
several years ago pam fogg sent me on an assignment to photograph dan knights. at the time dan was the world champion speedcuber. that means he can solve a rubik’s cube in about twelve seconds. i had had a cube as a kid, like most people of my generation, and like most people who considered themselves to be smart kids, i did the only natural thing at the time: got rid of the annoying puzzle that taunted me by being unsolvable. years passed and i forgot all about it. what i didn’t know was that there was a growing subculture dedicated to the cube, which has since become retro-80s-nostalgia.
so i was assigned to shoot dan, and before i drove up to san francisco i went to toys r us and bought a ten dollar cube just to play around with. i was frustrated almost immediately. still, i liked the simple feel of how it moved and the sound it made, and i’m a big believer in fidget toys, things just to keep you busy waiting in line or whatnot. dan showed me the basics of how the cube was put together. the internet put the rest of the pieces in place and soon i could solve the thing in just around five minutes. i have to admit, i was kind of proud of myself, even though a good friend of my girlfriend at the time said to her in horror, “what happened to your boyfriend?” i figured once i knew how to solve it i could put the thing down, stop torturing those around me. then i wanted to get faster. so i practiced finger triggers and memorized more algorithms. i gave cubes as birthday presents. it only caught on once. (thanks, russ, for being an even bigger nerd than me)
at one point the madness had to stop. to get to where dan knights is you’d have to memorize literally hundreds of algorithms. frankly, i’m way too lazy for that. so i got reasonably good at it and stopped trying to improve my speed. my best time is 55 seconds, but i generally average around 1 min 10 seconds, depending.
i carry the cube with me in my camera bag. sometimes i’d pull it out and ask my subjects if they’d take a pic with it. i’ve asked this of celebrities, scientists, politicians and authors. it’s surprising how many people (who normally hate having their photo taken) are downright delighted to spend another couple minutes in front of the camera playing with an 80s era toy.
early last month i logged on to facebook to find that even the internet knows what a big geek i am. over in the corner of the page was an advertisement for a rubik’s cube competition being held at the discovery science center in santa ana, california. a building, i might add, that is shaped like a giant cube. the event was sponsored by the caltech cube club, who ignored my inquiries until it was too late. a couple days before the event i just called over to the museum itself, got transferred to their PR department and talked to a woman named julie who seemed thrilled at the notion of me coming to photograph the participants. thanks, julie! i’ve said terrible things about publicists in the past (which are mostly true), but you’re absolutely one of the good ones.
so here, and over the next few days, are some of the speedcubers who were gracious enough to be photographed. thanks, everyone!
today we have tyler (above), and chase, benjamin, juan and brenton.



