Circadian Rhythms: The Timekeepers Within
Was gifted with working with Nissa Quanstrom on this shoot for Proto Magazine about sleep, metabolism and night owls. As always, Nissa pulled through and was able to locate these wonderful parts and gears under a very tight deadline. Thanks again Nissa!
Photographing a Pelican for Fuse book cover - behind the scenes.
A few captures with the iPhone by Dan & Alex while shooting Neptune, the pelican, for the cover art of Julianna Baggott’s Novel, Fuse
The last few months have been busy filled with gigs and personal projects which has caused me to slack off on my blog. My most recent gig took me Long Beach, shooting at Southbay Studios. Images of what was shot to come in a month, but here is a shot of the space we rented for a couple of days.
After the shoot, I had decided to take my time driving back to San Francisco and capture some some imagery of the landscape along i-5 in between the storms that blew across the central valley this past Friday. 
My “Calculating Machines” series continues to be picked up by various design related blogs.
Yesterday, the series was featured by Fast Company’s Co. Design.
Click here to go to the site.
One of my recent assignments was with Bicycling magazine, photographing head tube badges. Before the project I had never taken much notice because most of todays badges are merely stick-on decals of the company’s logo, like the one on my Gunnar. The attention that was given to creating these badges was quite amazing, as seen in the opening spread of the story.
Most of the badges in the story came from collector Jim Langley, who is very passionate about anything to do with bicycles. He has been collecting badges since the late 1970’s and now has approximately 600 of them dating from the 1880’s to current day.
After the shoot, I went online to do a little more head tube research and found some people filling the void by creating their own badges. One bicycle shop in Maryland, The Bicycle Escape, created badges out of bottle caps. Another was a Star Wars Stormtrooper with what looked like a Hello Kitty bow.
So now when someone pulls up next to me on a bike, instead of checking out their components, I’ll be looking for a nice head badge.
We made this behind the scenes video while creating my latest promotional piece of exploding water balloons. We had a blast using a couple of GoPro Cameras and lots of balloons.
Delicious candy? Modern glass lighting fixture? It’s colored water, captured at 1/6,000 of a second just after the latex shell has exploded but before the water has completely lost its shape of the balloon.
This year’s theme for me has been all about the dandelion. Photographing it, blogging about it, trying it as a salad for the first time and putting it on the front of my holiday card. So, I thought I’d milk the dandelion theme one more time before closing out 2011.
I received an email from a native Japanese friend who was replying to my Holiday wishes and she said, “Reminds me that I should clean my ear canal”. I laughed at her reply, thinking of the beloved Japanese ear cleaning tool, Mimikaki.
At one end of this tool is a tiny spoon to scoop out the wax and at the other end is the white fluffy ball, usually made form a bird’s feather to scoop out what ever the spoon didn’t grab.
I was brought up with the saying, ” Don’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear”, so when I was introduced to the Mimikaki, I cringed at the thought of a wooden spoon entering my ear. If i was to attempt this act, I would need to have a 6 foot clearance all around me.
For those of you who are really curious about the science behind the westerner’s wet vs the easterner’s dry ear wax, please read this October 2010 article from Discover Magazine.
Wishing everybody a Happy Holiday and safe 2012!
A few years ago, artists from Emeryville were asked to create imagery base on the theme of “Flora & Fauna”. 9 artists, including myself, were selected and their work has been exhibited on Bus Shelters throughout the city, for the pat 2 years. My images will be exhibited through January 2012.
Last month while at a restaurant in Brooklyn, I saw that they were offering a Dandelion Salad as an appetizer. After spending countless hours photographing them, I could not pass up the opportunity to experience the plant in another way beyond sight.
I wonder why we spend so much energy trying to eradicate them when right out on our lawns is a nutritious salad just waiting to be harvested? And what about the medicinal uses, not to mention the ever so important relationship it has with the bees?
For me, my obsession with the dandelion lies after the flower blooms and turns into that white fluffy ball, so fragile, just waiting for a subtle breeze to release the seed-bearing parachutes. ….and so many wishes.
