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#but with my grandmother we went to see movies art museums etc and i miss all of that so much
heartbreakclubs · 3 years
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fpinterviews · 17 years
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Alex Prager
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FP: Your career began at a very early age, and you’ve achieved much success in such a short time. How did you get involved in photography?
AP: Actually, I didn't get my first camera until I was 20. Before that, the thought of photography hadn't even crossed my mind past taking below-average snapshots on trips I took. I came back to Los Angeles after living in Florida and Switzerland off and on for 4 years, and when I finally settled in with a job and an apartment, I realized that I had no idea what I was doing with my future, and that kind of excited me. I was at a point where I had to make up my mind about what I was going to focus on as an adult. It was exciting because I was starting from nothing, therefore every career in the world was an option. All I had to do was get the education for whatever I decided I wanted to be. I started going to a lot of art shows. I already knew I wanted to be some kind of an artist, I just didn't know what medium I wanted to work in. I went to these shows alone because I didn't want anyone around swaying my opinion. Anyway, a couple weeks went by of going to museum and gallery shows, and then one day I ended up at the Getty where William Eggleston happened to have a show up. The moment I saw his work I knew that I wanted to be a photographer. I looked at every picture over and over for hours and when I was finished I bought his book. A week later, I had everything I needed to become a professional photographer. After that, I read every book I could find that had anything to do with photography. I made a little darkroom in my bathroom and I was in there every night till 3 in the morning processing my film and enlarging the pictures I had taken. After I got home from work, I used to go around my apartment building photographing still objects like a washing machine or a door, and then I'd go right into my darkroom and make an enlargement of the picture. When it was dry I'd go back to the thing I had taken a picture of and I'd tape my picture right on top of it. It would look kind of surreal. I guess those were my first art shows. Sometimes, when I'd go back to look at it, the picture would be gone and I'd imagine that someone had seen it taped up there and liked it enough to take it home with them.
FP: You’ve published an amazing book called "The Book Of Disquiet: The Seven Deadly Sins,” a collaborative piece with artist Mercedes Helenwein. In it, your work has a surreal through-the-looking-glass quality, reflecting both the glamorous and the perverse. How did the book come to be?
AP: Well, Mercedes and I had just finished a show called 'America Motel' that involved us taking 2 trips across the country. She wrote, I took pictures and our friend Beth Riesgraf documented the trips with her Super 8. The show was great. With the help of our friend, Jason Lee, we rented out an entire motel in downtown Los Angeles and basically turned it into an installation. My photographs were hung on the walls of each room like motel art, Mercedes' book was on the night stands in place of the Bible, and Beth's film was being played on each television. It was awesome. After this, Mercedes and I decided we wanted to do another project together, but this time she was going to do drawings. We had both been really affected by the people we met while driving through Middle America, and coming back to Los Angeles was such a dramatic shift in culture that we both, in our own ways, came to conclusion that our next show should be based on The Seven Deadly Sins. It just seemed like the obvious choice. I thought it would be really cool to do a book of our pictures in the style of a cardboard children's book because The Seven Deadly Sins theme was already really dark I thought it would lighten things up a little by adding some humor.
FP: Diane Arbus once remarked that “a photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” That seems to be fitting for your work. Do you have an intention in mind before you shoot and then stage things or is it more of an organic process once you start?
AP: I guess it's a little bit of both. Although I don't entirely agree with Diane Arbus. On their own photographs are more like incomplete stories, and the missing chapters are filled in differently by each person who looks at it. In other words, a piece of art is only done once it has an audience to communicate to. Everyone has their own experiences, their own story, and when they look at a picture, they're probably going to somehow relate it to something they've already seen or experienced. Since we all have different pasts, I like to think that no two people can see a picture the same way. As far as how I make the photograph, I always have some kind of idea of what I'm going to shoot beforehand. How general or specific it is doesn't really matter because once I start, I try not to think at all.
FP: Who are your primary influences?
