This is a shot I took shortly after seeing the Anselm Kiefer exhibition in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I had never heard of Keifer before and was deeply impressed by his meditations on the nakedness of man in the face of the absurd loneliness of the human experience. One piece in particular has stuck with me ever since – The Renowned Orders of the Night. I go back to it in my mind’s eye on a regular basis, more often than just about any other work of art. I think you can see the influence in this photograph of my little borther, Grisha.

To switch gears into digital, here’s an image that I am proud of. I took it when I was covering the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society‘s (a charity organization I work with on a regular basis) South San Francisco Light the Night event last year. Light the Night is a two to three mile walk to raise money for blood cancer research and patient support. It started around 6 PM and I spent the first few hours grabbing candid shots of the participants, documenting the event. As the sun started to set and the walkers set out, I first tried to use my flash for some shots of the walk. That wasn’t working as well as I hoped it would so I decided to mix things up a little, set up my tripod facing the lagoon and grabbed this shot. It is going on the LLS PR campaign this year blown up to huge posters.