

So thankful for the opportunity to celebrate art and life and passion and all that we are able to create this week as a visiting artist at University of Kansas. Thankful for the joys that come with just totally geeking out with like minded art geeks as well.

Peace.


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And wow....what can I say? We really had an absolute blast. Thank you everyone at U of K for slaughtering the pig and celebrating your work with me so openly. Bryon Darby, Luke Jordan, Daniel Coburn, Emma Kisiel, Nathaniel Jones and every student who shared their work.

Thank you.

Open Source Robotics / What's Not To Like?

Morgan Quigley, Open Source Robotics Foundation, Palo Alto California.
Photographed for MIT Technology Review, September 2013

Kansas City Calling : Free Public Lecture

Hallmark Symposium Lecture Series Presents

Timothy Archibald

Thursday September 12, 2013
6:00pm

Budig Hall, Room 110

Ticket Cost: $0.00
Free and Open to the Public

Sponsored by The University of Kansas Department of Design.

More information to be found HERE.

Hashtag History Week in Review

Had a great time embracing manic camera phoning for Smithsonian Magazine's Instagram page this week, all collected on http://www.instagram.com/smithsonianmagazine.com#.
Like all things of our time, there was some good stuff that bubbled to the surface, as well as some long standing Instagram clichés coming in with full force.
Here is a selection of some highlights.