Stories

“…I’m not breaking down, I’m breaking out. This is my last chance to lose control”
Ashley
June 22nd, 2010
Milwaukee, WI.

“I quit!”

That was the declaration I made to whoever was listening when I walked into the office in early 2010. Whatever the reason was, whether it be yet another canceled shoot by a flaky model or the stress brought up having to stir up all the feelings of loss and sadness that is the emotional foundation for the majority of my photography. It was probably a combination of the two. Maybe it was another reason? Whatever it was, in retrospect it was just another day that is the trials of me and my art.

On this particular day of declaration my audience was Ashley. Ashley and I formally met in August 2007, my first day at my new job after moving to Milwaukee. Ashley and I were assigned as “buddies” by our supervisors. See, where we worked together it is like you are alone in the middle of the ocean with a cramp. Everyone knows you shouldn’t swim without a buddy. That’s Ashley. At least that’s how I always looked at it. It’s also debatable which one of us is more obsessive compulsive. Maybe only one other person I’ve ever met (Brennan!) is more obsessive compulsive than Ashley and I. I also hold her in the highest regard. It probably stands to reason that I have a feeling that this story is going to be detailed, even by my standards.

Anyway, in response to my announcement that I was quitting photography, Ashley so very matter of factly states, “That’s too bad, I was going to ask you to take my picture.”

I’ve been coming to work and regaling my closest co-workers with tales of all my photographic adventures for years. Ashley was always the first to one to hear my stories and was always entertained by them. However, I never asked her to shoot and she never expressed any interest in being a subject for my photography. She even once described herself as a prude.

So when she told me that in response to me saying I was quitting, while it was unexpected, I just figured she was saying it in jest and I didn’t pay much mind to it initially. Nothing more was said.

A couple days into my retirement my thoughts kept coming back to what she said. Was she serious? I finally asked her about four days after she initially said it if she was serious or not. She said “If you don’t, I’m going to have Tom Julio take them.” Being aware of the reputation of this particular photographer I immediately ended my retirement and agreed to photograph her. I also wondered how the hell she even knew that name. The answer to that finally became clear in January 2011 but that’s another story not for here. I’m losing focus.

A few days later we were at a bar together when Ashley told me she had a dream about what our shoot was going to be. I still wasn’t entirely committed to the idea of shooting with her. While I am a strong advocate that it is up to an individual to decide for themselves what they want to do in their life, I am also a strong advocate for honest relationships. Ashley was in one at the time with a gentleman who I also considered a friend. He apparently was not supportive of this idea. All this put me in a bit of a pickle.
But for the sake of conversation I asked Ashley to describe her dream to me. At this point I still didn’t know what they hell we would shoot, if anything at all.

I fear I have said too much already, but I can’t begin to tell the story of this photograph without saying that her dream involved being tied up. It was an interesting dream to say the least and it left me a little challenged due to the awkwardness due to the logistics, my friendliness with her and the fact that photographing people tied up is not my style. 
But I told her I would think about it for awhile. Truth is I was just trying to buy time to continue wrestling with my moral dilemma that this whole situation was causing.

Let’s get on with the story of the photograph, shall we?…

A few weeks later Ashley and I go to a show I had in Madison Wisconsin. We go out to dinner where she casually mentions that she broke up with her boyfriend the day before. This woman is the queen of understating things. For someone who doesn’t get surprised easily, she has been shocking me with statements a lot lately.

One thing was clear, this turn of events put my dilemma to rest.

On June 19th Ashley came to work and described to me and our closest co-worker the bathroom in her new apartment. Black and white checkered floor, exposed brick walls, a large window and a free standing clawfoot bathtub. Our co-worker wasn’t aware that Ashley and I had been talking about shooting together at this point so I texted Ashley to tell her that she just described the bathroom that I’ve wanted to shoot in for years.
By text and within 8 feet of one another we planned the shoot for two days later.

Two days later, after work I followed her back to her place. The first thing we had to do as two people inflicted with OCD’s, was clean the bathroom.

This whole situation was awkward from the beginning to say the least. I’ve never known anyone personally for this long, two and a half years, before shooting them nude for the first time. Let alone in a bathroom. Once upon a time when I first started taking photographs someone seriously, a bathroom like this was high on my priority list of locations. But my photography has changed dramatically since that time. Bathrooms typically don’t express the moods and emotions I’m going for. I got a strong feeling that this whole situation was poorly thought out in advance. I could only assume that Ashley thought the same.

We pressed on for about 20 minutes before I decided to end this particular session and suggest that we go somewhere else to shoot the other idea that I had.

The other idea that I had was spawned a couple weeks earlier after our dream conversation at the bar involving her being tied up. I was trying to conceptualize a way to tie her up while at the same time not compromising the style and general aesthetic of my photography.

What I came up with was to tie Ashley to a piece of driftwood. The driftwood is a metaphor for being adrift at sea, helpless and alone. I imagined the clouds being dark and forebodingly ominous. The waves from the water would be splashing at the souls of her feet as she lie bound to the driftwood. As the viewer of the photograph you get the foreboding sense that between the brewing storm and the approaching high tide, this girl is helplessly facing certain death. But you are also left to wonder exactly how she got into this position in the first place.

Here is the thing, she did it to herself. Both literally and metaphorically Ashley tied herself to this driftwood. I mean, in reality, yes, I was the one who tied the knots, but in context of the story being told, the idea is that she bound herself to the driftwood as a way of atonement for the sins of her life. She was giving herself up to a higher power, that represented by the looming nature around her.
Not knowing what her fate would be, if she would survive this or not, she resigned her fate to something beyond her control. Whatever the outcome would be, she would be forced to live and die by it.

If you look closely at her right forearm, between the lashes of rope, you can see black lines. Those are tattoos. I’ve always been fascinated by those tattoos. I have recollections of the first time we went out to lunch together years earlier. I asked her about those tattoos and what they meant. She was vague about the specifics, but what I understood, it is actually the spaces between the solid black lines that wrap around her entire forearm that each serve as a reminder of the virtues that she lives by.
So when I conceived of this whole concept, I decided then that when I did tie her to the driftwood, I would have to loop the rope around her arm and wood enough times so that each space between the tattoos was bound by the rope.

