Out My Back Door (Click to view animation)

Imagine you are standing on the edge of a great lake.  On the horizon there are tall pines, reduced to dark tufts of fur.  The next moment, the trees are only soft clouds with dark undersides.  You can't be sure.  It's the middle of the afternoon, it's impossible to tell how long you've been there, but everything has the warm color of dusk in the summertime.  You are extremely drunk.  Are those reflections the dark lines of a sailboat's mast, or are they low hanging branches?  There's almost no way to be sure.

Beuna Vida (Click to see animation)

The object of the game is simple:  Touch the Wall.  It's such an innocuous task.  One must have touched several walls on any given day, maybe thousands in a lifetime.  Maybe more, who's to say?  But then the challenge is placed directly in front of the competitor and he or she is forced to imagine the consequences of their daring.  Breathe deep, collect your thoughts, imagine fingertips brushing, scraping on the surface of the wall.  It's so dark.  It's wet.  What will happen?

Drive By Press at Bonnaroo 2011

Bonnaroo wasn't unlike what I expected, but I wasn't completely ready for the experience.  Words that come to mind:  Massive Dusty Stoned Survival.

As a working environment, this music festival was a strange proving ground.  It didn't seem as if many of the vendors actually enjoyed the work.  It was simply another stop on the tour.  An oft-heard comment: "I said last year would be the last year."  The event staff were largely local, seasonal hires from the surrounding community.  Some were having a great time, others looked miserable.  The big draw was free entry, and they only had to work 8 hour shifts, where as us vendors pulled consecutive 16-hour days.

Still, the experience as a whole was rewarding.  Almost any feat of endurance gives me a charge.  Reflecting, it sounds so like such an ordeal, but it really wasn't.  I stayed busy.  Ate often and drank plenty of water.  Missed John Waters, but saw plenty of interesting things just staring right out of the booth.  Wore sunglasses almost non-stop.  Had to, or too much dust would get in my eyes.

What a weird place.  They say it rains every year, but not the summer I was there.  Sunny days, here I come!

Evening Investigation

The backyard is a magical place.  Most folks completely lose sight of the great big world somewhere along their journey.  I think a big reason many people use drugs is to bring that magical mystery of being a child back into their life.

Our backyard is full of snails and slugs during the warm months.  Every now and then, there will be a slug bloom.  They'll be everywhere!

These Striped Leopard Slugs are big enough to pet.  Big enough to cuddle if you really wanted to.  They can really get moving too!

What is out there in the darkness?  A trained human eye could see so much more than a photo-  A burned-out fire, a pile of broken twigs, a chain link fence decorated with flecks of spray paint, plastic sheeting laying in the dirt, pieces of the neighbor's shingles...  Imagine what the cat can see.  Tiny insect eyes, death throes, city smells, a caterpillar panting, weeds breaking through the soil.

Giant Leopard Slug Close-ups

Get really close to what you find interesting.

You'll be surprised.

What do you have to lose?  What do you have to be scared of?

Understanding the world around you is a good way to understand yourself.

Contact Sheet

I don't think places are as different as some people think.  Usually there's a bottom part and a top or upper part.  In the middle is where we usually move around.  People tend to build little walls and things so that other people have to move around them, or into them, or maybe something else.  It's kinda like the circulatory system in the human body.  There are all these different ways to go, but after so many twists and turns, you have to turn around to go get charged again.  Places in the world are different though, in that almost everywhere can charge you up.

Wedding Photos

This is a scene from a wedding reception in Wisconsin.  The lake in the background is Lake Michigan.  Lake Michigan is so big it looks like an ocean.  Once I rode a ferry across it with my parents.  It took hours!  It was really windy and wavy that day.  It was really fun to bump into the walls of the hallways walking around for a young boy.  Most of my time was spent at the arcade playing Super Off-Road.  I love that game.  The arcade version has a really cool steering wheel you can totally just spin around the corners.

If you've never played horse shoes before, you should try.  It's a lot harder than it looks.  The pits are pretty damn far apart and the shoes are heavy.  The weight is surprising, sort of like when you pick up a gun for the first time and you're like, "damn, this is really heavy!"

These are my friends Kyle and Amanda getting some of their wedding photos taken.  If I remember, it was windy and not as warm as I would have liked.  I found a giant dead fish on the beach, that was pretty cool.  I took a cell phone photo.  I was pretty drunk.

