The Visually Impaired get hands on with a Tiger

Did a fascinating and crazy story awhile back for the Wall Street Journal about the Oregon Zoo.  In seems the zoo anesthetizes its tigers every few years to do check ups.  Well someone had the idea to add a bunch of visually impaired children to this scenario.  I can just imagine the conversation where someone pitches this idea.  But somebody pitched and somebody agreed and the result was both amazing and surreal.  Swarms of people touching the paws, whiskers, even the tongue, of a 235-pound Siberian named Nikki.  Meanwhile the big cat is being shaved, having blood drawn, getting its temperature taken (and yes, you are correct about where the thermometer was placed).  Really a once in a lifetime experience not only for the children, but for myself.  Oh, and the tiger.

Nursing My Camera - A Night in the ER for Portland Monthly Magazine

Spent a full 12 hours at the Legacy Emanuel ED (because it's a whole department of emergency, not just a room) for Portland Monthly's Photo Essay: Trauma Night.  Having grown up on Eugene Richard's Knife and Gun Club, I had visions of what awaited me and so approached the assignment with a mix of anticipation and fear.  His days of roaming the hospitals are long gone because of HIPPA, but the access I did get was almost unprecedented and a deal-with-the-devil was made that no one but the staff could be recognizable in the images. From 3pm to 3am on an atmospheric Friday evening I follow around the very pregnant and badass trauma nurse, Jennifer Parker.  I scribble notes as she says things like, "Her leg might never be the same," during a three-hour surgery of a gunshot-wound victim.  I stand in the corner documenting as more than 10 hospital staff dash around a patient unfortunate enough to have shot herself.  "Do you want to see the bullet?" asks one of the many players, "How about a piece of her small intestine we had to remove?"  I agree to both, always unsqueamish when in photographer mode.

That is just a taste of what I see over the course of the evening, which also includes car crashes, stitches, vomit, cat scans, and full ensembles of blue.  Jennifer is hardly phased, for her this is a typical night, and a relatively uneventful one at that.  At one point she has to restrain a woman who is clearly intoxicated  “NOW STOP THAT. Stop acting like a child. You want this to look pretty don’t you?” Intermediately gruff and soothing, Parker contends with the female patient who requires stitches after suffering a facial laceration from being hit by a car. “It took three of us to do a repair a 3-year-old should have been able to handle,” Parker says. In one year the hospital’s emergency department treats about 40,000 patients—around 110 per day. Only two Oregon hospitals, Emanuel and OHSU, are designated Level 1 trauma centers, equipped and staffed to provide the highest level of care to acutely sick and badly injured people. These two hospitals take in patients from across the state via ambulance and helicopter.

After 3am, I remove my scrubs and ask Jenn if I can walk to her car to document the end of her evening.  She demurs, having a few more things to make right and a few more people to tend to, unable just yet to let go.

What I Learned - Portland Monthly Gets Inside Schools

There is nothing like spending a few days back in high school to make you take a little stock in your life.  As I creep up on my 20 (unbelievable) year reunion, I think back to that time, fondly I guess.  But I am also struck by how much cooler kids today seem.  Do I blame the internet?  Cable TV?  Back then couldn't see and didn't know too much past my own town and these kids can access the world in their pocket.  Does that make them happier?  More worldly?  Or more weighted down?  Things definitely seem a lot more complicated now then they did back in 1993.  If you are feeling the need for a little teenage angst revisited, check out a slideshow of Lincoln, Catlin Gabel and Century High Schools, which I shot last year for Portland Monthly Magazine.  And you can read the whole story here.

The Traveling Cantor, Jack Falk - For the NYTs

Photographed the charming Jack Falk for the New York Times for a story on traveling cantors.  Congregations that are too small to have their own will bring him in for the High Holidays.  Jack kept me entertained with jokes and even sang for me a bit.  I was basically loving life until I was dive bombed by wasps.  Clearly camera shy, they were not interested in having their picture taken.  My hand blew up to about hulk size.  Fortunately, Jack's wife was nice enough to give me a poultice to take the swelling down and I was able to carry on.  It's rough out their sometimes, even for God's chosen people.

