May 31, 2008

It is hard to believe we have been on the road for a month. Everything has passed us by so quickly and I look forward to taking the coming weeks and months to digest it all. Rather than elaborate on the trip at this moment, I will share a note that I received in the mail from my father.

Timothy Briner made the above photograph of Ethan and I while in California. We are big fans of it as it reminds of us of the Nixon sister photographs.

Nicholas Nixon, Brown Sisters, Gelatin Silver Print, 1975, Yossi Milo Gallery

May 30, 2008

We head into Manhattan. It is a beautiful day. We check out the Philippe Gronon show at Yossi Milo with our friend, Tom Starkweather. The show is excellent. The installation of the Philippe’s work is brilliant and the prints themselves are reproduced beautifully; Yossi Milo does it again. The picture below does not do the show justice.

In the afternoon we catch up with Tom Prior at his Brooklyn apartment. It is sweltering. Fortunately, Tom has an A.C. unit right in his room.

We speak with Tom about his work and he presents us with a great, sound interview. Everything is super mellow and we enjoy every minute of it. After, we head out for coffee with Tom at the local cafe and call it an afternoon.

Thanks for catching up with us, Tom. It was a pleasure to meet you.

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Unfortunately, we were not able to meet up with Brea Souders in Manhattan due to her illness but we look forward to catching up with her soon.

Our last night on the road. We see old friends, think about everything we have seen and heard during the past month, and soak in the city before heading North and back to Maine.

May 29, 2008

We hit the road and make our way back to D.C. Ethan has a chance to catch up with his folks for a brief bit and I catch up with my older brother, Ray. Perfect.

Ethan’s parents photographed in Maine, 2007, Ethan Aaro Jones

Ray, Grand Lake Stream, Maine, 2007, David Wright

We make our way to the city thereafter and get stuck in endless amounts of traffic. Welcome to New York.

Upon arriving in New York we hit the Surf Bar for a selection of seafood and then the Levee Bar for refreshments. Exhaustion sets in and we pass out a short while later.

May 27, 2008

Our plan was to leave Savannah in the early morning hours but due to the new tires needing to be put on, we are not able to leave until after 1:30PM or so.

We arrive in Cary around 8PM and Shannon Johnstone, our next photographer, is having a birthday party for her significant other, Anthony. Veggies, fruits, and beers are shared and a good, relaxing time is had by all. We also have the pleasure of meeting Lia Newman, Director of Programs and Exhibitions at the Artspace Visual Art Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

May 26, 2008

We depart Tallahassee around morning time (7AM) and drive on I-10 East into the sunrise. The day is a beautiful one; blue skies, warm temps, welcoming air; a feeling of summer.

Matthew Gamber is the photographer we’re visiting this afternoon. He speaks well about his work and is an all-around good guy.

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After our interview, Matthew returns to where he teaches, the Savannah College of Art and Design, for his class’s final critique.

We realize that there is a small but unsafe tear and bubble in the right passenger-side tire of Ethan’s car. We stop at a Firestone Tire and they tell us the tire needs to be replaced but that they do not have the specific tire, a 195 - 50 - 16, in stock.

Not able to wait a day or two for the tires to come in, we call around town and thankfully Tires Plus has 4 of the specific tires in their warehouse that can be put on tomorrow morning.

We head back to SCAD after Matthew’s critique finishes and he gives us a tour of the college’s modern facilities.

We catch up in the evening with two good friends, Joos and Hayley, who Ethan and I met at the Maine Media Workshops. Joos is finishing his MFA thesis at SCAD and Hayley is finishing her BFA. We eat pizza, laugh a whole lot, talk about our trip and Joos’ epic t-shirts, and sleep at their amazingly-styled apartment. Thanks for having us, guys.

May 25, 2008

We wake up around 9AM and pile into the car for the 6 or so hour drive to Tallahassee to meet our next photographer, John Mann.

Before arriving at John’s house, we see a motorcyclist riding with his dog in his lap while smoking a cigarette.

Around 4PM we arrive at John’s home and both he and his wife, Christina, are warm and welcoming.

