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Where Elliott's high chair used to be.

Ash and I used to watch Elliott playing at his window from this vantage point often.

Our kitchen. 

Our kitchen, and our door.

Our living room, and Elliott's window.

Where Elliott's changing table used to be. 

During Elliott's first few months of life, he'd wake up and look out this window for a while before asking to be picked up.

© 2013 Brian Adams

This week, I developed some film I made on the last day that I was in our last apartment. It was the most emotional that I've ever felt about leaving a place; Elliott took his first steps here, took his first falls, enjoyed his first bites and first views of life. Ash and I became parents in this place, and even more in love with each other. We had our first memories as a family here. Standing in the apartment, I could still feel all of our memories, love, and laughter inhabiting it; our energy populates the space between the walls. I am excited to drive by in ten years and twenty and tell Elliott that this was the place that life became something different and better than it had ever been.

Brian in Dillingham

Togiak, AK.

Last week, Brian went to Dillingham for the first shoot for an on-going project. Read and see more here!

Anchorage Press - Lately in the Press

© Ash Adams

Ash has been busy lately writing and shooting for the Anchorage Press! Check out some of her recent articles here:

Pitmaster on the Last Frontier

Run for a Better Life

Detox Diets: Healthy Ritual or Nutty Nonsense?

Spring Greening

Bistro Red Beet

Sugar, by Any other Name

It's so cool be married to someone who is such a great writer and photographer. It's rare to find the combination. (If you've known someone who is a photographer and says they can also write or vice versa, you know what I'm talking about. It happens, but it's rare.) In addition to writing a lot around town and finishing up edit rounds on her book, she's been photographing some pretty cool things lately. More from both of us soon!

Bethesda's The Reunion

© 2011 Brian Adams

As I've said before, Bethesda is a band that I didn't expect to love as much as I do. I know Eric and Shanna personally (and have since met the band's other members, too), and as any person who hangs out with musicians knows, there are only a few friends' bands that you'll actually listen to on your own.

Because I, like many people, love many friends who have bands that I do not love.

Bethesda is one of the truest enduring exceptions. I have listened to all of Bethesda's songs regularly for years now, and I was in sincere anticipation to hear the band's newest creation, The Reunion, which hit iTunes and the global market last week.

The Reunion does not disappoint. Wrought with emotion, percussion, and energy, The Reunion does what good music does: it takes us somewhere painful, celebratory, and joyous at once. It hurts so good. Shanna's voice sails in and out of swelling, harmonious sound with haunting, gripping, heart-aching lyrics. There are pizaccato moments that dance like fairies and fireflies. There are pounding drums that send you running through your memory to any moment in which you felt powerfully young and alive. There is loss--profound, deep loss--and wild, manic, charge. The Reunion is spriritual, momentous, and just the kind of music that good springs and summers are made of.

Bethesda's trade-mark sounds--banjo, violin, acoustic guitar, soaring female vocals--have not changed, nor has its appeal to something greater, deeper, and more passionate. But as a whole, The Reunion is a clear testament to how the band has matured and grown together. There is a little less whimsy in this album and a little more precision, but, like all of Bethesda's songs, these ten tracks speak to something very midwestern and soulful. Heart.

Thanks, Bethesda, for making the world a bit richer and more beautiful.

BUY THE REUNION

Bistro Red Beet - Anchorage Press

© 2013 Brian Adams

Whole foods are sexy—fresh, fortifying, attractive. Something you just have to take a bite out of. Take the beet; it is bulbous and curvy, tender when cooked, and dripping with sweet, red juices. Remember that Weezer song about sex? “I’m beat, BEET red?” That was no homophonic accident. Beets are something to blush over.

Beets are political, too. Remember the hubbub that arose when President Obama declared that beets would not be grown in the White House garden because he wasn’t a fan? Beet lovers around the U.S. wrote in to express their fondness for the burgundy bulb. It should be noted that none of what I’ve just said applies to those sad canned beets in the supermarket, but only to vibrant plants freshly plucked from the earth. Which is the point: whole foods—fresh, unprocessed, living foods—are sexy.

These are the things I thought about while making the drive out to Palmer last week to visit Bistro Red Beet. I’d first encountered the restaurant’s beet-red bakery truck at the Spenard market last summer, where my husband and I enjoyed some gluten-free, dairy-free cookies, and I’d been aching to go to the restaurant ever since. Those cookies were delectable and melt-in-the-mouth treats, but Red Beet’s reputation for being gluten-free, corn-free, and soy-free is what drew me more than anything. Alternative food on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway is a ballsy concept, right?

Read Ash's full article in this week's issue of the Anchorage Press!

Elliott Turns One

Photo © 2013 Ash Adams

Elliott turned one last month, and we've been meaning to write this post since then. This is because life has been LIFE lately, and getting any extra time to do anything has been really difficult.

Although he went almost a complete year with no sickness (despite a cold around three months, and a little 24-hour stomach bug around 8 months), Elliott picked up a nasty respiratory infection from someone at one of his playgroups that, even with antibiotics, turned into a very nasty pneumonia that landed us in the ER four times, at the doctor's office five times, and kept us at home with a nebulizer for weeks. We three have all been huddled and recovering for the past month. Brian and I have found ourselves often just sitting here, watching Elliott's steady breathing.

There is nothing worse than seeing something bad happen to your child. It makes you doubt everything in the world. It makes you doubt that the next hour will come, that the next breath will come, that the sun will rise.

Now that Elliott is well again, both of our books are in the production phases, and days are long with light again in Alaska, we thought we'd finally get around to this post. We thought we'd share some reflections we have on parenting and on writing and documenting parenting, but really, we don't have that much to say. We love our son more and more by the day, and we could write books about how much we love him and how much our lives and everything we've wanted in life has changed, but any person who has children (and many people who don't) already know this.

We used to feel the need to explain every parenting decision we made to people around us, but now we're very comfortable with our decisions and don't feel that we need anyone's approval. Elliott is thriving and happy, and that's all the reassurance we need. I have heard a zillion parents talk about what "good parents" they were when their children were this age, and usually I've heard them say this as some kind of apology or excuse for the bad decisions they made later in their children's life. This part is the easy part. It is a very sleepy part and very busy part, but it is easy. Your child just needs you--or someone--consistently around to love them and reassure them that the world is safe and they can do anything. Every parent I've met has found other things to do to enrich their child's life, whether it's reading to them every night, teaching them sign language, taking them to the museum, or all of these, but all your child really needs on a daily basis is love and food. It's time-consuming, but easy.

Elliott, loving you is easy. Here's to this next year!

I AM ALASKAN

With nearly two years in production and eight years of photo-making, I am pleased to show you the first public display of I AM ALASKAN. Scheduled to come out in September, I AM ALASKAN is a portrait book focusing on Alaskans and identity.

I have been working closely on this book with my beautiful and talented wife Ash Adams, my stylish brother Roland Adams, Greg Kimura (the man who makes things happen), the Alaska Humanities Forum, and the awesome team at UA PRESS with distribution by The University of Chicago Press Books. This book is also being made possible by a very generous grant from the Rasmuson Foundation. I can't thank them enough for everything they have done for me, my family and countless other Alaskan Artists.

For updates and behind the scenes of the making of the book, keep an eye on these blogs and other social media:

I AM ALASKAN Blog/Tumblr

I AM ALASKAN Twitter

Brian & Ash

Brian Adams Photography Blog

You can also buy I AM ALASKAN in advance here!
More Soon!