Earth Day
Earth Day 2020
Apparently its Earth Day. I forgot. I didn’t notice until I saw a friend made a post on social media. I opened my calendar on my phone several times today but for some reason “Earth Day” was just a static hold on my list of things to do. I paid no mind to it.
The earth is sad. Mother Nature is weeping in the shadow of our sorrow. Most people are to oblivious to take notice that we are a part of the earth. Most people are so detached from nature, swiping left and right, expressing emotions through devices, and looking through the windows wishing for what they cant have. That is the cold hard truth.
The world, to me, deserves a hug. I don’t mean each and every human being on the planet hugging and holding each other because social distancing is over, because its not and we can’t, but the world itself..
When I decided to pull some photos from my phone I kept coming back to photos within the landscape. I kept looking at photos of me working with models in some awesome place. The world, the earth, the landscape is something I love. I spend a lot of time working outside. I spend a lot of time photographing people outside. It is something I love doing. I have barely begun to scratch the surface of placing people in the world, capturing them in some remote, beautiful desolate, obscure space. I am still very young in my career as a fashion photographer and will continue to photograph people outside, in the wild, in some amazing landscape, that is when I can and once we have a big change and can be around people again.
Before I share some behind the scene photos of me working in the landscape, here are some photos I made over the last year in places I love. I am starting with Joshua Tree as it is one of the most beautiful parks I have been too. The diverse landscape and the evolving geographic structures make Joshua Tree something special.
*All bts are captured by my talented and amazing HMUA Mel. C*
Joshua Tree
Photo Credit: Wonder Mel, Mel C, 2019, Joshua Tree—Photographing Sianna with a Pentax 67
The above shown landscape images are made in Santa Barbera, Malibu, Vasquez Rocks, and LA over looking Malibu. I am captivated by nature. I love exploring remote parts of the world, something I dont do enough of. But one thing is for sure and very obvious, I love photographing people in the natural environment.
I have plans for a shoot in nature. I have the location in mind and half the shoot visualized. I just need the travel ban lifted a few grand, a team, and this shoot will come to fruition.
Until next time, stay safe and stay happy!
COVID-19: Social Distancing
George wearing his mask and standing at the back door, looking out into the yard.
In the span of 5 mins I learned more about George than I expected to. At 78 years old he’s seen his share of global issues but this pandemic seems to have unnerved him the most. As a sports fan he’s disappointed that he can’t watch his favorite teams on tv.
“You know it’s bad when you can’t catch a ball game” he said as he looked towards the flat screen.
When I arrived he was on a cellphone discussing financial matters with a bank. After he ended the call he shared with me how much of a pain it has been to learn to use a new phone. “Im an old school kind of guy,” he said as he continue to explain it took 4 days for him to figure it out with tech support. It is evident George is deeply religious. I respect his passion. A large crucifix, visible over his exhausted Notre Dame hoodie, is draped close to his heart. In some way part of me believes he had aspirations to play for such a legendary team. He covets football the same as he does his religion.
George was saddened by the news of the Holyoke Soldiers Home. As I was leaving he mentioned how awful it was. I could sense a level of pain behind that statement. I asked him if he served his country and he shared with me his reasons, both medically and familia as to why he couldn’t enlist, even after he tried in 1964.
George posed for two photographs. His mask hides his identity, but he revealed himself to me. We bridged our anonymity through the portraits I made of him. George was happy to share with me and only asked me a few questions that didn’t really reveal much of who I am. What George knows of me is that I am a photographer and he didn’t seem to eager or interested to know more. He was content revealing himself to me and sharing his work.
“I am a religious man, but I am not a saint.”
People are natural story tellers. When you ask the right questions, they will reveal more of themselves than any single portrait can. George was very happy to share with me his work. Rummaging through a box he produced several albums of his music. He offered me a copy of his albums, but understood when I declined to accept the invitation. If I met George under any other time, outside of this pandemic, he’d have greeted me and parted ways with a handshake.
“I’d give you a handshake, but we can’t. Be good kid, stay safe.”
“Thanks George. Stay safe.” Repeating to myself, “stay safe” the new adaptation for parting ways.
I wouldn’t have made a portrait of George if we weren't living in a pandemic. He wouldn’t be wearing a mask and I surely wouldn’t have be shielding my identity in a similar fashion. The face masks, the respirators, the gloves, all the safety gear we are being coerced to wear is forcing us to restructure how we interact with the people we know or people we are meeting for the first time.
Italy
In October we explored the Cinque Terre Villages. in La Spezia, Italy.
