Blog

• Locations

  

  Today I went location scouting for a new project I’ll be shooting this weekend. There is so much I love about that sentence. First, location scouting? Yes, please. More locations! New project? Absolutely! I’ve been quietly working on a few small projects on the side. These have all been one- or two-day adventures, and they’ve given me such a sense of satisfaction. I’ll be putting them up on my site in the next couple weeks, and I can’t wait! In the meantime, here’s a photo from today. I love you, California!

• Goldfarb

  

  I have never seen S. as grief stricken, as truly and completely adrift, as he was in the days after Sally’s death. In the ten years I’ve known him, he has lost dear friends, a wife, and an organ (to cancer). But through all those things, Sally was there. Without her to lean on, he seemed to feel truly and completely alone.

  Within a day or two, he started talking about getting a cat. It would have to be a male, because he already had a name picked out: Goldfarb. Last week, I went to the website of a cat shelter in Santa Barbara, saw a cat that looked like a Goldfarb, and emailed him the link. The next day, S. went to the shelter, asked to see the cat, and decided, without even considering any others, that this was the one.

  This past Monday, exactly two weeks after Sally died, S. brought Goldfarb home, and nothing has made me happier than this cat, because he has been all kinds of wonderful for S. The cat is sweet and affectionate and friendly. From the very first night, he has slept right next to S., often curled up in his arms. I wish I could explain to Goldfarb what a difference he has made, how happy S. is again, with him around.

  How do people survive without animals?

  

• Road Trip

  This weekend, I went on a road trip to the Big Sur with S. so that he could scatter his wife’s ashes. We stopped off in Soledad on the way up north, and I took some more pictures for my project there. Photolucida only strengthened my commitment to that project, so getting up to Soledad less than a week later felt especially important. This was the first time I’d been back there with S. We used to stop in Soledad all the time when we were together, and I’ve made several trips on my own since, so I wasn’t sure how it would affect my mood, having him along. What I’m trying to tap into with that project is a sense of loneliness, so I’d always thought being there on my own was critical. Turns out, being there with S. was as much fun as it always was, and it didn’t adversely affect my picture taking in the least. He’s a great friend and a huge source of support. Plus, I never get sick of him, which is rare—for me, at least! I think I may have gotten a few images that are keepers. I added a handful to the series on my site, and I’m testing them out to see how I feel about them in the coming days.

  We left Soledad after dinner, spent the night in Monterey Friday night, and then headed down Highway 1 toward Big Sur. On the way, we stopped off at Nepenthe, a restaurant I had been to with my family the first time I visited California, when I was 17. We had flown out to Los Angeles, spent a few days there, and then driven Highway 1 up to San Francisco, stopping off at Nepenthe for lunch along the way. I remember where I was sitting, looking out at the cliffs and the ocean, having fallen hard for California, when I swore I would make it back to that place someday. So, finding that exact spot, sitting there with S., and looking out at the fog-shrouded cliffs was huge for me. There’s nothing like keeping a promise you made to yourself when you were a kid to make you want to make and keep more promises.

  North of San Simeon, we came around a bend and saw a beach full of elephant seals. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and we pulled over to look and take pictures. A volunteer with the Friends of the Elephant Seal gave us loads of information on their migration patterns, mating season, and when pups are born. It was truly an amazing sight, and I don’t think I’m done with that place.

  I need more road trips like this one. Many more.

  

  

  

  

• Portland

  Last week I was at Photolucida for what seemed like a year, and I mean that in the best possible sense. The number of people I met, the amount I learned about myself and my work, the depth of it all—that’s what left me feeling like it couldn’t possibly have been just four days. I’m still processing all my notes and thoughts on the experience, coming up with a plan for the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, here are some pictures from Portland. I’d been twice before, but this was the trip that made me fall in love with the place.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Dogs

  

  Ten years ago this month, I fell in love with S., and on my birthday, he introduced me to his dog, Sally. I had heard about Sally for several weeks, knew how much she meant to him, and so meeting her for the first time was momentous. They got out of the car at Neptune’s Net in Malibu, and I walked toward them, reaching down to greet and pet Sally, only to be rebuffed as she walked right on by.

