An update on my limited edition print sale:

Walkers, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 2006 — 17 then sold out
Grasses at Dusk, Rockport, Maine, 2006 — 20 then sold out
Home, Cushing, Maine, 2007 — 19 then sold out
Field, Tree, and Moon, Cushing, Maine, 2007 — 19 then sold out
Falling Rain and Tree, Stafford, Virginia, 2008 — 16 then sold out
Moon, Nags Head, North Carolina, 2008 — 20 then sold out

$100 unframed, $150 framed!

Please order all prints by 8PM EST Sunday, December 14th. That will allow me to get them completed before I leave for Africa. Unfortunately, after December 14th will not be able to accept print orders until I return in March 2009.

Click here to support!

Thank you all (especially bloggers Richard, Shawn, Emily, and JP)!

I will be using my large format camera in Africa. It will be expensive to shoot 4×5 film over the course of 2 months. A large portion of my fund raising will go towards basic things like the costs of film, instant film, and processing.

Why not shoot digital? I experience a certain magic and feeling through shooting with the large format camera. It’s like seeing the first snow fall of year after year — the feeling remains strong and worthwhile.

Support my fundraising by making a donation here. It’s for a great cause.

Snowfall, Rockport, Maine, 2007

A touching video to start this Monday off on a warm note…

(via The Year in Pictures)

I remember seeing a stunning portrait of Natalie Portman on the cover of T Magazine awhile back but couldn’t remember who the photographer was until tonight.

It was Raymond Meier and he recently shot a series of products in the Greenland landscape for the T Magazine Travel Winter 2008 issue.

The photographs are without question beautiful and I find them slightly ironic given the current state of the world’s financial situation — pieces of luggage trying to stay afloat amidst a sea of obstacles.

Raymond Meier © 2008

There is a worthwhile Gregory Crewdson interview on Epson’s website. It provides great insight into his working process, behind the scenes footage of his productions, and why he now does pigmented ink printing.

Click here to watch.

From Richard Renaldi’s blog:

Photographer David Wright will be traveling to Uganda to photograph the people and landscape for a traveling exhibition and book that will be used to raise funds for A River Blue (a non-profit arts empowerment project for the children of internally-displaced persons in Northern Uganda). He is selling prints through is blog at a reduced price to help finance his trip and has graciously asked me to help him get the word out. This amazing experience will help shape and define this young photographer – how could you not want to be part of that!

Lotte and Yun Jiem, 2007, by Richard Renaldi

From Shawn Gust’s blog:

David Wright emailed me the other day to ask if I could help spread the word for him in his fund raising efforts for an upcoming trip.

A chance to support a great photographer with a meaningful project. A beautiful print of your choice in exchange for your donation. Take your pick here.

Jacob, Beauty Creek, Idaho, 2008, by Shawn Gust

Watch this.

Feel good? I hope so.

(via Superficial Snapshots)

If I was in New York tonight I would be here:

Zoe Strauss: AMERICA: We Love Having You Here
November 22, 2008 – January 10, 2009
Opening: November 22nd, 2008

Book signing: 6 – 8pm
Books will be available for sale
Party!: 8-10pm starring DJ Cosmo, aka “brother”

Silverstein Photography
535 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
P: 212-627-3930

I often think about how day to day occurrences relate to photography.

Last night I was driving home from the studio around 11PM. All of the roads in Cushing are countryroads and I live on a dirt road myself. While coming around a turn at 45mph or so, I started along the straight away and saw a man standing in the road waving his arms to slowdown. I stopped my car, got out, and saw that a woman driving a 4×4 GMC Sierra had minutes prior literally barreled into a tree going 50-60mph. The entire front of her truck was compacted and she was trapped in the vehicle. Thankfully there was a sheriff there talking to the woman involved.

Although it was 11PM and the temperatures were in the teens, I decided to wait in the event help was needed. Two fire departments arrived minutes later with two ambulences. It was remarkable to see two departments work together with almost no words being exchanged. Everyone simply knew what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. The entire process was seamless.

It reminded me of a photograph I made of a good friend, Kelly. It was like the accident. We were comfortable enough with the situation that no words needed to be exchanged to make the photograph.

Kelly, Rockport Harbor, Maine, 2006

I have 4 or 5 books next to my bed that have been there so long they’re collecting dust. When I say “bed” I mean a piece of plywood that’s raised by 2×4s with a futon mattress for cushioning. There’s also a mosquito netting that engulfs the bed and protects it from spiders (literally enormous in size this fall) and other insects. But lately I have started to read Holdfast by Kathleen Dean Moore.

Sitting on a boulder whitewashed by western gulls, watching the sliding surf, I resolve to study holdfasts. What will we cling to, in the confusion of the tides? What structures of connection will hold us in place? How will we find an attachment to the natural world that makes us feel safe and fully alive, here, at the edge of the water?

I feel much like a holdfast these last few months in Maine. Over the course of 3 months I have been able to live rent-free in a trailer on the St. George River.

It’s worthwhile because it’s riverfront and free, but there’s no running water, no toilet, and no electric or oil heat. Thankfully there’s a woodstove next to my bed that pumps out so much heat once it gets going that I feel like I’m on a beach in Panama. However, when I come home from work and until the woodstove heats up, the trailer is essentially the same temperature that it is outside, and the forecast for Friday night is 19°F.

I feel a bit like a subject in Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi.

Trailer, Cushing, Maine, 2008