Kyle is one of my oldest friends.  He is really smart and one of the few people that have come visit me out East.  It was a business trip, but it was still awesome.  I took him and his co-workers to that sweet chill townie almost gay bar in soho I can't remember the name of and then had a long walk from Barcade in Brooklyn to my place on Skillman St. where we built a fire and cooked sausage outside and got more wasted with them.

It was a snowy winter

So this winter was crazy.  New York never got much snow in the years I lived here, but this one year was really crazy!  Emily and I went to Omaha for Christmas.  It was the first time I'd traveled during the holidays in a really long time.  Sure enough, New York got snowbombed and we had to extend our trip for about 4 or 5 days waiting for the airports to clear out.  Omaha was pretty cool though.  There were a lot more hills than I would have thought.

When we got home, there were still a lot of roads that hadn't been plowed.  Even our street, Lafayette Ave, still only had one open lane!  The snowstorm hit the city so hard and so fast, no one was ready for it.  City buses were abandoned in the middle of intersections, cars were stuck all over the place.  There wasn't enough space to throw the snow.  Some sidewalks were more like hallways, pointed towards the main arteries leading to work.

Maybe we worked after getting back, I don't remember.  What we did do was get ready for our New Year's Eve party.  There was enough snow in the backyard to build a giant, u-shaped couch for our guests.  Brian helped me set up the wood stove in the middle to keep everyone warm.  It was so good.

I miss the snow of my childhood.  Drifts went up to my shoulders.  My dog had to hop between our footfalls to keep above the crust.  The neighborhood kids would build enormous snow caves in the piles left in the middle of parking lots.  I could jump off the very top of the playground equipment and not get hurt one bit.

WonderLIFE

I've been trying very hard to remember when I took this photo.  No luck.  At least the moment is captured.  Nothing other than photography could do that.  Every time I see a good photo, I think, "What luck!", "How lucky!".  Truth is, more goes into a good image than most folk realize.  Good taste doesn't just happen.  It's important to cultivate one's taste.  There are so many people floating around that are really good at presenting themselves.  Then, once you spend some time with them, you realize they have no taste of their own!  They just consume other people's good taste.  Such a shame.  It's so easy to find your own taste.  Oh well!

Rear Window

We got this hummingbird feeder and filled it up with syrup.  At first it was really red.  Juicy.  Every day, the color faded away a little.  I'm looking at the feeder now, the syrup is clear as glass.  What a mysterious world this is.

Even though it's been almost exactly a year since this photo was taken, it looks almost exactly the same.  Some things don't change, inexplicably. 

Material Studies

Nearly every night, before I go to bed, I walk into my studio, pull the chain to turn the lights on, and just stand there and stare.  Those minutes before sleep really produce some interesting thoughts. 

Nozzle's Mouse

There's a town in Southern Wisconsin called Sun Prairie.  There are were several elementary schools.  Royal Oaks was kinda out on the edge of town and it had the best playground equipment.  There was a big wooden structure that had a horizontal wooden cylinder inside.  It was big enough for three or four children, or maybe a couple adults.  If everyone tried walking up the walls, it would spin like a giant hamster wheel.  It was really scary and fun.  That's what this coffee mug reminds me of. 

Fresh Water

There are three small islands forming the shape of a right triangle.  There is an underwater island too.  If the underwater island was tall enough to be a regular island, the four islands would make a rough square.  On the island closest to our point, there's a long rock bar that juts out under the surface for 30 or 40 feet.  I like to go out there and sit on the smooth stones and watch the tiny waves break.

The bottom of the lake is soft, murky and dark.  But the water is crystal clear.

Ghost of New Year's Past

There are these little green leaves on the trellis that never lose their color, even in the winter.  Something about climbing plants is really appealing.  Maybe people think of them as ambitious, inspired.

Lost Portraits from Minnesota

Jan and I pretty much stole this camera from the high school he taught at.  Their photography department was no longer using traditional methods.  When I plan on using something I steal to fulfill its original purpose, I call it "liberating".

What I remember most about this trip were all the little tear-offs from the apricot flavored rolling papers falling into my lap on the airplane home.

This wall was a really cool color.  It's alright in black and white too.

It's important to wear a seat belt, I guess.  Dying in a car crash probably isn't as exciting as it sounds.  It just doesn't seem very sporting.

Hang it out to dryClo

Clotheslines are pretty damn homey.  Mmm, it smells fresh!  Put it on my face!

Professional businesses sometimes do the weirdest things.