max s. gerber(the latest shot)

at the end of march i went to san francisco to be a speaker at the CASE editor’s conference. i hadn’t been to san francisco for a long while, except for a couple times where i’d have a shoot there, fly up to oakland in the morning, drive straight to the location, do the job, and drive straight back to the airport. that hardly qualifies as a visit.

this time it was nice to take a few days for myself in the city after my speaking duties were done. i got to have dinner at chez panisse, which satisfied my deep-rooted inner food nerd. i was gratified to see that chez panisse is built like a california craftsman house, so it felt very much like home to me. i live in pasadena, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a craftsman house. on top of that i got to finally meet pam fogg and matt jennings from middlebury. they’ve been hiring me for a long time now, and have been great supporters over the years. i rarely get to actually meet the people i work for in person. usually they find that i’m much shorter in real life.

in addition to all that i got to hang out with amy macwilliamson, who i’ve long maintained is one of the best people on earth. this is backed up by hard evidence and the testimony of countless others, and the plain fact that she’s simply a kick ass photographer. amy takes better pictures in bright sun than anyone i know. try it. grab yourself a camera, go outside in the middle of the day and try to take some portraits. then go inside and look at them. notice how utterly crappy they are. then go look at amy’s pictures. then feel bad for yourself.

amy has a nice house in a neighborhood in san francisco i forget the name of. she has a cool funky office (see above), and a garden where edible things grow and are cultivated. i can never seem to keep plants alive, though i really like the idea of having fruit trees. peaches maybe, or avocados. amy’s also got a fiance named scott, who i got to meet for the first time. i’ve heard so much about scott over the years, i can’t believe i hadn’t met him before. they’re getting married in less than a month, so i have another excuse to go visit.

in a two-for-one special, amy happens to live over the fence from my old buddy matt. matt was the first person i met at college, actually. i haven’t seen matt in ages, either, since he’s a bigtime rockstar and never home. luckily, though, the 28th of march was matt’s birthday and he happened to get back from tour the night before, so when i was poking around in amy’s garden admiring the foliage i looked up to find matt yelling at me from over the fence. we didn’t have much time to visit but we all hung out in matt’s kitchen for a few minutes before i had to fly home. as usual with matt, the conversation was about dissatisfaction and 80s hair bands. though not about dissatisfaction with 80s hair bands, because we all have a deep and abiding appreciation of such things.

happy birthday, mattie. try to get some rest.