AP: William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Loretta Lux, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Brassai, Annie Leibovitz, Guy Bourdin. Painters are John Currin, Egon Schiele, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bruegel, Gustav Klimt, Lucian Freud, Balthus. Filmmakers include Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Peter Greenaway, Federico Fellini, Victor Fleming. Musicians include Bob Dylan, Joy Division, The Beatles, The Pixies,  Spoon, The Kinks, Bjork, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Elliott Smith, The Smiths, etc.
FP: Can you talk a bit about your technique and how you use high-gloss plexiglass?
AP: I like the saturation that you get by face-mounting color photographs to plexi-glas, but I don't always use this process. For my next series, I'm mounting the pictures to Sintra Board from behind so nothing will touch the front of them.
FP: Where do you find your models? Are they friends?
AP: It depends. Sometimes a friend will work out perfectly for a shot I had in mind, other times I'll see someone on the street or in a magazine and I'll get in touch with them and ask if they'll pose for me. Another place that can be good for finding models is modeling agencies! What!? I know, weird...
FP: Since your sister is featured in this issue as well (painter Vanessa Prager), I assume you come from a very creative family…
AP: Hmm.. 'Creative family' implies that they we grew up in a family of artists, which we did not, but our parents, and grandmother (who helped raise us), are definitely the opposite of Middle Class in the way of thinking. They're creative in the sense of the freedom they gave us. They always left it up to us to decide what our goals were going to be, and no matter how far-fetched they were they'd back us up 100%. One day when I was 15, I told my parents I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, and literally the next day they had bought me a guitar and had lessons lined up for me whenever I was ready to start taking them. When I was 14 I had the opportunity to work at a knife shop in Switzerland for 4 months with my best friend who was also 14, and they let me go not only that year, but every year after that until I didn't feel like going anymore. I don't think many parents would let their kids have this much self-determinism at such a young age. I'm sure this influenced my sister and I to becoming artists.
FP: What advice would you give for anyone young trying to break into the business?
AP: Some of the best advice I ever got when I first started was from a painter friend of mine, Bryten Goss, he told me not to talk to any photographers for 1 full year and during that year to always have my camera on me, take as many pictures as possible and find other photographers and artists I like and study their work. That first year is really important because you're so new at it that you can be misguided and influenced really easily, so trusting yourself to be able to learn what you need to know on your own enough to start getting pictures you can be proud of is important.
FP: In what direction do you see your work heading currently? And where can we next see your work?
AP: For the past year or so, I've been working on a series of pictures called 'POLYESTER' and I'll be exhibiting these in my first ever solo show in April at the Robert Berman Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. With this show, I wanted there to be a staged, retro quality to the images while keeping them modern. Almost like the people in my pictures are kind of bad actors dressed up and playing roles from movies in the 60's.
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birdwholanded · 4 years
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The Goldfinch (Spoiler)
If you want to read the Goldfinch for yourself to get your own understanding and opinion on it, read it for yourself before you read this because this is what I thought about it for myself.
