It Is So October



It is so so October.

The leaves are decomposing in the backyard and we smell them.

The moon is giant. The sun is low.

We watched a deer walk down the center of the street yesterday.

A Dollar Store Rat?

We found this giant spider at night.

Photographer Slugging Nazi With Camera

Was enjoying Tony's blog DROOL last night and could not resist blantantly ripping off, sharing the wonder of these photo literate comics created between July 1944 and 1946. The goal was to capitalize on kids interest in the growing hobby of photography, published by The U.S. Camera Publishing Company.

Any kid would love to see a girl braining a Nazi with an SLR, but I don't think even the most intense photo nerd would savor a comic version of the life of Matthew Brady or William Fox Talbot? Gimme the Riddler or something....geez....but there it is, part of history.

See the rest of this collection HERE.

What Is Going On In Atlanta?

So...what exactly are we doing in Atlanta? Isn't it a big Atlanta Celebrates Photography month? Is it true you are being tried for art crimes or some ethical violation? Well...yes and no...here is the deal:

Brian McGrath Davis, a grad student at Emory University approached me in the late spring about putting together a series of events at Emory based around my book/project ECHOLILIA/Sometimes I wonder, with both Eli and I in attendance.

Over the course of the summer we put together an expanded ECHOLILIA installation and a series of talks co-sponsored by ACP, Emory School of Medicine, and the Emory Center for Ethics. We are doing a bunch of stuff with various departments, but the two events open to the public are as follows:

A Conversation with Timothy Archibald
Thursday, October 27th at 6:00pm / Center for Ethics Commons, Room 102
Moderated by Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, with introductory remarks by Dr. Paul Root Wolpe, Director of Center for Ethics and Dr. Ami Klin, Director of Marcus Autism Center.

Timothy Archibald / ECHOLILIA
Friday, October 28th at 7:00pm / Emory University School of Medicine, Room 110
Exhibit Opening, Artist Talk, and Reception

Read more about the event HERE.
ECHOLILIA for sale HERE.

Portfolio and This Is The What

Tidepool is hitting the road later this month. Always a good time to purge stuff and add stuff to the dinosaur that is the printed portfolio. A dinosaur in all places except the rep road show, really.

A few months back Kate Osba interviewed me on her blog This Is The What. The interview covered a bunch of stuff that kind of took me of guard, and once it was published it had me spouting out about how we were trying to make the portfolio more "bloglike". So...now I guess I need to follow thru, you know? 

Dig into This Is The What. Read my piece, but read the rest of it too. Big things may be on the horizon for TITW...just trying to get y'all ready. See TITW HERE.

Tidepool's Embrace Essay

After R.M. 1989

Tidepool Reps asked all of their photographers to introspect a bit and try to find something, from way back, that connected their early way of working to what they are up to now. The Tidepool blog has been featuring these over past month, starting with a great essay by photographer Bill Cash.  Mine is out today, and copied here as well. See it all on the Tidepool Blog HERE.

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When I went to college, I somehow convinced my parents to allow me to be an art major. I never liked art classes in high school….I never really liked art at all. I had a long relationship with photography and my camera, but art was kind of a mystery. The art department at Penn State had no interest in commercial concerns…it was all about teaching the students expression, teaching the the history of art, the history of photography, and giving the students an awareness of the depth of their medium. No internships, nothing commercial was ever brought up. It was all about keeping expression pure, and learning how to tap into where that all came from.

At the same time I started working at the school newspaper. That group of people laughed at the art department…they couldn’t understand the esoteric concerns of that little subculture. They were all about communicating, the craft of photojournalism, and all the students had jobs at big papers lined up for their summer vacation. These folks were into the functional form of art…as functional as it ever really could be.

I was giving a talk to a bunch of students last month and they asked me about my education. I told them about the two sides of my backround, and confessed to them that I really didn’t think my formal education in photography amounted to much….I felt I learned more on the job than any where else. One of the students pointed out that the model I explained to them, this idea of having one foot in something esoteric and dada-ist, and the other foot in a world very funtional and logical, seemed to be a model I have followed throughout my career…even to this day! Looking at the patterns of my career, that observation really has held true: personal projects such as “Sex Machines” and “Echolilia” have been nurtured and blossomed with no commercial concerns whatsoever, while my efforts for hammering out a career with commercial photography were being nurtured with a similar amount of dedication and attention…all going on at the same time.

The happy news here is that the dynamic has shifted…the commercial clients don’t laugh at the art personal projects, they actually have started to embrace them.

Tethered, 2011

Things To Do In Denver When...

I called up my friend LeRoy on the phone
I said, Buddy, I'm afraid to be alone
'Cause I got some weird ideas in my head
About things to do in Denver when you're dead

LeRoy says there's something you should know
Not everybody has a place to go
And home is just a place to hang your head
And dream of things to do in Denver when you're dead

-Warren Zevon 1991

Picture Society's Inagural Show 2011 goes off tommorrow night in Denver, curated by Sarah Lavigne and Julia Vandenoever, two great photo editors that I've had the good fortune to collaborate with. The show is also graced by the genius that is :

Annie Marie Musselman
Michael Lewis
Sara Forrest
Noelle Swan Gilbert
Susana Raab
Matt Slaby

Raab is a bff ( still...i think...we haven't spoken in a while?) and Lewis is a spirtual brother ( i hope...i thought he was at least..?). Everyone else? Well they are great artists whose work speaks for itself...and I'm priviledged to discover their work. Tommorrow night it goes off, with prints by Dave Woody.
Enjoy a Michael Lewis self portrait below.
Read more about Picture Society HERE.

Hansel & Gretel, 10/1/2011