Whilst drunken theft is not normally my thing, when a group of guys are driving past a McDonalds at three in the morning and notice a Ronald McDonald statue seated on a bench out the front, what are they to do?

Five minutes after grabbing some tools from the car, Ronald was riding along having a fine old time. He wound up at someones house who nearly got kicked out of home after his parents found Mr McDonald face down under the washing line the next morning. This created a problem… what the hell were we going to do with him?

After loading up on various glues and epoxies at ye olde hardware store we waited up until around 2am and bundled down to the local Burger King. After a quick check around we proceeded to transplant Ronald right onto a seat out the front of the opposition. To top it off we superglued one of those Burger King crowns you get with the kids meal to his head. There he remained for two days before he was finally removed and sent back to McD’s where he now lives inside away from the hands of men with too much time on their hands. (read more stories @ storg.net)

[This is the cartoon that inspired the name “gapingvoid”. I drew it way back when, in college.]

When I first lived in Manhattan in December, 1997 I got into the habit of doodling on the back of business cards, just to give me something to do while sitting at the bar. The format stuck.

All I had when I first got to Manhattan were 2 suitcases, a couple of cardboard boxes full of stuff, a reservation at the YMCA, and a 10-day freelance copy writing gig at a Midtown advertising agency.

My life for the next couple of weeks was going to work, walking around the city, and staggering back to the YMCA once the bars closed. Lots of alcohol and coffee shops. Lot of weird people. Being hit five times a day by this strange desire to laugh, sing and cry simultaneously. At times like these, there’s a lot to be said for an art form that fits easily inside your coat pocket. (more…)

When my daughter Alison was born, in the tradition of a new parent, I began to photograph her, initially in a separate and private body of work. However, in the process of documenting Alison’s growth, I developed a passionate interest in human relationships and capturing intimate moments in the lives of family and friends.This affected my photography in a profound way. Rather than the isolated subjects of my earlier work, I became interested in the strength of relationships, oftentimes using personal environments to amplify those conditions.

My photographs of Alison, because of the nature of our relationship, are very much a father-daughter collaboration-Alison permitting me access to private moments of our life, which might, under different circumstances, be off-limits to a parent. The camera, early in her life, became part of our relationship, necessitating in me an acceptance, a quietness. We’ve never had long photographic sessions, but rather moments alone or with friends.

The significance of these pictures emerges in retrospect. I realize as I look at them, that I created a visual life story of Alison, capturing moments in her metamorphosis from infant to woman-her relationships with friends, her rebellion, and underlying it all, her relationship with me, a constant throughout her life. I wanted to photograph her in all her extremes, and to be part of these times in her life without judging or censoring. Only in this way would I have a true portrait of Alison. (more…)

I saw her post. The title was eye-catching, I clicked. There were 4 photos, all of them clear, reasonably close-up, and all stunning. Beautiful face, glowing complexion, auburn hair blowing in the wind. Is that a tulip field behind her in that one? Is she on boat in this one? Blue skies, sun shining, her smile wide and bright. The ad was relatively brief yet charming and creatively intuitive. I knew she’d be getting a ton of responses.

I wrote her, told the truth about myself, attached a picture and hoped for the best. The next day I get a response, she asks a few questions, I answer, and she writes back with her phone number. That’s right, I didn’t need to provide proof of birth or a pay stub. I called and she picked up on the first ring. Her voice wasn’t high-pitched or deep, it was just normal and a little perky, she rambled on and then I rambled on. I called her again, and then again, our conversations were fluid, no awkward pauses, she was simultaneously available and unavailable. (more…)

My wife’s parents divorced when she was 6 years old. Her dad, a dentist in a small Tennessee town North of Chattanooga, was banging a 22-year-old LPN named Kristen. When my wife’s mother found out, she took her daughter and left. Eventually, she remarried. Her new husband turned out to be a perfectly nice guy, but he has nonetheless never made much of a living. My wife’s dad was married to Kristen before the ink was dry on the divorce, and she soon thereafter became the office manager of his thriving little dental practice. The next few years saw a flurry of legal activity between the two former spouses, mostly regarding my father-in-law’s repeated failure to pay child support. After a while, my mother-in-law got tired of having to fight for every last scrap, and just kind of threw up her hands. All told, he wound up not having to pay around 25 grand.

My wife didn’t see a whole lot of him growing up, or even after we got married. He’d invite us over, or we’d go out to eat with him here and there, but eventually, my wife just couldn’t take that. See, he had two more daughters with Kristen, and those two got everything. We’re talking horses, fancy vacations, and expensive private schooling. The older one got a spanking new Volvo when she was in high school, and the younger one a Jeep Cherokee. And shit like that. Meanwhile, the wife and I struggled with our young family, and it upset her that he didn’t even seem to care. He never asked her if she needed anything. (more…)