Did a portrait series of the Luceo folks on the last night of our meeting. More Polaroids with a little experimental twist tossed in. Photographing photographers is a little stressful –ok, a lot stressful. Took a few quiet minutes with Kevin German to play around with some test frames and get my head on straight before calling everyone out, one at a time. After 50 frames, a pep talk from German, and a couple hours, I felt like I came away with something I could be proud of.
Kendrick did a fun series of Polaroid 600s in 2007 and just posted it to her blog, here. There’s still something incredibly appealing about these old analogues. With any luck, Fuji will keep this stuff in production for the foreseeable future. I’m not really ready to stop shooting it just yet.
***
Dan Celvi just passed this note to me re. Polaroid’s future. Apparently it’s old news to everyone except me. Still, more than glad to see this:
“I dunno if you saw this article or not, but in case you didn’t, I figured I’d send you the link. Basically, some guy somehow managed to spur a few million from random investors to help them keep the Polaroid line alive for no other reason to keep it going.
MORE PHOTOS
Always serious business at our meetings. We’ve been busy enough to bump our annual meet two a twice-a-year schedule and took advantage of the days following the Look3 festival to lock ourselves into a hotel suite and hash out the next six months of affairs. A bigger write-up and more comprehensive edit of our photographs is up on the Luceo blog, here.
MORE PHOTOS
A few leftovers from Look3. The full recap and list of thank-yous is up right now on the Luceo blog, here.
MORE PHOTOS
Stills from Amtrak’s Cardinal route, connecting Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington, DC. Stayed in Virginia for several days after this year’s Look3 Festival to participate in Luceo’s latest meeting. The endeavor has been productive enough that we’ve pushed our in-person meets to twice a year to compliment our almost weekly conference calls. Still really excited to be a part of this group at such an interesting time in the photo industry. After several long days locked in our hotel suite, it was good to kick back in the dining car and watch the green hills roll by.
MORE PHOTOS
I recently photographed people and places impacted by the closure of New Frontier Bank in Greeley, Colo. The bank was forced into receivership after what the FDIC describes as “unsafe or unsound banking practices and violations of law and regulations.” Many eastern Colorado farms and business were impacted by the closing of the bank and are now unable to transfer their loans to other institutions. The fallout threatens commercial and agricultural businesses that have historically relied on the bank for short-term credit. The essay appears in the June 16th issue of the Journal and a nice edit of the work also appears on the Photo Journal blog.
The story turned out to be a little more nuanced than fat cat bankers getting ahead of themselves. There aren’t clear villains and victims, rather a sense of loss that is common to both sides of the cashbox. The bank was rooted in a very humble beginning during which the founder, Larry Seastrom (pictured above), sold ten dollar shares to friends and neighbors in order to raise capital. New Frontier purchased a doublewide trailer as its first place of business and, over more than a decade, it grew into a much more formidable building. The business began to shape its image around its involvement and commitment to the local community. The short version of the bank’s fall is somewhat of a perfect storm of overextended lending, undercapitalized business, and a sharp decline in the price of milk that wreaked havoc on many of the bank’s large agricultural loans. Many of the businesses who received money the bank are now having difficulty refinancing their loans through other institutions. They face the possibility of losing their collateral later this year when the FDIC packages and sells off New Frontier’s loans.
The assignment came as a welcome challenge and a bit of a crash course in getting my head around the nuance of the relationship between the abstract banking world and the real-life fallout experienced by New Frontier’s customers. This is the second piece that I’ve worked on with Wall Street Journal writer Stephanie Simon and a real treat to work with a writer able to tackle the complexities of the story.
MORE PHOTOS
I’m pleased to have had two photographs included in American Photography 25’s ‘Chosen’ images. Both pulled from bigger projects –one taken on the floor of the Democratic National Convention moments after Barack Obama accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency and another excerpted from the Gun Culture U.S.A. work. Also included in this year’s selection of images is work from fellow Luceo photographer Matt Eich.
MORE PHOTOS
I’ve been a little absent lately, working on a few things that are a little premature for the blog. I am, however, happy to announce that Luceo will be debuting a group project in the Look3 Theater this week. We are all pleased to have had the chance to collaborate with Syracuse University’s very own Bruce Strong and two of his students, Brad Horn and Brian Dawson, in putting together our little contribution to the event. For folks coming to Look3, we’re all looking forward to catching up.
