First Thursday, August 6th, 2026: Longhand at Long Brother's Books, Seattle

Handwriting is a lost art and storytelling changed completely when photography was invented. There is little distance between what can be said and what can be seen. In this series, I’ve chosen to play with both. It’s a sort of archeology, excavating old documents which are like the bones of a dig; everything else is implied and one must imagine the setting of the artifact as well as the character or original writer. I love the words themselves, as they emerge and blend with landscape and portrait. These words become ghosts, footprints, tracings of time gone by. I like to photograph old buildings, temples, famous streets, locales with a lot of history, or evocative impact. I then layer in text and graphics with a congruent sensibility. I want to affect the viewer in subtle ways, to abstract an essential icon or to pick up strands of hidden history and weave them into the narrative captured by the camera in a place and time. Originally capturing the “found” moments and then moving into a collaboration in history with unknown participants. I began sourcing documents with handwriting that was expressive and unique to the countries that I was working in. Combining some of this text into my photographic images brings this collaboration to life and carries forward the artistry of these long forgotten historical documents.

This new work, titled VASA, is the latest in the Longhand series. It is 76 x 18 inches and is backlit with kenetic LED lighting that simulates the changing of the light on the landscape. The original image was made in Stockholm in 2025 and paired with handwritten text from the 1628 inquest into the sinking of a famous warship, by the same name, on it’s maiden voyage in harbor of Stockholm.

You can visit the original ship at the VASA Museum in Stockholm.

Inquires: spike@zocalostudios.com