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bookmark_borderA 1942 drive from Fort Worth to Dallas, recreated

Posted on by PAO Productions
New York-born photographer Arthur Rothstein made a name for himself with his many series of photos documenting America. His long career earned him recognition for his work as a photojournalist, author, and teacher, but it is perhaps his Great Depression era work, undertaken at the behest of the U.S. Farm Security Administration, for which he is best remembered today. In 1942, this assignment brought him to North Texas and to the old Fort Worth-Dallas Highway, where his photographer's eye led him to capture a string of period businesses and landmarks along the way. These images would become important historical records of their period in history, all of them eventually seeing reproduction on prints, postcards, and historical publications and websites time and time again in the decades since.

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bookmark_borderMy years photographing the local music scene, part 2

Posted on by PAO Productions
Continued from My years photographing the local music scene, part 1

I kicked off 2009 with a truly incendiary show at the Vampire Lounge. Two nights later, I was back for a night featuring Severed Sol. I honestly don't remember why I went to that show, as the name Severed Sol conjures up absolutely nothing in my memory, and my only notable photos from that night were a few throwaway shots of model/photographer Amber DeVille posing with a lit candle. I continued to hit up the Skillman Street Pub fairly regularly, and I began to slowly broaden my circle of venues a bit. I had a new sometimes-companion to some of the shows now, the two of us spending quite a bit of time together. That person was the Cassie B. from my 2008 birthday party and the December 20th show at Lola's. Despite certain acquaintances' insinuations to the contrary, Cassie and I were never more than just best friends – I wasn't her type, and as for me, my affections definitely lay elsewhere, with a lovely lady in the scene who shall remain unnamed. Cassie accompanied me to performances by bands such as Red Pyramid, Sidekick Mafia, and the Opus Flux, and in March we made a weekend trip down to Austin during the SXSW festival. During the Austin trip we stopped in at Headhunters and saw a performance of the Blue Flames, a band which, I was pleased to learn, hailed originally from Dallas.

The Blue Flames at Headhunters, March 2009
The Blue Flames at Headhunters in Austin, March 2009
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bookmark_borderAI-composed spam in my blog’s comments

Posted on by PAO Productions
So-called "Artificial Intelligence," or AI, is insinuating itself into every aspect of our lives these days. This increasing proliferation of computer generated content (i.e., slop) is largely at the behest of huge corporations who have spent billions gathering personal data via online tracking, social media, cell phones, and an increasing number of so-called "smart" devices. Much of the data used to train AI models has been taken without permission from creatives and put toward the aim of generating an avalanche of artificially created content. This content then finds its way into advertisements, apps, services marketed to replace human creators, and, naturally, various types of spam. And that spam is increasingly finding its way onto online blog posts. Continue reading "AI-composed spam in my blog’s comments"

bookmark_borderMy years photographing the local music scene, part 1

Posted on by PAO Productions
With the recent heavily researched, long gestating content I've put up recently (and with more still on the way), it's time to take a step back from high effort material. I've been thinking for some time that I should get around to recounting my days in the local music scene, specifically my nine-ish years spent as a photographer of local bands. There are references to those days all over this website, and curated examples of my work from that time period are easily accessible via my Live Photography galleries. But I've never taken the time to tell the tale in full and to discuss how I got into the scene, who my principal collaborators were while I was in it, and why I eventually ended up leaving it. I've decided that now is the time for that story to be told.

Continue reading "My years photographing the local music scene, part 1"