The Artist Known as Joe Sacco

Joe Sacco let me invade his home for a recent portrait for the NYTimes.com.  Pretty amazing to say that your job is a cartoonist, I mean, who actually has that job besides him and maybe Charles Schulz.  Love that light cutting across his face from the blinds and it is always tickles me how many different images you can take from the same room.  Joe just smiled indulgently and told me stories of his father while I circled him.  Joe started in journalism, which, as a recovering newspaper photographer, is near and dear to my heart. Just recently crashed his house again for a holiday party, where Joe was DJing and making a mean hot toddy. What a renaissance man.

Happy Campers, Pickathon 2013

Every August for the past 15 years a magical event called Pickathon takes place just outside of Portland.  Four days of music, camping, beer drinking and general good times spill out onto Pendarvis farm.  Not only is there amazing music at 6 stages tucked all over the woods but it is also the only large outdoor music festival in the United States to eliminate single use dish ware, cups (thanks to Klean Kanteen) and utensils.  Plastic free since 2010 they also compost and use renewable energy.  I was given the official job of photographic 'roamer' which basically means wander around and shoot whatever makes the event cool. See ya there in 2014.

Shooting Bikes and Brew for Travel Oregon

I spent a sunny day chasing down bikes and brews in Portland for Travel Oregon.  Not sure which this town is more obsessed about.  But while contemplating this I managed to hit three breweries before the sun went down....Coalition Brewing Co., Hair of the Dog, and Apex Bar with more than 50 beers on tap.  Hey, it's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Totally Tubular

So many people I have talked to rave about surfing the Oregon Coast.  Not too crowded, nice waves, quaint little towns.  All I can think about is the cold.  Even dipping my toes in that icy water makes me dream about senior beach week in Ocean City, Maryland.  But I digress.

I appear to be the only one who has those issues though, as the go-to-spot, Short Sands, is littered with very hip looking crowds, swathed in neoprene.  And I was more than game when long time friend and writer Lucy Burningham told me she needed a picture taker for her very first adventure into the waves.

Oh, and did I mention the Wall Street Journal wanted to hear all about it?  We grabbed Christopher to shoot video and our merry band of journalists headed West.

As typical of the coast, we were blessed with perpetually changing weather, but after a lesson with Lexie Hallahan of Northwest Women’s Surf Camps we witnessed Ms. Burningham ride her very first wave.  Almost made me want to jump in.  I said almost.

If you are feeling like you may want to take a dip and a trip yourself, read the article.

Lucy and I first worked together for Imbibe Magazine in Croatia, where we found ourselves racing around the country chasing down truffle hunters and infused liquors.  If that doesn't make for permanent bonding, I don't know what does.  Check out another one of our adventures involving sauerkraut here.  And if you are someone who like to bike and drink beer (this perhaps maybe everyone I know), then be sure to grab Lucy's fab book, Hop in the Saddle.

Learning to Surf on the Oregon Coast, with the Wall Street Journal from NashCO Photo and Video on Vimeo.

Farm to Table at Noble Rot

Hung out at Noble Rot, the restaurant above the city and their kick ass rooftop garden, which was totally amazing, as was the weather.  Chef and owner of not only the restaurant but the best rock star name ever, Leather Storrs, gave me a tour.  Then he picked our lunch from the roof, got to cooking and I fought writer Lynne Curry for the spoils of our labor.  Or rather of his.  But whatever.

Asian Students Help U.S. Religious Schools Prosper

Private U.S. high schools, particularly religious schools, are enjoying a tuition windfall from high-paying Asian families eager to give their U.S. college-bound kids a head-start through enrollment on U.S. campuses. A few months ago I photographed students at St. Mary's School in Medford, Oregon for the Wall Street Journal story about U.S. academies luring a growing number of Asian students.  It is such an interesting mix of cultures, religious school with Communist students, and irony that seems to work for everybody though.  I was also struck by the fact that so many Chinese are clearly now wealthy enough to send their children across the globe and pay $49,000 a year for tuition, room and board (it is worth noting that locals only pay $12,000).  All with the hopes of getting them into a US college where the acceptance rates are much higher (even Ivy Leagues like Harvard!) than any college in ultra-competitive China.  Want to  know more about this fascinating two about a clash of cultures and countries?  Read the full story here.

Bob Moore, baddest 82-year-old ever.

Click below to read the article and see a whopping 20 picture slideshow all about Bob.

Astoria...all the cool kids are doing it.

