fatherhood . morning

walls

in tuscany and on the amalfi coast .
people staring .
why is he photographing the wall .

with each new place,
I was so drawn to the texture of these ancient walls . 
why . I don’t know now, but it felt right to shoot it .
there will be a reason

texture . texture . texture

reset in tuscany

olives, grapes, wine, pasta & gelato
 . never did manage to shoot the last three things

hands

Vancouver . photographing people for a week for a pharmaceutical company . the images that most held me were these shots of a woman’s hands . they reminded me of a moment I couldn’t shoot but would have loved to.

I was in the elevator and a young boy with a developmental disease was being taken care of by a camp counselor for the day. The counselor was around 20 years old, and while comfortable with this patient, I didn’t get the impression he’d spent a ton of time with young children. The boy was agitated and tired and was heading back to his room to rest. He cried out and put his head against the counselors torso - who recoiled in slight discomfort at first reaction. He asked the boy if he was tired - the boys speech was not easily comprehended due to his disorder. Instead the boy reached out his hand, into that of the counselors and immediately appeared to relax.

Just a hand . held by a near stranger . he was calm

word association

At a creativity workshop twelve years ago, the instructor had us doing a project with word association.  It’s a pretty common workshop activity - you think of a word that relates to something in your life - your work, your hobbies, your family.  Circle that word as if it were a wheel, draw spokes coming from it, and write words that define the center word’s importance.  Then pick one of these second tier words and do the same thing, making it the center of the wheel - and keep going.

You do enough of these and you start to see patterns - groups of words that keep reappearing in different parts of your life.  I was motivated to try this again after reading John Paul Caponigro’s blog yesterday.  What struck me was the similarity of themes in my current life that were present back in the mid 90’s.

Back then I found I was excited by the prospects of experimenting with various film types - the line between knowing what would happen and not knowing what would happen.  The theme was paralleled in my words around paragliding - which I was doing at the time - the confidence and concern I felt jumping off cliffs.  

Today I try not to jump off too many cliffs, yet the same themes resound in my word associations around shooting real people.  The honest, genuine spontaneity you can create that you cannot get with real models, yet at the same time there remains the uncertainty that the images may not work.  Sometimes you find yourself motivated by a caught moment, something unexpected, unscripted and true - this will spark an idea that’s genuine.  Or the risk of nothing coming, the hunt remaining unanswered.  

Same theme, mirrored again with my portrait work.  Utilizing available light becomes a hunt for something present; it’s there and real, yet you need to find it, and when you do, it may change.  Like real people, the ambient light is alive, honest, and spontaneous, yet relying on it for inspiration returns that same risk.

and the visual …

 

scouting images

looking back at my scouting images . should be done more often
/ part assistant portrait, part hey-this-looks-cool
it’s too bad many of these never get seen

fatherhood and hot spring days

it was hot in the bay area last week

watermelon and popsicles on the way home
then these kids found the hose for dad

new growth

nightmare medicine

he comes in after a nightmare,
half asleep i lift up the cover and let him crawl in
he curls up with my arm draped over his shoulder,
i want to hold your arm, he mutters, and drifts off

 

i was looking through images today . below
a new fatherhood shoot coming tomorrow 

 

 

fatherhood in film

check out this documentary film project about the evolution of fathering:
http://www.evolutionofdad.com/