It’s that time of year!

You are Christmas shopping for your siblings and parents, your aunts and uncles, your extended cousins. Stop! What are you doing? Don’t buy them something made in an overseas factory! Send them a photograph of yourself or someone else you love! Even if they wanted and asked for a warm wool sweater from Ireland done in a stylish earth tone with luxuriously rustic weaving subtly suggesting the wonderful lie that they bought it themselves while vacationing there. Forget about what they want. Be selfish. Follow me!

I’m going to be making portraits of people without a shopping mall backdrop or holiday goodies like Santa hats and candy canes. My backdrop will be a sea of creosote bush dissolving into oblivion. The warm glow of late afternoon light, easy on the eyes and evocative of your wise decision to live in the Sonora desert.

My subject is you. The real you! The way you look on a Saturday around your house, under produced and simply dressed in your favorite jeans. No need for makeup, you’re so beautiful without it. Why bother?

No need for a strange unnatural smile either. It makes your eyes squint and besides, isn’t that what animals do to frighten others away? Relax, if you want to look happy, that’s easy! Tell me a funny story or think a happy thought. We’re not trying to make you look fabulous. We’re trying to make you look like you. That’s fabulous enough.

It’s not expensive.

$15 for an adult
$10 for a teen
$5 for a child
$0 for an infant (Less than 2 years)

But I refuse to photograph your infant sitting alone in the dirt and traumatized. You’ll just have to hold them which will place you in frame and cost you $15. I accept cash at the time of the shoot. Even a check, after all, I trust you. You’re probably an old and dear friend of mine but don’t worry, if your not, you’re going be treated as if you are.

There are a few simple rules for what I do. I won’t allow folks to line up or scrunch in or all say cheese at once. In fact: I won’t photograph more than one person (child – adult) within the same frame. It obscures the topic of the photograph. I won’t photograph you with your infant both looking lensward but I can photograph you with your infant or child in your arms with only one of your faces looking at the lens at the same time. Have you ever seen Dorothea Lange’s famous photograph of the migrant mother? (Google it). It works so well on so many levels and it demonstrates how I would prefer to portray a parent with child vs. an image of two individuals, each competing for the subject matter of the portrait. We can even create a diptych: One photograph of a parent looking at the camera and then one exactly alike but reversed and the child now peers into the camera over the shoulder of the parent. I think that’s covers the frequently argued topics. Of course I can make exceptions and compromise my art. Send me the list of your needs and I will create an individual bid using my commercial rates.

I wish I could print for the same price but I can’t. I will shoot your image digitally and it will be available to you as a compressed Jpeg and a large Tiff file for printing via an emailed link to an FTP drop site. Don’t worry, it’s easy, all you need is a computer on the internet and a flash drive, thumb drive, or disk burner or any means of getting that file to a printer and you are fine. If you choose to make your print at an inexpensive pharmacy or discount box store that’s fine, but keep it a secret from me. I can’t carry the weight of your sins. It’s a burden only you can bear. There are plenty of great labs in town. Wilson is reasonable. Photo Mark and Tempe Camera are fine as well. And yes, for those of you whose taste is uncompromising and wallets as deep as my thoughts, I can make an Ultrachrome for you on archival luster paper up to 17x22 for $100. Like I said, Wilson is very good and very reasonable.

Some may not want to show up at the prescribed time. Maybe you have other plans far more rewarding and important like the Suns vs. a city you will never visit. That’s ok, I can meet you in the same location at the same time whenever you like as long as you tack an additional $50 onto my rate.

Some of you may arrive seething and belligerent, demanding free photography in exchange for the bar tab you recently picked up for me. My warmest thoughts are with you and your kindness deserves a powerful gesture on my part but I am trying to make rent so please do not make a scene. We’ll work it out eventually.

For an example image, site location updates and more of my self absorbed comments, please visit www.sillsphoto.com

Thank You!