nyc.

life has been a crazy whirlwind of madness for the last week, so now i will try to make up for it with far too many posts in a short amount of time. thank goodness for free wireless!

as promised, here are some photos from the eddie adams workshop / new york city / south dakota adventure that swept me away for two incredible weeks. for all the anxiety-ridden sleepless nights that lead up to the trip, it was more fun than i could have imagined. the workshop was wild, just a bunch of incredible photographers from all over the world in this tiny town in upstate new york. it was inspirational to listen to speeches by photographers i've looked up to for years, to see old friends and to finally put faces to names that go with pictures i've seen on blogs and in newspapers. and much thanks to the family i photographed while there, who kindly let a total stranger from california into their lives to photograph them for two days. all-in-all, just as exhausting as i imagined, but well worth it.

in the interest of keeping this post short-ish, commentary will be minimal for the sake of the HUGE amount of photos. well, huge for me at least.

so here are a few from the workshop:
my favorite photo from the Bury family story:friend & incredible photographer amelia phillips at the giant bonfire on the last night:i wasn't kidding about the exhaustion. just ask jessica and maxon:from there was the great NYC adventure. everyone was racing to meet editors and see the city, which, by the way, was so much bigger than i ever thought. many, many thanks to bryan and his roommates for putting me up for a week, you kids are awesome.
a lot of time was spent on the subway:a rad banksy exhibit at the village pet shop and charcoal grill:
portrait session on the roof of paul's apartment, which is a great way to spend a night in any city when photographers are around:
and one EPIC adventure to rockaway with alex. there are so many things to be said about this adventure, but i don't have the words to explain it. we might do a slideshow with our own voiceover to tell the story.... and then again, we might not. but if you get to hear the story from one of us, be prepared for hilarity that comes with weeks of sleep deprivation:so that's it for NY. i'll follow up with a few funny photos from adventures with one of my best friends ever, photographer kristina barker, in south dakota. so here's one last photo from new york that i think sums up my feelings about the whole trip. at the lorimer station of the L line:

fear.

new york city.

it's the one place on the planet i really never wanted to go. the one place that, upon finding out i would have to visit, made me lose sleep for at least a month. for as long as i can remember, i've had this unfounded fear of the hustle-and-bustle of nyc. so many people. so many places to go. so much rush. the thought of it always left me with a knot in my stomach and an unshakable anxiety.

then the worst possible thing happened: i was accepted into the eddie adams workshop. don't get me wrong, being accepted into the workshop was an incredible honor, and was something i'd hoped for almost desperately over the last few years. but it meant i would have to face my fear of the big, scary apple.

i'll post more later about the actual experience there, but for now i can say i survived. but there was one thing that shook me worse than i would have expected, and it set the tone for a week of madness that i had doubts i would make it through. sitting on that plane, staring at the neverending lights of nyc, i wished so badly i could call my dad for strength. it was the worst thing i could imagine, facing that terrifying, gaping city without the safety net of his consoling words. and even though the last few months have eased from sadness into the comfort of forced ignorance, this one moment just about broke me.

i had a conversation with a friend in the city about personal loss and its toll on your photography. i figure that, in this case, there are two kinds of people. there are the people that take that loss as a sign that life is short and run head-first into every experience from that point forward. then there are people, like myself, who internalize that loss. every day that i photograph, every person i meet on assignment, every picture i take, i fall in love a little bit. i think that if you really love this job, you have to. but with every love, there is loss when you have to leave, when you're not sure if you'll see that person again. so every day is a little love and a little loss, over and over again. so while some people are loving and losing and embracing that, i find myself hesitant to initiate that cycle again because i'm almost paralyzed with the fear of those little losses.

i love to take pictures, and i love that i can almost survive by doing exactly what i love. but for the last few months i've found myself too scared to do it. and if there's anything worse than fear of loss, it's the realization that you've already lost and you have no idea how to save it.

ballers.

another friday night, another football game. i chose to photograph the edison/franklin game, and man it was close for a while. i have a soft place in my heart for edison since my first basketball season in stockton. i lucked into photographing many of the team's games that year, and was able to follow them to the championships in sacramento, where they had a heartbreakingly-close loss. since then, i've taken any chance to photograph edison athletics. those kids sure have heart.

so here are a few shots from tonight's game.

this kid got a gnarly wound, dripping blood down his hand right off the field. he was a trooper though, and managed to keep his cool fairly well until the paramedics got to him.

love.

had the great pleasure of photographing the wedding of a friend-of-several-friends out in marin county this weekend. one of the most beautiful/entertaining/fun shooting evenings i've experienced in a long time. here's a couple outtakes from the night.


congrats to the happy couple, you crazy kids. and thanks for allowing me to share in the good times.

friday night lights.

it's been a year since i've had the privilege of covering friday night football. i'm not a huge fan of the sport itself, but i love going to the high school games, just for the atmosphere. neither my high school nor my college had football teams, so i never got to experience going to a game with a bunch of friends after class to cheer on the team for no other reason than they're your home team.

tonight i got to cover St. Mary's catholic school, and i have to say, i really dig that school's spirit. at every game, for every sport, there's at least 50 kids in face-paint or costume, all school colors, cheering and jeering from beginning to end. and as a photographer it's great because everyone's so enthralled by the action, they have very little time to worry about me taking their photo.

so here's to tonight's blow-out... i'm just bummed that because of deadline i never get to stay until the end. one of these days, i hope to. just to see what happens.