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Sunday March 23, 2020: Today has been an awful day. It was emotionally taxing in ways other days have not been in the last week. Some of the fears I have had are self made, but that is happening to a lot of us right now, especially amongst my small business brothers and sisters. I am putting this to words, here, now, so I can get that energy out and move on with my evening. Its likely that in 2-3 minutes I will break from writing this and continue with editing some work I need to deliver this evening.
Insert pause…
The distractions today have been one to many. The best part of my day, though, was the bike ride I had. 6+ miles in 30 minutes. It was a great ride, but my emotions were extra baggage that slowed me down. With a light breeze, the ride was daunghitng for the first 5 or so minutes. After that I opened up and took of. Switching between two bikes over the last couple of days, a road bike and a 27” hard tail mountain bike, I was able to shave off a minute on my time. I am maintaining daily exercise to keep my body in motion and my mind strong.
While sitting outside yesterday and reading for the first time in nearly two weeks I happened to look up and see a lonely plane moving through the clear blue sky. I started to think. From there I grabbed my iPhone, opened notes and began writing the start of this blog post. I had planned to have it post on Sunday, but dinner plans got in the way. So consider the above a prologue.
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A plane cuts through the clear blue skies.
I’m starting this blog post with an image that represents time and space. We are now faced with a new meaning of time. Quarantined. Limbo. Purgatory. We are stuck, most of us, unable to travel. Time for us now is a shifting concept. We must fill our days with whatever we can while trying to survive. Work, a period of time dedicated each day to being away from friends and family to earn an income is now being challenged. Time with our friends is being challenged. Time in social settings has come to an end, for most of us. Time as we move from space to space, proximity to proximity, is now being challenged. Time for us, now is a challenge.
The skies are quiet. The trees are whispering, trying to make sense of what they are observing. The chatter between branches has shifted from the norm to a lack of understanding of what we are living with. High above the ground, people, nameless faces we do not know, are not gliding forward and backwards in time jaunting to destinations across all parts of the world. The world has suddenly gotten smaller. More constricting. Our worlds have become confined to boxes, dwellings, properties. Neighboring states have entered full lockdowns while others maintain monitored and controlled freedom with curfews. Are we really free anymore? It would see as if the answer to that is an obvious “no.” The idea that we exist in controlled freedom is a blanket statement to broaden the understanding of what we can and can not do and where we can and can not go.
There are no more degrees of separation. We as humans are all united sharing a common enemy. A few months ago we were still a few degrees away from each other. Social media has allowed us to connect with nearly anyone and everyone in the world at any given time. Even celebrities became accessible through social media, to a fine degree. Our world, as big as it was, became smaller the more connected we became to one another. Social media has allowed us to connect based on similar interest. However, we are all connected now by a single needle and thread. Every single one of us, interwoven together like some piece of fabric.
For as long as I have been traveling I have wanted to document life from the perspective of the individuals who reside, work, own, and live their lives in the places I visit. In short, I want to experience the places I am traveling to as if I live there. Often times I fall vastly short of this goal. One reason is that when I travel I do so with my wife. It is impossible for me to take as much time as I would like to away from sharing in the experiences together. I am fine with that and enjoy what we do together. We treat our trips as travel, not vacations. Vacations to me are paid time off from a job. Vacations are reserved for those that need a break from their jobs and sometimes their families. I approach traveling, like many others, as a time for experience, growth, learning and occasional a real adventure. I am the first person to deviate away from the tourist traps and the cliches. If I am traveling somewhere new I will take a small amount of time to visit the most iconic spots and see what all the hype is about. More often then not I spend time prior to traveling searching for what most tourists are to lazy to see. That to me is where the best experiences will be had.
As a photographer I create stories by means of making photographs. As I wander from place to place I script stories that can be infused with the images, giving them words to make sense of what I see. I do this for me and for instances like this, where I show images and discuss them. When I do visit places tens of thousands of people see annually, I want to show it in ways others aren’t, which is almost impossible to do. When we create a style unique to us, it becomes easier to separate ourselves from the hordes of others. Even then, the all might camera phone still factors into people blissfully creating sub-par images and saturating the world with the same views, over and over again.
Traveling for me isn’t just getting in a car, driving to an airport, landing at some world class resort. No, thats a vacation, which I don’t do. Traveling to me is about experiencing other cultures. When I make photos of the places I am experiencing, it allows me to understand where I am, what I am eating, seeing, and what is going through my mind. I set a goal when I was very young as a photographer, make no regrets. If I see an image, however uncomfortable, I must make it. There have been a handful of times I have broken that rule. Regrettable, sure. Will I end my career over that, absolutely not.
