in 1990 I shot a photo project documenting the street market on Astor Place in NYC. This was an impromptu gathering spot for people selling mostly used, scavenged, collected, and sometimes stolen objects. Recently I have been posting a number of these images to a Facebook group focused on images taken before 1990 in Manhattan. I'm rescanning them all in...
Late last fall a small black cat - really more of a kitten - started to show up around my friend Caroline’s house. It was very skittish and wouldn’t allow itself to be pet, but it was very happy to get scraps from the house. Only then would she allow herself to be pet as she ate. Again, she was...
I've been making photos for well over 30 years. From the beginning I have been interested in documenting things that take place, as opposed to setting up, or producing, shots. I'm not categorically against creating images, but I'm drawn towards grabbing images that capture a moment, person, or event, as they feel. For a long time I have also been...
Yesterday I was scanning some photos that I shot on the shoot for our first film “Half-Cocked”. One of the rolls had a couple of strips of images of my father. My memory isn’t great but I think that shortly after the shoot we headed down to North Carolina, maybe to play a show with my band, but also to...
Prologue This post/rough draft of the beginnings of a book is focused on my efforts to deal with my mother's decline and ultimate passing, largely in real time. In her last year I did a lot of documenting and writing, and I shared that work with some immediacy. For me, doing this work helped me to process, and be with, some...
https://vimeo.com/477675786 Not from last night- but some recent music recorded the night Biden was called the victor. Despite the goddamn Pandemic, we had a really pleasant Thanksgiving with friends. We ate outside and while the food was awesome, the best part was sneaking down to the basement afterwards to make some joyful noise. Our band has been on hiatus for Covid, but...
Our film "All The Rage" begins with a voice over line stating, "The Stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves shape our sense of who we are." This line is never more profoundly apparent than on Thanksgiving. When we gather with family - especially after being apart - the stories that are told about us pull those embedded aspects of...
In 1989 when I drove across the country to shoot in malls with my friend Sebastian our car got broken into shortly after we arrived in San Francisco. Luckily, the night before, while camping on the side of the road on our way down from Oregon, I separated the film I'd shot from the film left to shoot. I'd stuck...
I am in the midst of a 10-week meditation program called "The Presence Process." This is my second go round, the first being 4 years ago, and it's interesting to note how different it is for me this time. The program begins with reading about 140 pages of text meant to help set up for the experience. Once this is...
Our sense of who we are, and where we fit in the world, is shaped by both nature and by nurture; genetic/physical factors as well ass emotional ones. There a consistently churning cultural tug of war in regards to which factor is more powerful in terms of sculpting our personalities and predilections. This debate is one that often shifts and...
Starting at birth, as we go through life, we begin to build up a library of significant dates in our lives. These anniversaries grow in number each year, and as we move through the world - growing physically, intellectually and emotionally - our relationships to these dates shift and change as well. When we are young, birthdays, especially our own,...
My mother loved the beach. I love the beach as well, and I just got out the ocean at 10am this morning, the day before the first anniversary of her death. I have felt this anniversary coming in my body for the past few weeks. I’ve been tight and sore and I know that it’s related to things that I...