Photo by discarted

Keeping in line with last year’s resolution to procrastinate more, and seeing that we’re already two days into ’09, I’ve finally mustered up the initiative to post my favorite image of 2008.

During the past year I found myself in the middle of all kinds of unforgettable situations, ranging from the most intense protests to the secret sex room of a transvestite hooker.

I lost friends/subjects that I loved dearly to their alcohol and drug addictions, while others decided to move away in order to escape the grind of Hollywood, leaving me hollowed out, deflated, and questioning my intentions. For weeks I would go without shooting anything, asking myself if what I was doing was serving any kind of purpose.

But as the weeks passed and the dust settled on my camera, that indescribable thing inside of every passionate photographer crept quietly back and I found myself with old friends, photographing them again, as if no time had passed. 

For the most part, I consider myself a documentary photographer rather than a street photographer. It’s something I’m quite proud of, and hold the material up to a much higher standard than the street work I have done. 

Now I do realize my documentary subjects’ photos are on my website and flickr, but they are meant to hang in a gallery somewhere and they definitely deserve better than some blog posting, proclaiming they’re my favorite image of ’08. So that is why I chose a “street” shot for my favorite image of the year.

It’s an image, as well as a moment, that has been ingrained in my mind and will remain for many more new years to come.

As for my new year’s resolution, I’ve chosen the path of most resolutionaries and have decided to trim the fat.

But not from me…from my flickr account.

Within the past week, the image tally has been reduced from 1036 to 754.