  Over the years that followed, I smiled when she did that to nearly everyone she met for the first time, and many she’d known for years. I was one of the lucky ones: In July that year, I moved up to Santa Barbara to be near S., and that began a series of trips to the coffee shop in the morning, in which I sat in the car next to Sally and talked to her and petted her and told her my secrets, and she eventually let me hold her paw. Sally was a control freak, and so was I. We were kindred spirits: suspicious of strangers, but unabashedly enthusiastic in our loyalty and adoration of those we love.

  S. and I drove once or twice a week down to Los Angeles for class, and she went with us, of course, because she went everywhere with S. Sometimes, for reasons we never understood, she would climb from the back seat into the front and sit on my lap for the drive back up the Pacific Coast Highway. Her deigning to let me hold her was a gift—she was not a lap dog—and I never took it for granted. Sometimes she’d come with me while S. was in class, and when she spotted S. across the quad, his arms lifted as if to say, “Where the hell have you been?” she’d run to him full bore. Later, she would go with him to class, and when she saw me, she’d run toward me, nearly as fast as she ran toward him. Sally taught me the joy of a dog running toward you. (For more on that, read S.’s heartbreaking post here.)

  I grew up with dogs, and the dogs were always part of the family and mourned when they died, but Sally and S. taught me what it was to be best friends with a dog. I had my own dog, Jack, but he and I had always been more roommates than best friends. He escaped every time he got the chance, once even running away from home and to the kennel where I boarded him when I was out of town. He made his point.

  So, as Jack was getting older, and I was starting to think of getting a young dog, my decision was informed completely by Sally. I wanted a herd dog, one who would be as devoted to me as Sally was to S. I wanted a dog who would run to me like that. That’s how I found Boo. And he is all the things to me that Sally was to S.

  When S. emailed me this morning (subject line: “Sad news”), it didn’t even occur to me that it would be about Sally. She was 17 years old and had some trouble getting around, so I don’t know why it came as such a shock, but it did. Boo and I drove up to Santa Barbara and said goodbye to her, her little body still in the back of S.’s car. I cried, Shelly cried, we hugged, and Boo lifted his leg and pissed on us both.

  Dogs. Always and forever, dogs.

  

• Don’t Postpone Joy

  Sometime in the past few months, conversation between my mom and me turned to politics and eventually to gay marriage. She said she didn’t see what the big deal was. She was fine with civil unions (she didn’t think it was fair to deny people hospital visitation rights), but in her words, “Why do they need the word marriage?” I tried to explain that it’s about more than a word, asked her if she would’ve been happy with a civil union with my dad, talked about it being the civil rights issue of our time. She didn’t argue with me, but I didn’t get the sense that I’d convinced her. I feel like, for my mom and millions of people like her, what might do the convincing would be a face, a name, someone specific she could look to and say, “Hey, that person is a lot like me. This isn’t fair. Something has to change.”

  Edie Windsor is that face, that name. I first heard Ms. Windsor tell her story on NPR, and soon thereafter I found the video below on the website of the American Civil Liberties Union. This kind of thing is why, when I editioned a print through collect.give, I chose the ACLU as the charity that would receive the proceeds of my print sale. The ACLU is tireless, and we need them. If you agree with me, I hope you’ll consider purchasing my collect.give print. I’d love to sell out of my edition so that I can write the ACLU a check for $2,000. Imagine what good they could do with that.

  Click here to be taken to my shop where you can buy the print. With your purchase, you’ll get a FREE copy of my recently published California Vernacular zine. Through April 30, I’m also offering FREE SHIPPING on this package. Just use the discount code GOACLU at checkout.

  Thanks for your consideration.

  P.S. Be sure to watch the video. It’s where I got the title for this post.

• Someone I Know

  When Stu Pilkington asked me to be part of his latest project, Someone I Know, I knew just who to photograph.

