Plagued by perfectionism and playful procrastination, my seasonal departure has been delayed daily while wading through the swamp of surrender. A trickle of seemingly tiny projects coalesced into a river of overwhelming tasks as I found myself constantly wondering why literally nothing ever takes as long as I think it will and whether time is as abstract for other folks as it is for me. Sometimes I wonder what the world might be like with a neurotypical sack of meat between my ears.
Seems manageable but dull…
Linear and lackluster, a predictably prosaic pastime.
The chaos can be challenging but I think I’d have to choose it every time if it meant that beauty would keep chasing me. I’ll take the hit to keep the world shimmering.
Whatever.
Time isn’t real.
Life takes as long as it takes.
I left Tucson this morning en route to a greener, wetter place where my chemistry won’t be quite so cantankerous and I won’t have to worry about how long the dog is allowed to be outside in the sun. No stranger to leaving, I feel more at home in the act of it than I do in almost any physical place. Leaving can be hard but nested in every departure is an opportunity for a return…
A return to old haunts with a different set of eyes…
A return to the parts of yourself that have atrophied due to neglect….
A return to newness, and all the bullshit that stems from all manner of discovery.
I never say goodbye, only “I’ll see ya when I see ya” because in the midst of these experiments in exodus, I always find myself revisiting that which has moved me.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…
You owe it to yourself to revisit the people, places, and things that have moved you.
Even if they remain unchanged, you have not.
Happy Sunday, y’all.
Hope you make it back to somewhere special.
5x7 tintype taken north of Tucson, Arizona.
Thanks to the ephemeral, environmental, and downright defiant nature of the wet plate collodion process, we silver junkies find ourselves in a constant state of experimentation. With chemistry that changes daily while maintaining its propensity for mild rebellion, the utilization of this 173 year old process requires us wet plate practitioners to consistently shoot “test plates” to get a feel for not only how our chemistry is feeling on a given day in a given place, but also what’s going on in our heads, hearts, and guts.
…because let’s be real, the chemistry might be temperamental but the mutiny begins within us.
We tend discount these tests, as they are predictable by design and often hurried but, in truth, it’s the subjects of our tests, often familiar and reliable, that show up time after time to put us at ease and allow us to return home to our practice.
In the midst of a transitional moment, I have found myself going back over the piles of plates that have accumulated on my periphery. In them live a few moments that deserve better than a dusty bin awaiting the void. Here are some photographs that I’ve taken at least a dozen times, though each plate is unique in itself. Like everyone that I love, they are imperfect and hold within them more stories than I probably give them credit for. Like everyone I love, they deserve to be seen, held, and enjoyed for what they are.
Whatever. Enough of my babbling.
It’s 108 degrees outside and I’m covered in sawdust.
Happy Thursday, y’all.
Hope you’ve been laughin’ a lot lately.
4x5 tintypes all made either in or directly adjacent to my studio in Tucson, Arizona.
The Sonoran swelter is upon us and I can’t help but drift back upstream to some cold river days from a few years back. I’m lucky to have done many a cool thing during my time on this floating rock but this trip down the Colorado river through the grandest of ditches was by far the coolest.
For 24 days, my compadres and I, a most fervent flotilla, had nothing to do but help the river help us make miles as we drifted downstream.
It was a severely precious paradise, a place unlike any other.
Every day our world got smaller and our hearts larger as the canyon opened and closed around us. The lessons that the river handed us (or occasionally beat us with) and the privilege we shared by simply being able to exist alongside one another down there at the bottom of the world cannot be overstated.
It was the wildest of rides and we were all better for it.
If you get a chance at a Grand Canyon river trip, you take it…
…no matter what.
Burn your house to the ground.
Leave your partner behind.
Quit your stupid job.
Whatever.
When that call comes, you take it.
Life is short.
Get on the fucking boat.
My chemistry hasn’t been appreciating how abruptly summer has decided to show up in Tucson but sometimes the wet plate gods conspire to fuck your plate up just right. Seriously though… Look at that SWIRL.
8x10 tintype taken at my studio in Tucson.
Just a few moments that have nothing (or maybe everything) to do with one another outside of the fact that the eras in which they are contained have been coming up for me a lot as of late.
A calm evening in Wyoming…
Betty playing a set in an old Texan ghost town gas station…
Willis’ stare…
Lisa reading in Montana…
Allie amidst a tender goodbye…
“Be still and listen to His voice”…
A curious horse at the bottom of a volcanic crater in Ecuador…
A butcher in Lima…
That goddamn dust…
The Center of the World…
Thought about trying to write something profound but remembered that some things are best when left simple.
Earth rules.
If you don’t love the Earth, you probably suck.
Just a few tintype portraits from a delightful day spent in the desert with feral friends, @moonflowercraft and @leafno_trace .
Some people are just made to be photographed with this process, ya know?
Thanks for comin’ down to hang in my slice of life to make some moments and thanks so much thanks for playin’.
I need more days like this.
Way, way more days like this.
🌼 Mother’s Day Tintype Portrait Discount! 🌼
Moms…Arguably the most important people on the planet, despite the occasional nagging. None of us would be here without our mothers and that’s why they deserve to be celebrated by even the worst of us.
Seriously. Call your mother and tell her something nice.
You know what mom’s love? Tintypes.
…and SO, I’m offering a discount for all mom-related sessions until Mother’s Day (5/12). If you’d like to bring your mother in or make a tintype of your face, or baby, or dog, or whatever to gift her, you can use the code MOMSRULE for 20% any session.
…if you’re a mother and want to treat yourself to a session or use Mother’s Day as an excuse to drag your ungrateful child in front of the camera, a version of mom-guilt which I wholly support, then you can use the code ITSMEMOM for 25% off.
Discounts are good until mother’s day and I’ll honor the same discount if you prefer to book with me directly instead of going through my website because I get it, online booking is weird and impersonal. Just mention mom-stuff and I gotcha.
Anyway. Happy Monday, y’all.
Here are a few mom-related tintypes.
Mom’s rule. Remind the mothers in your life that you think so.
