Natural Selection / 2nd Grade

Sometimes there is just so much to document.

Camouflage Dioramas, Miss Miller's 2nd Grade Class, Olinda School.

One of these was made by my son, the other one was made by his classmate named "America".

 

Print Is So Not Dead Poem

Photography is dead?
Instagram killed it.
The apps, the filters, should I have said no?

Photojournalism, it's long been dead.
The haters crushed it years ago.

And Print?
Oh yeah, that's dead too.
Death's not fast.
No, this death is slow.

Sometimes it's nice to be wrong,
not right.
Nice spread in San Francisco Magazine this month.
We simply went in and set up our light.

A centerfold to tell the story
It's not wide.
Tall and long, it's Print in all it's glory. 

And Director of Photography
Illana Diamond
directs from below
a single Kino Flo.

Matchbox & Boys

This story just out today in Bloomberg Business Week. I already love it.

So thankful to be asked to shoot this type of story. As minor as it may seem here, this was a big deal for me: the turf of parenting, the subtext of boys, the allusion to the escapist nature of play...all of these things are in my real work anyhow at times, and here it just seemed like a story that held potential.

More pictures from this story in the days ahead.

Valentine's Day Is Over

Really, it was never a holiday for lovers.

It's heart is in the 7 year old.

The kids who aren't embarrassed by emotions, in whatever shape they take.

Today's Location / Bloomberg Business Week

Exhausting and surprising day today shooting an assignment with my son Wilson Archibald in our very own house of chaos and confusion.

 

But as with all assignments that come from a very inspired photo editor, I think these photographs couldn't have been made anywhere else.

 



Storytelling / ESPN / The Damage Done



Storytelling at it's best by Patrick Hruby for ESPN's Outside The Lines series on the post NFL life of San Francisco 49'er George Visger. A gentle giant with a sense of humor, Visger met us on a sunny and cold Sunday at the clinic he was residing at in Sacramento. NFL related brain damage is the story, and really tales of anything related to life and brain chemistry always captured my imagination. Visger's story seemed to have something that I resonated with, and I did want to tell my own version of Visger's story here.

Note taking and documentation of every move, every thought, in an attempt to grab history and hang on to it was the glue that held together Visger's life. His wife also kept copious notes- notes on every challenge and unfortunate result of Visger's actions. It's like they were documenting the collateral damage from both sides, from both viewpoints.

Visger's story is powerful. Read it on ESPN.com HERE.

Work & Play

Andreessen Horowitz, Sandhill Road, Menlo Park, CA

Wilson, Eli, and Chris, Heath Drive, El Sobrante, CA

Welcome To 1986

 
I was wandering through a library used book sale in Marin a week back and came across Communication Arts Photography Annual 1986. I just grabbed it, didn't dig into it, and really I thought it could go either way. Get your hands on something like The Workbook or The Black Book or anything overtly commercial from another era...the 90's, the 80's and it often times seems like it is dripping with every bad commercial trend of the time. Every trope, every trick, every concept, new and time worn, will be worked over and over in those source books.

There is a philosophy that commercial photography has a short shelf life, so it often grabs from the current, looks stunning at the time, but doesn't age well. But that's all good, because its commercial, and that is what it is, right? We need bombs going off...and we need'em now.

Then there is the idea that photography at its best should be timeless and classical...even lighting something artificially could date it fast. And this school is strong for sure. Do all the pictures made in this philosophy look the same? Well yes and no. Of course there are always the people who simply do it best. And when you see that done, there really isn't any question that it is a righteous path.

So really there is no final answer. But here I was happily surprised to dig into CA 1986 and essentially love it. For me, '86 was my second year of college as an art major, and CA isn't really anything that would have crossed my radar at the time, so alot of this work is striking me anew. The best of the stuff doesn't look dated at all, and then other images are dated in a wonderful way. Every book has a star, and it seems that photographer Chris Callis was the defining voice of this edition....a great view into a moment in time.

I've attached a few of my favs: iconic image from Pete Stone / Wieden & Kennedy, Stephen Shames / Chicago Magazine, R. J. Muna / The Blake Agency, Jean Moss for Arnold Goodwin Communications, Chris Callis for Rolling Stone, Chris Callis again for LGFE Advertising, Stan Klimek for Cochrane Chase Livingston Agency.



 



Last Month's Spam

 

Spam Options for this month's email campaign.
The out take from "Motherhood Connection", up top, was the keeper.