  I loved looking through all the portraits by the diverse and talented group of photographers Stu assembled. I tweeted some of my favorites. Have fun picking your faves here!

  

• A Tourist in My Own Town

  

  Last weekend, Lane was in town, and Griffith Park was a must, even with the fog. (Or was it haze? I couldn't tell.)

  This morning, that urge to be a tourist in my own town hadn't left me, so I headed out to Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge, which was sort of a rambling mix of small gardens and nature trails, and where photographers were swarming like paparazzi. An older woman with a lens longer than my forearm was cursing and yelling at her poor husband to stand in a specific place so as to cast a shadow on the flower she was trying to photograph, and he wasn't cooperating and the wind wasn't cooperating, and it was all very dramatic and made me thankful that I'm not a nature photographer. I took a few photos of fish instead; they were more or less left alone.

  

  

• Q & A with Me

  

  When Blake Andrews asked me if I’d be interested in doing an interview for his blog, my answer was an enthusiastic yes! I’ve read Blake’s blog for years and always enjoyed his interviews. Plus, I can’t get enough of interviews with photographers myself, so it’s always exciting to be on the receiving end of a series of questions, especially when the interviewer is such a good one.

  The way Blake conducts interviews is different from what I’ve experienced in the past. He does it all via chat, which results in a more fluid conversation—and also a lot of talking over each other. There were a couple follow-up questions via email, and then he selected the images he wanted to use.

  I’m really pleased with the results, and I hope you get as much out of reading our conversation as I did out of participating in it. Thanks, Blake!

• This Mix of Love and Hate

  

  When I was 24, I was offered a job as a copy editor at a publishing house in Indianapolis. This was the summer after I finished my first master’s degree, and I’d been working up to that point mowing lawns at a golf course, working construction at Sears, and weighing ammonia tanks for farmers. It was the Midwest.

  I was living rent free in a former horse barn in the woods, and my tolerance for the terms of that rent-free living (a meddling landlady) was running out, as was her tolerance of me. I couldn’t stay there forever, and I needed something that paid more than minimum wage. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I had no ideas. And yet I turned down that offer for a copy-editing job, because I couldn’t see myself going to work in a cubicle every day.

  Six weeks later, with nothing else lined up, I called the publisher and asked if the job was still available, and it was and I took it and I told myself I would only do it for a couple years, until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Fifteen years later, I’m still doing that job. Sure, I have more responsibility now, and I’ve been freelance for well over a decade, which affords me the freedom to live where I want and set my own hours. I don’t work in a cubicle anymore, but the soul-crushing nature of the work is still there. (And yet, I have a job at a time when many people don’t, so who am I to complain? That’s the voice in my head talking.)

  ❦

  Throughout my 20s, I thought I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t writing, so I went to grad school to be forced to write, and I hated it. But in grad school I realized I wanted to be a photographer, and I didn’t need to be forced to do that—I loved it too much. My 30s have been about realizing what I loved, and balancing that with what I hate. Pursuing personal projects became my focus, and I thought it would be enough, that this mix of love and hate would somehow even out, and it does, but what it evens out to isn’t good enough.

  Every step of the way, I’ve admired people who can make a living doing what they love. I practically cyberstalk artists like Lisa Congdon, reading interviews about how she started drawing in her 30s, and then eventually transformed it into her work, her livelihood, her life. Seeing Lisa and others like her doing what they love is awe inspiring to me. And yet this whole time, I thought to myself, “I don’t want to make a living from photography, because then I’d just hate it as much as I hate my day job.”

  The truth is, I was scared. Scared to make a change, even though I hate what I do all day. Scared that I might fail, and then what? Scared that I’d lose my publishing clients if they knew I wanted to be a photographer.

  Sometime last year, my therapist asked me, “What would your reaction be if you were still editing five years from now?” I said, “I’d curl up in the fetal position and cry.” Late in 2012, I was still asking myself what I wanted to do for a living. I actually said out loud, “The thing is, there’s nothing I’m passionate about, except photography.”

  And that’s when it hit me: Fuck, I want to be a photographer.