Well Hello There

What a year it has been thus far, here is a brief synopsis in bullet form:

- Off to a busy start.
- Lots of studio time recording great musicians.
- Countless hours playing and watching basketball.
- SXSW (!!!!!), 43 bands in 4 days on crutches mind you.
- Photos in Recording Magazine.
- True love lost.
- Two page spread in 48HR magazine!
- Way too many airports.
- Lots of documentary/production work.
- Analog photo = 97.25%; digital photo = 2.75%

So much more really, but my focus this year has been on being offline, creating images by hand and building my body of work. Hence, this place has become rather neglected, and soon it is going to be sealed as a memorial of moments passed. I have created a mountain of work this year and am in the process of putting together a proper way for it to be viewed.

In the meantime, here are a few contact sheets for you to enjoy...


PEACE to you all!

Tasergiving

OK - this past Thanksgiving was the most random holiday of my life. Unfortunately I cannot divulge how the following went down, but in a nutshell a friend of ours decided to see what being tased felt like. Big D took it like a man - standing up for 5 seconds. I cannot say the same for when we got tased for a mere 3 seconds.

Dread Zeppelin

Say hello to John, he is from Minnesota and likes Coca Cola, American Baseball, the band Yes, and meeting new people. While shooting the sunset he came up and said - "Hey, want a picture of something you have never seen before?"

Dear Thief -

To the person who broke into my home and stole my laptop, video camera, medium format camera, cash and my ipod:

"If you stole from me to feed yourself or your family - may you and your family forever be blessed with an abundance of food and never go hungry again.

If you stole to feed an addiction, drugs or Alcohol, then may God (or the Universe, or Shiva, Or Bhudda, or Muhammed - whatever your bag) illumine you with light and knowledge that self realization and enlightenment cannot be obtained through substances."

So, obviously I am pretty out of touch right now with the vast majority of my creative tools having been lifted from my possession. Things here then will be quiet for some time.

PEACE to you all!

JC Wears Shades

Have been working hard the past few weeks preparing for yesterday/lastnight's very special live recording. At the moment not at liberty to discuss the details of the project, but can say it was held at a VERY cool converted Pentacostal church and featured more artists and instruments than I could count on two hands.
The performance space.
JC is too cool.
Remarc makin' deals.
My corner of the world.
PEACE to you all!

Unseen

Yesterday was possibly the most debaucherous day of the year, known fondly as Bay to Breakers. As tens of thousands of partially clothed and fully intoxicated people trashed the streets of San Francisco, few noticed a certain brand of "entrepreneur" quietly sifting through the refuse left behind. At each major trash dumping station those who make their "living" or at least a good part of it from collecting and recycling cans were hard at work sorting through the garbage searching for glass and aluminum.

I shot 5 rolls of film yesterday and have already developed and scanned one (BW). The other rolls are C41 and E6, so they will be developed later. Of course I took plenty of not safe for work images (!), but when it comes to B2B those are a dime dozen aren't they?

PEACE to you all!

Thoughts on Paying Attention

Let me start by saying I am a huge nerd, and I love all things web. Blogging, Twitter, RSS feeds, Crackbook - it is safe to say I spend a lot of time broadcasting my life and tuning in to the lives of other's on the web. But, while at SXSW, especially the Interactive session I noticed that people get so wrapped up in broadcasting every moment that they forget to actually slow down, be in a moment, and absorb an experience as it happens.

The more I reflect on this, the more I feel like detaching (to an extent) from technology, and just BE in a moment. To me, shooting film is perfect for such a mindset because after depressing the shutter there is no instant review. For better or worse that moment of light is captured. A few days or weeks down the road when the film is developed and scanned/printed and enough time has separated you from the event you can reflect and transmit. Shooting film means being present and aware, in my own little world at least.

With that here are a few rough images from SXSW Music, three of my favorite performances captured as moments of light. Bear in mind, this film had been expired for several years!

Circle Jerks at Emos, I flipped my shit when they played Coup D'Etat and I hopped in the pit and am quite sure I hit several people in the head with my camera.

The Great Lakes at Red 7. I could have gone either way until at the very end the guitarist hung his guitar from the rafters while it fedback like a banshee, he then climbed the rafters himself hanging above the crowd - awesome!

Efterklang at Habana Calle. Considered by many to be the Beatles of Denmark, the performance was overwhelmingly beautiful.
PEACE to you all!

The Process

I have been working on a very major blog redesign for the last few days, I am going to be moving over to a Wordpress that will be hosted on my own servers so I can have a lot more flexibility.

I have pretty much finished all the coding and content conversion, now I am working on the graphic layout. I did a little photoshoot yesterday afternoon for what is going to be the header image. Here is a screenshot from the editing process, with a little image of Amma thrown in the corner, she watches over me while I work. I know - I'm a hippie.

PEACE to you all!

Life's a Dream

Magera: "It's a little morbid."
Me: "Well, that's the point."

Here is a self portrait I whipped up last night. Today, aside from being MLK day (get out and serve!), also happens to be the 200 year anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. I figured this image would be appropriate to mark such an occasion.

PEACE to you all!

What????

Snapped this one using my phone over by Ala Moana. Whoever this character is, he is standing in front of a wall of disposable film. Strange...
PEACE to you all!

"This is a goodbye kiss, you dog!"

PEACE to you all!

Congratulations!

PEACE to you all!

Brilliant

OK, Greg Saunier of Deerhoof is totally from another planet. So good.

Deerhoof Live Show and Q&A, July 27, 2008 from Anthem Magazine on Vimeo.PEACE to you all!

Floater

PEACE to you all!

Trips

Sarkis, gnarled, in triplicate...

PEACE to you all!

4/1

Spotted this one while Magera and I were in the Mission, whoever this Ramon guy is, he sure is cheap...

Hope everyone had a great holiday!
PEACE to you all!

Stuffed otter on a stick.

What a weekend! A dear friend of ours, Marc was in town from New York. He was on tour with the prolific Laurie Anderson, in between soundchecks and shows we bummed around town and had a lot of fun. So much else happened, here is a list of some of the crazy coolness:

- Witnessed a straight up GHETTO street fight outside the BART station in downtown Berkeley, total craziness.
- Got a private tour of the Contemporary Jewish Museum by the museum's director, rock star style.
- Primo seats thanks to Marc at Laurie's show, then backstage action.
- Met Wavy Gravy and his stuffed animal friend backstage (hence the title).
- Met and talked a while with one of my HERO's Kevin Kelly, who was a founder of Wired Magazine. I got a little giddy, I must admit.
- I got my ass kicked by some Bosnian's in basketball down in the panhandle, also got my front teeth bashed in by a shoulder. OUCH!

With all that craziness, here is a shot I took this weekend in Berkeley and developed at home.



PEACE to you all!

Magic Jeff

Again, same rules of the last post apply - NO PHOTOSHOP, non composite, and single exposure for both of these.



PEACE to you all!

Green JB

Though these images are digital, they are unedited. They are not composite images and were created using only a single exposure, some creative flash, good timing, and a little choreography.




PEACE to you all.

Grinders = Sub Sandwich

Magera and I just got back from Connecticut, we were flown out there to shoot some photos - more on that later though. For now I must get some sleep.




PEACE to you all!