We settled in at the hospital by 2 or 3am, me with sweat stains on my shirt, wreaking of cigarettes and beer. I remember a nurse asking my wife “do you want him to stay?” Luckily, she did!

Finally, at 7:20am, she arrived… an angel.

Happy birthday, Olivia Grace!

Keep an eye out for more instant film goodness, ’cause here’s what I won.

Not trying to slight the technicians, but what I’m really interested in is people who do what they do so well and with such passion that they elevate it to an art form. Granted, the guy machining grommets at the local factory doesn’t need to be passionate to be successful, and that’s fine. But certain vocations, at least at the upper end, are best approached by true artisans… a chef. A photographer. Definitely musicians, actors, and designers. Carpenters. All are disciplines in which craftsmanship should play a role. All can be made or broken in that last five percent. That’s where the craftsman lives – in that five percent where utility gives way to beauty. There are plenty of technicians out there who know the “right” way to cook an egg or play a paradiddle; know the rule-of-thirds or can memorize lines for a play, but a craftsman approaches his task differently. It sounds cheesy but it’s true: a craftsman works lovingly.

I happen to think a lot of technological factors tend to diminish craftsmanship as well. Surely people have looked at Joel Bukiewicz and said “dude, they’ve got machines for that” before happily buying a set of Henckels. As primarily a film photographer, people have often told me I could use photoshop plug-ins to get “that look.” But tell that to Dave Burnett or Christopher Wahl. Tell Eric Ripert it might be more cost effective to buy his tuna from Starkist. Craftsman vs. technician lies between the lines. It’s the thing you can’t put your finger on but is also so obvious when you experience it. You notice it in the way a singer or a song emotes. As a drummer I was always intimidated by guys with great chops, the guys who could play the smoothest swiss triplet you ever heard. But over the years I’ve come to realize what it is people like about my playing. It’s the feel; the thing that can’t be taught. The air between the notes rather than the notes themselves. It just IS. It’s something my friend, Chef Johnny, calls soigne.

You’ll be hearing more about Chef Johnny as his pop-up restaurant, Spoon, approaches. A recurring, ever-changing culinary event taking place in different venues, his inaugural Spoon 1.0 will be held at Pasture on May 20th (he’s already sold out one seating so I recommend getting your tickets now!) and promises to be a beautiful example of culinary craftsmanship.

This is Mattias. He’s a craftsman. He runs the bar at Comfort and will also devise a cocktail for each course at Spoon 1.0.

Being his dad has made me twice the man I used to be.

Bucket is a band I co-founded with Lewis Harris and Mitch Taylor in 1992…. that’s right, twenty years ago! Hard to believe it’s been that long. I moved to Boston the following year and Bucket fans have since referenced different eras of the band’s history by which drummer was involved. The latest incarnation, represented here, has Ricky Tubb on skins.

Lewis and Mitch are two of the best songwriters I’ve ever encountered. The band is not active at the moment, but if you ever hear of a Bucket gig you should definitely try and catch it.

Shooting video for the show was a lot of fun, but I’ve also had the pleasure of performing on Studio B with Tom McCormack (pictured below with Smack during a 2009 broadcast) and playing, engineering, or producing on records featured on the show at one time or another. I’ll be the first to say the New Media is very cool but, for a guy who grew up in the 70′s, being played on the radio is still hard to top.

This past week, Studio B was recorded by Daniel Deckelman at Snake Oil Recording and featured stalwart Richmond heavies, RPG. I’m going all cheesy-rock-critic dropping “stalwart” and “heavies” because these guys truly are both. I shot very little footage, hence the mercilessly short edit of their new song, “Southern Girls”, so be sure and check out the new record “High Loathsome” which I believe is being pressed on 180 gram vinyl at this very moment.

This video can be seen at RVA.com this week as well, where you’ll also learn a bit more about the new RPG record.

I should probably stop shooting my food, though… especially while the fam is waiting for their meal!

I only bring this up because with a ban on the incandescent light bulb beginning this year, mercury is often cited as the main reason for criticism of the new CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) design. While meddlesome government regulation and dire warnings about breakage do cause me some concern, I must admit my real issue with the ban is much more selfish than that; it’s about color temperature.

It’s bad enough that CFL’s contain mercury, are weirdly misshapen, aren’t dimmable, create RF interference, spew ultraviolet light, can’t handle voltage spikes, and make us look like shit in the bathroom mirror, but what will we photographers do without that warm tungsten filament glow? I prefer to keep my daylight outside and my warm tungsten in, thank you very much. In fact, I really love it when both warm and cool light sources are successfully combined in the same image. This shot taken at the bar in Kuba Kuba is a good example. I used tungsten balanced film to capture a clean, true-to-life image of the subject under indoor lighting, while the daylight filtering in behind was rendered a dramatic blue.

Sure lighting technology has advanced in leaps and bounds and between CFL’s, LED’s, halogens, and whatever else is out there, consumers will probably have no problem finding warm, pleasant lighting for living rooms and hallways, offices, bathrooms, ovens, car interiors even, but sometimes I’ve just gotta bitch.

Sometimes change is annoying. Sometimes it’s not for the better.

If it aint’ broke don’t fix it…

and it aint’.

Now if we could only decide on ‘color’ or ‘colour’.

Here are a few photos where I used the “wrong” color temperature for dramatic effect.