Unwritten Notes, Oregon

Seems like another lifetime, and I suppose it was, we lived together for some years, it was close to a marriage, at least it was in my mind, maybe that was naive, and in hindsight it was obviously for the best. She was one of those people that did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and you had to admire that. We used to head north about once or twice a year to Oregon, a straight shot from San Francisco up the 5 until you hit Eugene, then turn right, and one hour due east to Cougar Hot Springs, probably one of my favorite places on earth. Still is.

No. 0156_27A - Cougar Hot Springs, Oregon. September of 2009.

The drive was an absolute grind, the 5 was a slog, 12 hours if you pushed straight through, but once there we’d camp and rest and soak and recharge, cooking over a fire and falling asleep under the stars. it was a beautiful place, quiet, lush, untroubled. Still is…

No. 0156_16A - Hwy. 5 North, Somewhere in Oregon. September of 2009.

Things have a way of coming to a conclusion on their own. We rode it out for a bit, but whatever we had was never meant to last, too much baggage and not enough substance, other parties involved, things got crowded, and she left me, somewhat unceremoniously, a week after we came home from the hot springs. Last I heard she was down in Peru, evading collection agencies, that was over 15 years ago now. Dodged a bullet on that one…

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

Unwritten Notes, Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is not my bag… I don’t gamble, I’m not into the spectacle, the whole thing just drips of white trash Disney Land, diabetes, excess, the deliberate, purposeful waste of resources. I’ve visited a grand total of one time. An old friend reached out when I was in a bad place and really needed an escape and floated the idea, he had a time share and money and the appetite and so we went, for what it’s worth. I spent the long weekend self medicating with Jack Daniel’s. I won’t lie, it was fun, the weirdness of it all, a circus that no one asked for but apparently everyone wanted.

No. 0137_07 - The Riviera, Las Vegas, August of 2008

I saw a wedding party at the Venetian Hotel, dressed to the nines, tuxedos and white dress and brides maids, parents in tow, glowing, and it dawned on me, almost by accident, they were married in a mall food court. I didn’t have the heart to take a picture, it was too surreal…

No. 0138_30 - Lovers, Las Vegas, August of 2008

We stopped at some street front bar, if you could call it that, a hap-hazard collection of plastic tables and chairs and liquor and drunks, a young couple posted up, possibly, likely more inebriated than myself, not care in the world. I made that photograph after having, let’s just say “enough” to drink, hand held, at a quarter of a second, with a 50 year old screw mount Leica. Call it luck. I’ve always felt it was one of those photographs that might make me famous, but alas…

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

Unwritten Notes From The Central Valley

The city of Shafter might as well have been nowhere, tucked in between Bakersfield and Wasco in the Central Valley of California. One of those islands in the sea of farmland that blankets the middle of the state. Not much of a going concern.

No. 0024_11 - Migrant Child, Shafter, California. October of 2003

I passed through once, working with another photographer that I won’t bother to name, a friend and mentor that turned out to be neither. The migrant camp was quiet, off the grid, spartan to say the least, but children everywhere, in tow, moving with the harvest.

No. 0025_06 - Migrant Camp, Shafter, California. October of 2003

The photograph of the child on the bike always resonated with me. I was nearly finished with school at that time and my work was changing a great deal, starting to take shape, the way I was seeing things was beginning to shift. I submitted the image to a juried show along with a few other frames some years later. The curator rejected them and stated “you need to work on your craft.” Still one of my favorite photographs.

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

Laying Low, Trying To Figure It All Out...

Well it’s January, and 2025 already feels like a slog. I guess I just thought we were headed in another direction. The hate and the chaos is completely draining and seemingly inescapable. I was in Mexico for a spell last week, having a perfectly civil conversation with a guy from Nebraska, which he abruptly ended when he discovered I was from San Francisco. Who could blame him, apparently “liberals” now cause forest fires. It’s just exhausting.

San Francisco, Dystopian Hell-Scape. Please, stay away…

A prolonged news and media fast has left me thinking about the amount of time I sink into social media and the increasing lack of any sort of return for the effort, let alone benefit to my own work in any way. In the wake of Meta’s refusal to moderate content, even my once benign Instagram feed is becoming pretty disgusting. I think my days of maintaining any sort of presence there are numbered.

Either way, it’s led me to think about why I started chasing pictures to begin with. It’s the permanence of the thing. The object itself, and the story behind it. I’ve grown weary of fleeting images, flickering by in a feed, once scrolled past, gone forever, lost in the ether of the platform, monetized for a moment to benefit those that could change the world for the better with the stroke of a pen, and choose not to. I’ve become exhausted by platforms that deliver nothing. Social media is a disease.

Perhaps I’ll try a little different approach and simply post my work here, write about it, and share it with those who are interested. It feels, oddly enough, much more productive than screaming into the void of the algorithm.

I put together a small exhibition some years ago, “Unwritten Notes” was comprised entirely of work made “elsewhere.” On the road, in transit, away from my home. Disjointed perhaps, but very autobiographical. For years I’ve toyed with the idea of putting a larger body of text to the images, stories behind the pictures, now seems like as good a time as any to get started.

So if you’re getting this, expect more. I never believed art could save the world, but it can’t hurt and it can keep me sane. So in the face of all this manufactured chaos and disinformation and hate and willful ignorance I'm making pictures, experiencing things, sharing with my community, and publishing whatever I can, wherever I can.

Stay tuned…

An entirely random collection of updates...

Opening party went off without a hitch. Truly humbled by the amount of people that turned out, the place was packed. The work is still up into September, check it out at Waystone in North Beach if you’re in the neighborhood. A few snaps from opening night are below…

A few of my images have been selected for publication in the forth coming Best of Model Society book. I’m a bit late to the game as I’ve been off the grid for a week, the Kickstarter is still running, though the project was fully funded in just 2 hours. Pretty amazing, to say the least. Either way, take a look, should be a pretty epic collection of work, link below…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/minds-eye/a-celebration-of-human-beauty-nude-and-figurative-fine-art

On a more solemn note, my grandmother passed on Monday, not unexpectedly, but still difficult. She was 94 years old, born in Moberly, Missouri in 1930, moved to Detroit when her father went to work for the railroad. Married, seven children, 11 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. She lived all over the world, Tokyo, Seoul, Newport Beach, San Francisco… as far as I’m concerned, she might as well have been an astronaut.

Photograph below of Billie Ruth Leblanc and her great-grandson Thomas (my son) in 2018 when he was born.