Today is World AIDS Day and I thought I'd give a couple of shout-outs to people helping out.

A wonderful friend called Sarah Koch is a co-founder of an organization known as Development In Gardening which has a simple, Genius goal. They go into developing nations, find people groups affected by HIV/AIDS (or groups otherwise at risk), and teach them to garden. It's a modern day version of the whole teach-a-man-to-fish thing.

The deal is...these individuals with HIV/AIDS...the better they eat..the more nutrition they get, the better their body can fight the disease. Of course, there is the ironic relationship these particular people have: the good food and doctors they need, they have almost no access to. A ton of places DIG service are remote (REMOTE!) villages where the situation is even more dire. Myths and propaganda and religious pressures keep many of these people either ignorant to real solutions or cause them to be outcast from their community (often times just for HAVING the disease even if it wasn't their fault!).

DIG rolls in with tools, seeds, and a mission. They reach out to communities in need and teach them about the importance of nutrition and teach them how _they_ can help _themselves_ achieve it. They, DIG, empower the community to not only provide for themselves but teach even more people about how tangible a home or community garden can be!

It. Is. So. Simple.

Absolutely brilliant.

And they're just getting better at what they do. Sarah and Steve (the other co-founder) started this lovely project while working in Senegal for the Peace Corps and have now moved on to have projects in 7 countries—Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

I had the privilege to travel to Uganda a while back (thanks to Simon Cyrene, a local design firm who took on DIG is a client) and meet so many of these lovely, thankful people.

Below are some of the persons DIG is impacting. Don't forget...You can help!

Above: Two Sarahs. One, a co-founder of DIG (right), and the other, DIG volunteer and beneficiary.

Another AIDS-related project I'd like to mention is called CARE For AIDS. I don't know a ton about this organization, but my friend Bob Miller has done some beautiful work for them in their mission to help those in Africa who suffer from AIDS. I've seen a lovely print piece he did with David Blumberg that I'd love to show you (but have no means to off hand) so instead I'll embed a video he also produced for them.

In whatever form it comes, I am happy to see help arriving for these people so in need. I bet there is a way we can all help more, even if we feel removed from a problem so many miles away.

Thanksgiving was great. It really was. Hard to explain how or why, exactly, but spirits were high and the food was great. We continued our tradition of bringing a friend to the farm for our family time. Last year it was David (who just recently put out a new album (which maybe I mentioned?)) and this year we had Jill in tow.

Grandmother gave us a treat Friday morning; her classic, killer biscuits and gravy. We went up early to watch her make everything from scratch. Dammit. Now I want to eat them.

I love stumbling through memories. Digging around in a drawer full of old polaroids, I found this [left] shot of Damien which made me re-explore the sheet film scans and I found yet another photo of him [right] that, somehow, I didn't fall in love with immediately. It's kind of fun to go through the archive and find brand new old images.

I'm digging through files all over the place working on the new edit I mentioned a couple of posts ago and ended up in a folder with last year's Thanksgiving images and thought I'd post a random shot from those images, what with Thanksgiving fast approaching again. GEEZ THIS YEAR HAS FLOWN.

Thanksgiving this year will be especially, ahem, thankful. My grandparents have been in and out of the hospital, with my granddad being the one visiting most. They're both a billion years old and our family is fortunate and Quite thankful to have had them around for so long. Hospital visits are rarely fun (sort of by definition) and this years' illnesses are making us all that much more joyous to still have the family unit we have. This isn't meant to be somber. I just want to encourage everyone to appreciate what you have while you have it, including myself.

Go love somebody!

Had a shoot today in Brian's now-native town of New York and he was kind enough to come out and help me. He hurked around a billion pound light case with no shoulder strap a thousand miles in the snow with blistered feet.

The trip left him dazed and this is what I saw when we made it back to the studio setup.

