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I went back to my undergraduate college, SUNY Purchase, and the place had changed a lot!!! Thankfully Jo-Jo Wlash was still selling his “Italian Stallion” opposite campus.

I was never a massive fan of Helen Levitt’s work, but I always trusted Philip Perkiss and he often referred to “Helen’s” work as if we all knew her. She was one of the few people he did this with, I first thought. However I now remember him talking about Gary…. These few images are the first I found, and I like them, so I should probably revisit her work. I’m sure her death will get some press, as she was a well regarded photographer whose work was instrumental in the growth of photography as a respected art form.

I’m sure that everyone’s happiest memories from childhood are the summer vacations. My parents always managed to pull off a trip to Europe. Mark would wake us up at the crack of dawn with a glass of chocolate milk and a sugary doughnut, and we’d speed down the motorway to the first ferry to France. We went to Greece on year, Spain a few years in a row and France a bunch, with a few epic drives across Europe in the middle.

I’d love it if I could still get prints this size with rounded corners and the same color shift, then you could throw pictures at people and not worry about taking out an eye! I’ve always wondered whether that color shift has happened over time or if it’s just poor printing back in the day. My guess is that it’s a bit of both. Either way I want all my snapshots to have this feel, then I could post them on flickr and have loads of friends and awesome comments!

Where were we here mum? What was I so upset about? Could you imagine the panic if you watched Mae paddle out to see with your grandchildren?

I’ve been watching late night TV recently for no real reason. I didn’t know that Jimmy Fallon was part of the scene. I tried watching his show two nights in a row, and I’ve concluded that I just don’t get it.

I am completely sceptical that this movie could be even as close as good as the book, although I will reserve judgement til I’ve seen it. This trailer helps a little, making it look like a cross between “Juno,” “The Neverending Story” “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Bridge to Terabithia.”

I like this little snippet from wikipedia – “The original concept for the book featured horses instead of monsters. Sendak said he switched when he discovered that he could not draw horses.” I’m convinced that horse characters would have left the story flat and not sold over 19 millioon copies worldwide.

Pearl Jam’s first album ‘Ten’ was reissued this week with a bunch of reworked tracks. It’s one of the first albums I ever heard that I could listen to over and over and over so I probably spent a good year doing just that. In 1996 I actually met Eddie Vedder at Acton Town train station in London. It was around midnight and I was going home from a party, changing trains to get onto the Picadilly line. I saw a crowd of people standing around this long haired guy that appeared to be him. Normally I don’t approach strangers, particularly ones who I thought were amazing musicians, but when I heard an American accent, I had to find out. He turned out to be a really nice guy who was willing to answer any stupid question that a 17 year old could think of. We chatted for about 10 minutes, he autographed my party invite and then jumped on a District line train. I think I’ve only been as excited to meet one other ‘celebrity’, the Dalai Lama.

My midlife crisis worries are from the fact that even before I knew this album was being reissued, I had been listening to them again, along with Oasis and Nirvana. It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly 15 years since Kurt Cobain killed himself. Are we really that old?

I was just requested by Abelardo Morell to be his friend on facebook, which I’m not convinced is really him as he’s got over 3,000 friends, but it made me revisit his work. He got a lot of blog space when his color camera obscura pictures became public. I can’t say I was a fan of that work, but have loved some of his black and white ones and some of his older work. I never really knew his other images until I got to Pratt, I find it impressive that he can make such varied work that all seem to feel similar. I guess that’s the challenge as your career grows, or at least to hope our work will seem cohesive after 30 years.

The link between these two images is apparent when you know the basic workings of a camera obscura. I remember Jed Devine telling me about his work when I was a freshman, and I was in awe of the simplicity of his idea but the beauty of the image. It’s making me want to shoot B&W again. The images below hold my attention longer when placed in the context of his entire collection.

This last image seems to be the most interesting take on his camera obscura and the reversal of image as affected by light.

Now all I need is a check from the Catholic Church and then I’ll really be happy! I can’t remember where I first read about this lawsuit, but I’m sure glad I did. I must also admit to still occasionally taking Emergen-C when I start to feel sick. Does that make me an agnostic?

I’ve finally started being booked for some more freelance work, which is great (yet means I have a dry spell coming) but still won’t allow me to buy one of these new Mamiya’s. I was shooting a salesforce.com corporate event for Fifth Avenue Digital today, which was a lot of work, but pretty fun and especially nice as it was my first event where I had my own editor. It must have saved me at least 6 hours of worrying over the 2,000 images I took.

If I worked every day for the next year, I may be able to think about buying a Mamiya DL33. At 33 Megapixels, it sensor will allows a pixel size of 7.2 microns. at a size of 36 x 48mm. I could probably have bought one of these with all the money I’ve spent on film, however the lifespan of a digital camera’s only about 2 or 3 years, which means the investment needs to make you some regular dough.

I can’t decide if this guy is talented or has just found a way to disguise his madness. I certainly think I’ve woken up screaming in the middle of the night after hearing sounds like this.

This video was posted today by the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) who I used to work for in ‘02-’03. It shows rare footage of some beatings that have happened over the past year, and how the Chinese were preparing for the recent 50th Anniversary of the Lhasa Uprising. (Some brutal footage)

For more images go to – www.annabelclark.net.

I promise you that this will make you laugh the second time around if it didn’t the first time.

Dan Deacon was a fellow SUNY Purchase student, and the head of student affairs in my senior year. He’s starting to make a name for himself in the indie music scene, particularly out in Baltimore. Here’s an example of his music and performance style (not really my thing)

I spent the summer of 2001 in Burgos Spain studying ‘Assemblage in the mirror of Spain’ with George Parrino and SUNY Purchase, I think it was the happiest and easiest time in most of our lives. Early on we took a trip to the ‘Miro’ museum and I remember standing outside and being told that a fellow student Annabel Clark was British. I scoffed at the idea that someone with such an American accent could claim to be British, and George Parrino laughed at me. After, we all spent an intense 6 weeks making art and working in a small studio in Burgos while the other 60 students studied hard. Annabel was a film student, but not enrolled with SUNY Purchase but was as much a part of the group as any other person though in my mind, certainly not British. Her video work was the best one in the group, and still something I show friends, as she gave me a copy in Madrid (before I slept in the Rene Sofia sculptuer garden before my flight).

Once we got back to NY, someone (George Parrino) told me who she was related to. Her mother was Lynn Redgrave, possibly one of the most famous actresses in the UK. I felt like a complete idiot. We kept in touch, and partied sometimes on campus, one time I got her to dye my awesome mohawk pink. After our graduation I worked in retail and she followed a promising career in photography, publishing a book with images documenting her mothers breast cancer alongside her poetry. I realised this at ICP when I saw it displayed in a prime position. Soon after I was hired by wireimage and soon after that edited many images from ‘Ron Galella’ of the ‘Redgraves’. They were’t captioned correctly, so I fixed them all with Annabel as a baby, growing up. Unfortunately we lost touch, but I still have the Burgos connection and feel for her family over the recent loss and hyped media coverage. Here I am with Aurora her Burgos room mate (on the right).