Coffee and Donuts
Small zines of large projects and short stories
Blue-Collar: Portraits 1972 - 2003
For a number of reasons starting with coming from a union family, I have for most of my career worked in and around issues of labor, work, and the economy.
Many of these images were taken on assignment, or while on assignment for the mainstream press, most were shot for unions and the California Department of Industrial Relations.
I have always believed that there is a dignity to work, regardless of what the work is. That there can be a performance of the work in its grace and economy of action akin to dance.
Grand Central Terminal, New York City
Upon learning that I would be in New York City around the third week of March, 2005, a friend and art director asked me to spend a day in Grand Central Terminal for a dummy he was producing. On the 16th of March 2005 I spent about 10 hours just hanging out, taking photos and talking with people. Sometime ago I scanned a number of the images, badly, and they have been hanging about until now.
Tigers in the Pit: The Pacific Exchange 2003
“The Market”, why it goes up, or down, and what exactly it represents leaves me perplexed.
At one point I thought stocks represented the relative health or ill-health of a company, or at least a way to judge risk. But it doesn’t seem that way.
And what about bonds, options, futures, options, shorting or the opposite - it all opaque to me.
And so 2003, like a fireman to fire, I found myself with permission to spend a year on the floor of the Pacific Exchange, photographing and interviewing the people that worked on the floor.
A year on from the my first step on the floor I can’t say I was much better equipped to understand what was going on, but the folks I meet had some amazing skills.
“Tigers in the Pit” presents a bit of what I saw and heard.
Photos of UAW members - 1981 -2003
At the time the UAW was one of the largest and most progress unions in the United States. These images were all done for UAW magazine, “Solidarity”
Shelter: From blankets to mansions
Joshua Tree National Park. California 2021