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Happy Halloween, boils, ghouls, and slays! Gonna keep this post short on the verbiage and long on the Barbieage. I shot these spooky pumpkin-portraits of Barbs and her friends dressed up in their costumes one sunny day this month, using the end of a honeynut squash and a couple small gourds hollowed out.
I hope everyone has a lovely All Hallows’ Eve. Stay safe out there and thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.
On my birthday in July, I went to a rodeo.
I was tired, not really in a celebratory mood. I crammed myself in a corner by the bucking chutes with a couple friends and my camera, trying to get a good angle. There were scores of people crowded around us, kids stepping on our heels. Harsh stadium lights under a night sky and fast-moving subjects pose huge challenges to a film photographer at these events; I’d gotten a mixed bag of results over the season and wasn’t feeling entirely confident about it.
I left the rodeo that night unsure if I’d gotten anything good and wagering I probably hadn’t. I stuck the shot film in my fridge and didn’t get around to developing it until nearly three months later, when I sent a backlogged batch out to the lab. I’d nearly forgotten about these photos.
Quelle surprise—not only are these my favorite rodeo photos I’ve ever taken, they’re among my favorite photos I’ve ever taken, period. And from a night I felt sure went mediocre. A friend I sent them to (one of the friends with me that night) joked, “You’re only shooting rodeos from now on,” and while I’m captivated by too many things to ever document only one, I feel like I hit my stride with these images. I feel like I found what I’m looking for.
Above photos shot on Kodak T-Max P3200 35mm film. Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.
Today I am launching a new video series called My Friend the Artist in which I interview friends who are (you guessed it) artists. The videos will be posted to my YouTube channel and linked here and on Instagram, and will center around each artist’s work and process. My first subject is Amy Robison, who I count as one of my best friends, and who is also one of the most prolific artists I have ever met. Amy describes herself as “an ideas man,” and she ain’t wrong. Amy has more ideas than any other person I’ve ever met, and is constantly working on something. She’s also really good at verbalizing her thoughts—as a person who sometimes flounders and grasps for the right words to describe something in my head, I am envious of Amy’s ability to articulate her point of view. So she was an obvious first choice for the premiere episode of this project, and did not disappoint. Check out below.
