I have migrated to Tumblr!

Hey folks, I've moved my blog to Tumblr, follow me there!

Frightened Rabbit

I got to photograph Frightened Rabbit this weekend at Pearl Street. The last time they came to Northampton was in July of last year at the Iron Horse Music Hall. I interviewed Scott Hutchison back in July for my now defunct radio show, so I grabbed him after this show, which was amazing, it was great to hear their new stuff live. Interestingly enough, shortly after they were here in July they went to the studio to record their album, 'Winter of Mixed Drinks', which released only last month, so you could say the Northampton shows were kind of the bookends to his latest album. Anyway he took me and my girlfriend to their tour bus, for a recorded interview. My girlfriend has spent almost two cumulative years in Scotland, so we had a good time talking music and they reminisced about Edinburgh, my only contribution to the Scottish banter was fumbling over the pronunciation of the 'Firth of Forth', which, by the way Scott Hutchinson has not swam in. Fact.

I'll have the interview edited soon, but haven't figured out audio on .blogspot. Im actually seriously considering making the jump to Tumbler, that way audio won't be an issue, and neither will my pictures and video being chopped off unceremoniously. I'll keep y'all posted.


These are the feet of the bassist for Maps and Atlases, one of the opening acts. Got a lot of good feet shots from this concert.




Scott Hutchison sweats a lot.

Moving and Effective Seatbelt Ad

My sister pointed me to this awesome youtube video. Its moving, well produced, and beautifully shot. Check it out.

Hold Steady Concert

I saw Hold Steady live at Pearl Street on April 6th, it was oodles of fun. The band pounds out a rock tunes that are youthful, classic and timeless. I've had some great college memories set to the Hold Steady. I met up with my friend Pete Rizzo from the Umass Daily Collegian, he was covering the show. I also met a woman who was reviewing the show for the music blog Blurt. The next week my photos from the show appeared on Blurt and in the collegian. It was nice to be published again.

Spring Break 2010! Whoo!

So Im in The Big o'l Apple for this week of spring break! I assisted at Hearst's Studio D, which was amazing. I brought my film camera as well as my Mark II, but I honestly don't want to touch the digital camera, I was getting really burnt out from school before this week and I find the film camera is kind of therapeutic. Since I can't upload what I've taken so far in the city i'll share the three dollhouse images I've done so far and handed in for my Personal Submissions at school. I'll be adding models into the scenes with photoshop later. Another development in this project is that it turns out that my friend Christina who modeled for me last week apparently makes dollhouses herself, she showed me some pictures... and she wasn't kidding! Her dollhouses have everything from oriental rugs to working chandeliers! So, that'll be lots of fun to work with.
Be sure to check back soon, I have some more exciting things to post later, such as my new website that Im working on now and a shot i did last week of a nude suspended in milk! It came out so good, but needs some time in post.

The following pictures are from my friend Nikki's dollhouse, its beautiful. One of the reason this project is exciting to me is that its so easy to get people, specifically girls, interested. Nikki and Christina, my girlfriend and a bunch of their girlfriends all want to help me because dollhouses are one of those things that girls get in a way guys will probably never understand. But its like I've struck oil in the interests of all my female friends, its been fun getting excited about dollhouses with them.

Swillmerchants @ The Bitter End

A few weeks ago I traveled to New York City with The Swillmerchants for their concert at the Bitter End. I had such a good time hanging out with the guys. It was really cool to see and hang out at the house of my friend Matt, the guitarist/keyboardist, his family home is on staten Island. I submitted four of the images for my additional personal submissions at school.

Heres the latest

Doing a little catchup on the blog here. Ive completed my Phase Three mandatory assignment, now Im working on the personal submissions. I scanned some film, which include some of my professor Gregory Heisler, which I was really excited about. Also saw & photographed a Deer Tick concert, got to hang out with the drummer and bassist afterward, such a great time. Last week I traveled with The Swillmerchants down to NYC to photograph their concert, that was a lot of fun, I really like those guys. My personal submissions im working on involves a dollhouse, which is a lot of fun, although lighting it from the inside is a challenge im currently working on.

Phase 3 Mandatory - Advertisement

Reflective Metal

Product Sheet

Low Key Male

PR Alternative Portrait

The Swillmerchants at The Bitter End

The Swillmerchants and I after the show

Winter Tree, taken on Medium format film

The Man Himself - Gregory Heisler

Nyc Weekend Film Scans

I was so excited to see how my photos from my last weekend in New York City came out. There were some really beautiful situations that I feared I had botched with my film camera. There were a few things going against me, such as constantly being caught by train & subway terminal security, apparently there's no photography allowed in subways and train terminals and damn those guys seemed to pop out of nowhere whenever I lifted my camera! Also, I think I had set my camera to ISO 100 instead of 400 for the first roll, which also accidentally popped open, exposing some of the film to light, but somehow miraculously most of the images turned out. It was the image I took of Mia in an alleyway that I was most excited and nervous about though. We passed this dark corridor that had a bright opening at one end, and a steaming grate in the foreground, it was surreal, a perfect New York City scene. I had to use a really slow shutterspeed and it was hard to focus since it was so dark, I took only two shots, one I cranked the shutter speed to bracket it, but i went the wrong way, under exposing it. I was really banking on the first shot coming out, but it was totally out of focus when I scanned it. I did manage to recover the underexposed version, but it made it very noisy. Im just going to claim i did it on purpose, for artistic affect.
Here's that photo, along with some of my other favorites from the roll:


Im not sure which one of these next two I like better, comment if you have an opinion:




This one makes me smile a whole lot (:


This is Mia's brother Nate, his girlfriend Tiffany, Mia and I

Pin up!

Ive been wanting to do Pin-up style photography for a while now and we had an assignment for an art history reference self portrait. So i found this image by Gil Elvgren:

My Friend Amanda, who I met on the Umass ballroom Dance Team two years ago had discussed doing some pinup modeling a year ago, but it never panned out. It was really great to have an excuse to get back together and make it happen. We had a bunch of fun in the studios along with our friend Amelia. I'll have more pinup photos of the both of them to post later, so be sure to check back! (and yes thats me in the Television)
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Phase 2 wrapup

So we finished phase two at Hallmark Institute of Photography last week, here's the last few assignments we had to complete.

Environmental Portrait
This guy was quite a character, he's a vendor at the Holyoke Flea Market.


Character Study:


Window Lit Portrait:

Food Photography

I made some white chocolate leaves by painting melted chocolate onto rose leaves, letting them cool, then peeling them off. I got the idea from a magazine that I picked up at whole foods while wandering the isles brainstorming what i would do for the assignment. It took two tries to get it, im pleased with the results.

Swillmerchants Promo shoot

The Swillmerchants have always been one of my favorite local bands, and I was all kinds of excited and nervous about photographing them. We had a hard time nailing down some concepts and ideas but in the end we were all happy about the results. They're an exceptional group of guys and im looking forward to doing more with them. Check em out on Myspace or their website

A version of this photo was used for the Promotional material for their upcoming show at Iron Horse Entertainment

Film!

I took a black and white film class at Umass a year ago, and i felt like i never got the hang of it. It definitely has a much longer learning curve than digital. I had a chance to try medium format color film over winter break and i have to say, im quite pleased with the results. I love the hues and depth film has.


My friend Christina modeled for me for my window lit portrait assignment for school. We had a great time and i learned some things and gained some confidence in working with a model.


This is my friend Brendan Dean. Seeing how a daylight uv and lampshade light look on film.


This is me and my Dad, just look at that goofy grin on my face. this is right after he cut my hair when i came home for Christmas. He's a pretty cool guy and an amazing father.