38 Million People Watching

Obama’s speech seen by 38 million viewers: His TV audience nearly doubled the amount of people who watched John Kerry accept the Democratic nomination to run against President Bush four years ago. Kerry's speech was seen by just over 20 million people... Nielsen Media Research said more people watched Obama speak than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the final "American Idol" or the Academy Awards this year. [via Hart Up North]

The Grass is Greener...

Spent some time getting to know Denver yesterday. The art museum is top notch. It was a nice surprise to see several Larry Clark and Diane Arbus photos lining the walls. And the paintings in their permanent collection are incredible... Amedo Mogliani, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Georgia O'Keefe... I lost three hours in there, but gained a healthy dose of art and culture.

After that, I spent the rest of the day breathing. Laying down in a park, watching the clouds move overhead, feeling the grass moving under my feet. Remembering that sometimes the grass is greener on the other side.

Stars and Stripes

The DNC. It's such a huge, historic event that I didn't want to miss. I've been really excited by the politics of this year and couldn't see myself not covering the DNC -- the culmination of everything else politically that I've shot this year. I took some vacation time to come out here to Denver. I was told by several to make the best of it. To look for that silver lining. It's really nice not to have to cover the news of the day. Not to be responsible for photographing all the speakers. Not to have any parameters. Not to have any orders. So, I decided to keep with the American flag theme today. It keeps me amused while I'm wandering, looking for moments, searching for photographs, trying to find that glimmer of a silver lining. Really excited by working for noone but myself.

Hillary

This won't be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat in the White House.

We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who understands that America can't compete in a global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a President who understands that we can't solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.

We need a President who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.

Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down. He knows government must be about "We the people" not "We the favored few."

Tonight, the scene on the floor at the DNC was a sight to behold. Tens of thousands of people were crowded in to get a glimpse of Hillary Clinton. To listen to her speak. To be inspired by her. To be united for her, for Obama, for this country.

The energy in the room gave me goosebumps, and I breathed in the air of hope and promise.

To read and/or watch the rest of her speech, go here. It's worth your time.

Wyoming

Road trips always help clear my head. There's something about the open road, a big sky, new sights and the feeling that I'm controlling my own destiny that gets my heart racing. That's why I decided to rent a car and drive to Wyoming. I've never been there before and it's only about 90 minutes from Denver. It was a much needed reprieve.

DNC - day one

To make a long story short, I'm at the DNC, shooting for myself. It's great. No deadlines. No headaches. No pressure. Today I just spent some time walking the city. Getting my bearings. Learning how things work at a huge event like this.

Denver is great. I'm really enjoying the city. I've never really spent any time here. Flew in once for a multimedia workshop, and spent very little time outside of the classroom. And when it was over, I hightailed it to Colorado Springs.

This first photo kind-of sums up my mood lately. Just a grab shot during a protest. But a great visual metaphor for what's in my head.



When I'm shooting a large event, sometimes I get overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. There's so much visual stimulation that I never know where to start. I see one thing, then I instantly want to go to something else I saw in passing. So what I do is I try to pick a theme and stick to it. Today was the American flag. Made a few decent photos. And I'll try again tomorrow to keep adding to the collection.

Zebra Sighting

Black and white stripes everywhere. I had a really fun, fairly visual assignment to photograph an referee clinic, where they were being schooled in the finer points of refdom. The only tough part was identifying everyone in the end.

Shaken Baby

I don't understand. I don't understand how a parent can do this to their child. I don't understand how someone can ruin someone else's life. Especially a child's. What did a 3 1/2 month old baby could do something so wrong that they deserved punishment. I don't understand how 4 years is enough punishment for someone for shaking a baby.















(This is a repost. I hate when RSS feeds don't include photos in them, and for some reason, it refuses to recognize SoundSlides as code.)

Me, Myself and I

Why is the word "I" capitalized?

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of "you" and even, occasionally, the informal form of "you," but would never capitalize "I." Yet in English, the solitary "I" towers above "he," "she," "it" and the royal "we." Even a gathering that includes God might not be addressed with a capitalized "you."

Quote

…You must cultivate attention–the art of seeing, the art of listening. You needn’t trouble about memory, that will take care of itself; but you must learn to live in the true sense. To pay attention is to live, and to live is to pay attention…”

--Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats

Stanley

Stanley Mayausky, 79, has failed his drivers licence test 61 times. Every day he wakes up, and walks two miles to the DMV office to take it again, in hopes of getting to drive his 1974 Chevy Impala again. "She's my baby," Mayausky says of the car.

Stanley had the best face. I was instantly drawn to it. So after I finished photographing him for the paper, I decided to do something for myself, so I asked him if I could make his portrait.

I think I'm going to start a tight face project for fun.

Little Man

Just something for a little photo column I'm starting up at the paper. This little guy was awesome. I'll post more when the first one runs.

Looking Through "The Girl in the Window"

Steve Myers at Poynter asked some really thought-provoking questions about "The Girl in the Window" story. Such was the interview recorded for posterity's sake.

The Girl in the Window

She was found curled up in a filthy room, unable to speak or make eye contact.

They called her a feral child.

Could nurturing make up for a lifetime of neglect?



The girl in the window is a story about a 9-year-old girl named Dani. Ultimately it's a story about hope. It's the result of 6 months of work -- countless hours of interviews, thousands of miles driven and too many images to count. It is also the most important story I've ever had the opportunity to tell. I also love that I got the chance to tell it with the most amazing writer I know. Lane DeGregory's words are amazing, and in reading them it took me back there and showed me things I'd never seen before -- even though I was right there with her. Her talent and gift helped do Dani's story justice.

Please go watch the multimedia piece. The voices of all those people who have come into contact with a very special little girl say far more than I ever could.