With these photos I’m continuing the project of documenting UW student researchers and experiential learning for the University of Washington. This is what the Literacy Through Photography program looks like. It’s great because UW students visit a local elementary school, teach photography, and help the students develop writing skills by having them write about their photos. The young photographer-scholars also learn about ideas of self, community, communication, family and dreams.
I had the privilege of meeting Jason Eskenazi last summer and he continues to be one of the best photographers that you probably haven’t heard of. (Check out his website). This is his new project, The Black Garden, on Kickstarter, which is an awesome new website designed to help find funding for creative projects. If you haven’t been to Kickstarter yet, I strongly encourage you to visit the site and have a look around. And support Jason’s latest project if you can. Stay tuned and look for one of my projects on Kickstarter soon.
Shooting the Windermere Cup was a blast. It was my first time even though I’m a UW graduate and managed to spend four years at the school without watching or photographing its prestigious annual crew race.
University of Washington undergraduate Vanessa is studying b-girls and the ways in which these female breakdancers negotiate the male-dominated culture of breakdancing. We scheduled a shoot with a great graffiti wall to serve as the backdrop. Everything at the shoot was perfect, Vanessa was a great model and the graffiti looked awesome, but after 30 minutes of waiting … our two b-girl models were nowhere to be found! We made do with what we had and I think the photos will still look great in serving their purpose, which is to highlight outstanding student researchers and add color and natural light to the newly remodeled office space where they will be displayed. I’m looking forward shooting the rest of this project, so stay tuned to see the other students that I photograph.
Watching the Windermere Cup 2011 crew races on the Montlake Cut at the University of Washington. There were tons of dogs and families out this year enjoying the sun and the race festivities. The Husky men and women cleaned up, winning by almost too much in their races against opponents like Cambridge and Stanford.
I’m working on a portrait series for the University of Washington Center for Experiential Learning. Here are a few frames of Erin and Traci, who were fun and easy to work with. Very talented too – Erin is double majoring in journalism and dance, while Traci is double majoring in math and dance.
This interactive survey of the night sky was featured on Wired and Seattlepi.com among other places, and is a wonderful interactive view of the Milky Way and more. It was created by Seattleite Nick Risinger with the help of his father.
This is another from the “Healing a River” project I have been working on for almost a year now. In this image, two women unload crabs they caught in the Duwamish River. Signs nearby warn that no shellfish from these waters, including crabs, are fit for human consumption. They women claimed the signs were old and explained to me that they had been feeding crabs like these to their families for years. The mother and daughter, immigrants from the Philippines, now live in Federal Way and make the trip often to go crabbing in the toxic waters of the Duwamish.
This is from a long term project I’ve been working on about healing Seattle’s Duwamish River. It’s incredibly polluted but multiple local groups are organizing to clean up and revitalize the river. This picture is from a group that meets regularly to pray and energetically heal the river using various spiritual practices, including Johrei.
Just an iPhone shot of people streaming into the Sounders FC game against Toronto FC on Saturday, which the Sounders won 3-0. Great game, great day for it too.
I was pleased to be able to see The Bang Bang Club on opening night at the NW Film Forum in Seattle on Friday. This film tells the story of a close group of photojournalists during the height of Apartheid violence in South Africa. I enjoyed the film although it was quite depressing … and as a film/creative piece, it left much to be desired. The sound, for one, was mixed poorly and so I missed quite a bit of the dialogue. But it was very interesting to witness what are supposedly quite realistic re-enactments of combat photojournalism and scenes where outstanding photographs, including Pulitzer Prize winners, were made. I was also disappointed to see that the story pretty much avoided any mention of black, coloured, Indian, or any photojournalists of other ethnicities in the country who were working at the time. In a story that takes place in the extreme racism of Apartheid South Africa, it seems problematic to find that our heroes at the end of the day are a group of white men. There are no doubt many many unnamed heroes in the struggle that are left invisible. Of course, the film is based on the book by photojournalists and “members” of The Bang Bang Club, Joao Silva and Greg Marinovich, and that story simply didn’t include anyone but white photojournalists because that’s who happened to be in the “club.” And that is who won the Pulitzers, etc.
The film did do a great job, in my opinion, of offering the ups and downs of conflict work and the difficult emotional and ethical situations that photojournalists deal with. Specifically, we see Kevin Carter eventually commit suicide as well as try to explain whether he helped a starving little girl after photograph her being pursued by a vulture during a food crisis. Overall I give this film a B-. If I weren’t a photojournalist I would probably be less excited about the whole thing and give it a C-.
These were customized drink tickets that I designed for my brother-in-law’s birthday party. He rented out a few lanes at a local bowling alley and each guest received two drink tickets. I decided to put his face onto Benjamin Franklin’s head in order to make mock 100 dollar bills. Each bill features one of 12 different quotes either from one of his favorite movies or just an inside joke. Hit me up if you want to hire me for my Photoshop skills or my semi-appropriate sense of humor!
