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

How Fun Is It To Show Old Work?

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Well...its not. But I do take advantage of every opportunity I get. One thing can lead to another and another and its interesting to get work in front of a new audience...this time a new culture.
But it lacks that feeling of " a test". Showing new work....now that has the feeling of " a test".

On my to do list this week is a bunch of stuff, but I'm looking forward to making a big print of "Screen Door + Nest " for GiveItUpForLoni, a fundraiser/art show put together by Erik Almas in his SF home. I want a print for me...and I want a print for the event...so I'm gonna find a hole this weekend to get out an print it.

This weekend we ( my kids and I ) were preparing 40 x 40 prints for the trip to Hong Kong for the exhibition curated by Isaac Leung at Videotage, and I snapped a shot before they shipped. Here's a list of the artists:

Johannes Grenzfurthner (Austria)
Kyle Machulis (US)
Paul Granjon (UK)
Shulea Cheang (France)
Katrien Jacobs (China)
Ellen Pau (China)
Timothy Archibald (US)
OhMyBod (US)

More on that show when it opens in the spring...

This Is How It's Done

TB created a challenging new series of still life photographs and needed a name for the series.
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The history of photography is filled with great titles: " The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency" by Nan Goldin, "The Pleasures And Terrors Of Levitation" by Aaron Siskind, " The Last Resort " by Martin Parr. With me, I always thought the best part of the series on my relationship with my son was the title which came from my wife : "Echolilia".
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The other night over dinner 5 children ranging from 2-9 were throwing out the titles to his series: Meat Flowers! Garden of Meat! The Butcher Of Barrows Road! Floral Carne! I snapped a pic with my phone to document the moment.
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This is how it's done. Everybody's got an opinion. See the series and more HERE.

Curve Ball

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We launched this email campaign yesterday, kicking off the year with a photograph of myself sent to 6000 or so creatives around the country. I don't think I even took the photograph...it may have been with a self timer or one of the crew snapped it. Snapshots from the shoot are the thing in this Facebook hungry time we are in, and Sz and I and Shannon always shoot lots of images of each other, photo nerds that we all are. So here we are, promoting TA with a picture of TA. It was an idea that went thru the entire arc: I originally laughed at...then I thought about it...and then I actually got excited by it.

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Tidepool Reps is now Brooke Embry and Kate Chase, and consultant Diane Eames is working with us as well. Lots of new ideas, lots of curve balls coming at us and from us and this feels like the first one.

Screen Door + Nest 2009

Just got a bunch of images back from SF retoucher Laura Johnston that we were working on for the American Photography and PDN contests. She really brought out the summer muggy feeling of Screen Door + Nest 2009, this image I put together as the summer wound down to a close.

Dickerman Prints : Baron Wolman

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Last week I found myself at Dickerman Prints putting together some images for the contest season and was lucky to find this really striking exhibition of the work of Baron Wolman.
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I was so into it I had to snap some photographs with my cameraphone. It's rock and roll photography of course, but the prints and images really have never looked so absolutely luscious. It just shows that technology can be great...it can help bring out the humanity in these historical images. Visit the show while it's still up...Dickerman's site is HERE. Baron Wolman's site is HERE.
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Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, photographs by Baron Wolman.

First My Hand, Then His Face

Dad's Hand And My Face, Elijah Archibald 1/10