��   Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is divided into the chapters Boy with a Skull, The Anatomy Lesson, Park Avenue, Morphine Lollipop, Badr al-Dine, Wind Sand and Stars, The Shop-Behind-the-Shop, The Shop-Behind the Shop, continued, Everything of Possibility, The Idiot, The Gentleman’s Canal, and The Rendezvous Point. At the beginning of the book there is a quote ,“He’s telling you that living things don’t last-it’s all temporary. Death in life. That’s why they’re called natures mortes. Maybe you don’t see it at first with all of the beauty and bloom, the little speck of rot. But if you look closer-there it is.” (24) I like this quote because I can relate to this. My grandfather passed away from cancer in December of last year while my aunt was also very ill with leukemia during the time. My hamster passed away and so did both of my parakeets. I didn’t know how to take it when my parakeet passed away at the bottom of his cage with his feet up in the air. It affected me a lot. My mom took him out of his cage and made him a nice home in a box with tissue paper and clothes so he could rest nicely in them. My mom and I had a funeral for him and said nice things about him and the memories that we had about him and then I buried him underneath a tree in my backyard. My hamster was breathing heavily and his heart stopped beating one morning when my dad woke up. He woke me up by coming into my room and telling me that he had passed away overnight. We put him in a nice box too and buried him by my parakeet. I did not know how to cope with the avalanche of sickness and death that has happened to my family members and my pets at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. I grieved in my own way because it was a really sad time. I felt like I shut off and became angry at the world because I did not understand why things happened the way that they did. My family also lost a distant family member this year from a heart attack.       People cope with loss in different ways too. It is very personal.       I enjoyed the section of the book where his mother gave him the painting to keep and hold on to to remember her by. It is a keepsake and an heirloom.   A mother was taking her student son to an art gallery in New York City but an explosion went off in the gallery while they were inside and everyone was rushing to try to escape the gallery. The son left, but the mother never did. She passed away in the explosion and the son has to come to terms with it and where he is going from there. He doesn’t have a home to stay at anymore so the social workers want to put him with his grandparents, but his grandmother’s back is going out and she can’t take care of him properly. He feels out of place and he doesn’t belong anywhere. “But suicide wasn’t the ansswer.” (93) He felt isolated and disconnected. He wanted to go back in time.     His father is not a presence in his life when he is living in New York. He is irritated and cold a lot of the time. He doesn’t  like to come home and wants to stay out drinking. It is described that he has a lot of stressors on his mind and that he even wants to move to Atlantic City and start over again. He is fearful. The son can’t look up to him because he doesn’t want to be involved with anything. The son is taken to a home where his friend is in AP classes and he is dedicated to his studies so he can’t do anything because all of his time is taken up. He watches old Turner classic movies to distract himself. Theo misses his mom and questions if he could have done things differently to prevent her death while he is staying at the temporary house. He wants to leave the house but he has nowhere to go. Theo wants to disappear and hide. He goes to therapy and while he is there he thinks about a girl named Pippa that he saw at the museum with his mom when the explosion happened. He cannot get Pippa off of his mind and he fantasizes about her. He meets with her and he finds out that she is moving away to Texas because her mother had passed away too so she is looking to start a new chapter in a new location. A fresh start.      He gets to move in with his father in Las Vegas and is charmed by his father’s lifestyle. It is a completely different lifestyle living with his father and girlfriend than living with his temporary housing family Andy and the Barbours. He meets a guy named Borris in his class in school and Boris lived in Ukraine and Russia and he introduced him to that culture. Boris is a main character in the book and is almost Theo’s wingman. Boris is not a good influence for him because he introduces him to a darker lifestyle.       Theo, the narrator of the story gets early admission to go to college and he goes into a European film class. His friends are taking classes like intro to Russian literature. The book, The Idiot by Doeskevsky is referenced too and philosophical things are taken out of the book and questioned by Boris near the resolution of the book. He has a painting called the goldfinch that his mother gave him. When the explosion at the art gallery happened, some paintings got ruined.       He discovers that his friend Andy had died and he is contemplating death some more.     I liked how the beginning of the book connected to the end of it in the way that it explains the characters’ fate and circumstances. At the beginning of the book he is in Amsterdam, but it is not explained why he is there until the ending of the book where he commit capital murder to save the painting his dead mother gave to him.  “It was a social and moral lesson, if nothing else. But for all foreseeable time to come-for as long as history was written, until the icecaps melted and the streets of Amsterdam were awash with water-the painting would be remembered and mourned. Who knew, or cared, the names of the Turks who blew the roof off the Parthenon? The mullahs who had ordered the destruction of the Buddhas at Bamiyan? Yet living or dead:their acts stood. It was the worst kind of immorality. Intentionally or no:I had extinguished a light in the heart of the world. An act of God:that was what the insurance companies called it, catastrophe so random or arcane that there was otherwise no taking the measure of it. Probability was one thing, but some events fell so far outside the actuarial tables that even insurance underwriters were compelled to haul in the supernatural in order to explain them-rotten luck, as my father had said mournfully one night out by the pool, dusk falling hard, smoking Viceroy to keep the mosquitoes away, one of the few times he tried to talk to me about my mother’s death, why do bad things happen, why me, why her, wrong place wrong time, just a fluke kid, one in a million not an evasion or copout in anyway but-I recognized, coming from him-a profession of faith and the best answer he had to give me, on par with Allah Has Written It or It’s the Lord’s Will, a sincere bowing of the head to Fortune, the greatest god he knew.” (701-702)      He describes going through drug withdrawals in some parts of the book and he talks about morphine, xanax, oxycontin, riboxycotin. He was snorting coke too. His father was taking vicodin which is hydrocodone. I didn’t expect for there to be so much discussion about drug use. The father relies on drugs to ease his situation. He got sober however. The father was addicted to drugs because of the relationship he had with his wife, the mother of Theo. The husband and wife got at each other’s throats and they would argue. He didn’t appreciate the situation he had when he was around her. He tried to escape. I think drug use is escapism but is also used for relaxation. Cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol are ok to use because they are soft drugs that put one at ease. When one starts to use hard drugs like cocaine, then it is not so good because they rely on it for its effects and get addicted to it. They have to get enough money for drugs too. It’s a cycle that is hard to break because one always craves the drug rush. I have smoked cigarettes and marijuana and I drink. I don’t care if people drink. I don’t care what people do unless it is illegal. I think that things are ok in moderation.     The Goldfinch is about appreciating every moment in life whether good or bad, its ups and downs because it's a very rare and precious thing. One has to appreciate life because at any second one’s relative could pass away in a car accident, shooting, etc not to say that it will happen, but anything and everything is to be expected and can happen. The Goldfinch is a rare creature that moves quickly. One moment it could be here and the next moment it can be flying away and migrating to a different location with its species to be never seen again for a while.  When I was reading this book, I went outside to sit in my backyard and continue to read and I had my parakeet and dog sitting outside with me. I went inside the house to get something, but my dog alo wanted to come inside the house at the same time while my parakeet’s cage was very close by. My dog was biting my pants trying to get inside the house first, and I had slightly kicked him trying to get him to stop biting me, but in doing that, my parakeet’s cage had toppled over into the flower bed by accident and my parakeet was free. She tried to fly away through a hole in our fence to get into my neighbor’s yard, however I was quick enough to come and get my mom to help save her, because I had thought that I had lost her. She did not go very far and was stuck in the fence. My mom was able to get a hold of her and put her back in her cage. I had fixed her cage after it had fallen down. It was scary because she could have easily been gone for good like my two other parakeets. My parakeet looks like a gold finch because she is golden and bright like the sun. I call her sundrop. Her name is Coronja.        ‘...if bad can sometimes come from good actions-? Where does it ever say, anywhere,that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes-the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out to where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?....What if all your actions and choices, good or bad make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre set?...What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?”  (745-746) This quote discusses predestination. The idea of if you will go to heaven or hell or some other universe. “Predestination is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God usually reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul.” (wikipedia.org) “Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will.” (wikipedia.org) “Therefore as predestination includes the will to confer grace and glory so also reprobation includes the will to permit a person to fall into sin and impose the punishment of damnation on account of that sin.” (wikipedia.org)     “It’s not hard to see the human in the finch. Dignified, vulnerable. One prisoner looking at another...the bird looks out at us…” (766) From this quote I get the idea of reincarnation and that animals do have human characteristics. Animals have little souls that are like people. They have common traits that cannot be denied.       “...wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and heart open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch. For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time-so too has love. Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small bright, immutable part in that immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers and the next.” (771) This quote talks about even though people are unhappy,achy, fragile, unhealthy and sick, there is still a bright side to things and to see things through, like my grandfather. My grandfather had given up in his elderly age and would lay on his couch and just watch the news or the stock market. He did not want to have that much of an existence when he got old. He had a stroke when I was ten years old and he could not get around that much and his speech was slurred. He had to go to physical therapy. The main message of the book is to say don’t take anything for granted and to be appreciative because everything can be taken away in an instant and your whole life can change by the small actions that you choose to make or not to make.  At the beginning of the story, the main character is on house arrest in Amsterdam and it ties in with the ending of the story to say that he is on House Arrest for the actions he decided to make. He cannot appreciate the city of Amsterdam and everyone there knows him as a criminal. He got charged with capital murder and has to stay where the cops knows where he is at.     People move quickly and do make poor decisions that affect them for the rest of their lives. Small choices have a great impact being if you commit a crime such as embezzling money, committing fraud, stealing, etc then you will have big punishments. It affects a lot of people in negative ways. People’s feelings can get hurt and everything can change for the worse in a matter of seconds.         It is difficult to deal with death of loved ones and animals and even the idea of it is scary and hard to come to terms with. When there are situations where one is faced with it, he or she can make harsh decisions that they will regret later on whatever they may be. Things can be altered so much that there could be no going back to the way things were. Small events can have a large impact. In the heat of the moment though, anything can happen, and regrets made. That is why it is important to be appreciative and loving to everyone, because people can grieve over the loss of their pet, over their loss of money, over the loss of a friend, etc. Even if you don’t want to wake up day after day after day because you did have loved ones pass away, you still need to wake up for yourself and see the good in everything because there are so many wonderful things to appreciate and cherish, so many opportunities to be had and loved and memories to be made. Love the pets that you have and love your family and friends. Cherish everything because everyone and everything is valuable and meaningful and adds to the quality of your life.       Theo comes to terms with his mother’s passing and grows from it and learns how to live with it.      Donna Tartt, the author of The Goldinch, puts in philosophical ideas and examples in this book that I appreciate. She uses quotes from Albert Camus, “The absurd does not liberate; it binds.” What I understand of this quote is absurdity doesn’t make one free, it ties one down and wraps one up. She uses another quote, “When we are strongest-who draws back? Most merry-who falls down laughing? When we are very bad,-what can they do to us?” This is said by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud. I get from this quote that who is there to watch people fall when times are hard? “We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others, that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.” is a quote by François De La Rochefoucauld. Rochefoucauld is a noted French author of maxims and memoirs. He is part of the literary movement of classicism and is best known for his maxisms. “It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons.” by Schiller. I like this quote because people have hearts and want to enjoy the good things and get past the bad things that happen.    “We have art in order not to die from the truth.”-Nietzsche.     Tartt grabs philosophical examples from The Little Prince in some parts of the book.  
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andrewcalofblog · 7 years
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YEAR IN PHOTOGRAPHS 2016
I’m not going to lie to you, it keeps getting better and better, life that is.  Maybe thats because I’m trying to suck up as much as I can all the time.  Why watch it go bye, but instead live it, be in it, take it, crush it, grab it, repeat.
I’m trying to relax.  It’s honestly hard, especially when you’ve been programmed to work work work, never a dull moment, can’t sit still.  If I’m not doing my day job working on movies, I’m with my lovely girls, I’m reading about photography, shooting, editing, shopping, eating, studying, upping my game, trying to swallow up everything I can while I can.  Why not, right?!?!
To say it’s been a year is an understatement.  I’m blessed, blessed on belief to have such a wonderful wife, kids, the JAY OHH BEE, home.  It’s like the world opened itself up to us and said come on in, make a mess of things, spray paint, laugh, cry, relax, go, go, go, etc etc etc.  Incredible on all fronts to have arrived at the end of 2016 with smiles, left nothing on the field, no stone unturned, no page unread, checked all the boxes, and then some.
