Game Faces

Gamers may know when it’s late, but it’s hard to tell by their demeanor. Hours fly by and they’re leaning in with a laser-like focus. For gamers, the experience is much more than virtual.

Gamers I’ve met are usually joyful and aren’t easily distracted. These images from local Esports tournaments focus on gamers — and gamer culture. Most of the players are participating in Smash tournaments — essentially an arcade-style game held in venues ranging from college meeting rooms to sports bars or even Esports arenas built in converted storefronts or office buildings. A gamer (most are in their 20s) may pay $5 to $10 to compete in a tournament that pays the winner anywhere from $50 to $250.

One question that interests me is how does face-to-face social gaming differ from the experience of video gaming in isolation?

Game Faces is an ongoing series shot in Oakland and San Francisco. I want to thank the players and venues who have helped make this exploration possible.

What's Clicking?

2021

In November, a photo called “Take Out” from my Cerrado series was juried into a group photography exhibition called Yellow, at Oakland’s Gray Loft Gallery. My thanks to Ann Jastrab, executive director of the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, CA., who selected the images, and to Jan Watten, founder and curator of Gray Loft. and to all of the participating photographers.

In January and February, a Bay Area Photographers Collective group exhibition called Magnetic Pull was installed at S.F.’s Arc Gallery & Studios. The exhibition curators posed the intriguing question of whether a group influences the artistic efforts of its individual members. I think so! Daniel Nevers and Jennifer Brandon, the show curators, selected three images from my Game Faces series. The work is viewable here.

2020

In September, a photo from my Cerrado series called 2200 Mission Street (just above on right) appeared in the Thriving-in-Place exhibition at the Abrams Claghorn Gallery in Albany, CA. The image, shot in early June, features two men en route to a Black Lives Matter protest in San Francisco’s Mission District. A big thanks to the curators, Gene Dominique and Becky Jaffe.

In June, I was named a finalist for the FOCUS photo l.a. Summer 2020 exhibition. Cocktail Hour, from my current series, Cerrado, was featured in a virtual FOCUS installation called Virtual Collect + Connect Photo L.A. 2020 and a live exhibition (postponed due to the pandemic) at Elizabeth Houston Gallery, NYC. Many thanks to the judges. My fingers are crossed that I’ll be able to attend the live exhibition in person.

In January, I learned of an award highlighting a piece from an earlier series. “I think one of the most important lessons to learn as a photographer is to know why you are using color.  If you are going to shoot in color, light the shot for color and have the color be a fundamental element of the photograph. This lesson is clearly not lost on Rusty Weston, who offers us a saturated delight of color in Hesitation.” This comment by a curator named ‘Same Source’ is from an article explaining why my photo Hesitation earned first place in an L.A. Photo Curator competition in January called “No Happy Accidents.”

The curators kindly interviewed me about the photograph, which gave me a chance to explain why I shoot in color and what I look for in a composition. Hesitation featured Eilyn Escalante — part of my Unrealized series.

2019
In Sept - Oct. 2019, three images from my series Game Faces appeared as a triptych in the Bay Area Photographers Collective 20th Anniversary Exhibition, a curated group show called Marking Time at the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco.

In May 2019, my image She Heard Footsteps from the series Unrealized (above, left) was included in Portraiture: Through the Lens, a juried group show at Black Box Gallery, in Portland, Oregon.

In April 2019, four images from Unrealized appeared in a Bay Area Photographers Collective group show at KYOTOGRAPHIE (KG+) in Japan.

2018
In December, 2018, my image The Office, was named a winner in a juried competition by The Photo Review.

Also, in December, 2018, three images from my series Extensions were included in a juried group exhibition called “Advanced,” in California State Sen. Scott Wiener’s San Francisco office. The three images were Patchwork (above, right), Industrious and Canned Heat.

In September, 2018 my image Sublimation was included in Photo Shoot: 2018, a juried group show at Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

In 2016, I participated in my first two public exhibitions.

Unrealized

Night occupies a prominent space in the murky area between dreams and reality. But night is a tricky canvas. When our vision is obscured, we misperceive our surroundings, and things don’t always add up. The interplay of light and movement can distort our perception and our awareness. Yet our innate powers of pattern recognition enable us to stitch together a sense of place or even intuit an emotion from the barest of details. These nocturnal images spotlight our urban anxieties — and false impressions that can happen in the blink of a shutter.

Work from the series Unrealized was selected by The Photo Review, a publication, in 2018, and juried competitions in both 2018 and 2019 by Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon. In April 2019, four of these images appeared in a BAPC group show at the Dohjidai gallery in Kyoto, Japan — part of KYOTOGRAPHIE (KG+) international photography festival. In January, 2020, a photo from the series called Hesitation earned first place in an L.A. Photo Curator competition in January called “No Happy Accidents.”

The Unrealized images were shot primarily in San Francisco, Oakland and Southern California in 2017, 2018 and 2019.