Burke is a photography student of mine at The Art Institute of Austin.

But the real reason this trip is even possible is because the Society for Photographic Education National Conference is in Philadelphia this year. I’ll be taking a train down to Philly on Thursday for the conference to meet up with my colleague, Jen Litterer, and several students. We’ll be in town until Thursday.

Though I know this blog reaches a rather limited audience, if you happen to be in one of those two cities and you want to meet, count me in. I am still a dork like that.

Also, see Shudder Budder—my students’ new photo club at The Art Institute of Austin—for posts and videos about the conference afterwards.

My brother has been the subject of a number of my photos over the years. This one, also from 2006, has been sitting in a Workbox since then. I don’t know why I ignored it. I think it might be the best photo I’ve taken of him to date. Compare for yourself, here, here, here, here, here, here & here.

I was shooting a lot of large format B&W back in 2006. My friend Nate was teaching in Pflugerville, and he offered to pose for a photograph in his classroom. I never got him a print of the image, so this evening I scanned the negative and printed it digitally. If you take a look at my original post, I think you’ll agree I’ve learned quite a bit about contrast and shadow detail in 4 years. Of course, it helps to use a far better scanner.

Running from the crashing waves in Galveston.

I didn’t know it was about to happen. Managed to get the camera out just in time for this one shot. Congrats, Mo and Jill.

From The State Fair of Texas.

From The State Fair of Texas.

From The State Fair of Texas.

From The State Fair of Texas.

I’ve been fascinated by Joshua Trees ever since I first saw them earlier this year on my way from Vegas to LA. My friend Kyle from grad school picked me up in Vegas to attend a conference in LA. It’s part of the reason I wanted to return: just so I could make that drive through the desert and take photos.

It was cold, so Stacy waited in the car. I couldn’t stop thinking about this classic Robert Frank image from The Americans.

I met Jeff while taking photos of the valley from the Griffith Observatory. We struck up a conversation and I asked him if he would be willing to take a photo—admittedly something I wish I would do more often—and he obliged.

During our four hour visit to LA.

A few weeks ago, we were in Las Vegas because Stacy was running a half-marathon. We tired of Vegas rather quickly and decided to make the four hour drive through the desert to Los Angeles for a few hours. We then turned back around and returned to Vegas for one last night.

It was totally worth it. This is just after the storm clouds cleared.

When I attended Joe K’s funeral a few months ago, we went through a few of his things that were still at the Photography Office at the Capitol. Someone pulled out the box of the paper scraps he used to write on, cut out, tape together and photocopy. There were a number of photos inside as well.