High TIde Rain

Last night's lecture was a bit like having jumper cables placed on my ears with the sudden intensification of the course. There's a lot of work to do or at least a lot of organization, but I'm looking forward to it. It seems we'll have a lot more getting-to-know-each-other time with this term's projects.

Thinking Out Loud

Boys play with a fishing net in mudflats under the Costa do Sol Bridge.

A man in a wheelchair bicycle looks out on the beach.

A crumbling sea wall.

Mangrove at Costa do Sol.

Casuarina seedling at a municipal nursery program to combat erosion.

Photo Kids

With pre-school out I've been taking my two children along for the ride in my photo excursions. It's distracting particularly when they thrust themselves in front of the camera or wander off. My shooting time is usually limited with moods. One thing that they are great for is to soften the hearts of subjects that might otherwise not give me permission to photograph.

My Borders Proposals

Sacrificial chicken: they let me shoot the victim but not the sacrifice.

A stump I photographed before it fell and was still a tree.


Miramar beach after a long holiday weekend.

A new sea wall at Triunfo Beach.

I'm back in focus and got out to photograph for the first time in a while. I had my three year old in tow, and it felt good.

I've been hashing over what I'd be doing for my borders project for some time. Some of you have had to listen to me go in circles trying to narrow it down. I have sifted through my ideas and have come to two that I'm going to concentrate on. I have axed out all together the literal idea of going to a physical international border and working there. I wanted to be able to have access to something that I could work on close-by and two-hour or longer travel daily was not attractive. I will still do some of those stories but not for our group project.

In trying to push the borders idea a bit, I am going to concentrate on land mines in Mozambique. The concept of being constrained by a border or barrier created by man that could kill or severely injure one grasped my attention. In this country, there has been successful de-mining in the north of the country, but there is still work that must be done in the south including areas surrounding Maputo. Before the holidays, I had been communicating with folks from the HALO Trust in Mozambique and finally met with them. I made them part of my brainstorm and came to an agreement.

They will take me out to various de-mining sites in the Maputo region. Apparently they are not terribly excited. A pair of Mozambican employees will take me to meet a farming family who is typical in areas with known mines. They apparently use only a portion of their land because of real fears of mines in outer portions. They warn me that it will be tough because these people are usually quite angry with groups such as HALO even though they are trying to help them because the problem still exists. I also am hoping to make some portraits of victims of land mines. HALO has connected me with an NGO who might be able to help me.

Hopefully this works out, but they put up enough doubt with scenarios of past photographic flops that I am still leaning on plan two which is taking the advice of Paul who suggested I stick with my current project on the Marginal and the decaying coastline applying the idea of the border between land and sea. I am, as my posted photos demonstrate, still hot on this project. I've written up notes for myself of what else I need to accomplish with it and would like to do which includes doing sound of various groups I've photographed, recording interviews and making more several more photographs. The pictures I've been doing are the Australian casuarina trees that were planted to thwart the tides.

My ultimate plan is to have a show. I am going to put together an edit and proposal for a site here where I'd like to exhibit. Aside from my own pictures, I am going to ask an artist to make me a map of the Marginal and am still seeking permission to use that historical picture I did a post a while back.

In my inquiry to one of several people who have used the historical photo in question may pay off in an unexpected way. A publishing group that put out a book of historical photographs in Maputo looked at my website and various links and asked if I'd be interested in doing a book for them about Maputo. I'm certainly interested and will keep you updated on where this goes.

Blind Photographer

A 2007 self-portrait made in an exam at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Center.


I have horrible vision, and I mean that in the most literal way. My sight is awful. I have a condition called Kerataconus, a deteriorating condition in which for me means that my cornea is becoming detached from the rest of my eye.

It's been the great irony of my life in my career as a photographer. When I was in high school, I was diagnosed with it during a regular eye check-up to get a new prescription in glasses (I'd been wearing glasses since I was eight years old). Fortunately, for me, hard contact lenses correct the problem, otherwise I would have to get a corneal transplant. With my contact lenses my vision is about 20/20 in each eye.

So here's what happens: my eyes are the shape of a(n) (American) football, but the contact lens pushes my cornea down and makes it round again correcting it. Soft or disposable lenses don't work for me since they mold to the shape of the eye. Glasses too are only partially effective. Without my contacts, I am not crippled. I can still read and really function normally. What I can't do is drive (well, I can and have but I'm not supposed to) or photograph (I can and have but the results are often a bit depressing).

I've never really divulged this information for fear that it would somehow hurt me in my career. I remember during a photography internship at The Pasadena Star-News when my editor Walt Mancini, a great teacher, would be particularly hard on me for anything out of focus. It had more to do with the fact that I was shooting with manual lenses back then and was still pretty new to photography, but I was extremely self-conscious and always a bit scared that my vision had tanked and I was on my way out. I think this might be part of the reason that despite being infatuated with photography, I still took a writing position in my first "real" job. It's definitely why I use Canon and autofocus now.

The reason I'm writing this is because I've been without my contact lenses this week because of an abrasion on my eye and must let it heal before I can put them back on. In effect, I'm out of commission and really haven't been able to photograph this week. However with the holidays, the city is very quiet and semi-deserted, plus my little boy is out of school until Jan. 22, the nanny's off, so in my Mr. Mom role, I've been occupied changing diapers, entertaining kids and doing lots of cooking.