Wayside

Finding new paths: A recent work Newsletter

Hello all,

I wanted to switch up my newsletter a bit and so I’ve moved over to Substack. I still plan to post about the work I’ve been doing lately, upcoming news, as well as some of the backstories to these images. I hope you enjoy, and please reach out to me if you’d like to know more about these stories.

Charline von Heyl, an abstract painter in her Marfa studio. Photographed for Interview Magazine.

“[Art] can be an escape or a protest or a warning. It can give something instead of take something away. It can stop you in your tracks. It can make you hear your own thoughts. Or get out of your own thoughts. Or give you new thoughts. It can agitate or delight or satisfy. It can be a revelation. It cannot change the world but the world would be awful without it.”

- Charline von Heyl

It was a reprieve when I went out to Marfa, TX to visit Charline von Heyl at her studio a few months back. I had been working quick assignments without much time to think and she had given me the entire day to take her portrait. I arrived to her West Texas studio, near the center of the flat and sparsely populated town of Marfa, around mid-morning. I generally take both film and digital cameras with me for portrait commissions and when we paused for a short break I switched over to my film camera. Charline sat down on her couch to drink a Diet Coke and the sun started to spill some of its light onto the shelves behind her that were full of brushes and paints. We talked as we worked and I noticed her body language beginning to relax. The tableau of colors and inspirational clippings that she had left scattered about gave me a glimpse into her working head-space, those things she wanted to be filled up with as she created something new. I felt that her nonchalance and yet watchful curiosity would gather and focus all that chaos around her. After posing for a few images we moved on and continued working throughout the day but I think this image reveals a bit more of her and her process.

---

Dina Sadaat at her family’s home where they’ve lived for seven years in Austin, Tx. U.S., on Monday, November 1, 2021. The family was stuck in Kabul, Afghanistan when the Taliban took over the country in August this year. The Sadaat family, who are green card holders and in the process of receiving their U.S. citizenship, went to visit relatives this summer and were unable to return home in the chaos that engulfed Kabul in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of the country. (The names of the Sadaat family have been changed to protect them and their families who remain in Afghanistan.)

This portrait of Dina came about the second time I visited the Sadaat family home. Creative Director of The Texas Observer, Ivan Flores, and I weren’t satisfied with the material I’d gathered on my first visit. It was too straight forward, not engaging enough to accompany the piece written by Jessica Goudeau about the family’s harrowing escape from Kabul, Afghanistan. Ivan urged me to go back, to spend more time. I’m grateful for his direction and we were able to create a series of images that focused on the trauma they were carrying, while still protecting their identity.

---

Below are a few images I enjoyed making on other assignments these past months. Beto O’Rourke campaigning for the Governor’s seat in Texas for Bloomberg, a natural gas flare out in West Texas also for Bloomberg, and a story on Texas’s newest arrivals for The New York Times.

Beto O'Rourke, Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Texas, speaks to the media during a primary election night event in Fort Worth, Texas, U.S., on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Texas will be one of the most closely watched of 36 governors races happening this year as Democrats including former congressman O’Rourke, Texas Governor Abbott’s likely general-election opponent, try to paint hard-line Republicans as out of touch.

A flare burns off unused natural gas on Tuesday, September 28, 2021 in West Texas.

Oliver, 34, holds his newborn daughter Esmé close to his chest while his wife Kathryn, 33, rests nearby at The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio in San Antonio, Tx., U.S. on Thursday, November 4, 2021. The hospital promotes a “baby-friendly” approach for new parents that encourages them to have skin-to-skin contact with their newborns immediately after birth.

Thank you for spending some time here with me in this newsletter. I’m based in Austin, Texas and if you’re in the area I hope that our paths can cross soon!

All the best,

— Matthew