Time for me is changing. How I spend my time, what little time I give to others for compensation, what precious time I have with friends and family, what little time I have for myself, all changing. Time for traveling, well, that’s changing too.
A fleeting moment in La Spezia, Italy. ‘Time is relative to age.’
Street photography is fun. When you have the ability to connect with people and document them in an urban setting, you’re capturing a fleeing moment. The proper term for that is the “decisive moment.” Coined by Henri Carte Bresson, an iconic photographer that documented moments that were fleeting and would other wise be overlooked unless rendered through his lens. The image shown above is the product of a missed opportunity. Behind me was a giant tent, part of a market that was closing as the day was waning. I tried to step back and capture the real image, the image that you can’t see.
The portrait of the 4 woman on the bench all seem close image age. To their left, camera right, out of frame, was a second bench. There was a gap of maybe 4 to 6 feet between the two benches. Sitting on the bench to my right were 4 girls, half the age of the women you see pictured here. The 4 girls were in near identical positions to that of the four women photographed here. I tried like hell to capture that image, but I could not. I My camera, a Fuji X-Pro2 was outfitted with a fixed 35mm lens. I made every attempt I could to produce the image, but not being able to get back far enough and not having a wider lens meant the image would never see the light of day beyond the words to describe its non existence.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the middle woman walking towards the bench quickly. I would have 1-2 seconds to capture her in the right spot, the middle of the group. What I didn’t see happening till afterwards was the man in the far left turning and walking away from the scene. 4 women stopped in time while two other people are walking through the same moment. A lot is happening in this image. Had I been able to capture the intended image, rendering the woman walking in the middle of the two benches would have been as powerful as it would have been beautiful. Ill let you figure out what the symbolic link would have been.
Mirrors in a park, La Spezia, Italy Looking at time from two different directions.
I was beyond enthralled with this park. These structures are beautiful. They give you a multiplicity of views and yield time in a multitude of spots and moments.
Man in a ponderable state. Monterosso al Mare, Cinque Terre, La Spezia, Italy
I stood for a few minutes watching, waiting, knowing the perfect moment would come. People are predictable. People will, when comfortable, let their guard down and act for you. To my left the waves crashed against the cliffs. To my right is a very large rock. It stands alone kissing the shore. Out of frame was his girlfriend, also, unaware of the lens. She stood looking into the distance. Her statuesque pose was boring. The action was in what he was doing, moving about as the water crashed on the shore and receded into the next round of waves. Time for this man was the measured by the lengths of the crashing waves. He gave me a moment of his time when I photographed him. In that instance, we shared time.
A couple takes a swim in the cove. Vernazza, Cinque Terre, La Spezia, Italy
I sat quietly observing the scene in front of me. The man slowly took off his clothes and entered the water. She swam back and forth for a few minutes teasing him to join her. Twice they looked over and observed the camera in their direction. They dismissed it each time looking away. No threat. No way of knowing they were the subjects. Slowly he walked closer to her. Once the rocks became to much of a hardship he sacumed and took to swimming towards her. The flirted with each other as the playfully swam around the rocks. Their time became my time.
Man stands in morning light. Grotta di Lord Byron, Porto Venere, La Spezia, Italy
The light was rising over the castle and pullulating the Grotta di Lord Byron. I stepped onto a slick rock, nearly loosing it and quickly regaining my footing. I noticed the light on his face from higher above, looking down on the scene. He was posing for a picture in front of the dramatic landscape. I only had a minute or so to get in a spot worthy of making an image. I had to capture a photo of him as the light consumed just his face. If I had my 70-200mm lens with me I would have posed him and captured a very dynamic image of him. I did not have that lens with me and once again found myself arrested to a camera with a fixed prime lens. While a 70-200 would have been fun for creatine some dynamic portraits, I am very pleased to have a wider image that weds him to landscape.
Waiting. Castello Doria, Porto Venere, La Spezia, Italy
Time is not patient. Time is bias. Time will take from you, give you nothing. Time will leave you. Time has no where to be, is everywhere, and nowhere. You do not own time. Time owns you. Time will take from you what you give it, everything. Time is everything.
To me an empty chair is as compelling. It is inviting, beckoning. I have probably said that same line a dozen times over. I see chairs posing all the time, waiting to be sat in. Chairs are a vessel for people to rest, work, exist in. When you are not sitting in a chair, time is not frozen, you’re just existing else where. Does that chair exist without you? Yes. But the chair has its own time, separate from you. The chair inhabits a space that isn’t relative to your time. There fore the chair does not exist until you exist in it, creating a continuity of time.
