We released 4 editions today from yours truly on 20x200... All are from my project Travels Without Maps. Many of you have asked for small affordable prints, and now they are yours for the taking.

Additionally, I've seriously revamped my portfolio site and have now made it easier to grab big prints there. I have several new projects waiting in the wings will be putting them online in the coming weeks, so stay tuned, things are afoot!

I saw this bus the other day and it reminded me of something and I couldn't put my finger on it... was it a tattoo, something my wife drew in a letter, an old logo? I just couldn't place it...
...and then tonight during a wander it struck me. A few years ago I spent 6 hours on the back of a bike decorated with those hearts:

Mystery solved.

I believe most of us have a secret age separate from our actual age. It might be 4 or 8 or 62. If you want to know someone's secret age, watch them ride a bike.

I prefer my newspapers to be real things I can hold in my hands. Why?.. partially, so I can happen upon stories I would never read on the web (on the web I tend to self select stories I already know will hold my interest; in a real paper I read almost everything. Why? Because it's comprehensible. There is an end.)...

Anyway, I digress... Here are a few choice snippets from an article titled "An Independence Claim in Nicaragua" which I found the other day while reading the newspaper on the couch so you can read it here on the web...

Commercial sales of turtle meat, which has long been a delicacy here, is restricted in Nicaragua because of declining populations of endangered green sea turtles — one of many cultural clashes that the people in this remote corner of Nicaragua, who have eaten turtle for generations, say have propelled them to create their own country, which they have dubbed the Communitarian Nation of Mosquitia.

[snip]

Fed up, the separatists seized the region’s ruling party headquarters on April 19 and appointed Héctor Williams as their wihta tara, or great judge. Mr. Williams, a local religious leader whose thin black mustache stretches out toward his deep dimples, said the region suffered from a variety of woes — devastating hurricanes and rat plagues to a mysterious disease known as grisi siknis, which is marked by collective bouts of hysteria.

[snip]

The only weapons visible during a recent visit — before the weekend eviction — were slingshots, although the separatists said they were seeking financing to train and equip an army of 1,500.

“We’ll defend our natural resources,” vowed Guillermo Espinoza, the movement’s defense minister, who was known as Comandante Black Cat during the contra war. If no guns can be found, he said, the separatists will make weapons themselves.

I love photographers who see beauty in the mundane and then make you see what they see. Mike Sinclair is one of those photographers. I blogged one of his images 3 or 4 years ago and was pleased to come across his work again while helping judge the most recent Hey, Hot Shot! competition.

Part of me doesn't believe I'll never be able to see Kashgar's old city again, but then again part of me doesn't believe a government would destroy old Beijing, and yet it's gone.

Read the New York Times story on the plan to flatten Kashgar's old city and be sure to check out the audio slideshow. The pictures below are mine.

Don't know if I have many readers left in Beijing, but if so, be sure to head over to the Beijing World Art Museum to check out an exhibition of work by Scottish photographer John Thomson, one of those great intrepid 19th century traveling photographers. Many of the 150+ images in the exhibition have never been shown before... Go if only to see pictures of old Beijing. Wish I could go see the show in person or at least look at more images online.

More Images: Portfolio 1, Portfolio 2, and many more hidden out there on google image search.

My wife was out of town this mother's day. For her card I asked my kids to close their eyes and tell me why they love their mom. As she was on their mind, the results I think were especially true. Here are the unedited results:

Raul Andres - Age 4

Happy Mother's Day.

Dear Mom,

I love you to not wear clothes. You are like a... like a... lamp. You make me feel happy.

I want you to go in the milk and the salt.

Love Raul Andres

Now go in the sugar.

Gabriel - Age 2

Dear Mommy,

Yes. Yes. Yes. I love mommy. I love mommy, one, two, three, four, twelve!
I eat her all up.
Delicious.

Me Gabriel

The photographer collective still-dancing highlighted the work of Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi today. Effendi's most compelling work takes us into places most of us would have no access to, showing us the facade presented to the outside world, and then digging deeper and breaking down stereotypes and mythology in the process. As a jumping off point check out her portfolios House of Happiness and Twenty-something in Tehran, you won't be disappointed.

