Liz Kuball Photography

Will and Zoe

Melanie McWhorter at photo-eye just helped me change my order of two copies of Zoe Strauss’s America from unsigned (all that was available when I placed my order) to signed (which they’re now offering). Hell yeah, I want signed. One copy for me, one copy for S. for Hanukkah.

If you’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of your copy, be sure to check out Will Steacy’s fantastic interview with Ms. Strauss at photo-eye magazine.

Labels: books, interviews, Melanie McWhorter, photographers, S., Will Steacy, Zoe Strauss

Blinds

If it weren’t for the constant hum of the helicopters overhead—and the memory of being evacuated, spending the night at the beach, and watching houses and hillsides burn within half a mile of my house—I wouldn’t have a clue that there was a fire raging in the foothills.

I am intently focused on the sound that my blinds make as the dry, hot, Santa Ana winds blow through.

Labels: fires, Santa Ana winds, weather

Collect this: think-make-think

Snagged one of these to hang over my desk. Get one for yourself here.

Labels: 20x200, artists, Clifton Burt, collect this, prints

All you need is love

When I was 17 and came to California for the first time on a family vacation, I was overwhelmed—Los Angeles was impossibly big, the coast was more beautiful than anything I’d seen, San Francisco was cooler than I would ever be, and the redwoods made me realize for the first time how immeasurably small I was. I loved it, I hated it, I wanted to never leave, and I yearned for home.

Years later, I moved to California as so many had before me, knowing no one, and yet having the sense that, in California, things would be different. The Midwest had felt hemmed in and limited to me. California, though . . . California was wide open. Anything and everything was possible there.

So when, on November 4, it became clear that this state that was more than a state but a dream for me had voted to restrict the rights of its citizens, I was stunned. Florida? Sure. Arizona? Of course. But California? This single vote has called into question so much of what I’ve always believed about this place.

We don’t have to lay down, though. We can fight back, with a multitude of voices a thousand times louder than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. If you’re not convinced that Proposition 8 matters, watch this video. And then sign the petition (here). Join the Courage Campaign, because, in the end, courage always wins out over ignorance and fear.

We are better than this, California.

Labels: California, politics

I’m in Fraction

I’m pleased to be a part of the current issue of Fraction Magazine (Issue 4, November 2008). You can see my work in Typologies: A Group Show, alongside my friends Rachel Barrett, Chris Mottalini, Tamir Sher, and Verner Soler, among others.

The magazine also features work from the always amazing Richard Renaldi, along with Adrienne Salinger, David Eisenlord, Suzanne Révy, and Norman Mauskopf. Check it out.

Labels: Adrienne Salinger, Chris Mottalini, David Eisenlord, Fraction Magazine, magazines, Norman Mauskopf, photographers, Rachel Barrett, self-promotion, Suzanne Révy, Tamir Sher, Verner Soler

Buy this: Sadkids

A month or so ago, I got an e-mail from Geoffrey Ellis, a photographer in San Francisco who’s pals with Timothy Briner and some other folks I know. Geoff’s name was familiar to me, and when I checked out his work, I realized that he was the guy behind one of my favorite photos.

We shot the shit about The Wire (I’ve since finished the series, but I was still in the throes of it at the time), started following each other on Twitter, and had some great e-mail conversations about photography and projects and day jobs and fun stuff like that. Soon thereafter, we both found out we hadn’t gotten in to Critical Mass, and he was part of my UnCritical Mass show.

Geoff publishes a zine called Sadkids, and was kind enough to send me issues 4 and 5, both of which are excellent. But I’m here to talk about Issue 4 of Sadkids, the second printing of which is still available on his blog for $10. (Issue 5 is available, too, for the same price.) If I had to rank all the photo books I own, Issue 4 would be in the top five—no lie. It’s a series of photographs taken over the course of a decade in Memphis. Think hand-painted signs on the sides of brick buildings, Wonder Bread and Elvis, BBQ and hair salons, and no loitering. Sadkids shows me things I might normally pass by and makes me want to hold onto them forever.