Day Twelve - One Day Too Many

Day Eleven - Jealous Much?

Ya, I feel like I'm in 5th Grade again, anyone have a cheap plastic frame that I can put this in? Props to Brain Magnet who designed the Mark Mallman site.

Day Ten - Alterations

Click to Enlarge Comic

From time to time I like to take things that I run across and change them. I've done his to things such as children's books, Walgreen's pamphlets, Jehovah's Witness flyers, and so on. When I can I like to leave these altered items where I got them from. Here is one that I did because I hate all the current comics, they are all lame.

Day Nine - A Lonely Phone Rings

I like to work late, and sleep in. My wife, Carolyn, likes to get up early. A few months ago she woke before I did, like usual, and opened the shades, saying, "Let the sun shine in". In my half sleep I instantly remembered a radio commercial that played on a little radio station, where I then lived, in Newport, NH . The jingle belonged to a Baptist church in town where a friends' Dad was the minister. Their jingle seemed to play all the time, saying at the end of the spot, "Let the Son, S-O-N, shine in!"
I hadn't thought about my friend Matt Floge in years. He was a great trumpet player, especially for his age. We were both in the school band, but I knew that he had an instinctual talent where I had to really work at it.

It must have been around 6th grade when we first met. Matt was just how you would guess a young preachers son to be, clean cut and straight laced but with a devilish side to him as well. I was a little more out there and I think that made his parents a bit nervous. I dressed more punk-like, and for a small town in NH that seemed to be a big deal to some people.
We rode bikes around, he told me about the bodies in the church basement waiting for funerals, we did kid-like things and tried not to get beat up or threatened by the older bullies with nothing but time on their hands.

I woke up from my memories and went to the computer to do a search for Matt. I was shortly directed to a few different boating websites. There he was in a photo, Matt Floge, sitting there with the same boyish face, same messy black hair, eating crawfish. He came up again at another boat site that looked a little more legit then the first site so I dropped them an email asking if Matt was still around. The owner was quite nice and told me that Matt had indeed worked there and that he had built a house in a nearby town. I'd gone this far so I looked up his name and number.

207-236-6131. I gave it a call and all it did was ring. A few weeks later a called it again, it just rang. I put it in my cell phone memory, where it sits until I think to give it a try, and still it just rings. It's a nice ring. I picture it in an almost empty cabin at he end of a long, muddy dirt road surrounded by tall, swaying pines. The birds sing and a few wild animals slowly forage around for food, but inside it is still, and very silent. The phone rings and for a few minutes it is the only life that that cabin knows. Maybe Matt is out in a boat, a big old clipper kind of boat where there is no phone for months at a time. Now I like to call his number to remember that some things take longer than others to change. In some parts of the world time is running at a different speed and it is reassuring to call Matt, and to be reminded.

Day Eight - Summer Story

Sometimes it's hard to get out of the pool. The day had been hot, really sweltering hot like it often was at the end of August. It is finally time for you to unwind and let loose as the parents watch on from their folding lawn chairs and sip their iced drinks. Your kicking around the floaty toys and trying to dunk your sister when Mom and Dad aren't paying attention. You find the repetition of yourself saying, "What?, I didn't do anything" starting to get old even to your own ears.
The warnings start, "Ten more minutes and it is time to get dried off and go inside". You don't care that your fingers are so wrinkled that they look less like your own and more like your Grandmothers did the last time that you saw her. It was also summer then as well, but she didn't appear to be enjoying the beauty of that season as much as you are now. She was in the odd-smelling wing of the hospital laying in a very tall bed, you were standing smaller than usual besides her trying to remember what you had hoped to talk about moments before you stood in that tiny spot.
That was all over, and now, as the parents warnings were getting louder and slightly more disturbing, with ultimatums that included the mention of with-holding of ice cream and something about pulling the large rubber plug on the side of the pool, you sink lower and lower to the bottom, where the darker plastic feels slimy to your fingertips. Fighting to hold yourself down at the very bottom and allowing the weight of the water to push against you, the threats from above are only wave-like noises now, and the sound of your own heartbeat slowly lulls you into another slower place of somewhat comfort and peace.

Day Seven - Postcard

Day Six - Work

So, as some of you might know I don't have a regular job. I work freelance in the film & video & photography . I haven't had a "real" job since I was in college. At that time I worked at a Ritz photo, and at the Media Center at MCaD, where I graduated. In my senior year I started working as an Electrician on the Disney smash film IRON WILL, and never looked back.

At this point I think that I'd rather sell everything that I have before taking a 9-5 job. As with everything, there is good as well as bad about my current situation. Lots of free time, no real boss, lots of interesting locations and people, and things like.. no regular paycheck, feast or famine months, and sometimes people with big attitudes. Overall I feel very lucky to work with so many interesting and talented people. A few years ago it hit me that most of the people that I run into on various jobs are all good people. The types of people that I generally like. Then I wondered if it isn't important where we work or at what job, but perhaps it is our relationships with those that we work with that is the reason that each of us are where we are. Then again, maybe not.

All that being said, the picture that I took at a milling museum in NH last year.

Day Five - Come Quickly

Spring starts tomorrow. Hurry, please.

Day Four - Little Guy

So a few weeks ago I went with my friend Dana to check out some antique/junk stores. I like that kinda places that looks like the inventory came straight out of someone's dusty basement or barn, not all polished and overpriced. I found a little 6" doll with a handmade knitted tux on. What, maybe from the 30-40's? He's one of those kinds that closes his eyes when placed horizontally. I don't know what I liked about him, maybe his worn, textured face. I guess that I just wanted to photograph him. There's a wider picture on him my website for the opening page, but this one is a real photo whereas the other was taken just for the site. Later today I'll photograph him again for possible business cards, I know, whoopee.


PS - A secret note to a certain J.S. "Not enough about you on my website", huh? Just you wait, Little Man Hate.

Day Three: Blogger Mystery Man

Today I was working, I do that once and a while. Anyways someone that I was working with told me about HIS blog after I mentioned that I just started mine, and that it his was TOP SECRET to most people because he doesn't like to make a big deal about it. Because I am an upstanding pal, I will not openly disclose his name but what I can tell you is that a little man named Ben lives on his shoulder...



On his TOP SECRET ,and quite funny, site I saw that he was a fan of the band The Hold Steady. Great band, yes I agree. It got me to thinking that I took some pics of those guys when they played at 1st Ave. in August of 04', so here is a pic for Todd, opps.

PS - If he wants to keep his site a secret to our fellows workers I will delete the incriminating details upon written notification.

Day Two - Mallman

OK - so I am getting the hang of this, thanks to my wife, Carolyn! We just got 10+ inches of snow dumped on us, so I gotta go shovel but here are a few recent photos. They were shot a few weeks ago in one of the 3 photo sessions that I did with singer/songwriter Mark Mallman. These were out-takes. He is in SouthxSouthwest right now and will hang out there to put vocals on the new cd.

Day One - NOFX

Hello whoever you are. Bear with me, for this is a first for me. I am in the process of re-designing my entire website. It should have been done a long time ago. In the meantime you can still check out the old one with the link at the bottom right of my first page. Stay tuned for exciting new stuff, or so I hope.
Here are a few pictures from a NOFX video that I Gaffed last week. We shot it at The Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis. Justin Staggs was the director. It was a long shoot, but the video should turn out pretty good, stay tuned.