This is a lightly edited passage from Philippe Halsman's classic Jump Book which was published in 1959 and dedicated "To my subjects who defied gravity".

Then came the crisis which changed everything. I was commissioned by the Ford Company to photograph for its fiftieth birthday, the entire Ford family...

There was the charming matriarch of one of the great American families, and suddenly, like a pang, I felt the burning desire to photograph her jumping.

'Are you going mad, Halsman?' I asked myself. "Will you propose that she jump—a grandmother and an owner of innumerable millions of dollars?"

I asked Mrs. Edsel Ford, "May I take a picture of you jumping?"

I have never seen an expression of greater astonishment. "You want me to jump with my high heels?" she asked incredulously.

I explained that it was not obligatory. Mrs. Edsel Ford asked her children to excuse her and went with me to the hall. She took her shoes off and jumped gracefully a couple of times. Suddenly I heard the voice of Mrs. Henry Ford behid me: "May I also jump for you, Philippe?"

A year and a half later I was telling René, my brother-in-law, that I already had a collection of sixty famous jumps and that I had not met with a refusal. René who is hopelessly French answered, "America is a young nation. Inside every American is an adolescent. But try to ask a Frenchman to jump. Il te rira ua nez - he will laugh into your nose!"

The following week I had to photograph a French writer, Romain Gary, for his book jacket. Gary jumped for me several times. His jumps were both romantic and heroic. It looked as though, in mid-air he was offering his chest to enemy bullets. After the sixth jump I closed my camera. Gary asked, "May I please jump once more? I don't think I have expressed myself completely."

Vaguely Related: Bounce

There's a Korean saying describing sleeping arrangements for young families that goes, "the parents should be the mountains, and the children are the valley between." While the words probably sound better in Korean I like the imagery. As a kid I remember that feeling of being nestled between my parents or my grandparents as the safest most secure of hideouts. I also literally remember the adults as mountains—huge and immovable. I remember studying their arms, legs, and torsos noting patterns of freckles and wear, climbing over and around them, and even of tracing the whirls of their fingerprints. I would put my head to their chests to listen to the murmur and rumble of their internal machinery, and I would survey their slack sleeping faces inch by inch. More than once I had the thought that I should I ever get lost in the dark I could find them by scent alone. So when I wake up from a nap and sense my two year old an inch away from my face, or gently pulling at my earlobes, or studying my toes, I leave my eyes closed and play possum. I want him to make a good map.

William Lamson has returned from South America where he produced a compelling and fun new body of work titled Automatic with subsections titled Sea Drawings, Molino Drawings, Kite Drawings, Tree Drawings, etc... Beautiful visuals touched by whimsy and grounded by serious purpose have come to define Lamson's art. I've found myself always looking forward to what's next and being pleasantly surprised with each new project...

My son Gabriel has my grandfather's ears. I love them so.

One of my favorite radio stations, WFMU, has created a new site called The Free Music Archive devoted to posting curated selections of free (legal!) recordings. The site is brand new, but it looks to be a good way to discover new music. In just a few minutes on the site I found myself downloading many tracks to itunes discovering new music (Hi Edith Frost, I'm a fan now), older music (A few rare Daniel Johnston tracks) and really old music ( Sophie Tucker). I do worry that the site will scale given it's interface but I imagine that it will improve and grow over time. It's off to a good start and WFMU's archive is deep; it's worth checking out...

I'm excited we're releasing 2 prints (not the image above) by Michael Lundgren on 20x200 this afternoon (the prints can be found here and here). Michael is a photographer who works in the grand tradition of American landscape photographers who roamed the West in the late 19th and early 20th centry... He writes of his work:

I once read that "the twilight is the crack between the worlds." When dusk comes, a grayclarity permeates the air. It is a dark that one can see into. As Emmet Gowin once said, it is here that one can "participate in the game of feeling the unknown."

That's what I like so much about Lundgren's work... he works in the shadows and in those in-between places...