If anyone else had been in this position, it would have been much easier as I only would have hand to make a single pass around the wrist. But whoever thinks for a second that I do anything easy doesn’t know anything about me.

I told her about this idea a few days earlier and she loved it. I already had purchased 30 feet of rope from the hardware stop and it was in the trunk of my car. So when I told her we were leaving the bathroom and going down to the beach to try and make this idea happen, we were ready.

I don’t like to manipulate my shoots too much. We walked a long way down this beach and passed numerous pieces of wicked looking driftwood. But I was determined to find one that was already in perfect position for what we wanted to shoot. That meant it had to be about 5.5 feet from where the waves were reaching. The surrounding sand had to be relatively free and clear of debris and excessive stones. If we didn’t find it, we wouldn’t shoot and we wouldn’t create the scene. It just needed to be. If it didn’t happen, we’ll come back another day and try again. That’s just how I am.

As it was, we found this location. With the risk that anyone can walk upon us at any time, she undressed and we figured out the position. I wanted a combination of her being relaxed and at peace, but also with some resistance and tension as her survival instincts start creeping in. I remember as she lie there and I bound her hands to the driftwood, I would tie the knots and ask her if they were too tight and confirm that she was relatively comfortable and OK. She responded with a statement that really caught me off guard. Not just what she said, but the tone in which she said; “It’s fine. I’m ok. I trust you.”, was really strange to me.

Also, it really should be appreciated the possibility of someone walking down the beach and coming upon this situation. You are on a relaxing early evening stroll down the beach when you come upon a guy tying a naked girl to a piece of driftwood. What would you do in that situation? Does your mind even allow you to see this situation as it is? 

That is how that shot came to be.

A couple days later I’m still thinking about what Ashley said to me and how she said it while I was tying her up when I suddenly had an epiphany. For about a year now I had been connecting with so many people who saw my photography as a way to not just express themselves, but use the experience as a way to gain some sort of control over themselves and certain aspects of their lives. Whether it be people trying to come to terms with anorexia, bulimia and the stresses and emotions of life, they were all seeking some sort of control and understanding. Here, with Ashley I realized this was the first time, at least that I was aware of, where I was shooting with someone who was trying to lose control. All the structure and rigid control that Ashley had been living with was the complete opposite of the Ashley that I tied to a piece of driftwood. It made the entire concept and story I had conceived valid. It made it all about her and not just the story I was telling.

I’m really proud to consider her as a friend. She is one of the very few people in my life who word I can rely on. She was also the only person who cried the night before I left Wisconsin.

I kinda feel like I should name this photograph “I quit” It was me coming in and saying I quit that led to this photograph and about a year later when I came into work again and vowed that I was going to quit something, she said “You can’t quit! You are the most tenacious person I’ve ever met.”
That statement has kept me going through a lot of situations this year. If I was ever stuck in the snowy wilderness somewhere with no food or drink and facing death, I swear those words would be my mantra. Those words will probably get me killed someday.

As it is, the words come from a song by the band Muse. I don’t know which song anymore. But it’s a line that I had already attached to this photo before I realized what the shoot symbolized, so I’m keeping it.

I’m confident I can keep this post relatively short.
Nearer the end of my tenure in Wisconsin I for started socializing more with Amanda. I knew her through mutual friends, but we never really connected.

My last night in Wisconsin, Saturday March 12^th, 2011, the brilliantly talented jazz band, The Jazz Orgy is playing The Jazz Estate in Milwaukee. I’m fortunate enough to be able to call each of these four guys friends and this show served as my official send off as I would be leaving Wisconsin “forever” first thing the next morning. Among the friends there to see me off and enjoy some masterful jazz was Amanda. 

Between the 2^nd and 3^rd set I’m sitting on the edge of the stage talking to Amanda and Jason. At this point I probably had about 6 or 7 glasses of vino when I looked to my far left and saw Christiana. To my near left was Ashley. I looked to my right and saw Sarah.
I turned back to Amanda and in my stupor I said to her, “Do you realize you are the only girl in this whole front row of tables that I haven’t photographed naked?” To which she replied; “I know, we should do something about that.”

Well, now she says something! Here I am less than 8 hours away from leaving Wisconsin forever. My car is already packed.

It’s June 1^nd or so. I’m driving somewhere between New Orleans and Austin Texas posting on Facebook that I’m coming back to Wisconsin for the Pearl Jam festival at Alpine Valley over Labor Day weekend. A day or two later Amanda writes me to say she still wants to shoot when I return, if I am interested.

On Saturday August 27^th she meets me in Madison Wisconsin and her and I take a drive up to Pewitt’s Nest in Baraboo. I’ve said it before, but I can’t say it enough, I love this spot on the map. By this point in the season the river is pretty shallow, but we made our way down river to this spot and started shooting.

At one point a man comes walking up. I ask Amanda if she has any concern. She said no. I asked the man if it bothered him at all. He said it’s just him and his teenage son passing through and they don’t care. So they just passed through as Amanda stood there naked.

That was one of only two photo shoots I did in the three weeks I was back in Wisconsin. As I type this that day was 3 months and 3 days ago. That seems like ages ago. Everything I’ve done this year seems like a lifetime ago. Hell, it seems like a different life. As I think about this I am starting to think there is a title for this picture somewhere.

Life is like this river… sometimes the river runs high, sometimes the river runs dry. But if you just go with the flow, you never know where it�����s going to take you. Yeah, I’m calling this one “Just go with it”.

“The Door in the Floor”
Sarah
February 27th, 2011
Oshkosh, WI.

In December 2010 I was at one of the Jazz Orgy shows at The Estate in Milwaukee. They would play The Estate roughly once every two or three months. In the three years I’d been living in Milwaukee I think I missed two of their performances there.