There's a wind of change in air. I haven't yet been happy with the images that are on this site, at least in the sense of how they represent me as a photographer. I've been wrestling with my identity and philosophy as an [gasp] artist (which sort of sucks, by the way) and I also recruited my friend Jared to immerse himself in the images I've made and curate them in a way that made sense to him. It's a very personal and vulnerable thing (on both sides, I think) to make such a request and he really came through with a series of images that I could never, in a thousand years, have put together. My brain just doesn't think the same way as his—all the better in this case. In the next while (week? month? I don't really know) I'm going to have a new body of work up here that is a collaboration of our minds. He gave me such a great starting point and I cannot wait to get everything in order and finally present images that explain my head better than I ever could with words.

Phone, Keys, Wallet.

If I am without one of these items, I feel one of those in-a-bad-dream-naked-at-school feelings. In some ways my phone has taken partial place of the Lomo LC-A* I used to keep on me all the time (*the problem is, I can't get an LC-A worth a damn these days. Back in the day they smelled like ruskie-potatoes and were actually made of metal. Now they are shat out with all the stability of Chinese plastic.). I have it around so I use it. That's pretty much it.

Here are some life nuggets as seen from my phone. Hopefully not a snooze-fest.

Places represented: Birmingham, Mexico, New York, California, Portland, Huntsville, Scottsboro, Little River Canyon, and San Diego.

(worst tattoo I've EVER SEEN EVER)

I stumbled across a couple of holders of 4x5 that've just been sitting here for months now. Upon unloading them I found several to be HP5 and two sheets to be Fuji NPS 160 (nerd noise here). Thooooooose would be the last coupla sheets of the box I mentioned a while back. Turns out I finished that box on a couple of friends...they'd just gotten engaged and by now they're already married. Clearly I'm on the ball with getting this personal work developed, eh? I sent it off to the glorious Richard Photo Lab to process and contact and above is a quick (and likely dirty) scan of the contact. You can tell the shot sat around a while if you peep the light leaks on the edges. Oh well...I still enjoy them. High five to team YamAscani. Next happy surprise time is getting these HP5 sheets run along with some 35mm jank I've been meaning to finish up.

I cannot honestly say it's an Elk but that is my guess after 24 seconds of google image searching. IF IT IS NOT AN ELK, WHAT IS IT?

/shiftkey

I've slowly slipped out some of the 4x5 from our trip this summer but have managed to keep most of the 35mm stuff to myself. No longer!

The long and the short of the trip is this: We went to Portland to visit with Helen & Garrett (and their gaggle of cats), went to pretty places, walked a lot, and eventually ended up on a train to San Diego. Here's some junk I saw along the way.

(this one feels really old to me, if not for the digital camera giving it away)

(Goonies house!)

These last two are in San Diego. More of those to come.

Lots of beauty on this trip.

Yeah yeah yeah....I know Memorial Day was quite a while ago, but I'm just now getting to scan some of my first color 4x5 work. I've shot tons of black and white but had an opportunity a while back to grab some Fuji NPS 160 4x5 on the cheap. Perfect time to give it a run.

Steph grew up in Monroe, LA and we end up there from time to time...like this past Memorial Day / her sister's graduation from high school. Aside from the big graduation party (mmmmm....Crawfish boil) I decided it was time to finally take a portrait of their friend Raj who owns a gas station near their home. He's long told Stephanie about his travels and life in India and London (all his stories are fascinating, by the way) but I'd never met him. What better way to meet someone than to lug a 4x5 camera into their store and offer up a handshake. I shot some instant shots (posted one of those before, I think) and a few color sheets.

