How do life-changing experiences concretely impact the way we look? Does tragedy truly show up in our eyes and brow? These are questions that fascinate Claire Felicie, who photographed the faces of 20 Dutch Marines before, during, and after their tour of duty in Afghanistan. From first photo to last photo, only 12 months passed, but a great deal happened in these young men’s lives. 

Read the rest of this blog post here.

The main reason I have always wanted to work at the New York Times is the elevator. They have one of the smart ones, with the sort of genius algorithmic brain I dissect in this radio piece for All Things Considered. Okay maybe that was not my driving motivation for the job move. But I do know way too much about elevators. The brain of the elevator below (at the Burj Khalifa) is even more advanced than that at the Times. It has to be, since the building is so much taller. The idea is the same.

building is 

I was the photo editor on this project, which won the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award “for excellence in Washington-based reporting of Congressional and political affairs.” Photographer Robb Hill created a panoramic image of the audience at health care hearing. We then crowdsourced the identities of the attendees. 

Broke and jobless? There’s always Yogaville. (Radio story for Day to Day/NPR)

These were all made in Soundslides (later we switched over to FinalCut.) Looking back now, I see dozens of things I would change with each, but nonetheless we were figuring something out. I must say my favorite might be this Leslie Hall sweater girl one. I spent hours on most of them, but this one was a last-minute request from Day to Day host/reporter Alex Cohen. I took her audio from Leslie’s show the night before and put it together with all the photos I had to work with of Leslie. It is just so incredibly weird:

Taking Over the World One Sweater at a Time

Big Boi Gives Ballet an Edge

The Birth of Organic, Polygamous Spiritualism

From my second-ever radio story:

“On the long list of possibilities that could go wrong with a nanny, excess library time is not usually at the top. So when two little boys in Los Angeles told their parents that they hated “the library,” week after week, month after month, it didn’t set off too many alarm bells.

As the seemingly perfect nanny’s scheme has unraveled during the past year, it became apparent that “library” was just a code word. According to Los Angeles’ city attorney, Roxanna Patricia Villamarin was taking her clients’ kids not to a world of books but to an unlicensed daycare provider in an apartment. She paid the stranger $10 a day. When Villamarin walks into court next week, she faces seven misdemeanor charges for what officials describe as a complex child-dumping scheme carried out over five years.”

Getting the hired nanny and the operator of the illegal child care center to talk to me felt like a major reporting feat at the time. Both took weeks of persistence.

“When one is in love, it’s easy to explain away the bad omens. Like a black widow in the bathtub. Or weirder yet — a toilet in the sunroom.”  —A Housing Horror Tale

This was my first-ever radio story. The Day to Day team was kind enough to encourage me, their Web producer, to give radio reporting a try. I was hooked.

Looking back at this photo gallery makes me realize just how much has changed since 2008 in terms of two major things: 1) same sex marriage 2) radio pictures. 

When I asked if I could assign a photographer to this story, to accompany our radio coverage, it was a novel idea for NPR West .  (Wow, how things have changed at NPR!) When I interviewed couple after couple about their long-awaited day, alongside talented husband-wife photographer team Jeremy and Claire Weiss, I was moved again and again.

“The content of Seventeen magazine in Braille is exactly the same as Seventeen in English. There’s no footnote breaking down what exactly is meant by Miley Cyrus’ “look” nor extra explanation describing the makeover before-and-after images.” — Blind Amibition, Story written for NPR.org.

Looking back, I think one of my favorite projects for Day to Day/NPR West was this. Hillary    Carlip is an incredible performance artist, who collects people’s forgotten shopping lists. She then imagines what sort of character they might be, dresses up like them and goes shopping.

At Day to Day, we took our radio interview with Carlip a step further, inviting  listeners  to send in their shopping lists. I then went through them and sent the best to Carlip. She picked one and dressed up as she imagined he might be. She was incredibly spot on! (The guy sent us a photo later. That him, at left and Carlip’s prediction, at right.)

This air mattress sled may be my greatest creation of all time. I’m working on patenting it. I made this weird little video I made with random footage from my iphone. I made it while I was learning to use Finalcut.