Every time they play I would try to invite as many people as I possibly could get to come see these guys play. It was so frustrating because very few ever did. I don’t know what it is. Is it personal? Is it because people hear the word jazz and run away from the entire genre? Why is it so difficult to get people I know to these shows. It was like having the answer to the universe written on a piece of paper in your pocket but no one wants to bother to read it.

I’ve known the saxophone player, Steve Cooper, for over 20 years, going back to high school. We even worked together at McDonald’s for awhile. People often give me credit for “living the dream” and following my passions. This is how I look at Steve Cooper. This guy eats sleeps and breathes two things. Music and cars. He knew what he wanted to do longer than I knew him and here he is doing it and making a living doing it.
That’s why I went to my first Jazz Orgy show; to see him play. I didn’t know anything about the other three guys in the band and I didn’t know anything about jazz. Gradually over the years I became a familiar face at each of the shows. I would exchange pleasantries with the other three guys in the band, but really that was about it.

Also during these three years there was almost always a girl there who would always show up a couple songs into the first set and sit near the pianist. I realized shortly that it was because she happened to be dating the pianist, Mark. Her name is Sarah.
It was likely for the fact that the pianist is her boyfriend, along with the fact that for the first two years I was going to these shows I was only drinking Coke and didn’t have the courage to ask her, and because I was going there to get lost in the music, not book photo shoots, I never asked Sarah to model for me. But I always wanted to.

That changed at the show in December 2010. As Wood was setting up his drums, he and I got to talking a little more than we usually did and the subject of my photography came up. I showed him a few samples of what I do off the portfolio I have on my telephone and it blew him away. He brought it to the attention of the bass player, Andy and it blew him away. Next thing you know, we’ve all got a rapport. After 3 years we finally establish a rapport over artistic nude photography. Go figure.

Between sets that night everyone is standing outside talking and without warning Wood turns to Sarah and asks her if she would pose nude for him. That got my drunk attention right away.

I don’t remember the exact answer she gave Wood, but she did not say no and she even alluded to the fact that she might have some previous experience modeling nude.

A few minutes later we are back in the club and I go up to her and show her my photos and finally ask her. She expresses appreciation for my art, says she is flattered that I would ask her and agrees that we should discuss this further once I’m sober and we are out of this noisy bar.

We exchange a few emails after that, I run some ideas by her, but I can tell she is sort of on the fence about all of it. Trying to find that balance between offering encouragement and support, but not coming across as being forceful, we keep emailing back and forth, but we are not really able to gain much momentum.

About a month later, in a turn of impossibly good fortune, I get laid off from my job. I have 1.5 months before I move into my car and start traveling and I decide to spend as many weeknights as possible driving 80 miles north of Milwaukee to the Oshkosh and Appleton area to see The Jazz Orgy play up there. For years they’ve had residence gigs in that area that I’ve never been able to attend do to having to work.

So I start going up there once or twice a week to see them, visit with some old friends and try to establish a stronger connection with Sarah so as to help her decide definitively if she wants to shoot or not.

Her previous modeling experience has been for figure drawing in college. She is on the fence with all of this because of how much more personal photos are than a drawing. She is also talking to a few people trying to get their opinions and thoughts. Some are saying go for it, others are telling her not to do it.

One Wednesday night her and I are sitting at Beckett’s restaurant in Oshkosh watching The Jazz Orgy when I woman comes up to Sarah to say hello. They are talking for a few minutes before Sarah introduces us and tells us that we have something in common, we are both artists. This woman, whose name I don’t remember, asked what it is that I do. I told her I photograph naked people in public places. Her next question is a relatively common one that I get, but the place in this conversation that it showed up caught me off guard. “Do you shoot film or digital?” she asked. I reluctantly went digital about 3 years ago” I responded. She threw up her hand and said “This conversation is over” as she spun around and started walking away.

My immediate reaction was anger and how quickly she passed judgment and disregard. I quickly stopped her before she got too far away and politely as I could ask her if she had actually just judged me and my art that quickly. She said she had without any hint of remorse in her facial expression. I then told her I have a couple copies of the book I just published on hand and asked her if she would at least consider looking at what I do before she pass judgment so quickly. She agreed and I handed her a book.

After thumbing through a couple pages of my book she asks if she can take it to the bar area and show a few people. Thirty minutes later she brings it back. As she hands it to me she says “That’s some really good work you have there.” I notice she wouldn’t make eye contact with me as she said that. The tone in her voice was different also. I could tell her opinion had changed and her compliments were sincere. I was still a little creased over her initial attitude, but…

As she walked away an older gentleman came up behind her, put the palms of his hands together like he was praying and slightly bowed to me in appreciation of my photography. While I was flattered by the gesture, it was maybe a little too much.

Sarah then leans towards me and tells me that that woman is highly regarded in the Oshkosh art community and it’s a real acknowledgement that she like my photography. It’s all still a little bittersweet for me.

A moment later another gentleman approaches me from the bar. He asks if the books are for sale and if so, will I sign a copy for him. He throws down $55 cash and I sign a book for him. He walks away and Sarah again leans towards me and this time tells me that gentleman who just bought the book from me is the woman’s father and he is even more highly regarded in the Oshkosh art community than his daughter. That I could fully appreciate.

I don’t know for certain, but I always thought that Sarah witnessing that whole incident was the validation she needed in deciding to shoot with me. After that night there was no more indecision.

All we had to do now was come up with an idea.

There is a Jeff Bridges movie from the early 2000’s called ‘The Door in the Floor’. His character is a free-spirited children’s book author. He is going through a divorce and the movie is about the trials of coping with this life changing event. I always liked this movie even before I learned how to relate to it.

As a hobby Jeff Bridges character likes to draw nude models in his home studio.
This comes up in conversation at a party at one point in the movie. Someone asks him what the point of nudity is;


“If nakedness, the feeling of nakedness, is what a nude must convey, there’s no nakedness that compares to what it feels like to be naked in front of someone for the first time.”


I’ve had these words in my head for years trying to figure out how to use them in a photograph. My hang-up has always been that I wanted to capture the genuine moment and expression the first time that someone appears nude before me. To complicate matters further, somehow these words need to be drawn on the nude body without compromising that initial moment. It’s impossible.

