Xmas Eve 2014

Super cold and clear night last night, you could really see every star.

Walking thru the neighborhood I feel a force- strong, fast and elegant just miss my back.

I turn around and here is a massive deer, shoulders as tall as me, antlers higher, leaping with this power that could total a car but a grace that made it seem like it could almost become airborne.

The logic part of my brain tried to make a connection to the holiday, reindeer, all of those long told stories.

But the first reaction I had was the wonder of witnessing this force of nature, Mother Nature, sneaking into the suburbs, giving me this little Christmas moment. 

Print Lives Again / Stanford Medicine

Another portrait I had been waiting to share from our long project for Stanford Medicine that spanned the duration of the fall:

Portrait of Liz, Berkeley, California
Client : Stanford Medicine
Design : David Armario Design

Print Lives : Haters & Lovers!

Print lives, haters and lovers!

Super psyched to have this photo essay stretch across the ad-less pages of Tricycle Magazine's current issue.

A great day spent with Ayya Anandabodhi and Ayya Santacitta out in the rain of Placerville, CA. Somewhere exists a selfie of us all. These generous Buddhist nuns do indeed have the power of love and a strong sense of humor along with it.

This issue is really beautiful from beginning to end, with great visuals by Tonje Thilesen, Peter Saloutos, Beppe Giacobbe and Philip Blenkinsop. Gratitude to Stephanie Heimann and Fabio Cutro for curating the arc here. Trust me, pick up this issue.

Print Lives / David Armario Design / Stanford Medicine

An honestly inspiring mix of photography, illustration and great writing in the Fall 2014 issue of Stanford Medicine.

David Armario and Dennis McLeod of David Armario Design approached me about working on this series of editorial stories that focused on the people affected by the medical science, with the actual science as a secondary player in the piece.

Brilliant illustrations by Jeffrey Decoster set the tone from the cover and are woven through the issue. The resulting stories I worked on, written by Kris Newby, Erin Digitale, and Tracie White are startlingly human, with layers of introspection opening up and unwinding like an onion peel. These characters came to life and I wanted my portraits to do the same.

Print lives. Sometimes better then ever.

$24 / A Book & A Print / HOME

Twenty four dollars.

The original version of HOME, published by Straylight Press is only $24.00.

What is this book all about? 

The publisher introduces it as so :

What is home? What can it mean? How do you show it?

Home can mean stability, comfort and sanctuary. Home can also be a stage where drama is played out.

HOME, by Timothy Archibald, begins with a rainbow. In the pages that follow we see his children dig a hole, appear and disappear, fall down and rise up.

Photographed during the dissolution of his marriage, HOME looks at presence and absence; it considers what is constant and how things change. It shows us that home, after all, is not really a place but a feeling.

A melancholy meditation in a minor key, HOME asks more questions than it answers.

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And that really lays it all out there. 

And every print includes, signed and numbered, this very curious print. 

Amen.

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Buy HOME published by Straylight Press HERE.

HOME / Published by Straylight Press

Straylight Press has produced some inspired Special Editions for our forthcoming book HOME. 

Our goal was to make this story available to everyone and let the collectors get some great prints for themselves as well. The idea of everyone being able to have my little version of Icarus crashing here really sends chills down my spine. After self publishing ECHOLILIA and selling it for a price that was at times prohibitive, I'm so excited to be putting this out at a price everyone can relate to.

Buy this special edition and read all about the new book HOME at the Straylight Press site HERE.

Scouting Little Kabul / Newsweek UK

And I thought I knew what the term "Jihad" really meant?

Scouting Little Kabul in Fremont this week past for a story hitting this week.  Stay tuned.

New Work In Our Permanent Collection

New work in our permanent collection.

It really is simply a wall in my home.

Actually it's my bedroom:

Sandra-Lee Phipps, Safe, circa 2012

Suzy Poling, Tilted House, circa 2004

Christina Riley, from Back To Me, circa 2013

Your Stratosphere 9/2014

Who is in your Stratosphere?

The family tree, the original social network that we all have, seems to align itself as so: you have your family, those you are born into life with or they are born into life with you. You can't divorce them, you can't cut the tether really, but you can go through the motions of doing so if need be. These folks ebb and flow through your life with periods of calm and periods of intensity.

Then you have your friends. These are the people who are close to you, those you have chosen to be around and they have chosen you. A lover, a life partner, a friend you meet for Happy Hour, a friend you problem solve with. Now these are the folks that may indeed be your family, on a daily basis. They are your intimates, distant only due to lack of blood relation.

Then there is your Stratosphere. The Stratosphere is made up of those circling you, your contemporaries, those who are living and working parallel to you. You compete with those in this group. This is the group that makes connections for you behind the scenes. This is the push and pull of The Stratosphere.

When someone dies in the friend group, the family group, that is when you feel an immediate loss.

When someone dies in your Stratosphere, it is a loss for sure, but it's also a lesson.

The world tips. One foot in the day-to-day sunny life, one foot in the afterlife. You limp thru the week, month, year, trying to understand this lesson. An utterly surreal period: fine at times but never really solid. The idea that things are locked in, systems are in place, is really off its axis. You see yourself in that life, in that person. It's all the easier to project into their life because you don't have every detail, you only have a sketch.

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How many friends does one have?

Even social media algorithms cut you off at 5000. Can someone really have thousands of friends? Not very likely. Most people have five at the most. You can affect those people: live with them, share love, share heartbreak, share the elements of life, but there really is just so much to go around. Now your Stratosphere, now that can extend indefinitely. Your Stratosphere doesn't really require the nurturing, the reciprocation, or any of the maintenance. You can touch those people...just a little...and they can touch you...and that can make a profound impression. 

