Read about Bob Fu in this story by Andrew Jacobs for the New York Times. Last week I flew to Midland to photograph a portrait of Mr. Fu at the ChinaAid office. It was a long day, but an interesting story and incredible experience to meet the chinese activist and dissident.
Congratulations to my friends Jared Moossy, Jacob Pritchard, and Wynn Myers who’s work has been chosen for this year’s American Photography annual.
Another congratulations goes out to Mustafah Abdulaziz, Joe Buglewicz and Maisie Crow who have been selected for the Magenta: Flash Forward – Emerging Photographer’s 2012.
A big thanks to Chris Carson for sending over these scans of the Photo District News Annual 2012 issue for which my SXSW Crossing project was included. Check out the rest of the images from the SXSW photo project.
This is from a special section in the New York Times. I was sent to McAllen to photograph Rafael Garza at his home and at the hospital where he works. He’s 87 years old and he’s still got it!
A few images from my ‘Intercambio’ experiment during our 500 mile walk across Northern Spain.
Towards the end of the 2011, I shot a cooking class for people trying to learn English for Reader’s Digest’s Taste of Home magazine. I had a great time with Casey Smith and all of her students in the Cooking up English class as they made cupcakes.
I photographed Tyler Campbell, son of Heisman Trophy winner and NFL running back Earl Campbell, for the February issue of Ebony Magazine. Tyler was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in college, thus preventing him from entering the NFL draft and effectively ending his football career. Now he’s a spokesman for the MS Society and an overall a positive force. We had a great shoot in Zilker Park and a good time getting to know each other. Go pick up the issue with Samuel L Jackson on the cover.
January was a busy month to my surprise. I shot a story in San Antonio for the Wall Street Journal about professional shoppers. I didn’t know what that meant, but it’s a really niche profession that takes a lot of people skills. Claudia Coleman is a professional shopper with Nieman Marcus and has many clients that she shops for. She presents the items she pulled from the story to her client in a private dressing room and they talk about style, color, taste, the season, anything. Claudia has been very good about building relationships with her clients through many years of service and friendship. Check out the story in the WSJ online. This story photographed in multiple cities and I was pleasantly surprised my friend Eli Meir Kaplan photographed the ‘super salesperson’ in Washington DC, check him out!
It’s really amazing how fast things change. Six months ago Gov. Rick Perry was a strong contender for the White House and what feels like overnight he’s disappeared from relevance in the Republican primary race. In August Perry tried to rally the conservative Christian right at an evangelical prayer event held at Reliant Arena in Houston. I was commissioned by Newsweek Magazine to photograph the rally, Perry and anything else of interest. People were really into their prayer and that’s what interested me most so I remember aggressively wandering around the floor of the stadium shooting what these people were passionate about. I tried to understand or atleast make a visual translation of what they were doing. Before the event I was pretty terrified of what might take place but it was a wake up call to a vast sector of the American population that I’m rarely exposed to in Austin’s liberal/apathetic/progressive bubble. The participants were fasting during the rally as a part of the Call to Prayer so there was no food to be found. This was a logistical nightmare for a working photographer so I came prepared with croissants from breakfast (I ate 4).