But I was reminded of this passage and the hesitation that it suggests by Sarah’s indecision and nervousness about it. The whole similarity regarding life drawing between Sarah and the movie is incidental, but not without notice.
The night before I left Wisconsin, after The Jazz Orgy show, Sarah, Mark and I sat in Marks car and had some tacos down the road from The Estate. I can’t forget that.

It was two days before Thanksgiving, 2009 when I met Karina. It was a bittersweet return to San Francisco for me. My last time there was also during much happier times over Thanksgiving 2004.

I checked into The Greenwich Inn on Steiner St., just off Lombard Ave. in the early afternoon. It was planned for Karina to meet me at the hotel and then go do a shoot right away. I looked out my window as she pulled into the parking lot. I went down to meet her and she ran across the parking lot, jumped on me, gave me a hug and said “Welcome to San Francisco!”

The next two days we shot numerous times and each time generates a story worth writing about here. But I’m going to save those for another time.

A year and a half later, Wednesday July 20^th, 2011 I’m in Las Vegas. I just arrived the day prior for what was supposed to be seven days in Vegas. I had not had a shoot since June 29^th in Denver. I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. I was tired of being in the oppressive desert heat and eager to go to the ocean in hopes of finding that inspiration to shoot again. That’s when I got a call from Karina asking me when I was finally going to arrive in San Francisco. She told me she has barely shot, if at all, since the last time I was there, but she was in shape and ready for me. She even asked for a couple of days off of work and said she had two primary ideas. To shoot nudes on the streets in the middle of the day and that we could perhaps travel outside of San Francisco for some inspiration in locations.

It is spirited people like Karina who can match or exceed my ambitions that I am most drawn to collaborating with. The conversation I had with her that day was the deciding factor for me to get out of Las Vegas and get to California. Later that day I left for San Diego and up the west coast.

Finally, on August 8^th, Karina moved into my car for a couple of days and we drove to Yosemite National Park. We arrived in Yosemite later that day only to discover that we had grossly underestimated the amount of tourists we would have to contend with and the lack of affordable accommodations. The cheapest motel room we could find was $150/night. One place even quoted me $230/night. Eventually around midnight we just gave up looking and I drove into a campgrounds. We found an empty site and I parked the car there.
With the risk of being found out that we were unofficially camping without a paying any fees or having any permits loomed while we say at the picnic table talking about this and that under the stars. We went back to the car after a bit and Karina had to go to the bathroom, but we had unsettled our nerves with the thoughts of bears so she was a little hesitant to get out of the car. It was about at that moment I heard a noise outside the car and turned the headlights on to see what was out there. We were both startled when at that very moment the headlights shone on a dog that was passing in front of the car.

We had a good laugh about that.

The next day we explored Yosemite, shot at the base of the second largest waterfall in the park and eventually made our way to the Giant Sequoia’s. We found a lot of great trees to shoot with, but each one was just to exposed to tourists. Had there been no children, we just might have taken the shots anyway, but…

We did find one tree that was large enough and at the right angle that allowed us to get some shots despite people being relatively close. Getting away with that I think boosted our confidence and nerves so that when we found the tipped over tree in this photograph, we were better prepared.

At 4’10”, Karina is the smallest person I��ve ever photographed. Quite possibly she also has more life in her than just about anyone I’ve ever met. I thought it an interesting dichotomy in this photograph that we have one of the oldest, largest trees on the planet, fallen over and rotting while from its roots hangs someone so small, so young and so alive. I imagine almost that the tree had just tipped over and when it did, there was Karina. She had been down there, hidden from the world all this time but now was finally set free.

“All that lives, dies”.

“Here I stand before you, naked and without illusion”
Allegra
May 15th, 2010
Milwaukee, WI.

It was April 23^rd, 2010 the first time I received an email from Allegra expressing interest in shooting with me. She was relatively new to modeling and had never done any nudes before. In fact, according to her profile, she had no intention of ever shooting nudes. I had to question her on that up front to avoid any awkward confusion. She responded “I looked through your portfolio, and you presented the nude body as art, not as a centerfold. I would be interested in working with you because I feel that your work has integrity and is beautiful, which is very different from a lot of the portfolios I have seen.”

We met a couple days later and talked about things. The next day we had a shoot. A week or two after that on Saturday May 15^th, 2010 this photograph were taken.
This was during what I’ve come to refer to as the best weekend of the entire year for me. The rest of the weekend will be written about another time. For now, this photograph…

You may have noticed from a previous post a self-portrait of me sitting in front of a wall with the words “Waiting for something beautiful” painted on it. I painted those words on that wall in an abandoned building just east of the Third Ward in Milwaukee the week before. I had a shoot scheduled that day and whoever it was with canceled on me last minute, so instead of wasting the inspiration, I turned it into that self-portrait. A week later Allegra comes to Milwaukee to shoot with me and I decide to return to this building to see if we can come up with any ideas using that wall and those words.

As you walk out through the door of this abandoned building there is at least a one to two foot high step. I climb out the door and turn around to give Allegra a hand if she needs one. As she stepped up and braced herself on the side of the door with her arms, that is when I saw the pose that you see in the photograph. We immediately took the shot and she put her sundress back on.

Moments later at the end of the alley way we were in between these two abandoned buildings, a squad car drives past, sees us, slams on the breaks and backs up. I walk over to greet him. He first asks me what is in the bag. I show him the bottom half where my cameras are. He then wants to know what is in the top half. I open that up and show him miscellaneous photography supplies. Extra battery, charger, pop-up reflector, etc… What he failed to see was the bottle of acrylic paint and paint brush covered in dried black paint that I used the weekend before to write the words on that wall just a few yards away from where we now stood.

Where and how do I even begin to talk about everything that this photograph is? How can my words ever do justice to the meaning(s) behind this photograph?

I previously wrote about a photograph called “Wake me when the day breaks”. Three people lying in the road in front of the Chicago Theatre. This photograph was taken about an hour after that one. The girl to the left in front of the Chicago Theatre is the girl you see in this photograph.

