Jack be Nimble

Still experimenting with the candle. Trying to work out what I want from this object. Image here was made during a recent studio visit from Berlin-based artist/photographer Adam Magyar, who I've raved about here before. He gamely jumped over the burning candle. Which is harder to do than it sounds.

Going to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh today for a roundtable on robotics. I am looking forward to seeing the lunar rover, Red Whittaker's Google X prize contender, among other things. I will try to get some decent snapshots while on set.

Caleb Charland

These are two images produced for Discover magazine by Caleb Charland, a lavishly talented young photographer. After finding Charland's work online at the Michael Mazzeo gallery about a year ago, I've been looking for an opportunity to work with him. It finally arrived with the recent Discover special issue Extreme Physics (on newsstands now for two months). These images were two of three that we ran with an article about the big unanswered questions of physics.
This was a high point for me in my work as a Photo Editor. Too often physics articles are illustrated by tiresome looking digital images that ultimately explain little. Using images of objects in the visible, physical world to explain physics concepts was something I suggested many times- and finally got my chance here. Hope you like them as much as I do.
These images are made on film, in real time. The atom/drill image is made using multiple exposures.

Cindy Sherman Redux at Yancy Richardson

The opening of Alex Prager's show at Yancy Richardson provides the art world with a younger, prettier, and infinitely softer Cindy Sherman.
January in New York City seems to make it easier to welcome anything that hails from sunny Los Angeles. And this show is Sunny.
Dopey, pretty girls in big wigs, and theatrical lighting in nostalgic colors stare into space, lips parted.
Nonetheless, It is a little embarrassing when the art world falls behind the fashion world. This show could easily be something from the pages of W magazine, only from three seasons ago. Boot cut jeans, anyone?

Interestingly, this vapid show is paired with Garry Winogrand's "Women Are Beautiful" images in the smaller space. Here we see women marching in political solidarity. We see urban women going bra-less! Nipples showing! From back when It was OK to have real boobs with nipples? There is something radical here, in the pairing of these shows, that shines a beacon on the Winogrands as historical documents. Does history actually ever recede? Will the promise of the future ever arrive? Are we moving forwards or backwards?

Toast

The IT guy saw this image on my desk at the office and said "I hope you didn't pay a lot for that photo". When I asked him why not he replied "It's just a piece of bread".
OK! So maybe this isn't one of my more inspired images, but I still like it. This toast image is from last weekend. Shot a lot of new images on Saturday with friend Mary Anne modeling this weekend. Will post later this week.

Handy

Here is a test shot from this weekend. I was able to work in my studio two days in a row over this weekend. So great! I got a lot done. This test is a preliminary look at what this concept will be. After a conversation Sunday with an artist friend about a potential collaboration, I felt sudden renewed interest in some recent ideas I had been thinking about dropping. This image was a spontaneous offshoot of one of those ideas.