Dali Wasn't Hard To Find, Was He?

I was real excited to work on the recent Rick Smolan / Jennifer Erwitt project The Human Face Of Big Data. Editor Mark Rykoff had a great vision for the project and seemed to trust the photographers to address the myriad of subjects however they wished. Total freedom, really. My spread of the company Code For America is above- shot as a 9 image composite.

I was happily surprised to find out the cover was created by fellow Tidepool Reps artist Michael Tompert of Raygun Studio. Michael and I found ourselves across the table at dinner last month.

At dinner we were talking about Salvador Dali- his work, his persona, his theatricality. I took the stance that I thought Dali's work really held it's own. I thought it was great, it deserved to be part of history as it is, and that his theatricality was unneccesary. Tompert paused, thought about that, and responded: 

Don't you think there were other surrealist painters working at the time? They probably were just as good or better but you wouldn't know where to find them. Now Dali, he wasn't hard to find at all, was he? And he was not someone you were going to forget.

Why is that relevant to this book? It isn't. But it was such a dead on universal quote, it has been in my head for months now. And now I'm sharing it with you.

Peace.