The five of us, (Myself, Carrie, Elan, Candace and Elan’s boyfriend) found ourselves later that morning walking along the shore of Lake Michigan behind the Planetarium. The water was actually very clear considering it was Lake Michigan. It was deep enough that you couldn’t stand up, yet you could clearly see the bottom.
The sun was already breaking over the lake and it was quite active in the area with joggers and bicyclists steadily passing us from all directions when I only half heartedly suggested if anyone wanted to do a shoot here and now, we should. Carrie didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even have my camera ready. She undressed and jumped in.

A few minutes later I remembered that for whatever reason, I had a 9ft long piece of clingy white material in my backpack. When I went to get it I already was starting to visualize the shot that I wanted.
I threw the material to Carrie as the rest of us remained on the jogging path watching her as she manipulated the material through the water. Eventually with some slight suggesting of how I wanted her to interact with the material, she finally starts creating what you see in the photograph. I started shooting.

A few days later I’m at home editing photos from this shoot. As is customary when I edit photos, I’m listening to music. During this particular session I happened to be listening to Pearl Jam’s first album, ‘Ten’. As is also customary with many of my photographs, I will use lyrics from my favorite songs as captions to my photographs.

This photograph resonated with me immediately upon seeing it. I was instantly hit with a wave of song lyrics and words that could potentially equal what I was seeing visually. In particular were a set of words that while they seemed appropriate to the context of the photograph, I failed to have a personal connection between the lyrics and the image. I needed that in order to justify attaching the two together. I set it aside and allowed myself to this about it for awhile.

A couple days later I received an email from Carrie. Rather than try to explain it in my words, I’ve decided to copy her email here.

The lyrics that I wanted to attach to this photograph, but couldn’t justify doing so because I couldn’t relate to them, were from the last song on Pearl Jam’s first album, ‘Release’.

The song is unquestionably one of the most personal that Eddie Vedder has ever written. It is basically a letter written to his dead father whom Eddie never knew. His father was in his own right an accomplished musician from Chicago.

The lyrics themselves that I wanted to use were;

I shortened it down to just ‘Release me’ for practical reasons.

The story to this photograph continues. It’s still actually being written. Someday I hope this story has a happy ending. When it does, I’ll tell you all about it.

I have never taken a more optimistic photograph that this one.

I went through some challenging times in 2009 and 2010. During this time I really only had two things that got me through it. Music and my photography. With regards to my photography, in early 2009 I subconsciously had started photographing people as an expression of myself. The poses became more withdrawn and fetal. The models were all anonymous. I started really being drawn to abandonment, claustrophobic spaces, wide open spaces, remote areas of nature…
I’ve mentioned it a few times in previous posts already, but really to begin to understand the truth in my photography, it needs to be viewed as self-portraits. The anonymous shapes in the photographs should be viewed as me. Withdrawn, broken poses in overwhelming locations of abandonment or space. Vulnerable on the streets. My personal understanding of the idea of trying to blend the beauty of the human form into the surrounding beauty of the world was born as a metaphor for the struggles I was having of trying to find where I fit in in the world.

All of this just started happening through my photography.
When I recognized this and accepted myself for the first time as an artist, that’s when things changed for me. Once I put this out into the world, people started finally noticing. They responded to the emotions in my photographs. They recognized the familiarity between what I was creating and their own emotions and trials in their lives. People started seeking me out wanting to shoot with me. People who had never modeled before. People who had until seeing my photographs, had modeled, but never nude. People who previously wanted to model, but couldn’t because of their profession recognized the anonymity they could have without compromising my artistic integrity and jeopardizing their career. I can go on and on about how the doors opened up for me when I found confidence in what I was doing with my art.

                   “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
                                                                -Charles Dickens

As my art became stronger and the response to it greater, on the inside, emotionally, I was empty. Lifeless. I was of the mind that if you wanted what you were creating to truly be genuine and authentic, you needed to live the art. If you expressed pain and sadness, you sure as hell better know what pain and sadness feels like, or it’s not the truth. Truth and honesty are important to me. During this time more than ever.
To assure that what I was expressing through my art, I lived it. I kept myself isolated, lonely, desperate. I built up walls, became detached from the world around me. Shy’d away from relationships of out fear of having to compromise my photography. The more I did this, the better my art became and the stronger the response to it.

It was around the time of this photograph that I started coming to my senses. That my photography had become the worst thing for me. I had dug myself so deep into a hole of my sadness and emotions and had been using the accolades and admiration for my photography as a substitute for real human interaction. I was emotionally drained.

I asked Heather to stand at the very end of this piece of driftwood and lean into it. I wanted to take a photograph of her at the precipitous of flight. I recognized it for the incredible photograph that it would make if I was able to capture it. I got it in the very first shot.

What I hadn’t planned on, was when I looked at the photograph on the camera seconds after taking it, was the feelings I would have. I knew the moment I took it that it was the most optimistic photograph I’d ever taken.

Imagine it like this. Imagine your soul is a flame buried deep inside you. Imagine all around your soul is darkness. That darkness is about to extinguish the flame permanently. Then something happens and that flame re-ignites and in a sudden flash, it explodes and pushes back the darkness.

That is this photograph.

I wish I was better skilled with words to better explain it. I probably should have picked a different photograph to get started writing first thing in the morning.

This is how I wanted to live. I wanted to be the explosion. I wanted to be the super nova.

I said to myself, I’ve had two things in my life the last two years get me this far. Music and my photography. What is my third passion in life? What’s going to take me to the next phase in my life. Four days later, on September 13th I officially stopped shooting. I went on hiatus. I realized I need to get out of Wisconsin. I needed to travel. See the world. My third passion. 
I started saving money, getting my affairs in order, selling and giving away my possessions, tying up loose ends and finally, as most of you who read this are already aware, I left Wisconsin 6 months later to the day, on March 13th, 2011.

Rock n Roll, Photography and The Road.

So… why the title “Given To”?

