Profiling My Dad

How often does your dad turn 70? I figured a milestone like that was deserving of more than just one picture posted.

Dad

I decided to create a few portraits of my dad in honor of his 70th birthday. Here is one of my favorites.

Sherpa

This is a portrait I took in our camp during our last morning in Yosemite. He goes by Sherpa, I don't know what his real name is but I've learned its great to have a Sherpa in camp.

Mike Ririe

This portrait is of one of my recently graduate photography students named Mike Ririe. For his final project, Mike sought out a non-profit called Now I Can that focuses on treatments of children with physical disabilities and did a documentary project about them. Apparently he caught the vision of the program because they just hired him as their executive director. He asked me to create a portrait that he could use as an official portrait for his new position, here is one of them. Congratulations Mike!

Mr. Jake

This was I shot I set up for the Jason Alexander shoot. Jason didn't like the chair so we scrapped the location. But came back and shot this portrait of Jake Buntjer, one of my photo students, sitting on his throne. (Literally his throne, he let us borrow it for the shoot)

Jason Alexander

Abby #2

Abby!

I have a new niece. Abigail or Abby for short. These were a few polaroids that I shot of her when she was less than 24 hours old (around 19 hours old to be specific). Hopefully there will be a few more worth posting after I develop the additional pictures that I shot using film.

Alisia

This my friend Alisia Packard. She asked if I would take a picture that she could put on her "soon to be finished" and updated website.

I am always game when people will let me do a portrait with my large format camera. I also shot it on Polaroid Type-55 film which unfortunately is getting close to impossible to find and when you do it's almost harder to afford. It really was an incredible film that I would readily trade any digital camera in existence if we could have it back.

More Portraits

These are a few more portraits that I did for a grad school project that I am working on. The next post will be the explanation of the purpose of all these portraits that I have been promising for so long.

Some New Portraits

3rd Week in Maine

Arno had lots of fun random little assignments for us. We planned on taking a ferry over to Vinelhaven and the night before he gave us each a blank index card and we were to write down what we planned on photographing on the island and then return the card to him. This was more difficult than you would think, when you have never been to an area and have no idea what is there how can you know what you are going to photograph. I definitely tend to be more subject driven instead of relying on conceptual motivation. The only thought I had was to photograph my first reaction and then look for what contradicted that reaction. My first reaction was easy, I had arrived at some Scandinavian paradise from my memory (Even though I have never been to Scandinavia). It was so nostalgic there, a bygone era and lifestyle that had somehow eluded me. The image of the Yo-Yo ride from the previous week and the feeling it seemed to portray came to my mind and I decided to try and capture a similar emotion. The contradiction that I looked for was how normal details seemed. There was trash lining the harbor, there was a young skater going down the streets with pink hair, and people walking home from a grueling day harvesting lobster. It's interesting how nostalgia is so selective in its memory. We forget the day to day grind and the idiosyncrasies and focus on an emotion that feels so familiar and yet so unattainable because it is in our past. We would never allow our future to bear the fruits of our nostalgia because in the present all we seem to focus on is the petty and the problematic. We ignore the elements of our present that could become the nostalgia of our future. The picture that I liked the most was from a quarry that has filled with water and become the town swimming hole. I walked up to it and felt like I had just walked into a faint memory from my past. I did not have anything like this back home nor did I usually have the free time to enjoy the dog days of summer like this. Yet I felt like a wish from my childhood was being unveiled before my waking eyes. That is how I tried to capture it, to photograph the memory of the place not the place itself.
After returning to the mainland I wanted to continue this experiment but in a place I was more readily familiar and comfortable with. My focus was to try and photograph the location for how I would remember it more than how I saw it. A lot of my free time in Maine consisted of heading over to Timothy Whelan Photography and looking at photo books. Tim's is like my own personal kryptonite, I can't walk by his shop without spending money. Tim has a huge collection of photography books and original prints that you can peruse to your hearts content and I did just that, as often as possible. The third picture down is a self portrait of me doing exactly what I usually did at Tim's. I liked the key left in the open front door and how the focal plane followed along this key through the welcome mat and through my hands as they cradled the book. If I ever try to picture Tim's in my mind, these are the elements my memory holds on to.

2nd Week in Maine

During this week I was encouraged by my instructor, John Goodman, to try and create portraits differently than I had in the past. Specifically, John wanted them to have an edge, even if that required me to find characters with an inherent edge to them. I shot them all on my 4x5 camera which allowed me to play with the focal plane and restrict what could be in focus in the picture. The first guy that I photographed was named Todd Carballo. I was driving around Rockland aimlessly and stumbled upon a softball game about to begin. I figured of all the places to find characters a softball diamond could be among the best. I got out and started to talk to some of the players. I kept looking around for the player with the most personality. Todd showed up a little late and so quickly got warmed up. (By warming up I mean he started smoking a big cigar) I thought he might have potential and then he reached over to grab a Heineken beer and was struggling getting the top off the bottle so he simply smashed it against the bench and broke the top off. Todd then proceeded to drink from the broken shards of the bottle. I had found my guy.

The next day I stopped at a tattoo parlor. (A little obvious I know but I just let that one slide) There was a cool looking couple named Shawn & Holly sitting on a bench in front of the store. I explained what I wanted to do and they were very cooperative. While I was setting up the camera I watched them and they were being very tender with each other so I asked them to continue and just ignore me. I thought it turned out well.

These next few were taken at the Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine. (Yes, there apparently is a festival for everything. Even though the Lobster Festival seems pretty mainstream compared to the festival for Mike the Headless Chicken in Colorado) The two kids are named Eliot & Liam.

..and this is Kabryn.

This one was my favorite. Even though it was not a portrait...obviously. I thought it was successful because I felt like it reflected a memory of the place more than the place itself.

This image was taken on Friday. I had experienced a little burnout from trying so hard to be different so I took a little time off and went down to Rockport Marine and allowed myself to simply photograph the way I see the world. This image was my favorite.

One more batch

I will explain these portraits, I promise.

Still more portraits..

Another day and a few more portraits.

More Portraits

A few more portraits, more to come.

Another New Nephew

My little brother Damian and his wife Kim recently had their third child and while I was home for Tianna's wedding they asked if I would take a few pictures of him.His name is Taegen Jon. He was born on June 3rd so this is obviously not his newborn pictures but close enough.