His recent book Michael Lundgren: Transfigurations strikes me as an instant classic.

From one of my old journals:

April 10, 1977, Easter Woke up and read Encyclopedia Brown. Had to go to church. The egg hunt was fun, but I don't like eggs. Everyone ate eggs except me. Played kickball in our church clothes at Jeff's house. His mom wouldn't let us play football. We watched the movie Treasure Island. It was dull except for the black spot. Jeff's mom gave us eggs again! We went home and put on normal clothes and I played in the woods and lit firecrackers with Bill. Bill is a firecracker nut. We blew up some eggs. It was fun. No eggs tomorrow!

Benedikt Partenheimer was one of the winners of the Hearst 8x10 Biennial. His winning entry was a series of portraits of famous artists and photographers taken from behind them as they were (presumably) engaged in the act of looking/contemplation. While many fo the artists are surely posing, the series still works.. and it's interesting how the viewer's relationship to the series shifts after reading the titles of the pieces. Take a look at the pictures above and note youfrresponse to them without knowing the subjects (one of them should be known to all photography nerds)... then click through to Partenheimer's site and find their names...

Girl 1: My friend dated a guy who renamed himself Paradox.

Girl 2: That’s pretty bad, but maybe it was his worst flaw, maybe Paradox was paradoxically a pretty cool guy.

Girl 3: A guy I know from college renamed himself Email. I hung out with him at my college reunion.

Girl 2: Did you laugh at him?

Girl 3: Well I wouldn’t have recommended it but it was the 90’s and seemed kinda cool at the time. Now everyone knows him as Email. If your name is Email everyone is going to remember you. I think he likes that.

Enjoy the wonderful mixed up world of Gilbert Garcin. He's sort of a surrealist Reni Burri.(via Yijun Liao's blog)

.ƃuol ʎɐp llɐ sɯǝlqoɹd pɹıǝʍ ƃuıʌɐɥ uǝǝq sɐɥ ɹoʇıuoɯ ʎɯ

Whether he's shooting in Asia or India or the Middle East, Peter Bialobrzeski takes his 4x5 out in the world and makes evocative images. When he's shooting on the street and including people, because of their long exposure times and subject matter, the images evoke 19th century photography. But when he's shooting from a distance especially when he's shooting around Asia's megacities his work evokes Blade Runner using the same technique. It's a tension I like and find fascinating. Bialobzeski's site is actually a collection of links to other sites that showcase his work... While most of the images are presented too small you get a sense of how spectacular they could be as prints. Also of interest is Bialobrzeski's early work which is shot in a completely different documentary style. Fascinating to see what happened after he found his calling.

NYTimes Review

Recommended Bialobrzeski's books: XXX Jouney - Journeys into the Spiritual Heart of India & Heimat

The Kominek Gallery in Berlin is opening a show and selling a few precious copies of the cult classic book by Pekka Turunen, Against The Wall. I've loved this body of work for years and would be thrilled to see it in person (Tickets to Berlin anyone?). The website only shows a small fraction of this project which unfortunately isn't available anywhere I know of online. Turunen is in good company in this gallery which also shows Joakim Eskildsen, Misha Kominek, Andrew Miksys, Birthe Piontek, and Simon Roberts. An impressive crowd.

In the last week a book of poetry titled Actual Air by Dave Berman (of Silver Jews fame) has come up three times in conversation. I re-read it tonight. Such a good way to end an otherwise lousy day.

Here's a sample to inspire you go grab the book yourself:

Classic Water

I remember Kitty saying we shared a deep longing for
the consolation prize, laughing as we rinsed the stagecoach.

I remember the night we camped out
and I heard her whisper
"think of me as a place" from her sleeping bag
with the centaur print.

I remember being in her father's basement workshop
when we picked up an unknown man sobbing
over the shortwave radio

and the night we got so high we convinced ourselves
that the road was a hologram projected by the headlight beams.

I remember how she would always get everyone to vote
on what we should do next and the time she said
"all water is classic water" and shyly turned her face away.

At volleyball games her parents sat in the bleachers
like ambassadors from Indiana in all their midwestern schmaltz.