It should be no secret to anyone that I am an unabashed fan of Pearl Jam. They have a song of musical and lyrical brilliance called “Given To Fly”. With what I know that song means to me and what this photograph means to me, along with how I understand the music to mean to Mike McCready and the words to Eddie Vedder, naming my photograph after that song makes perfect sense to me.

The music captures the feeling of the photograph. The feeling of flying. The lyrics are about the evolution of Eddie as a human being who found his voice through music. Upon discovering his voice, he spoke to millions. The life he gave to them, they gave back to him and that carried him.

It’s the same thing with me and my art. The symbiotic relationship between me and the people I create with. We share the experiences and help one another. Albeit, on a much smaller scale than Pearl Jam has accomplished. But I’m not done yet.


“Given to Fly” 

He could’ve tuned in, tuned in

But he tuned out
A bad time, nothing could save him
Alone in a corridor, waiting, locked out
He got up outta there, ran for hundreds of miles
He made it to the ocean, had a smoke in a tree
The wind rose up, set him down on his knee

A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw
Delivered him wings, “Hey, look at me now”
Arms wide open with the sea as his floor
Oh, power, oh

He’s.. flying
Whole
High.. wide, oh

He floated back down ‘cause he wanted to share
His key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere
But first he was stripped and then he was stabbed
By faceless men, well, fuckers
He still stands

And he still gives his love, he just gives it away
The love he receives is the love that is saved
And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky
A human being that was given to fly

High.. flying
Oh, oh
High.. flying
Oh, oh
He’s flying
Oh, oh

“Road, you've gotta take me home”
Jessica
April 4th, 2011
Ottawa Ontario Canada

It’s always been a good time making fun of Canadians. Meeting Jessica made that difficult to continue doing.

I rolled into Canada through upstate New York early on April 3rd. I had some issues with the Canadian border patrol right from the start that really gave me a rotten first impression. From the border I had to take a bit of a roundabout way to getting up to the middle of nowhere. And when I say middle of nowhere, I almost really do mean the middle of nowhere. Since then I have genuinely been in some places I could recognize as being in the middle of nowhere, but this was pretty remote.

Jess lives in an apartment above a garage on her parents horse ranch aboot (yeah, I said it!) one hour west of Ottawa and six hours east of Toronto. To get to her house you have to travel on a couple miles on pothole filled gravel roads with sometimes poorly visible and confusing street signs, if any signs at all. Good luck if you need to get there at night, there are no streetlamps and the fog can get pretty thick. A telephone signal? ha! Forget about it. One night, maybe my second night there, I got hungry and decided to go to the nearest town for a bite. I made the drive before a couple days the two days previous. It seemed simple enough. A left out the driveway, your first right, when you can’t go straight anymore, turn left. Follow the winding road a way and when you see the construction barricades, bear right. At the stop sign turn left and you are in the town. Just do the same thing in reverse to get back. psshh!
I almost gave up for the night, parked the car on the side of the road and was going to fall asleep until sunrise. Somehow I managed to navigate through these country roads essentially blind and recognize the driveway only as I was passing it at 5mph, (whatever that is in kilometers?)

Anyway, when I first arrived at Jess’s house two days earlier, no one was there, just horses and dogs and cats. She had told me simply to arrive and let myself into her apartment above the garage. She was at work.

There was no cable television, no internet signal I could connect to. I started questioning whether I was going to make it out of this situation alive. I don’t remember what I did to keep myself pre-occupied, but eventually Jess got home.
Shortly afterward her boyfriend Ryan came over and the three of us went out for dinner in that aforementioned little town a couple miles away. I had the lasagna.

Jess fixed up her bed for me while she stayed at either Ryans house or her parents house, I can’t remember exactly and I guess it’s both none of my business and irrelevant anyway, just like the fact I had lasagna for dinner.

The next couple of days are all kinda vague to me. I think I stayed there three nights. I think the first morning Jess took me on a muddy hike through her backyard where we found some trees planted in long straight rows. I’d been kinda obsessed over finding a forest like this for some time now. Even more so since a meeting with someone who wanted to shoot with me and her story and reason behind wanting to shoot with me sparked an idea that was perfect for a location like this, only to back out on me just an hour before we were to meet and shoot it two months before in Wisconsin.
We took a few beautiful shots in these trees, one of which is floating around in my portfolio if you took the time to look.
Then we drove around some more. I remember she took me to a woods with a river and an old stone house along side it. I remember some signs warning us of brown bears and black bears and what to do if you come across one. I think one you are suppose to stand your ground, maybe make some noise and look big. The other one you are suppose to slowly back away. I read the sign intently but then promptly forgot within five minutes. Fortunately, we never saw a bear of any color.
Oh yes, then we stumbled upon this tiny little shack with a loft. It was nice. I thought with a little fixing up and some music I could fit right in. I also remember over analyzing to death how I could justify asking Jess to strip down in the cold Canadian winter just to shoot here. I couldn’t find anything and we moved on.

I think it was the next day, maybe that same day, she drove us into Ottawa. There was some potential for locations there if it were a more appropriate time of day, but sadly those ideas never materialized. We stopped for pizza at some nice pizza joint and I recall being a bit on the comical side during that time.

We drove back towards her house, still unsure about what we were going to do for a shoot. Nothing was jumping out at me in the middle of nowhere. It was cold and wet, the fog was heavy and just gave everything this dull grey foreboding feel to it.

I think I made the comment that we should shoot on the highway. That led to us exiting the highway in what I thought was just some random spot. Ahead of us was a pretty engaging scene of road and fog. We decided to pull the car over right there on the side of the road and have a shoot. It was about 5:00pm.
Jess undressed in the car while I stood in the middle of the road trying to gauge traffic patterns. I have no idea how many false starts we had where I would say we were clear only to have a car come around the corner a moment later just as Jess was about to get out of the car. She got out there a couple times and we had about 30 seconds to a minute at a time. (I think that’s about 45-80 seconds in Canadian.)

On this shot we were shooting for a bit. We were actually pretty comfortable with the timing and I found myself doing something I had haven’t really done much of in the last few years. Not concealing the models identity.

