Belated happy holidays to you and yours and early returns on a fantastic new year to us all!

It’s hard for me to imagine a bigger and better year than 2009 — one in which I married the woman of my dreams, traveled to see some amazing places, became an uncle, moved to New York City (though still kept my base in Miami as well), turned 30, and continued to work with new and old clients on some very interesting, challenging, and rewarding jobs. 2009 was a great and full year.

What lies ahead in 2010 is the big question… personally I’m both super excited and a little scared. There are so many things to learn and absorb, so many areas to grow in photography, and so many risks out there as the commercial and editorial markets continue to hobble along in a thick fog. Those of us who can maneuver into the right position and take advantage of the many opportunities that will surely surface as our clients begin to truly switch gears will certainly be rewarded. Hopefully I can be smart and open enough in 2010 to treat this uncertain time as my biggest chance…

Whatever happens in the new year I’ll be around to talk about it. Thanks for listening this year and I hope your holiday season was very happy and safe. Best to you all!

Last week supremely talented shooter and stand-up guy Tim Archibald wrote a deceptively succinct post about a condition that just about all freelancers know well, something that T.A. calls “The Silence.” I’ve certainly endured those (and just like a recession you don’t realize you are in/out of “the silence” until months later) and his post got me thinking about a series of conversations I’ve been having recently with newly freelanced friends and colleagues about being an island.

By island what I mean is that all too often freelancers feel disconnected and without a reference point nearby (especially those who have a newspaper/journalism background and are used to the the noise and community of a staff).  The island happens most acutely for me during editing when I just can’t seem to figure out whether a picture is any good (or not), or even worse whether its really great or really shitty, which is actually a much larger problem in terms of moving forward and pushing your self/work.  Whenever this happens I think about my work and JLP headquarters as an island, and occasionally it’s pretty quiet as well.

Lately I’ve added a newer sub-condition to the same island metaphor, spurred on by living in NYC (an actual island) where I’m way more inundated with new art and culture, gallery openings, studio parties, and other photographers always talking about the work and all of its problems.  Surrounded by all of it (and especially right now in such a strange time for photography both in theory and economics) I feel my sense of my own work and methods lose a grip at times.

Last night when having beers with buddy Greg Ruffing (who is in town for meetings and a bit of fellowship) all of us (Jackanory, Harkin, and I) agreed about this greener-grass idea of photographers like Brian Ulrich and Alec Soth whose headquarters in the midwest (though of course Chicago barely counts) allows them to keep some sort of even keel or focus.  That might be total shite, but for the point of this blog post it dovetails nicely.

Above is a picture of a red dot and a ladder which I’ve been staring at for most of the day trying to decide why I took it.  I still don’t have an answer but also don’t want one.  I saw it, I shot it, it’s there, and I like it.  Here’s to big red dots that don’t mean anything.