John, Ethan, Potato Pancake (dog), and I head out for a walk at a local wilderness area where pine trees are being studying, specifically to find out how often they can be harvested, and how often they need to be burned in order to replenish the soil. It’s interesting. As an Eagle Scout and an avid outdoor lover, I have a great appreciation and interest for everything nature-related.

7PM rolls around and Christina presents us with a terrific, homemade dinner: slow-cooked pork with tortillas, rice, salsa, a mix of corn and veggies, and a phenomenal dessert whose name I am forgetting. A little help, John or Christina?

We speak with John about his work and like all the photographers we have visited thus far, he is well spoken and undeniably passionate about his work and the photographic medium.

Thank you John, Christina, and Pancake Potato for having us in your home and a very enjoyable visit.

May 23, 2008

The day’s activities include: various neighborhoods, pralines, beignets, sausage and alligator cheese cake, the Bayou Boogaloo, the Mississippi Rover, trolley trains, Jackson Park, and an amazing jazz benefit show.

Mississippi River

Fountain

beignet before

beignet after

Ethan and Andrea, trolley

May 22, 2008

Campsite without the tent; dock in the background.

Ethan with the car with the tent inside; dock not in background.

Sloppy photography while driving.

New Orleans welcomes us with Andrea, Ethan’s friend, an instrumental band at the Maple Leaf Bar, and good times all around.

May 21, 2008

We say goodbye to the Econolodge in San Antonio and make our way to Louisiana. I realize that bathroom poet’s live in Louisiana.

Ethan does the day’s driving and I read Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet”. It is quite good and I recommend it to really anyone out there.

“And to be among conditions that work us, that set us before big natural things from time to time, is all we need.”

“I feel as though I had been sleeping for years or had been lying in the lowest hold of a ship that, loaded with heavy things, sailed through strange distances– — Oh to climb up on deck once more and feel the winds and the birds, and to see how the great, great nights come with their gleaming stars…”

We drive for a short while and our Garmin GPS takes us down a road with a bridge that is no longer accessible. The homes, light, grasses, and sky that are presented before us are quite beautiful.

We arrive at our campground in St. Martinsville and the humidity in unbelievable; it feels like the rain forests of Costa Rica. Without moving, one’s cotton shirt becomes soaked in sweat.

We make a pasta dinner, take cold showers, and sleep atop our Thermarest sleeping pads wearing only our boxers.

May 20, 2008

Good morning.

We head to Alejandro’s parents restaurant and meet his father who reminds me much of my father: warm, kind, funny, talkative; a true people person.

We have a traditional Mexican breakfast: scrambled eggs mixed with meat, onion, and pepper, wrapped in flour torillas with special, homemade salsa. Unbelievably delicious. We drink homemade fruit smoothies and I cannot begin to describe how good they are. A big thank you to Mr. Cartegana and his great staff!

We drive around the locations where Alejandro has been making his Lost Rivers and Topografia work, and then have a more formal but laid back interview at Fototeca, where Alejandro works. Both make for a winning combination and we look forward to presenting this content in multimedia form later this summer.

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In the afternoon we see more of Monterrey and it’s landscape.

We eat at a favorite restaurant of Alejandro’s and Chrissie’s, El Torito (The Little Bull). We order Tecate beers and a plate of meat, onion, pepper, salsa, and flour tortillas. Again, the food is remarkable and we eat until we simply can eat no more!

In the evening, we drive to El Mirador, a large hilltop in Monterrey where young people come to make out while American music plays through green speakers. It is quite a spektacle. We make portraits of Alejandro and see another epic sunset. Alejandro says we are good luck because today is one of the best cloud days of the year.

We pick up Chrissie and head for helado (ice cream). The amounts are plentiful and we cannot finish it all!

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 10:30PM and arrive in San Antonio at 4:30AM, but in reality does not leave until 11:15PM and does not arrive until 6:30AM. Make sure to allow an hour or two leeway if you ever head South of the border on a bus.

Ethan and I check into an Econolodge at 6:45AM and sleep for 3 hours until checkout at 11AM.

Alejandro, Crissie, and the Cartegenas: thank you for everything!