I think the year shows, especially in these photographs.  The places we went, the things we saw, people we met, experiences we banked, the highs the lows and everything in between.  Milestones, journeys, down time, working, family, friends, traveling and more.
To my girls, keep on keeping on.  I will take you there, you can ride with me any day and I hope I can with you too.  Love you with all my heart.  To my wife, boy am I lucky.  My muse.  My love.  My Amanda.
Check out these photographs, no seriously - CHECK.  THEM.  OUT.  Don’t do that thing that we do, where you scroll through real quick and then click LIKE or simply move on. Rather take the time to read the captions, look at each photograph for longer than a second, let the picture wash over you.  We live in a world where our attention spans are five seconds.  Take it in for a bit. Whether you like them or not, that’s okay, at least, hopefully, they made you feel something!  Enjoy.
To see more photographs, please visit:
www.andrewcalof.tumblr.com
www.instagram.com/abcalof
1. Tree, Malibu, January 17, 2016
From below there is this beautiful park at the basin of a hill.  When you look up, the people hiking the hill look like ants.  So we decided to go for it and upon summiting, we came across this beautiful tree, weathered and old, recouping from the winter sun, with very few leaves, silhouetted against a California sky.
2. Sophie Teener’s 100th Birthday, Minneapolis, January 24, 2016
Words can barely describe the joy in my grandmother’s eyes as she turned 100 last January.  We celebrated with a luncheon at Beth El Synagogue, a very special place dear to her, friends and family traveled near and far.  This photograph is perfection like Sophie.
3. Sylvie, Palm Springs, March 26, 2016
We weren’t happy with our room.  We were on the outskirts of the property at La Quinta, but it all gets put in perspective when the girls couldn’t believe there was a pool right outside their door, basically our own private little spot.  With each stroke, Sylvie gained more and more confidence as a swimmer.  Each day she’d throw on her swimming suit, run out through the door, and into the pool. She wouldn’t sit still, until this precious quiet moment, with a towel around her body, eyes glazed over, staring off into the distance, silence, and then I clicked the shutter.
5. Palm Springs 5pm, Palm Springs, March 27, 2016
When I think of Palm Springs, this is the picture that comes to mind.  Old deco patio furniture, palm trees, clean line architecture, case study homes, my hero Julius Shulman, rolling mountains, green grass, blue skies, and flat roofs.
6. On Set Office Christmas Party, Atlanta, April 13, 2016
Those that know me well, know that I like to to creep around our movie sets, Leica in hand, when I come for a visit.  Office Christmas Party was some of the best times I’ve had making a movie because we were making it with good people.  The ‘magic of the movies’ is something special, and what I love about this photograph is that it exemplifies that magic.  The operator shoots the camera, the boom guy records the sound, fake snow falls from the cherry picker, Jason and Olivia perform, and the A.D. readies to yell cut.  Not mention the set is made to feel like it is the top of a building but is firmly planted on the ground.  Can you say, magic?!?!
7. Wellington, New Zealand, April 27, 216
Michael and I were on our way to the airport after leaving the set of Ghost in the Shell.  Our driver wanted to show us a few quick sites in and around Wellington, New Zealand before we caught our ride home.  So we drove to the top of Mount Victoria and the view was stunning.  The vast city below, the bay creeping its way inland.  We were on the other side of the world.
8. Blake & Sylvie, Los Angeles, May 21, 2106
This is what best friends looks like.  This was photograph was made just after their performance of Cinderella by Ovation Performing Arts School at Sherman Oaks Elementary.  Capturing that sense of purity, proudness, and exhilaration is something that makes me want to take photographs of young people.
9. Amanda, Louvre, Paris, May 30, 2016
That Day in Paris, we sat in Room 77 of the Louvre, 19th Century France, as the world swirled around us.  Though the pictures are stagnant moments in time, the room seems to breath life and energy as people from all ways of the world pass back and forth, looking at such beautiful creations.  It’s easy to get up in all of it, feel rushed to see it all, but instead we’d rather take a minute and soak it all up.  
