katie

massive attack

my car may look small

but it can hold entire cities...

so we didn't win the competion. it would have been nice, but i'm not too upset about it. we made a conscious decision at the beginning of the project to do something big - something a bit outside the bounds of the assignment. we went more for 'paradigm shift' and less for 'applicable.'

i figure i'll have years to work on applicable.

samuel

scruff

i've alway had a things for beards. i'd say its growing on me but obviously that's more the case for him.


i apologize. i just couldn't resist that one.

robyn and muzy

feral children

documentary

website

via julia.

janice

kelly and oscar

portraits

a few months ago i began compiling my photo album for the last year. as i looked through my stacks of photographs, i noticed that most of my photos are of things. pretty, abstract things. interesting buildings, places, textures and patterns. these are great and - as i said - very pretty. yet they're somehow unsatisfying. although they provide the context and background for my life, they don't show the people who make it worthwhile.

i'm not a big fan of the "put your arm around each other and fake smile" snapshot, and so my photos of people tend to be limited to those who will let me snap incessant candid pictures of them. and while some of these turn out well, its a rare person who will cooperate, especially as i seem to take 20 unfortunate portraits for each decent one.

so lately i've been working on this. portraits are harder than they seem. its not just about composition and lighting and interesting angles. those i can work with. helping a person feel at ease in front of the camera - now that's a challenge.

this trip to new york gave me the opportunity (and excuse) to take more pictures of people. i think when you're only in town for a week they tend to humor you.

when i look back on this trip in 20 years i want to see the people i love, not some abstract landscape.

ok, maybe both.

its pouring

i left new york today

through this door.

220, 284

pythagoras believed that a friend represents an alter ego. he wrote "[a friend] is the other i, such as 220 and 284."

he called 220 and 284 'friendly numbers,' because they are each equal to sum of the other's proper divisors. that is, the proper divisors of 220 (1,2,4,5,10,11,20,22,44,55 and 110) sum to 284.

they are part and whole of each other. like friends.

i miss this place, but i also miss these people.

encounter

on tuesday night before my redeye, we went to the futurtistic dome restaurant at LAX.


the architecture was crazy, the decor kind of lame, the food overpriced.
but the view - the view was spectacular.


this afternoon i'll be on the train to new york. it's been entirely too long.

tamara

[diptych by m]

so this is how it works

on the radio - regina spektor

haircuts!

so you want to change the world

but then you realize that it involves flourescent lighting and forms in triplicate and the abandonment of career happiness and carpal tunnel syndrome and tired eyes and chattery office mates and multiple meetings of your forehead with brick walls.

and suddenly revolution seems very appealing.

gunter grass was a member of the Waffen SS

and it's got me thinking.

i know what the response should be: baaaaaad. nazis are baaaad.

and they were, i know.

but he was 17. would i have known any better at 17? if i had grown up under a nazi regime? if all of my friends, family, teachers, authority figures and peers were nazi? when i was 17, i was desperate for approval, desperate to fit in.

i like to think that i would have had the character and clarity to opt out, to stand up. that's what we all like to think, i'm sure. but clearly, not everyone does.

i suppose its the kind of thing you can't really know, until you face it.

and so i pose the question: is it better to face it and know for sure? or to enjoy the luxury of ignorance?

bbq - oh no! oh my!