max s. gerber(the latest shot)

in the giant venn diagram of popular culture there is increasingly more and more overlap between those of us who are exceptionally academic and those of us who are exceptionally nerdy. sometimes this takes us by a bit of surprise (generally the more academically minded – never underestimate the obsessive power of the nerd), but [...]

i probably watch more TV than is good for me. certainly my DVR has more of a backlog at any given point than i can comfortably manage. if i were a different kind of person i’d blame my parents – a showbiz family who, as i was growing up, not only had a television set [...]

steven pinker is a psychologist at harvard who specializes in the evolution of language. in an appearance on the colbert report he was asked to explain how the mind works in five words or less. his answer: brain cells fire in patterns.
he is a charter member of the luxuriant and flowing hair club for scientists. [...]

in many photo shoots there exists a moment when it becomes possible to drastically shift the whole dynamic, tone and message of the picture. sometimes this shift happens in a decidedly weird or silly direction. then again, i’m a big believer in the idea that you can do very absurd things in photographs just so [...]

i made this video at the competition, just to show how fast these solves really are. this might look like it’s sped up, but everything is in real time, i swear.
(music by merle travis, available here.)

today brings us sebastien, alex, joseph, devin, salman and julie. (julie helped organize the event, and gave me a space to shoot – thanks, julie!)

today’s installment brings you jeremy (or, as we like to call him “supermanpants”, who won the one-handed solve competition), shelley (current record holder for fastest female blindfold solve (1 min 29 seconds, including time spent memorizing!)), michael and brandon.

today’s crop of speedcubers: cameron, sam, wei eileen, bradley and phillip. just for the record, phillip won the contest with a nine second solve.

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 [...]