High in the Middle and Round on Both Ends

I've been enjoying tons of time away from computers and looking into cameras working on a few new projects. Tomorrow I head off to Ohio to make some landscapes. Landscapes are tricky. I've been spoiled all these years staying indoors and away from wind, rain, fool weather, cars, cops and security people. It can be a real feat to get even one exposure sometimes but when it works it's rather cathartic. Either way it is nice to be outdoors and under stars and sky. In other news, the Git challenges you to a Staring Contest. Jason wins a Dreihaus award. Paul shows up in the NY Times Magazine. More Chicagraphers leap across the pond to Germany. (plus I keep adding links to the right)

Mux It Up

Sea of Peeps at the Being True opening at the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn (sponsored by Nike) I jumped on the bandwagon and made you all a Muxtape. (Even contains a song I wrote back when I was 22.)

Nu Yawkers, Fairs and Lite Bites

Hot off the heels of hanging (hanging consists of crate building, book editing and photo talk) with mustachographer, Chris Taylor who was visiting Chicago last week, I've teleported to the hometown of NY for a week of picture taking, checking out art fairs and seeing old and new pals. Come find me. I also have new work from the Wright Commission up in the Scope fair (and maybe some others?). SCOPE NEW YORK 08 - BOOTH #9, Project 4 Gallery SCOPE Pavilion at Lincoln Center Damrosch Park 62nd Street and 10th/Amsterdam Avenue New York, NY 10023

Planes, Hybrids and Miles...

Thomas Perry at Work, Johnson City It's been a whirlwind over the last few weeks and continues. I'm enjoying it though a nasty head cold is trying to tell me to slow down. I've been lecturing, teaching, doing some editorial work and somehow managing to even get started on new projects. Up to my neck in photography is actually nice and all this stuff at best seems to inform and give perspective to my own pictures. 2 weeks ago I had a great time as a visiting artist down at East Tennessee St. University and the students of the amazing Mike Smith. One Mr. Thomas Perry, an encyclopedia of random pop culture knowledge, graciously drove me about, kept me up late and even made me coffee. I paid him back by taking his picture at his sometime work at a liquor store (see above). From Tennessee the good folks at Portfolio magazine hired me to take photographs at a local Kmart. 8 hours later my assistant Erica and I crawled out from an avalanche of backroom marked made-in-china boxes and florescent wonderland quite pleased with our results. From Kmart I rented a Hybrid and made it from Chicago to Cleveland in 5 hours and one tank of gas. Back in Akron it was a veritable reunion of sorts and was filled with that eerie familiarity. A fun lecture and seeing old friends, meeting new ones and again exciting to see some strong stuff developing in the student work; the amazing redesigned Akron Art Museum and new work from my old professor Andrew Borowiec. Andrew's been working hard and it shows, a logical but bold leap in his new pictures in color, more on those later. Today nursing the head cold. Tomorrow I'm off again for a shoot for the NY Times, taking pictures of rocks and religion (as in fossils). Keep an eye out for some things here I've been working on. The long overdue 20x200 picture. As well as a few other involved posts I've been working on in the not-so-spare moments. I won't be heading out to the 2 openings with my work this weekend but that doens't mean you shouldn't: Ad Agency Photographic Resource Center Boston, MA Opens Nov. 8th till January 27, 2008 Features: Kate Bingaman-Burt, Dean Kessmann, Jonathan Lewis, Michael Mittelman, Diana Shearwood, Matt Siber, Hank Willis Thomas, Brian Ulrich, and Penelope Umbrico Cornucopia: Documenting the Land of Plenty Montserrat Gallery Beverly, MA Opens Nov. 8th till February 2, 2008 Features: Xing Danwen, Chris Jordan, Brian Ulrich, JeongMee Yoon and Portia Munson

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Bessemer, AL 2007

Ohm is a Hologram

Returning home from Miami long enough to feed the cat, repack and head out to that other coast. I hope you west coasters can join me for a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla. I'll be giving away giggles, secrets, new pictures and lots of ums, likes, and kind of's. Thursday, March 22, 6 pm MCASD La Jolla Ohm is a Hologram from the excellent film THX 1138 viewed on route from Miami to Chicago