I love going to natural history stores, they have so much cool stuff.

I have a confession to make - I don’t really like cameras.

I was talking about this with a friend the other day. I think there are two kinds of photographers - people who are really interested in cameras in and of themselves, and people who are really interested in images. I shoot with Canons most of the time, but one light tight box is as good as the next. It seems weird to have an allegiance to one brand or to have strong feelings about them. Not that I don’t love using them, because I obviously do. I like looking through the viewfinder and finding that composition that works, and I have to admit that the sound a Hasselblad makes when you press the shutter is pretty exciting. I’ve heard many people say that photographers are just people without the dedication to become painters, and I think there is a lot of truth in that. For me cameras are just a means to an end. To be interested in cameras would be like a carpenter who cared about hammers more than building houses.

When I first read the blog of Chase Jarvis I thought his “the best camera is the one you have with you” mantra summed up pretty perfectly how I felt about cameras. And I have to agree with him that one of the most exciting photo technology things to come in the last few years isn’t that the 5Dmk2 has a self-cleaning sensor or that Leica finally made a digital rangefinder - but the iPhone. Finally there is a camera that is always with me, however imperfect it may be technically. Chase’s new “Best Camera” iPhone app has been talked about endlessly elsewhere on the internet so I’m not going to go on about that, other than to say that I’ve had a lot of fun playing with it lately (I took the above image with it on the way to job the other day). I like having something in my pocket that allows me at all times to work out a composition or capture something interesting.

I’ve been working on some product shots for San Francisco based Photojojo this past week. Initially I had a hard time coming up with an idea for this photo frame - I wanted to emphasize the ‘magnetic’ part without just sticking some magnets on it. I ended up with this solution and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

My friend has like a dozen of these so I borrowed one. I thought it would be a nice change of pace from the dead animals.

I’ve recently become interested in still images. This is kind of a departure for me, because besides for some assignments I did in school I have always shot people. I love portraiture and I like that interaction with the subject, but lately I have been thinking that what really excites me about making images is the staging part of it, lighting the scene, and putting everything together.

I realize that this image and the deer one both have strong people-like subjects and are basically just portraits using inanimate animal objects, but I am having fun exploring new territory and am going to continue with it and see what happens.

I found a few rolls of film I shot on my road trip out to California last year that I never got developed. This is from a small town in New Mexico where my car broke down. I spent a lot of time wandering around the abandoned buildings with my dog and Hasselblad.

Added a half dozen images to my website yesterday, will be putting up some more soon.