Travel: In Montana Nov. 8 – 20, 2017


Abandoned homestead north of Rudyard, Montana. 2013.

Abandoned homestead north of Rudyard, Montana. 2013.

I'll be in Montana for a bit this November to visit family and get outside a bit. Cell phone signals will be hard to come by for parts of the trip, and email communication will be delayed. I'll be in Great Falls and rural areas in the north-central part of the state. Back in Boston on November 20.

Writing for World Press Photo’s Witness


I'm very proud to announce that I've begun writing for World Press Photo's Witness online magazine. The publication has been active for the past six months or so and, as the about page puts it, Witness is "a magazine for new thinking and new talent in visual journalism and storytelling. Witness presents the critical thinking, independent analyses, and new visual stories of our contributors." The publication is well worth following, and I'd say that even if I wasn't contributing.

Two of my articles have been published so far: How (some) photographers around the world make a living and A Look at Addis Foto Fest. I've got more articles planned and you can follow everything I write there on my medium.com page.

dvafoto, the blog that Matt Lutton and I ran for nearly a decade, has winded down over the last couple of years, and I'm excited to have a new avenue to write about the photo industry.

Thanks to WPP's Director of Communications and Engagement David Campbell for inviting me to get involved and for Witness Managing Editor Jennifer Noland for putting up with all of my edits and delays.

Tearsheet: George Church and his lab for Norway’s Morgenbladet


I photographed Harvard and MIT geneticist George Church a couple of months ago for the Norwegian news-weekly Morgenbladet. His work is fascinating--he's contributed to targeted gene editing such as CRISPR (and a newer method he thinks is better) and cloning the DNA of the woolly mammoth (soon to be a major motion picture)--and it was a joy to sit in on the interview and work alongside Morgenbladet writer Jon Kåre Time.

We were a bit unsure what sort of access we'd have for the piece, but thanks to the lab for being so open, I was able to get enough pictures for the cover (at left) and across 8 pages inside the magazine. I wish I could read the reporting, but if you happen to speak Norwegian and subscribe to Morgenbladet, you can read the online version here. There are a few images online that didn't appear in print.

I've got many more photos in my archive from my short time in the lab with George Church, his lab's staff philosopher and bioethicist Jeantine E. Lunshof, and the rest of the researchers.

A big thanks to Christina and Jon at Morgenbladet, Jonno for passing the job along to me, and Church's assistant and lab staff for being so accommodating to us.

Tearsheet: Gerrymandering Hackathon for Wired


I recently photographed a gerrymandering hackathon at Tufts University for Wired. The hackathon was put on by the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering GroupMetric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group, a Boston-based group of mathematicians, coders, and policy wonks, who develop tools and methods for analyzing US voting districting. This was a challenging shoot, no doubt about it. I've photographed other hackathons before and they often something physical for the participants to work on--circuitboards, VR systems, etc. This one was purely computational: There were 15 people in a small room, all staring at computers. Nevertheless, a challenge like that is always fun.

You can read the article, by Issie Lapowsky, at Wired.com: "What I Learned At Gerrymandering Summer Camp"

Thanks to Ruby at Wired for calling me for the shoot!

China zoo image in Good Planet’s TERRA Exhibition in Paris


One of my images, seen at left of a tiger laying motionless in the zoo in Beijing, China, has been included in GoodPlanet Foundation's TERRA exhibition in Paris, France, currently on view. You can see my image as it's displayed in the picture of the exhibition installation above by Valeska Grafenstein.

Other photographers included in the exhibition include: Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting, Li Gang, Vincent Munier, Cyril Ruoso, Philippe Bourseiller, Daniel Sulivan, Solvin Zanki, Jurgen Freund, Francis Latreille, Suzi Esztheras, Octavio Aburto, Brent Stirton, Daniel Beltra, Doug Perrine.

If you read French, you can read a bit about the exhibition at GoodPlanet's website.

Thanks to the team at GoodPlanet including Camila and Eric who handled everything with my picture in the exhibition. Wish I could see it in person!

Tearsheet: WWE Champion Jinder Mahal for the New York Times


Last week, I spent a couple hours backstage and ringside for a New York Times profile of the current World Wrestling Entertainment Champion Jinder Mahal. Thanks to Ariana for the assignment and for the great play in the 19 August 2017 New York Times Arts Section. I believe this is the largest color picture I've had in the Times: one full-frame six-column picture on the section front, another six-column cropped image inside, and then a handful of other images to round out the print edition.

You can read the article and see a few more pictures here:How Jinder Mahal, an Indian WWE Star, Is Turning Up the Heat.