I love that show Storm Chasers, where they try to drive their heavily armored vehicles into tornadoes. As I child I was terrified of tornadoes but I now revel in the violence of powerful storms. Watching these guys drive right up next to the most powerful force in nature is mind blowing.

So it was a nice surprise when I recognized Marcus Guttierrez in a recent episode. Marcus is a film maker who specializes in capturing footage of natural disasters for IMAX productions. I met him and photographed him while on assignment for Fortune as he patiently waited on the flank of Mt. St. Helens in 2004 for a catastrophic eruption. He was excited about the the footage he would record if a massive explosion along the lines of the 1980 eruption occurred.

I pointed out that we were standing well within the blast zone of the 1980 event and that if it occurred, we’d be toast.

As I mentioned in my previous post I recently took a batch of random rolls of film in for processing. This image was on a roll of 620 Kodacolor II. I have no idea who this man is, if I took the picture, which camera it may have been taken with or how old it is.

8×10 portraits, from 1996

I wish I could say I was regular at Satyricon, it would make me sound much cooler than I really am. But the truth is by 1989 when I moved to Portland my punk rock days were mostly behind me. I had trashed my ears years earlier at places like the Triangle Theater in Rochester, CBGB in NYC, Continental Club in Austin and the Hot Klub in Dallas, as well as numerous other such venues.
But I did see a few shows at Satyricon in the early 90’s, no one of note and none I truly remember with the exception of Austin country/folk/roots songwriter Darden Smith, who was so completely out of his element at Satyricon that the baffled crowd of club regulars found themselves entranced by his evocative accoustic storytelling.
Even so I was saddened to learn the club was closing for good. Another piece of authenticity lost in a Portland that is fast selling it’s soul to hipster artifice. The place was legendary in the Northwest music scene hosting anyone who was anyone at one time or another. According to legend Kurt met Courtney there, Foo Fighters played their first show there. It was a classic punk dive, all black with tattered chairs, cheap beer and lots of attitude. A real shithole, with the emphasis on real. It was all about the music, not much else mattered.
Willamette Week just published a good piece with some video clips, (I like the Jackals clip) you can read here.
The following pictures were from a 1994 travel assignment for the New York Times. Crash Worship was the head liner that night but I bailed out of there before all that craziness got started after getting into a scuffle with one their drummers. I think the band on stage as I was shooting was called Plastic Horn Devils, or something.

For Inc. Magazine. Below are a couple of outtakes.

Sunday April 25 The New York Times Magazine published an assignment I recently shot for their Q&A page, a portrait of Craig Robinson, head coach of men’s basketball at Oregon State University and perhaps more famous as the brother to First Lady, Michele Obama.

This is the most recent of many of these shoots I’ve done for the Magazine’s long running feature and I always enjoy them. For one the people are always fascinating, intelligent and sometimes controversial, which makes for an interesting sitting.

But I also enjoy the simplicity of isolating a subject on white. Of course this is the technique that Avedon made famous. He said “It isolates people from their environment. They become in a sense . . .symbolic of themselves.” For most of my work incorporating the subject’s environment or location is often as important as the subject themselves, but when shooting on white it becomes totally about the sitter.

I also like the challenge of creating a studio on location and I’ve done these shoots in parking lots, basements, hallways, hotel rooms and more weird places than I can remember.

Here’s a few more samples of my past New York Times Magazine, Q&A shoots.

Architect Brad Cloepfil

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire

(Former) Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin

Author Chuck Palahniuk

Friday’s entry in NPR’s series on color photography reminded me of cool story I was a part of. In 1985 I was hired to assist Joel Meyerowitz on a Sunday afternoon as he scouted locations for an ad shoot. When I picked him up at his hotel he told me he really just wanted to go to the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth to see Avedon’s recently debuted “In the American West” exhibition.

While walking through the exhibit I looked on as a young man was setting up to take a picture of his young daughter in front of one the photographs. Almost immediately a security guard appeared, telling the young man photography was not allowed. I recognized the man as John Harrison, the subject of the photograph along with his daughter, an infant when Avedon had made the image and now appearing to be about 6.

John Harrison, lumber salesman, and his daughter Melissa, Lewisvile Texas, 11/22/81 by Richard Avedon

I quickly grabbed Joel’s attention, who asked if he might take the man’s picture, explaining he was friends with Dick Avedon and he would send Mr. Harrison the picture as well as give one to Avedon. The guard agreed as long as there was no flash, which Joel’s Leica was easily capable of doing.

So I looked on as Joel made a dozen or so exposures of Mr Harrison and his daughter smiling in front of the large mounted Avedon print.

Mr Harrison was genuinely grateful and seemed only to want a picture of his daughter and himself, no doubt unable to afford one of Avedon’s prints and seemingly oblivious to the fact that the two photographers he had been photographed by were Richard Avedon and Joel Meyerowitz.

Dear friend and long time co-conspirator Susan Seubert is speaking about her dual career today at Portland Art Museum. Sorry for the late notice.

When asked what I like about my work the first thing I think of is the cast of characters I meet. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of photographing people of many many walks of life, politicians, tycoons, murderers, atheletes, junkies, movie stars, etc., but none have the chutzpah of Stu Rasmussen. Elected Mayor of Silverton Oregon last year Stu became the first transgendered Mayor of an American town. I spent a couple days in Silverton hanging out with Stu and what I found remarkable was after only a few minutes, minutes in which Stu quickly disarms and charms you, you no longer see him as transgendered. You just see Stu. The people of Silverton, young and old have accepted him as one of their own in ways I found hard to believe could happen in a small town.
Anyway, here’s a couple from the take I shot for People:

in the City Council Chambers, Silverton.

With his girlfriend Victoria.