I love Astoria...I really do.  This is REALLY where hipsters go to retire, or at least this is where they go to open up cool restaurants and breweries and coffee shops and vintage stores where you can furnish your très cool 1910 Craftsman Bungalow.  And did I mention it is where the film, The Goonies, was shot.  I mean, really.  The New York Times apparently also agrees, such a smart group of folks.  I would worry that this place is gonna get way overrun with tourists, but the often, uh...wet weather takes care of that, with sunny days making you wonder if you've done something good in a past life.

Does this monkey make me look fat?

Spent the day at the Oregon National Primate Research Center for the New York Times.  The whole facility is immense with more than 4,000 monkeys on site.  One thing I learned was to never show your teeth to a monkey or look then straight in the eye...it makes them aggressive, perhaps good advice for the world of dating. I was there to photograph the fat monkeys, the ones spending their days on the couch, eating chips and drinking soda.  Ok, not really.  But for the last several years researchers there have been doing tests to mimic the average American diet and lifestyle and the results aren't pretty (though they did end up on the front page of the Sunday paper).  This colony of monkeys have been fattened up to help scientists study the human epidemics of obesity and diabetes.

I left the assignment feeling all sorts of things, like:

"Wow, that was amazing and fascinating and I love my job."

"I am never drinking soda again."

"Do we really need to be caging a bunch of cute monkeys to study how messed up humans are?"

But mostly I felt kind of sad.  Being obese is not an easy thing, it is bad for your health and your esteem and your career, but it is also not something easy to fix, no matter how many monkeys we fatten up.

And so I was sad.  For the fat monkeys, for the number of times a week I weigh myself, and for America.

God bless us, each and every one.

So for the last two years I have been volunteering my services at the Downtown Chapel. They do lots of great stuff for the most marginalized members of society, i.e. the homeless, including the Portrait Project which started in 2007. It goes like this, over the course of four days in December their guests and volunteers are invited to get a portrait taken by moi or another fabulous shooter like Jason Kaplan who also organizes the whole thing. Then, a week before Christmas, the folks come back and get to pick up two 5"x7" color prints that they can give as gifts or keep for themselves. The Downtown Chapel even provides Christmas cards, stationary and postage for mailing portraits to family and friends. Cool right? Wanna feel even more warm and fuzzy? Check out their slideshow from last year. I have to say, this has become one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. I always go in there thinking, ok, here I am, doing my volunteer work, giving back, aren't I so virtuous, blah, blah, blah. But man if I don't feel like I got the gift at the end of it. I get to connect, make people laugh and hopefully give them a few minutes to feel seen and heard.

Cuz' everybody likes a little attention.

Especially around the holidays.

Goonies: Just one nonstop Truffle Shuffle

I really do have the best job in the world.  It's true.  At least that's what I thought when I got a call from the Washington Post to photograph the 25th anniversary of the filming of the movie Goonies.  You remember this movie... pirate's treasure, bank robbers, Sean Astin and the scary yet ultimately lovable guy named Sloth who kept eating all the Baby Ruth candy bars.  Well, even if you don't remember it, at least 16,000 other people do and a few weeks ago they all descended upon the town of Astoria, Oregon where the movie was filmed.  The 3-day event was packed with bus tours, trivia games, movie museums, costume contests..enough stuff to keep me perpetually glued to my "Goonie Weekend" schedule guide. I spent a fair bit of time snapping away at the autograph signings...watching Corey Feldman endlessly plug his band "Truth Movement" and the-now-slim-and-somewhat-foxy Jeff Cohen (the dude who played Chunk) shamelessly flirt with me and coyly repeat over and over, "Don't judge me!  Stop judging me."

Fans waited in line for five hours to have cast members sign autographs, their hands clutching old VHS tapes, action figures, and even a Goonies board game, for the actors to scribble on.  One guy had driven all the way from Buffalo, New York (granted this guy was wearing a handmade latex "Sloth" mask) and another group who had flown in from France...France, people!

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

This was some serious Goonies business and though I loved the movie I couldn't quite figure out what it was that had elevated it to cult status.  Endless childhood?  Endless possibility?  Whatever the case, it was pretty awesome to see so many folks unashamedly geeking out and throwing themselves headfirst into ridiculousness.

And that is something I can always respect.