The Moment Between Moments – Cover Photo for Unwound’s boxset, Empire

I appreciate the subtle and quiet pauses. I took this picture 13 years ago. Unwound was playing the Great American Music Hall in support of their latest and last record, Leaves Turn Inside You. I was on assignment to photograph them for Magnet Magazine.

12 years later I posted a photo on Instagram from the portrait session, a phone camera shot of a contact sheet. I hash tagged it #unwound. Justin Trosper, lead singer and guitarist of the band, saw it and asked if I had more. I sent a few and they chose this image of him setting up his gear. Now its the cover of their box set, Empire. The last of a reissue series of their complete recordings put out by Numero Group and all designed by Henry Owings.

The cover

The cover

The original, uncropped and untreated.

The original, uncropped and untreated.

   The  image posted on Instagram that started it all. (L-R) Sara Lund, Bradt Sandeno, Justin Trosper, and Vern Rumsey. This was in my backyard, when I lived on Monterey Boulevard in San Francisco.

The  image posted on Instagram that started it all.
(L-R) Sara Lund, Bradt Sandeno, Justin Trosper, and Vern Rumsey.
This was in my backyard, when I lived on Monterey Boulevard in San Francisco.

From The Archive – Just in time for the 34th America’s Cup finals

Larry Ellison and Norbert Bajurin at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, SF 2002

In 2002, Ellen Zaslow hired me to photograph Larry Ellison and Norbert Bajurin, the commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club. Julian Guthrie had written a profile about Oracle Racing’s move from the grand St. Francis Yacht Club to the blue-collar Golden Gate Yacht Club down the street. She developed the story further into a book titled, The Billionaire and The Mechanic (Bajurin runs a radiator shop).

When making a portrait, its easy to get stuck on a desired result, to get overly concerned with making your subject look good. The problem with that is you can miss the sublime moments that occur while waiting to capture that garden-variety smile.

A 20 Year Old Code


Click to see this image bigger

I just saw a news item about Jim Sanborn. 20 years ago the CIA asked artists to submit proposals for artwork to be installed in the New Headquarters Building. His sculpture has a secret code text cut in four copper panels. To this day the whole thing has not been decoded. NPR reported that Mr. Sanborn is submitting a clue to help those hoping to crack the code.

Link to NPR story is here

One of my first assignments was to photograph Mr. Sanborn with one of his pieces at The Phillips Collection. When I was going through my archive I discovered it in my very first portfolio!