I meandered around the grounds of Castello Doria for a while. I weaved through the vines, along paths, up ancient steps, through narrow walk ways, into a vast room supported by altitudinous columns. The light entered this sturdy room from two spots, the window behind this chair and a skyscraping entrance. The room was airy for only having having one large entrance. As I turned around one of the columns I found the chair, greeting me, asking me to take a seat. I said no, made a portrait of it and carried on with seeking other images to collect.
An empty chair has no soul. They are vacant, empty, void of any presence. People occupy chairs giving them a purpose. Without being sat in a chair serves no other purpose. They sit in time, awaiting a time to be of service. An empty chair is sad.
Time has changed for you too. Time is not our friend. It is not our enemy. It is a resource that once surrendered we can not get back. There is no way to recover time. You don’t go to a store and buy more time. Clocks are devices that we use to measure how much time we are losing, how much time is passing. My camera, however, is a machine to record time, preserve time, distribute time.
My time is valuable and so is yours. We are faced with the dilemma of how to use the time we have. Can we continue on with our relationship with time? Yes, of course, but under a new policy with new guidelines. Be smart with your time. Be wise with your time and who you allow to have a portion of it. Find your value and command compensation for your time. It is the most precious resource that you loose a part of every day. Don’t dole out time as if it is indispensable. It is not.
Until we can travel again, it is my wish that you stay safe. Remain optimistic for a time when boarding plane isn’t a life or death risk. Together we will end this pandemic and return to scheduled lives.
Stay safe everyone.
86 The Sticky Ribs: Capturing A Restaurant During a Pandemic
Capturing A Restaurant During a Pandemic
Chef Andrew Brow of HighBrow
Today my heart is heavy. The familiar faces that I am used to seeing when I walk in are no longer here to greet customers who are still coming in for take-out only. The hand shakes, the fist bumps, the jovial “hey how are?” gone. No longer there. I have never cooked nor have I worked for a restaurant. I have worked in restaurants behind the camera and will continue to do so for as long as I can. Photographing chefs and food is more like a side job.
The restaurant was anything but quite. The music pumped louder than usual replacing the silence in the dining room. The wine glasses hang quietly in line, patiently waiting for lips and sips. Who knows when they will come off the rack to be filled. The tables are set, ready for guests. Empty. The chairs long to be sat in. The plates are quietly stacked at attention, waiting, ready to be a vessel as forks and knives scrape across them.
“86 sticky ribs chef calls out from the grill. We’re about to 86 the Mac and cheese too.”
“Heard chef.”
“At least you’re selling out of something” I remarked.”
“Hell yea!”
If ever there was a skeleton it was here and and now. The chef and two other people doing triple duty as the phones rang off the hook, and orders came in remotely. People are hungry for good food. For over an hour straight Chef worked hard. Nothing he wasn’t used to. If anything, his busiest days prepared him for this, working alone in his zone. Chef was calling for an early perp time tomorrow as they needed to be ready for another day like today, busy.
The chef belted out as loud as he could. Amongst the stress and tension of dismissing his staff as we ride this thing out, he manages to remain positive and happy. There was an energy in the restaurant, thicker than the NY Strip he cooked up and packaged for take out. His energy is always positive.
“Thanks so much, we appreciate you” Chef would out from behind the prep station. His voice was unwavering as he joyfully thanked every person that picked up their order. The interactions are brief, transactional, to the point. As each patron turned and thanked the chef they expressed their appreciation for him remaining open. Undoubtedly every single person walked out satisfied before they got home and put for fork to food. They had a warm, savory, ungodly delicious meal to eat that was neither store bought or picked up from a shitty fast food restaurant but they were happiest just to walk out with something and a moment of appreciation. Even the mayor, who looked stressed, was happy to come in and support his city hall neighbor.
This is my advice to you. If you’re hungry, support someone who will thank you for walking in and ordering food that they made themselves. I get that fast food joints are employed by similar folks, but you’re paying into a machine. You don’t get what you pay for when you order a McDouble. Fast food restaurants will always be in business. The ones that are truly suffering, the ones that employ people who are excited to seat you and carry your food to your table, the ones who’s bank accounts, mortgages, car payments, are earned from your tips, those gainfully employed by restaurants likes HighBrow, they are the ones taking some of the hardest hits. Andrew remains open and optimistic so he can stay in business and bring back the people he cares about, the people that believe in him and make HighBrow the warm and inviting restaurant that it is.
I left as the last takeout order was being picked up. Chef was going to spend a few hours cleaning, disinfecting, prepping, pouring his heart out into his business and his passion while the rest of us sit home with uncertainty. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is another opportunity for him, for his business to remain open, what little hours and what limited menu he has to offer. Today and tomorrow is all we can think about.
