This month I had two stories come out that I’ve been eagerly awaiting for months.  The first, written by Alex Hannaford, was on Steven Russell for Esquire UK; a former con man and escape artist, he managed to escape from prison 5 times.  Jim Carrey is playing him in the upcoming movie I Love You Phillip Morris and from the looks of the trailer it should be pretty great.  For Texas Monthly I photographed Susan Wright, a woman convicted of stabbing her husband 193 times.  Recently she won an appeal and may walk free after re-sentencing.  Read Skip Hollandsworth’s piece here.  You can see more of these photos and outtakes from the shoot under the “offender” tab on my site.  For now check them out below as they appear in the magazine layouts.

Special note: Esquire cover by Greg Williams and Texas Monthly cover by Dan Winters.

I had the great fortune of hanging out with one of my best buddies at his place in Big Sur awhile back.  We did some surfing, listened to some music, and took a few pictures.  Every time I go up there some sort of indescribable experience happens… condors, beached whales, art openings, mini ponies, mad lunatics, too many good times and Jon Swift.  If you haven’t heard Jon Swift then you should definitely check him out here.  We met him by accident at a show he was playing and again in the morning when we went for breakfast.  We ended up surfing the rest of the day while pondering astrophysics, the origins of the world, alien life, and the source of all things.  He’s easily one of the most interesting people I have ever met.  It was a great pleasure when I went out to the mailbox a few days ago and found his latest release featuring a portrait I shot of him.  Below is the CD and a few more shots I took of the rest of us on Kodi’s porch.

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in prisons lately, just visiting for work luckily.  Two projects have publication dates in Feb, the first is for Esquire UK and the other for Texas Monthly.  I can’t go into detail now, I’ll let the magazines do that, but both stories are on high profile convicts inside the Texas Department of Justice.  So, while I’m waiting for those to come out, here are two outtakes from each shoot of the visitors waiting area.

Few things - except, perhaps, Apple computer products and Moleskine notebooks - have been embraced by designers of all stripes so quickly and universally as PechaKucha Night has. -Architect Magazine

I was recently invited by DJ Stout of Pentagram Design to speak at the PechaKucha event held in Austin this Thursday.  Click here for event details.  It is a huge honor to be one of 10 presenters and only 2  photographers at the event.  It’s also a little overwhelming and pretty exciting to address the creative community that has embraced me after only living here for a few years.  I’m taking this great opportunity to speak on the influences that have driven the change in direction my work took after my move from Los Angeles.  Included below is one of those photographs.

A huge thank you to DJ for including me in this, to PechKucha, and to Austin.

The German publishing company Gestalten has just included two of my portraits in their new book Hair’em Scare’em.  The book is filled with photography, design, and illustration that is dedicated to or inspired by hair.  Kind of weird but also really cool.

A bit of news to fill everyone in on. I have been invited to participate in Subtext Gallery’s upcoming Happenstance exhibition and charity auction.  Click here to read more about the show and be sure to attend if you are in the San Diego area.  The piece I will be showing was a collaboration with fate on multiple occasions.  The bird flying into the negative space of the frame was pure luck, in fact the view camera was mounted to a tripod so there was no last minute adjusting for composition possible… just luck.  A year or so later I had a few prints spread out on my table and I noticed that the composition from the smoke stack image finished the composition of the tree photo perfectly.  I’ve played with lining up the images on my website but this is the first time I’ve actually produced them for show.  It’s kind of exciting and I’m not sure I want to part with them yet.

If you are from Austin or familiar with its musicians then no doubt you are familiar with Bob Schneider.  He and I sat down recently, talked about donuts and photoshop, then managed to take a few snaps.  Check them out below and make sure to give him a listen  here.

I just returned from Yosemite and the Sierras on a recent trip out west.  Here are a few snaps I made  from the road.

I’m leaving for the west coast tomorrow for a few days of location shooting in Yosemite.  Before I go, I’ll leave you with this… Jonathan choking on a piece of cake.  Enjoy

I just finished shooting an assignment for Tribeza magazine on the local art scene and the emergence of Austin’s east side.  While at the Birdhouse Gallery I met Thax Douglas, a strangely familiar face.  Turns out that I saw him a few days earlier reading poetry on stage before the Felice Brothers performed the other night at an ACL after show.  We got to talking and I found he is a pretty staple fixture in the Chicago music scene and has recently moved to Austin TX… Check out his wikipedia page or look him up on youtube to check out his movie trailer.  But first, dig this pic.