In Memory of Toby Burditt  2/16/1968 - 9/17/2014

Turnback Tuesday : Siskind, Benjamin 4/10/84

September Calling:

So filled with wonderful projects I'm super excited to engage with. Working on an upcoming book with Straylight Press titled HOME.
Affordable and deep, that's our goal.

Looking through some favorite books from the 70's and 80's I found this print inside a copy of Michael Martone's book Dark Light (Lustrum Press, 1978).

A beautiful print of myself and Aaron Siskind, generously given to me at the time by professor Martin Benjamin. 

Siskind looks great: powerful and focused, able to deliver the advice with force and intention.

Gratitude all around.

One Last Feline Friday Update:

After this, I will stop.

Enjoy:

Feline Friday / New Cats In Art Photography / Humble Arts Foundation

Humble Arts Foundation has their exhibition HERE.

I thought I'd share my entry portfolio here...you can always learn something from the one's that got away. 

Take a look and celebrate Fotographic Feline Friday. 

Peace.

New Cats In Art Photography / Humble Arts Foundation

So happy to be included in the current Humble Arts Foundation exhibition New Cats In Art Photography.
See the show in all it's splendor HERE.

Workbook Fall 2014

Workbook Fall 2014 is here.
Images from our campaign for NOKIA Lumia for Geometry SF, above.

Calvin Embry, son of Brooke Embry of Tidepool Reps selects my pages as his clear favorite.

Family Fiction, #1

In 1978 the whole family took a workshop with legendary photographer Jerry Uelsmann. 

Wilson posed Eli and I and created a darkroom composite, later applying a selenium tone technique to the final fiber based print.

9/2014

Kommode Verlag / Living Working Can't Stop Won't Stop

Feels great to be rapping up this project commissioned by Kommode Verlag in Switzerland. Artist Laura Johnston came in to illustrate a series of elements on the walls of my home. Over the past weeks my two sons played the roles, as I borrowed generously from the living/working philosophy of artist Lauren Simonutti.

Turning over our finals in the week ahead to the publisher feels like turning in a novel...a novel with two endings. Love and gratitude to love of my life Lisa Mitchell who engaged with the fabric of this project from the very first chalk idea to the inspired casting curve ball she called for. 

There really is nothing as satisfying as taking a chance on something uncharted and seeing it fly. And realizing you can't really fly on your own.

Amen.

Space Needle & Safe

A very busy summer.
Hazy like the Space Needle below.
I realize August was left in the dust.
Forgotten.
Never mentioned.
Living only on Facebook and Instagram, the assassins of the blog proper.

Upon return from the Seattle trip, these glorious prints from Sandra-Lee Phipps' project titled SAFE arrived also out of no where. Arriving on just the right day, brightening the darkness, these images are waiting at the framer now to get picked up. Discover more of Sandra-Lee's work HERE.

The Last Day Of

We all
ran outside to witness
the last day
of summer.

8/2014

Throw Back Thursday / Flash Back Friday

A week ago life was so simple, so quiet. 

I worked in my office in the day, Wilson read The Hobbit and ate a popsicle. The kittens would chase balls of yarn, rumbling on the floor between naps. 

Eli Archibald returns from the week away like a shot of adrenaline, mainlined into the home: late night Paypal transfers incoming, what's the rate of exchange? Minecraft servers are being ...hit by a hacker who is tweeting the hits in real time! Eli wears a headset during the day, Skype calls to Australia, time zones expanding, how can we protect this server? 

Wilson now follows the hacker's Twitter feed, his avatar is a formal photograph of Vladimir Putin: "I suspect he's using Putin's photograph to make you think he is powerful. Sorry to say his fan base is a pool of 12 year olds", Eli observes. 

Footsteps shake the home like those in Jurassic Park. Voices bellow, sports talk radio never ends. Now our home buzzes like ground zero that is both Times Square and Wall Street, as well as some underground Minecraft base for all things vice. 

Next week he's in Bike Camp. At that point, the kittens will once again chase balls of yarn. 

Amen.

Father's Day A Month Late

Father's Day 2014:

It's the brown bag that was my dad's lunch transport system each and every day, and brought home to be used again, folded nicely.

General Electric was the mother ship: a home to working-class geniuses, their tales of brilliance shared by my dad as with an honest reverence to balance my enthusiasm of a Reggie Jackson home run streak.

This is the guy who would come home from work and say " I love my job. I get to work with the greatest minds of our time". Whether it was true or not, it didn't matter. The message was clear : get yourself in a position to do what you want to do, and appreciate the others who want that too.

Happy Father's Day Jim Archibald!

Communication Arts Photography Annual 2014

And of course I'm more then happy with this wonderfully curious photograph bringing myself, Blurb, Creative Team Paul Huber and John Parsons into the hallowed halls of the Communication Arts Photography Annual 2014 with our entry titled BOYS.

Trees Inside / Trees Outside

I had the good fortune to spend last week on assignment for National Geographic, something I really never thought I'd say ever in my life, but there we were, digging into a story in lovely Bothell, Washington, trying to do justice to the story for this legendary publication.

I had just turned 47 that week and for once, for a moment, things seemed to be falling into place.

Here are two trees shot from my hotel window: inside / outside.

Peace.

Numbers Game

Last minute ideas sometimes are a crash and burn...sometimes they fly.

Great thanks to our gracious subjects for the current Forbes Magazine Investment Guide which we created these images for.

Mat Oguz of Palo Alto Venture Science, top, and David Coats and Trevor Kienzle of Correlation Ventures, below, delivering the noble portraits as if there were no giant numbers in the room at all.