She was destroyed when they were busted for operating
a private judicial system within U.S. borders.

Sometimes I'm awakened in the middle of the night
by the clatter of a room service cart and I think back on Kitty.

Those summer evenings by the government lake,
talking about the paradox of multiple Santas
or how it felt to have your heart broken.

I still get a hollow feeling on Labor Day when the summer ends

and I remember how I would always refer to her boyfriends
as what's-his-face, which was wrong of me and I'd like
to apologize to those guys right now, wherever they are:

No one deserves to be called what's-his-face.

--David Berman. Actual Air

As a bonus here's a couple of Silver Jews interviews: circa 1989, circa 2002, 2005 & 2008

I don't know if she's recently updated her website, but the volume of Nadia Sablin's online output seems to grown significantly since I last checked in. I first encountered Sablin's work a few years ago via Hey Hot Shot, and had always found her portraiture compelling while simultaneously having the desire to make radically different edits of the work she presents... Of course wanting to make different edits of other people's is my general state of being (so much easier than editing your own!)... Sablin is a Russian expatriate who has lived in the US since she was 12.

I've been a big fan of Birthe Piontek the photographer and the person since seeing her work a few years ago at Review Santa Fe. She's just released a new project titled The Idea of the North, full compelling environmental portraits and quietly emotional landscapes.

The project was shot over three months in a small community in the Yukon, Piontek writes:

I experienced first hand the mystery and fascination of life above the 60th parallel, and met people who came here as part of their quest for the idea of North.

I’m not the first observer to be simultaneously intrigued, yet remain a visitor. Glenn Gould, whose work inspired the title, wrote after visiting the North briefly, "I've read about it, written about it, and even pulled up my parka once and gone there. Yet like all but a few Canadians I've had no real experience of the North. I've remained, of necessity, an outsider. And the North remained for me, a convenient place to dream about, spin tales about,” and in the end, return South.

For the last few weeks, the conversation I have with Gabriel (who turned 2 on Sunday) at bedtime goes like this:

Me: "What kind of story do you want tonight?'

Gabriel: "Rock story."

So I tell a story about a rock. If I try to tell a story twice I invariably hear the demand, "new one".

Anyway here are 3 new stories about rocks... more on the way...

THE LONELY ROCK

Once there was a rock.

As far as the rock knew, it was alone in the world — one rock sitting quietly by itself on a grassy field that spread out as far as the eye can see. But this rock had no eyes and it saw nothing, so it did the only thing it knew how to do, it rolled. It rolled through days and nights and rain and fog until it bumped up against another rock.

The two rocks enjoyed one other's company so there they stayed until they were bumped by a third rock and three was even nicer than two so they cuddled up for a very long time until along came another, and maybe a year later another, and another, and so on. After a more days than even I know how to count, where there had once been one rock in a field, there was now a great pile of rocks. Birds came and made their nests on the pile and grass grew up around the edges and the rocks forgot they were rocks and today they speak with one voice when they bother to speak at all, because they are happy bunch, happy to have found one another in such a wide world, happy to have found their place. And today they call themselves a mountain.

--

Continue reading "3 Stories about Rocks" »

While I rarely link to purely abstract photography, I appreciate the difficulty of creating abstract images. In many ways, especially in photography, creating meaningful abstraction (minimalism also), is a more difficult than creating traditional images.

I recently saw one of Ellen Carey's "Polaroid Pulls" and was struck by her work's lushness, resonance (her process echos some of the very first experiments in photography) and irony (especially now that Polaroid is fading out of existence and chemistry is being replaced with pixels and bits).

Links: A nice online exhibition of Carey's work., Carey's Website,

I'm going to start with:

Guys who look like Kenny Rodgers
Guys who look like pirates
Guys who look like Kenny Rodgers trying to look like a pirate...

to be continued...

Li Wei is a Chinese photographer born in Inner Mongolia (part of China). He documents the region of his birth in a project titled simply The Earth. I've travelled through the region several times and have a great affection for the harsh emptiness of the land and the warmth of the people. His photos bring some of that back to me.