Above you'll see Raj in his store and Steph's dad, William, modeling his then-seven-month-old beard after finishing up his crawfish boiling duties.

mental_floss, in addition to being a wonderfully strange and informative magazine, has a bunch of nerdy, quirky Tshirts. When they come out with new ones, I get to hang out with hot people models rocking the new goods. The current magazine issue had a little bonus section of their gift guide, which you'll see part of at the top of this post. Of course, I am biased, but they have lots of great junk to give to people you have to give junk to. Seriously. Nerdy, thought provoking, informative, funny. Really about anything you could need for a someone who likes using their brain. If you've got a geek who needs a gift, you've now got a great place to go. /blatantshilling

A couple of times a year I end up with a camera at a wedding. Any time I'm making images at such an event I really just have one goal, which is to create beautiful images. I forget a lot about what a wedding is supposed to be and just let my brain do whatever it wants. A couple of weeks ago I was in Auburn at Casey and Wes's wedding and what an insanely pretty day to get to hang out in the out of doors all day. Wasn't too hot...October brought the chill I love and pushed all the clouds out of the sky.

Above are a couple of photos from that day I enjoy.

On our trip out west, we spent some time with Garrett & Helen and their myriad of cats in the lovely city of Portland. Hedgerows created a wonderful natural fence separating the road from their little outside patioish nook type thing. Genius place to just relax and chat, and apparently to cook foods and pet a cat (Butters).

I really love it there and their presence only makes me want to go more often.

[nerd note: this is 4x5 but scanned with a holder so it's cropped a bit, which I don't really love, but I also don't fee like fighting newton rings]

I was looking forward to a quiet weekend until my buddy Jon (above, Left) mentioned he was coming in town, and bringing hoodlums with him. Now I have to put up with a Filipino doppelgänger of myself, have fun, and eat good foods. Thanks a lot, jerk.

But seriously...this should be fun.

More gear testing. Steph's family was also in town. HOLY CRAP HER DADS BEARD REMAINS AWESOME.

He started it with us last Whiskerino and is still going. He's so close to a yeard and I couldn't be happier about that.

Jill again, with her nephew Nicholas. I'm falling in love with October light in front of our house!

Had to test out some new gear so I took advantage of our friend Jill being over at our house with her nephew in tow. I love our neighborhood.

PS, I love film so hard. Shot on Kodak Portra NC400. (Speaking of Portra, I'm excited to try out the new Portra400)

I'm still slowly sorting through my film from the trip Stephanie and I took out west this summer. I tried to think of the most ridiculous photograph to make while on the trip and I determined it to be shooting 4x5 on a moving train with a super crappy tripod (that I picked up in Portland after realizing I left my good one at home).

Despite itself, it went well. I didn't want to shoot a bunch of frames only to find out later it really WAS too ridiculous of conditions to shoot in, so I tried to cover my ass a bit by shooting for outside light on some of the shots. Seen above is Steph patiently modeling for me. I'd started Steinbeck's East of Eden on this trip, so passing through the Salinas Valley was an especially romantic idea for me and this was an attempt at helping myself remember this semi-insane* journey.

More to come, no doubt.

Oh, and for large format, I shot my Crown Graphic on HP5 the whole trip. #nerdnotes

*1.5 days on a train.

As mentioned before, M+B Hangers has some pretty incredible people on staff. Not the least of which is the man who runs the place, Milton. With the epic name Milton Malcolm Magnus, III, I expected someone intimidating before I met him. I mean doesn't that sound like so Norwegian rule guy, ready to smite anyone for no good reason? The great part is he's about as warm a man as I've met...no wonder everyone else at M+B is so great. It starts at the top.

And it's not just skin deep either. When I came on board to photograph everything for their promotion, they were already in full swing creating a special garment hanger aimed at cancer awareness. I was so pleased to be a part of this campaign, given my sister's history with breast cancer.

In many forms, the disease has touched M+B, and this awareness push highlighted four women survivors connected to the company. Representatives from the factory floor, admin office, and even a long-time customer came forward to have their portrait taken as a symbol of their resilience and positive attitude. Each posed with a special Pink Hanger with a single word printed on it that reflected some of the inspiration it takes to persevere.

They made these special hangers available to their customers and launched PinkHangers.com to tell the stories of these brave women.

Above is Cindy, a customer from El Paso, and Rachel, who works at the Leeds plant. Below is Milton, at a memorial bench in honor of his mother, also a cancer fighter.