Aug
08
“Karl can be a real rat bastard.”
— Kurt
Karl likes to hang out along the coast and hillsides of San Francisco.
“Karl can be a real rat bastard.”
Jul
20
The sun sets from my vantage point perched atop a mountain on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
The moon is reflecting off the bottom of the pool. I look down to see up. Directly in front of me is infinity and I see the saints; John and Thomas, rising up from the sea. No, I’m not dreaming and no, the drugs haven’t just kicked in. This is me taking a late evening dip in the pool, atop a mountain on the outer edge of the Caribbean Sea.
Jul
07
Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin crewed the famous Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
Back when I was in kindergarten, I felt bad for Michael Collins. The other guys on his team got to do the most amazing thing humans had ever done. Yet Michael, who went along with them, didn’t get to do it. I asked my dad if Michael felt bad, but he assured me Michael was just fine.
May
15
My daughter, Taylor, alternates with me between napping and driving across The Great Plains.
We just passed a shrink-wrapped boat. What it’s doing in the middle of Nebraska, I have no idea. But there seems to be all manner of transport along this flat, gray, rainy Pony Express trail.
My daughter sits next to me napping on her “Hug this pillow until you can hug me” fluffiness, given to her by her new hubby. It’s sweet. Even though we’re traveling at a pretty steady clip, we’re not taking great pains as we drive across The Great Plains. Destination: Cheyenne, Wyoming and her next three years. Why oming? Her Air Force husband just re-upped for duty and she’s got a job working with older folks at the Veterans Administration. Her new life awaits her.Read More
May
13
This essay originally appeared in my first book, Spiritual Wanderer.
My life is a struggle to make sense of things — enormous things and things like, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
I’m referring, of course, to the Credence Clearwater Revival lyrics, which don’t have anything to do with plumbing. The line that’s so often misquoted is really, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
May
04
Mom and Dad sat for one of my early portrait sessions back in the mid-1980s.
So I’m hanging out, chatting with my wife and daughter after running some errands, having a salty snack — the usual slow afternoon things — when KABLOOEY, it hits me; I’ve outlived my father.
Apr
14
A young boy peers out through a shattered wall in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(First published 25 years ago)
I can’t really say why I went down to Haiti in the first place. Ron, a priest friend of mine, wrote and suggested I make the journey to see some places and faces that would fill a whole book. As every egocentric photographer knows, that’s all you really need to hear.
Feb
23
El Castillo is the main pyramid at Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, Mexico.
It’s good to not know what I’m doing.
My wife texted me on a recent Thursday afternoon, asking if I was into a last-minute cruise.
“Okay, cool!” I wrote back.
Early Friday morning, we hopped into my Prius and drove south out of Detroit and snow squalls toward sunny New Orleans. Read More
Crunch Time: the Picture Editing team putting together the 120-page book at The Mountain Workshops.
I met Zach this past fall down in Kentucky at The Mountain Workshops, a week-long intensive dive into photojournalism. He was one of our students in the Picture Editing sequence that I’ve been lucky enough to help teach each fall for a large part of this millennium.
Zach made us laugh, worked really hard and helped us — with our other students — pull together a 120-page book of photos and stories in less than a week. But I think I bonded with him during our shady drug deal on the streets of a small Kentucky town.
Dec
17
Rodney’s razor, midway through it’s too-short lifespan.