My Year in Review Pt. 2

My senior year of college ended three weeks early as I rushed to finish school as soon as possible .  I was due on the White House steps in late May, and it was such a scramble to wrap up loose ends.  A lot of things went undone and plenty of words unsaid.  But it was one of the best summers I ever had.

Here I am, one of the first weeks at the White House:

Me on the South Lawn

Rab and Eich at Commencement in Athens

Rab and Eich at Commencement in Athens

Submarine Spaceship in Athens. One of my last shows in Ohio.

The White House Luau

4th of July

End of the Internship

Family trip to Hawaii

Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach

That was a taste of the summer.

Fall and Winter are next.

My Year In Review Pt. 1

For many, 2009 was the last great rattle of a transformative decade.  For my generation transformative is the only adjective that comes to mind that can adequately summarize the fear, the bitterness, the leaps forward, the leaps backward and the light at the end of the tunnel. If anything it was the ten years in which we were all going to grow up in anyway, it was by mere chance some of the greatest shifts in culture, politics and technology happened before our very eyes.  This decade did something to the collective us, and 2009 was that last push, and for me it was certainly the most difficult, the most important and the most productive.

This is my year.  I started 2009 unsure of where I was going to be, just trying to finish out my last year in school.  Where I found myself though, was many places.  These are some personal and mostly unpublished images from 2009.

Here’s part one.

Red Line Metro Train, January 19th, 2009. Washington DC

January 20, 2009. Washington DC

Jeff's Room. Athens, Ohio.

April, 2009 Hocking Hills Mennonite Church. Logan, Ohio.

April 2009. Jeff and Andy shooting pool. The Union. Athens, Ohio

Joe performing. I'll go on record and say the man is one of my favorite musicians and a great friend.

Post-Bonfire at Emily, Matt and Ben's on Peachridge Road in Athen. Probably some Springsteen playing.

Larry.

Risa and some 3D glasses.

Ryan. Running in our awesome front yard. I'll miss that fence a lot.

I spent Easter with the Mennonites. Still some of the nicest people I've met.

A baby doll we used to throw around a lot. I think this is before we blew it up with fireworks.

For Real Fest. Athens, Ohio

Toast. Athens, Ohio.

More to come.

Unearthing

Finding some images I’ve never really used for a portfolio edit.  I’m toying around with something a bit different this time around.

Bike Polo

Stumbled on some bike polo in Chinatown on what will probably one of the last really nice days of the season.  High 60s and sunny.  Absolutely beautiful.

 

Damon Winter Interview on Too Much Chocolate

By several standards, including the Pulitzer Prize, Damon Winter is the best newspaper photographer working today.  Besides pulling out beautiful portraits on a newspaper budget (he rarely even uses assistants) his images from the 2008 Presidential campaign were some of the most nuanced and unexpected images to come from that topic.   He’s even had the time to produce a beautiful series of double exposures, capturing the overlapping moments and icons of New York City (above).

Online photo magazine Too Much Chocolate sits down with him for an interview.

Rush Jagoe on Pangea Photo Blog

I’m always impressed by my buddy Rush’s sensitivity and the unexpected directions his work takes me. The documentation of his transnational bike odyssey is no different. Check it out on Pangea, a blog being put together by some inspirational young photographers, who also happen to be my friends.

No sleep till…

Well actually…lots of sleep till Brooklyn. I’m in DC right now, sleeping off the late nights and great times of the Eddie Adams Workshop, where I was fortunate enough to be asked back (I was a student in 2007) by Time Photo Editor Deirdre Read to help out as faculty this year.  It was such a positive experience, being surrounded by the young photographers who are truly going to change this industry.  Check out some of the work here, I was very very impressed by the quality of work produced by this year’s students.

In terms of news from me, I’ve been offered a position at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.  It is one of the nation’s foremost art and design schools and I will be put to use in the Communications Design program, working as a photo tech, helping to run their imaging lab, as well as organizing many of the students who work in the labs.  It is an awesome position that will but me right in the middle of an exciting, creative and academic environment.  I move this Tuesday, so for any readers in the New York area, I think we should hang out.  Just saying.

Some more G-20

A few more from outside a demonstration on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

The G-20

Though they existed in one large, unorganized mass, I saw many different protests at the G-20.  There were the curious, the baby-boomers reliving their youth, playing Diggers anthems in a small brass band, the contingents of students, even some Tea Partiers.  They were all part of the large, unpermitted march that started their walk towards the G-20 summit happening in downtown Pittsburgh in Arsenal Park in Lawrenceville, a low-key, blue collar, and heavily residential neighborhood.  The march took them through the heart of a quiet, not particularly well off neighborhood, that had relatively very little to do with the events happening a few miles away.  But as the tear gas misted, rubber bullets flew and protesters scattered, I saw a protest that had been hijacked by its most extreme element and left the residents of this neighborhood bewildered and worried, about violence that occured in a march they had little say in.

I grew up, and currently reside in the Washington DC area, a region no stranger to dissent and protest.  But the protests I viewed growing up never took place in people’s backyards or with so little respect payed towards the people whose neighborhoods these fringe elements had taken over.  I felt embarrased for the group I was documenting.

Dumpsters were turned over to block police movements, as if riot-gear clad police officers could be stopped cold in their tracks by a few overturned garbage loaders and recycling bins.  The most direct engagement I saw of protesters with the locals was half hearted chants of “Join Us!” as if anyone who saw these people would run from their stoop to get tear gassed in their own neighborhood, where they had lived, in the case of some people I spoke to, upwards of 6o years.

In the end, the worst irony is that the residents who were so disrespected in these marches were the ones who the protesters were really rallying for.  The downtrodden, the disenfranchised and the everyday, hardworking American.  But as I looked at the excitement of the protesters at the possibility to block a police car, and the indifference, sometimes even disgust of the Pittsburghers looking on, it made me look at the young protesters and wonder, “Who are they here for?

Pittsburgh’s Revival

Photo: Flickr/Cowtools

I am heading to Pittsburgh this Wednesday to witness whatever is going to happen at the G-20.  I’m genereally pretty down on protest photography.  I feel much of it only serves to promote the most vocal and beligerant members of a cause.  Photographs of angry people, holding signs…where is the conversation?  With that in mind I’m heading to an enormous hub of just that.  Perhaps I can find something interesting that doesn’t rely on the words of a sign, but I may just resign myself to capturing angry mobs.

But this should nontheless be an interesting event, in that the G-20, usually reserved for a locations like Beijing or London, is being hosted in all places, Pittsburgh.  It’s a pointed decision, showcasing an American city that has weathered the economic climate relatively well and has made the transition into a post-industrial city (following its mostly defunct steel industry) quite gracefully.

More on Pittsburgh in this week’s Economist.

So yeah, protests, pictures and Pittsburgh.  See you later in the week.