I became aware of the truck coming up behind Jess in the background and recognized that it would be pretty cool with the lights. I told her it was approaching and that she should continue to keep doing what she was doing as long as she had the nerve to do so and I would keep shooting. The truck ended up getting about twice as close to us as it is in this photograph before she ran back to the car. 

Afterwards we start driving back to her house. It was only then did I realize that we were actually just a few country blocks away from her house. Not only that, her father was due home from work shortly and apparently takes the same road home that we were just shooting on. I was a bit startled to learn that we could have been out in the middle of the road and any of those cars that clearly were close enough to see a naked girl running across the street could have been her father. It didn’t seem to phase her at all.

A couple days later I made my way to Toronto for a few days. Due to a series of cancellations and my first distress over finances that led to me for the first time questioning why I’m doing this. Having the loneliness really hit me and then spending 14hrs walking the streets of Toronto because I had nowhere else to go, I started driving back to Jess’s place at 2:00AM. I need that comfort and familiarity that her place had so quickly became for me. I texted her to tell her I’d like to come back for a half day. That I would either be there when she woke up, or I’d arrive after she left for work and be there when she returned. She got the text before work and welcomed be back any time I arrived.

I made it two hours before I started falling asleep at the wheel. I pulled over at a rest stop, slept two hours and drove the rest of the way to her place.

The next day I left early for Montreal.

Jessica is awesome. One of the coolest, kindest people I met on a road trip full of cool and kind people. Even if all she knows how to make is a grilled cheese sandwich and her parents house is filled with so much horse stuff that it borders on madness. 

“The Bronze Fonz and the Real Work of Art”
Diane
May 1st, 2010
Milwaukee, WI.

My photography is many many things to me. Far too many to list and to special to put into words. The course that my photography has led me through my life perhaps takes no stranger turn towards improbability and chance encounter than it does with this photograph.

It’s hard to write anything about a picture with Diane in it and not really talk much about Diane. This story is however going to have to be one of those times. It’s just too much to talk both about her and about everything else in one post. She deserves her own story anyway.

This story begins a year and a half earlier. August 19th, 2008 to be precise. That was the day I took off of work and parked myself along side the Milwaukee river in the alleyway behind the Riverside Theatre beginning at 11:00AM with hopes of finally getting a chance to meet Eddie Vedder. He was playing at the Riverside Theatre that night and right now I’m practically breaking my fingers not to get into a long story about Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. That too is well documented and for another time.

As I am sitting outside the theatre, across the river they are unveiling this new statue. That of Henry Winkler as The Fonz from the 70’s TV show, Happy Days. There was a lot of controversy about this statue, “The Bronz Fonz” as it came to be known. Originally they wanted to put the statue in The Third Ward. A trendy full of itself area of Milwaukee that 15 years ago was just abandoned warehouses. They argued that their area was all about art and not pop culture. Some store owners apparently even threatened to move their businesses elsewhere if the city went through with putting this statue in the Third Ward.

This led to the statue being placed along side the Milwaukee River opposite of where I was camped out for the afternoon. It just so happened that the big unveiling of this statue fell on the same day that I was there to observe it from a distance.

A lot of people where there. Henry Winkler himself was there, as were a couple other members of Happy Days, excluding of course Ron Howard. I watched from a far with a slight bit of spite over the fact that this statue was getting so much attention while just across the river it was just myself and no more than a half dozen other obsessive nuts there to see the greatest vocalist and lyricist ever. (To steal a line from Craig Ferguson, ‘I welcome your letters.’)

After that day there and over the course of the rest of the year, I was stopped by random people on the streets no less than six times asking me to direct them to The Bronze Fonz. It finally crossed the line when while on my way to lunch one afternoon, an attractive girl flagged me down from across the street. For a brief moment of grandeur, I thought she was going to ask me, “Are you that brilliant nude photographer and would you take my photograph?” Instead as it turns out, she was a rock star in a band playing the Pabst Theatre that night and was fresh off the tour bus.

While swearing to myself I politely pointed her in the right direction and went about my lunch hour. I decided at that point that I would end the controversy surrounding this statue by shooting a nude with it and making some art out of it once and for all.

A couple days later, almost as a side thought, Diane and I, along with her boyfriend Kanoa, decided to shoot with The Bronze Fonz. The result is of course what you are looking at above. I never thought too much of it. It wasn’t the sort of photograph that had a place in my portfolio. Fortunately however, I thought it comical enough to put it in a portfolio of photographs on my telephone.

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon, April 20th, 2011. I’m strolling down Charles Ave. in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. I’m charmed by this area of Boston. It’s my favorite area of the city other than maybe the time I was there in 2006 with Anna when we were walking around the city the same night that The Rolling Stones where opening their US tour in Fenway Park. The Stones could be heard echoing throughout the part of the city that we were walking around in.

Anyway, it’s 2011 and I’m back in Boston. Charles Ave., Beacon Hill. I walk past a Starbucks when a gentleman with white hair and a yellow jacket walks out and is walking along side me. I do a double take before asking him if he is Henry Winkler.

“Yes”, he cordially replies.
“Can I show you a photograph?” I ask him nervously as I try to process that this is really happening.
He seems a little caught of guard by that question when he responds something like “Usually people want to have their picture taken with me, not show me a picture.” But he somewhat reluctantly agrees, obviously a bit hesitant because who knows what this wacko on the street is going to show him a picture of.

I bring up the photograph of Diane and The Bronz Fonz and hand him the phone. That stops him dead in his tracks and he says to me, “I’ve got a huge collection of photographs that people have sent to me over the years. I can say for certain that no one has ever sent me a photograph like this before. If I give you my email address, will you send me a copy?”

“Absolutely!” I said.

I took down his email address and at that moment a woman’s voice called to him from a stairwell. We said goodbyes with a hand shake and I immediately went around the corner, sat on a step and, first I posted about it on Facebook for posterity purposes, then I wrote a summarized version of this entire story and told him the photograph never would have been taken had it not been for a bit of spite I had for that statue. I attached the photograph and I sent it.

