Kwikset Finals , Finally.

I almost forgot to post these final image from the Kwikset "There's A Smarter Way" campaign that we shot in LA back at the end of March. Great retouching by Rebecca Bausher or Pixel Chick Studios that really tied the whole project together. Super thankful to work with creative Kevin Cimo of VITRO as well as the Black Solid crew who really came in and took care of everything. I was so enjoying it all I took photographs of everyone I worked with on the set. See behind the scenes shots HERE, but linger here longer and enjoy these finals...right where you are.

WTF PDN

Happy to be included in the PDN Photo Annual. But....lets see...they credited the wrong magazine. And they credited the wrong photo editor. And the photo editor they did credit, who was named in another submission, they spelled her name wrong. But all that said, I do like the image they chose to run from the series. And I love the work of Richard Barnes as well.

Who Wouldn't Post This?

Freudian Printing Error

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This print came out of my Epson yesterday as I was cranking out pages for the portfolio.
It's art and commerce? It's heterosexuality?
It's a one of a kind "artist proof"...yes...that is what it is.

Love, And Then There Is Valentine's Day Too.

New Futon, 1998
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My reps are crafting some promotional campaign for the upcoming holiday and asked their photographers to dig into their archives and find some images on the theme of Love. Yikes. Pretty big topic there, and a hard one to do well. Like in music and movies, this Love thing is so complex and hard to define it is usually trivialized, simplified, and dumbed down because it's just easier to deal with in that form. That idea of "silly love songs" is right on. Here is this thing that is multi leveled, infinitely complex, and as easy to grasp as the birth of the universe, but people need to talk about it, so it's gotta be put into some simpler package or really we'll never get anywhere. Ha...are ya'all with me? See what I mean?
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I sent them these two images with this note of explanation:
I think the picture of the heart is about Valentine's day. I think the picture of the extension cords is about Love. cords is about Love.
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But then I gave them a third option, an out-take from the project Sex Machines, which is what I think we'll end up using. More on the entire Tidepool series in the days ahead.


Kid In Alley With Heart, 2000

The Family Portrait

We shot this ad for Don Sebastiani And Sons a few months back and had to keep it quiet until the season arrived....and now 'tis the season. We blogged about the shoot back in July here
as we shot the campaign with creatives Dave Knox and Patrick Nistler of Duncan Channon in SF.
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Got to shine a light on the inspired post production on this project...it was way too late to get those sweaters made... courtesy of Adam Moore of Sugar Digital. And of course we have the sad "bank xmas tree" delivered to us by stylist Shannon Amos.

This Month's Spam

This carpet bombed the photo/art buying community this morning. I'm waiting to see if anyone expresses discontent over The Girlfriends....of course I welcome all opinions.

Nerve : The First 10 Years

Just got this book in the mail last week, Nerve: The First 10 Years, published by Chronicle Books. Kind of beautiful with this pink plastic glow-in-the-day cover jacket...and the design is challenging in all the right ways.

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Back before Rachel Hulin was the voice that we all know as Rachel Hulin, she was the photo editor at Nerve. Somehow we crossed pathes as I was trying to promote my book Sex Machines: Photographs and Interviews. Nerve published an exerpt that led to great publicity around the time of the exhibition and the rest is photographic history...or something like that. Seeing the work now in this anthology feels kind of like watching a rerun of The Brady Bunch...it's familiar, kind of fun to see it packaged a little differently...but there is ennui...I've seen it before and the sense of accomplishment just isn't there. Last year two images from Echolilia were published in the Hijacked Volume One anthology and I was gaga...new life for a new project! Let's see if it looks different on the page than it does on my wall! I just lingered over it and would revisit it over and over. I couldn't put the book away.

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So what's the lesson? I guess it is obvious: pushing the new stuff is exciting, the sense of discovery when something is recognized is addictive...the uphill battle is more fun than coasting downhill....all of those things at once.