A kind note from Ana this week, two years after the session.
Portraits have a strange relationship to time. You make them for a specific moment, and then people carry them into careers, profiles, lives you never see.
The work doesn’t end when the files are delivered.
A decommissioned power line, the Eaton Fire, and a fellowship application that pulled me into a story I wasn't expecting.
My first-ever documentary photography fellowship application.
New on Fonzieland.
Once a year I turn the camera around.
This year I wanted something quieter, just using two strobes, controlled falloff, a lot more simplicity.
You learn a lot about your own work when you’re the one in the chair.
Four astronauts home safe after ten days around the Moon. First humans to make that trip in over fifty years. This is what happens when we invest in science.
Welcome home, Artemis II.
Photo Credit: NASA
I am emotional and awe-struck by these photographs taken by the astronauts on Orion for the Artemis II mission. Photos courtesy of NASA.
What a gift.
Strong Aeon essay by journalist Cathy Otten on the ethics and limits of humanitarian journalism, and whether witnessing and documenting suffering actually leads to action.
aeon.co/essays/how-might-humanitarian-journalism-be-done-better
Six years of documentary and photojournalism — protests, pandemic, public health, climate, humanitarian work in Haiti. Finally organized properly.
This is some of the work that matters most to me.
afonso.me/documentary
Artemis II’s first images are here.
Commander Wiseman shot both from inside Orion, Earth through the capsule window first, then the full disk. Africa, auroras, the Iberian Peninsula lit at the curve.
Two frames that together say everything.
Surprised a friend for her birthday today. Quick flight up, quick flight back. Some things are just worth it.
No Kings. West Hollywood Park, March 28.
Speeches, live music and a protest along Santa Monica Blvd and San Vicente.
West Hollywood showed up.
New profile: Teri Hendrich Cusumano fought for eight years to close animation's gender pay gap.
Then she lost everything that defined her. What she's building now is remarkable.
Read full article here:
open.substack.com/pub/fonziela...
Turned down a project I was excited about this week. Not because it wasn’t right, it genuinely was, but the timing conflicts were clear.
Freelance life means learning to let go gracefully.
🫶
Patti Smith closed Democracy Now!’s 30th anniversary with People Have the Power, with a surprise guest Bruce Springsteen on stage.
Watched the livestream LA. Exactly what today needed.
Democracy Now! turns 30 tonight. Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Angela Davis at Riverside Church. Live at 4pm PST / 7pm ET → democracynow.org
History is remarkably consistent on what happens when citizens are told their neighbors are the enemy. The danger isn’t that it’s subtle. The danger is that it becomes normal.
Let’s keep documenting what we see. Let’s keep talking to our neighbors. Let’s learn from each other’s stories.
Yesterday’s documentary photography session was one of those conversations that runs long because it should. An artist, her workspace, and a story worth taking the weekend to get right.
I can’t wait to share more soon.
Prepping for a new Stories of Resilience session this Friday. Research done, interview questions mapped, gear packed. The work before the work.
Every conversation in this series reveals something new about how people rebuild. More soon.
Rembrandt’s Saint Bartholomew at the Getty, 1661. The conversations about light and the human face were well underway long before photography arrived. Worth checking in with occasionally.
Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 at the Getty Center. Over 150 works, 100+ artists. One of the most important photography exhibitions in LA right now. On through June 14.
I can't recommend it enough. The photo below is by Gordon Parks.
Joshua Tree National Park.
The high desert has a way of making you feel small in exactly the right way.
I love you, LA 😍💕
What a sunset today…
New on Fonzieland: my first corporate headshot gig in a decade.
A month of prep, new gear, my first assistant hire, and nineteen headshots for Sony Imageworks.
Joshua Tree, sunset. The desert at golden hour, everything goes quiet and warm at the same time.
Inside The Broad museum in Los Angeles, a man in a red shirt points upward while ascending a curved stairwell. A large colorful abstract painting fills the glass wall behind him. Brushed steel architecture curves around the figures.
A person in a pink shirt walks past a large-scale black silhouette wall mural by Kara Walker inside The Broad museum. The figure is dwarfed by the artwork, which spans the curved white gallery wall.
An older man seen from behind, wearing a plaid shirt, stands close to a Jasper Johns American flag painting at The Broad museum. The textured brushwork of the painting fills the frame.
Inside a white gallery at The Broad, an older man leans forward to examine a folk art-style sculpture of a figure on horseback. A museum attendant stands nearby against the blank white wall.
The Broad, downtown LA. Half the fun is watching people become part of the compositions without realizing it. The architecture curves you into everything.
A couple walks away from the camera along a tree-lined sidewalk in West Hollywood. Tall sycamore trees with pale, mottled bark form a natural canopy over the path. A Route 66 sign with a rainbow sunburst design is visible on the left, along with an LA Metro bus. Afternoon sunlight filters through the branches.
West Hollywood sycamores in the afternoon light. Even on a casual walk, LA keeps feeding the creative brain.
You don’t have to connect with every art form to respect it. Chalamet dismissing ballet and opera as things “no one cares about”, artists diminishing other artists’ work happens everywhere.
Art doesn’t need your approval to matter. It just needs to move someone.
My mom’s birthday and mine are three days apart. Went to Porto to celebrate together. Took this through the doorway while she was reading. Glad I did.
Calm, misty view of the Douro River near its mouth in Porto, Portugal. Still water reflects a pale overcast sky. Small boats moored along the right shore, low mist over the far bank. Muted, quiet tones throughout.
The Douro before it meets the Atlantic. One of my last walks in Porto. After a week of big surf and busy streets, the river was completely still.