Sad to say, thus far, I have never heard back from Henry Winkler.
A month or two after that I was up late in a dirty motel room somewhere on my travels watching Craig Ferguson when Henry Winkler was a guest. I allowed myself to imagine that I had made enough of an impact on him that maybe he would mention the incident. At one point during the interview Mr. Winkler said he wanted to share something with Craig. My heart skipped a little bit thinking maybe it would be this photograph.

It wasn’t. 

“There is an art to living with the pain”
Lisa
June 27th, 2010
Pewitt’s Nest, Baraboo WI.

Friday May 14th, 2010 was a milestone night for me. I’ve mentioned this night and this weekend in previous posts. I’ve labeled this particular weekend as the best in all of 2010, and this particular night key to that.

That was the night of my second exhibition in as many months at The Inferno Nightclub in Madison WI. The previous show I had four photos on display. This time around I had 14 photographs matted framed and hanging prominently on the walls throughout the venue. My friend Lesley was there in support the whole night and the reception I received for my artwork that night was overwhelming. In total that night, I sold thirteen prints. I outsold everyone else who participated in the show. In fact, I think that night alone, if you added up every print I ever sold before and after that night, I still sold more in that one night than I ever had before.
It was a special and humbling night for me.
But it didn’t end there. In addition to selling so many prints, three people approached me about wanting to do a shoot with me that night, and I approached a fourth person at the end of the night who I noticed hours earlier and just played it cool until the time was right.

It was late in the evening. The last band was playing, maybe less than an hour to go in the evening. I had a few glasses of wine and was having a good time mingling of all things in the back when Dan, the event organizer tracked me down and asked me to watch after the merchandise table for the last hour. I didn’t want to, but what was I going to do?
As I’m sitting there, this gal who I had my eye on all night long comes up to the merchandise table and starts thumbing through a binder of abstract glossy 4x6 photos. I couldn’t tell what they were through drunken eyes looking at them upside down, and I’m not sure I could have figured out what they were pictures of if I was sober and looking at them right side up either.
I thought to myself, why is this beautiful girl wasting her time looking at these dumb little pictures when she could actually BE in one of my big beautiful pictures. So I leaned over and I asked her if she would have any interest in modeling for me and I gestured towards my photos. She said she would take a look after she finished buying some of these little snapshots.
A few minutes later we transacted some cash and she turned her attention to my portfolio. She barely looked at them. Maybe 6 or 7 photos before she looks up at me and gestures for a pen and paper. I hook her up and she writes down her name, telephone number and email address. She hands it back to me and smiles. The band was really loud so if any words were exchanged during all of this, I didn’t hear them. But I tell you what, I felt like a champion after that. If only it was always that easy.

But guess what. This post isn’t about that girl. Nope! It’s about another girl I met that night. Lisa.

While I was sitting at the merchandise table, my old friend Lesley brings a girl up to me and introduces her. She says this is Lisa and she maybe wants to model for you. 

From my understanding, the story unfolded very basically like this…
Lesley makes eye contact with guy. Guys girl wonders why Lesley is making eyes with her guy and they start talking. Turns out that girls name is Lisa and both girls are keen on sailing. So they start talking. Somewhere in the conversation my photography becomes the topic and Lesley points to the photograph of her hanging on the wall right behind her. Lisa says she has never done anything like this before, but has interest. Lesley brings Lisa to drunken me behind the merchandise table.

Ta Da! Fate!

End of day one of the best weekend of the year.

The following weekend I return to Madison and have a shoot with both of these girls that I met while sitting at the merchandise table that I didn’t want to be sitting at in the first place. Neither one of them has ever modeled before, let alone nude. Lisa and I shot in a stone quarry somewhere in Madison. It was good, but I recognized we could do much much better. She is just one of those rare people I meet who with no experience is just so natural in front of the camera.

A couple weeks later I return to Madison once again for a planned shoot with Lisa. This time I am taking her up to my favorite place in all of Wisconsin, Pewitt’s Nest, near Baraboo.

At this location you have to walk through about 1/2 mile of woods to get to the top of this river. You go down a path to the river and get it. Once in the water, you can walk downstream in water ranging anywhere from ankle deep to eighteen feet deep in one area. On both sides of the river are about 20-30ft high, moss covered cliffs. Along the way there are four small waterfalls. We started at the first.

We went down about a 1/4 mile of the total length of the river that day. I’d say her and I were in this river at least two, maybe three hours that day. She left her clothes in a pile on the side of the river with no care at all of being seen. And to our knowledge during this entire shoot, we were alone.

There is a lot to be said about this photograph. It’s pretty awesome. I’m more often pretty humble and will be the first to criticize something in my photos or point out how something could be different. Not with this photograph. I absolutely unabashedly love this photograph.

I love it for the fact that it marks the one year anniversary of when I took the photograph titled “Decided what to be and go be it” which changed the course of my life and photography.

I love it for the fact that I was in that river a week or so earlier and again the following week and either the water level in that spot was either too high and the rapids to rough to accomplish that, or the water level was too low to accomplish it. Whatever way you look at it, I was there with the absolutely right person at the absolute best time. Anything different and this photograph never would have been created. That to me creates a masterpiece every time.

I also love this photograph because I regard it as being 18 years in the making. From the very first time I bought a camera because Lesley said she would pose nude for me, through all those years, the highs and lows of our friendship together, everything put her in that nightclub that night and brought her and Lisa together, which brought Lisa and I together. This photograph has all that history ingrained into it.

And I love this photograph simply because it reminds me to go with the flow.

A strange side note to this story. Once Lisa and I made out way back to the car, I found a yellow post-it note stuck to my car window. I still have it, in fact it is right here next to me as I write this so that I be certain to get the wording accurate. It reads;

“I HOPE YOUR PHOTOS TURN OUT. SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO WALK UP ON YOU TWO.”

Apparently we were not as alone as we thought we were.

I’ve been fortunate enough to continue to stay in contact with Lisa. She even met me at the bar with the best name in Madison, The Weary Traveler, during those couple weeks I returned home between travels this past September.