New Portfolios

I am posting to share my newly redesigned portfolio set. In the initial stages my goal was to produce something unique. An object that was easily recognizable and remembered by reflecting my online presence and strengthening my branding across both platforms. Like the site, green indicates the best of my assignment work and the blue showcasing my narrative personal series.

Upon completion the iPad was released. Like many visual artists, I was drawn to the easily customized platform that didn’t require hours of proofing, printing, and the cost of materials. But at the same time, I like the idea of showing nicely printed and sequenced photographs. And, I didn’t see any options to truly customize my presentation and was concerned my branding and identity could get lost in the mix. So I decided to have both and marry the old with the new. Integrate the iPad’s multimedia capabilities with classic book design having hand printed matte pages, half linen construction and a cradle for the iPad. The new presentation has been very well received and excited to share.

The above video was produced as a book preview on my contact page seen here. More photos and construction images after the jump.
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Christmas in America: Happy Birthday, Jesus

Wirschern Sisters' Christmas Dinner. 2011

Living Room. 2011

Protecting Dreams. 2011

Lee Sepanek. 2011

Happy Birt Jesus. 2011

I am excited to share my latest series, Christmas in America, Happy Birthday, Jesus. This new series is an on-going effort which will take place in a different city and region every year. The first chapter takes me to the state of Arizona where my family now resides.  Like all personal series, I have collaborated with celebrated fine art photography consultant and educator, Mary Virginia Swanson for my final edit.  Click here to see the series in its entirety and the below essay explaining the concept and themes behind my project.

Christmas in America: Happy Birthday, Jesus


Beyond the glowing green and red lights, past the shimmering silvery tinsel, around the fragrant pine boughs, another Christmas lingers, a Christmas of contradictions.


This is a Christmas where carved foam soldiers guard Santa in the parking lot of a church just before a holiday parade. This is a Christmas where donation asks are written in Spanish and English in the unsteady handwriting of an elderly man. This is a Christmas where three generations of one family put on matching pajamas and ride a train to a “North Pole” that’s next to the Grand Canyon. This is a Christmas where ten months of decorations, of work, threaten to push people out of their homes.


This Christmas is complex and at times, uncomfortable. It’s awkward and sometimes bleak. But it is also sincere and celebratory, colorful and creative.


This is the Christmas I captures in this first chapter of a photographic exploration of the biggest event on the American calendar. I grew up in a secular home and at times felt like a Christmas outsider, never connected to the holiday’s religious importance, or its more extreme cultural trappings. But in these photos, I become a Christmas insider, working to discover and reveal what holiday magic, or mania, compels so many to devote thousands of hours to hanging lights, to carving and painting figurines, to building miniature villages, to converting their homes, yards, garages and cars into monuments to merriness.


Initially inspired by the absurdity of a 40-foot inflatable Santa who appeared to be guarding a tree lot, I have launched this survey of uniquely American Christmas traditions. “Christmas in America” is an unvarnished examination of the ways people mark the holiday’s meaning.

Santa Fe Contest Winner: Family

I am proud to announce that I was recently selected for Santa Fe Workshop’s first ever photography contest, Family. The end result is a book showcasing the work of 50 photographers from 25 different countries.  My work featured is a portrait of my Grandparents in the bedroom of their Bella Vista, Arkansas home.


The Jury included Brenna Britton, Deputy Photo Editor? of People Magazine; ?Julie Blackmon, Photographer;? Anthony Bannon, Director of ?George Eastman House;? and Reid Callanan, Director ?of Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.


Click here to order a copy of Family.

Class of 99 Turns 30: Alex Owen

Alex Owen. Residence. 2010.

Long time friend and classmate, Alex Owen is my latest subject for my series, The Class of 99 Turns 30.  Alex is a musician seen in front of his former Tempe, AZ residence with his Rhodesian Ridgeback, Beyonce.  He has since taken his talents to Los Angeles and additional images will be posted next week. The image above is the final portfolio selection and outtakes after the jump.

With the help of fine art photography’s most sought after consultant and editor Mary Virgina Swanson, we have since added to the series title “The Class of 99” to “The Class of 99 Turns 30.” The below essay is the series preface explaining the concept and themes behind my project.

This year my high school classmates and I turned 30.  As we entered adulthood, we had reason to be optimistic and confident.  Our formative years were cocooned in security, a youth spent in a time of economic growth and low unemployment.

This is what we were promised: “You are being bequeathed the tools for achieving a material existence that neither my generation nor any that preceded it could even remotely imagined as we began our life’s work.” – Alan Greenspan to the Harvard graduating class of 1999

Today, unemployment hovers at 9.6 percent.  Housing foreclosures are at an all time high and personal bankruptcy filings are estimated to affect 1.7 million Americans.  My generation is the first in a hundred years that is unlikely to be financially better off than its parents.

It’s in this moment of transition that I photographed my classmates in settings relevant to the lives they are building.

The images show a community last assembled at graduation during America’s most prosperous moment, regrouping in 2009 during the toughest economic and social circumstances since the Great Depression.  The portraits examine what has been gained or lost in the interim.

Some are recovering from job losses, drug and alcohol addiction and loss of family.  Others are building families, achieving in the their early careers and volunteering in their communities.  Like all generations, we struggle to define ourselves as parents, citizens, family members and spouses.  We work to create meaningful lives; we work to understand what “meaningful” looks like.

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New Work: The Phoenix Goddess Temple “Sex Church”

Isis. 2010

Altar. 2010

Anonymous. 2010

Recent portraits of the “practitioners” at the Mystic Sister Goddess Temple in Phoenix, AZ. Opponents of the temple where quick to label it as a “sex church” and nothing more than a new age front operating as a brothel. These images originally were published in the March issue of Phoenix Magazine. Next month I will continue photographing the temple and practitioners as a personal project coinciding with a documentary to air on HBO.
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