Blog

Leaving on a jet plane

I’m off to Chicago for the 57th Street art festival…………….

New Image: Rope-a-dope, San Diego, CA

Another image shot last year…. 
I had arranged with a police detective to go shooting in the San Diego area. I have never shot alleys at night with a cop, and so it seemed like it was going to be the most carefree shoot since I started this series in the early 90’s. Unfortunately he bailed on [...]

New Image: Lower Wacker, Chicago, IL

This was shot last year with my friend John Keith in Chicago’s Lower Wacker Drive, a massive cavity that runs under the city like the batcave. It was built in 1926 largely for commercial traffic and as such is brimming with old loading docks, business back doors and other interesting architectural details. In recent years, the city started [...]

Point Reyes National Seashore

Mark Twain once famously said: “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.” I went to Point Reyes National Park, 30 miles north of San Francisco, for 4 days of hiking and camping with Pam this weekend and damn was it cold!! with temperatures dropping into in the 40’s!! Nevertheless, the sites were stunning. [...]

Good times, Bad times

Before almost being clobbered by a street gang last Saturday night, my day was pretty good.

In the morning, CBS news in Indianapolis, WISH-TV, interviewed me about my Alley images. Ironically I told the reporter, Jill Ditmire, that although I went into some dangerous places around the country, Indianapolis was a peaceful place for me to work. [...]

Big Mike

I had a very tense encounter with a gang Saturday night while shooting in East Side Indianapolis. It made me wonder why I never pack a gun. I used to carry a can of bear mace, which will sting a gang of 12 from 30 feet away, but I lost the mace – I seem [...]

Indianapolis Art Center

Tonight I drive to Indianapolis for the Broad Ripple art festival, which is hosted by the Indianapolis Art Center. I’m looking forward to it! The Center was created in 1934 as part of President FDR’s depression-era New Deal, which included the first federally funded program to fund the arts, and which got many artists working.
I’ll be doing [...]

New Image: Alley 122, St Paul, MN

This image was shot in St Paul, MN last year while a few unusual things were going on around us.
This abandoned loading bay runs parallel to the Mississippi River and was a dramatic setting for the shoot. There were maybe fifteen old and corroding bay doors, flanked by great pillars, under a crumbling ceiling. Decades [...]

Goast Pier and Islais Creek

 
I returned recently with Pam to visit Goast Pier, Alley 102 in the Bayview/Hunter’s Point neighborhood of San Francisco. I wanted to learn more about the crane, the channel and the abandoned buildings in the area. What I learned was amazing.
The waterway in the image is Islais Creek, once the largest body of fresh water [...]