10. Musee d’Orsay Clock, Paris, May 31, 2016
It was important to me to capture this image while visiting Musee d’Orsay.  I had a feeling this particular clock would be a busy stop for tourists.  To get it clean would have been a miracle, so instead, what made sense was to shoot all the tourists as silhouettes, clean edges but blow out the light coming through the clock face.  I love how it’s such a center piece of the museum.
11. Art Students, Paris, June 1, 2016
Place des Vosges is special, particularly on this day when we came across these art students sketching in the park.  Eager minds capturing the energy and flow that is this beautiful setting of fountains, trees, tourists, and statues.  This photography hopefully captures the beauty of those making beauty.
12. Pont Neuf, Paris, June 1, 2016
Classic Paris.  What’s unique about this photograph is the height of the water in the Seine.  Record rain fall blasted France while we were there, so much rain that even the Louve was shut down for a few days, art was moved to higher ground to protect against the chance of flooding.  This photograph was inspired by Peter Turnley’s book French Kiss.  It’s classic, it’s timeless, could be the 1651 or 2016.
13. Amanda, Jardins du Trocadero, Paris, June 3, 2016
This photograph was taken on our final full day in Paris.  There is only one place to truly shoot a subject against the Eiffel Tower skyline and that place is Jardins du Tracadero.  Amanda is so happy in this picture.  She wanted to recreate a photograph she saw on Instagram.  I love her black scarf, the way she wore her hair that week, and her cute little body.  I must’ve had her walk up and down the stairs ten times to capture this image.  It’s my favorite from our trip.
14. Estella, Chicago, August 5, 2016
It’s interesting how you can take many many photographs, create albums, selects, modify many, throw away lots.  And then go through those photographs some time later only to find a gem that you had originally thrown out.  When I originally made my Chicago album, this photograph wasn’t even included, but I absolutely love it.  Estella’s expression of feeling slighted (about what, I don’t know!), the bent knee, doritos, and those sunglasses right out of the movie The Crush.  It’s her to a T!
15. Shiloh, Sylvie & Friends, Chicago, August 6, 2016
I love Amusement Parks.  That sense of awe, energy, and excitement.  Feeling older like it’s a place you belong.  I have no idea what is driving their reaction, but I was lucky enough to capture their expressions.  And then the ride started…
16. Amanda, Santa Barbara, September 4, 2016
My Model.  My muse.  My Wife.  She’s my everything.  That black dress, that iPhone light just enough under her face to light it up, those high strappy heels, that necklace, and those little pockets.  She’s confident.  She cool.  She’s beautiful.  Amanda.
17. Ned Specktor, Los Angeles, October 9, 2016
Ned and I wandered Hollywood Boulevard shooting a marketing campaign for his upcoming show The Movement - a motivational musical that helps people grasp their passions through music and dance.  We came across this space just off the boulevard and Ned laid down like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly before him, gracefully dancing in his white stans.  This kid was born to bring people together, dance and music his tool, his thought process his weapon, and much more.  We must have shot 100 frames alone in this little alley but his grace mixed with the his power seemed to have come together nicely in this image.
18. Estella & Sylvie, Carlsbad, October 22, 2016
We celebrated my dad’s 70th birthday in La Costa California this past October. For dinner one evening we went to the Chart House in Carlsbad, right on the ocean.  There were these amazing rocks and lights making the view of the ocean incredible. But the view was missing something.  Luckily Estella and Sylvie were near by so they jumped up on the rocks and held each other tight, two sisters connecting, letting their differences fall aside for a brief moment to show just how much they love each other.  And scene…
19. Estella, Madison, November 20, 216
This photograph was taken a top the Children’s Museum in Madison, Wisconsin.  It was important for us to take the girls there to see where their parents went to school.  There is this great lookout point of the capitol up on the roof.  Estella turned right as I clicked the shutter and we made this image together.
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