I’ve spent the last few days putting a new photography portfolio together, the gastronomically-themed Perishables. The goal was to incorporate plated food shots, establishment interiors and atmospheres, chef and restauranteur portraits, and a hint of travel/destination photography under the overarching banner of a food lifestyle collection.
Culinary culture, I like to call it.
You can preview Perishables in all of its low res glory here.
The front cover and a few select pages can be seen below.
Susquehannock State Forest is in central Pennsylvania, along the northern border, just south of New York state.
Susquehannock State Forest is located in Potter CountyGod’s Country, with a few tracts of forest stretching into nearby McKean and Clinton counties.
Susquehannock State Forest contains 262,000 acres of woodlands and 89 miles of hiking trails.
Susquehannock State Forest was named after the Susquehannock tribe of Native Americans whom lived along the Susquehanna river.
Susquehannock, adapted from the Algonquian name, means ‘people of the muddy river.’
There are no cellular towers in Susquehannock State Forest. There are no wi-fi hot spots or internet cafes. So how do you write a blog post from Susquehannock State Forest?
With a pen and paper.
They used to call it writing a letter.
We just spent the better part of four days in Susquehannock State Forest, nine miles deep in the woods and even further from any semblance of civilization.
We drank beer. We ate red meat. We shot guns. We filmed a music video. We played music on the camp porch. We watched the sun set over the Lushbaugh. We sat around the fire pit and listened to the old men tell railroad stories and redneck jokes. We lost track of the days of the week.
All was good.
Now it’s back to the city, back to the grind, and back to the editing table. As the music videoperiod piece for Catfish Breakfast begins to take shape, a few snapshots from our woodland weekend can be seen below.
The phone booth.
Camp.
Fire pit.
Chipmunk season.
Got one…
…for dinner.
Moonshine and a magnum.
Rain rig.
Front porch concert.
The can crusher.
Fishin’.
No creatures were harmed in the filming of Catfish Breakfast. Scout’s honor.
It’s a vegan pure vegetarian food blog that I’ve been shooting for lately.
A vegan food blog, you say?
Yep.
Well, Scott, are you vegan?
Nope.
Are you, at least, vegetarian then?
Not even close.
So, a carnivore taking pictures for a vegan food blog?
That’s right.
But why?
For starters, because vegan food doesn’t taste like cardboard. Or the back of a postage stamp.
Because I’ve had soy sesame seitanthat could’ve fooled any carnivore into thinking they were eating General Tso’s Chicken from Wong’s Wok (real place).
Ok, maybe not the most flattering comparison, but what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t miss the meat.
Because, although I cannot resist thetemptation of the cheeseburger, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to eat healthy.
And why the distinction between vegan and pure vegetarian?
Because the term vegan can be off-putting for some, weighed down by it’s perceived elitism and the expectation of its practitioners to be the poster children for a Birkenstock-wearing, bicycle riding, downward dogging, third eye opening, crystals on the windowsill-of-the-universe lifestyle.
Because vegan has become a collective movement as opposed to a personal choice.
Because vegan has become a stereotype.
No, you don’t have to go on Phish tour to be pure vegetarian. You don’t have to live in a Volkswagen Westfalia or make a pilgrimmage to Burning Man or burn Nag Champa or learn how to blow glass or know what your spirit animal is.
You just have to make a commitment to healthy, pure, and organic eating habits.
And you have to love cows.
You do love cows, right?
Right?
(Orecchiette with Smashed Peas, Hot Veggie Sausage and Tofu Ricotta)
Jake Hill will be playing The Living Room on Manhattan’s Lower East Side on Thursday, May 27th in support of his new album, In The Mountain’s Shadow, which will be available for purchase at the show and is now available as a digital download at Amazon.
You can read a nice write-up on the album and Jake’s inspirations at the Wicked Local Plymouth blog.
A little while back I had the distinct pleasure of working on a two-day shoot with friend and Grammy-nominated organist Cameron Carpenter. The focus of the shoot was to create a number of striking image options for the covers of his soon-to-be-released double album, Cameron Live!
The CD portion of the set contains a live concert recording from The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City, while the accompanying DVD sees Cameron filmed in high definition while performing in studio, and takes you on tour with concert footage from Berlin and New York.
Cameron Live! is now available for preorder over at Concord Music Group, where you can listen to samples and read a suitably in-depth and impassioned preview of the album that ends with these thoughts on the dual covers:
For the DVD, the cover is suitably outrageous: Noel Coward meets Janis Joplin in her backstage dressing room (actually, Carpenter photographed in his New York East Village apartment). Flip the album over to find the other front, in stark contrast: Carpenter in jeans, silver boots and a t-shirt that proclaims MUSIC IS IT, reminding the listener that despite his attention to detail on the outside, it’s what they see and hear on the discs inside that matters.
It’s been a busy week, riding the rails and rolling down the highway, shooting commercial interiors and editorial portraits.
Wednesday found me in Eastern Pennsylvania, Thursday it was Southern New Jersey, and today- upstate New York. Tomorrow I’ll be on a bus to Boston followed by a train to Plymouth for Jake Hill’s album release party, so I figured that now would be as good a time as any to reveal the final artwork for In The Mountain’s Shadow.
The physical album releases tomorrow, April 24th, and the digital download will be available through iTunes the following week.
No matter the means, the end is sure to satiate your thirst for cautionary bluegrass tales, belligerent 12 bar blues, jangly CCR-esque country rockers, bittersweet coming-of-age acoustic ballads, and/or traditional hoedown foot stompers.*
My suggestion? Pick up a physical copy of the album, at the very least for that sweet album cover.
(*Catfish Breakfast, Baby Wears A Pistol, Down From The Sun, Tickertape Parade, and When The Moon Is Gone, respectively)
A message in a (Miller High Life) bottle lapped up on the shore of Pho(Blog)graphy Island early this morning while I was out making my daily rounds with the metal detector. Still can’t find that Sac that I lost.
Anyway, the message was from the home office of the Cape Cod Bay Arts & Entertainment Division located in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. Official word is that Jake Hill’s highly-anticipated third album, In The Mountain’s Shadow, will release on April 24th, accompanied by a release party and two performances from Jake and his troupe of traveling troubadours.
The festivities kick off with an all ages show at Kiskadee Coffee Co. in downtown Plymouth at 6 pm, followed up by a late evening show for the old folks (21+) at The Guru, 9:30 pm.
The very same information that I just wrote above can also be read below, albeit syntactically varied and superimposed over a very man-in-black-esque portrait of Mr. Hill with his weapon of choice, photographed by yours truly.
If I can make it back to the mainland, possibly by smuggling myself onto a passing freighter or clinging to a raft made from an old car door and empty milk jugs, then I’ll see you April 24th in Pilgrimville. Would be an epic entrance if I managed to dock at Plymouth Rock.
I wrapped up a project this week with New England-based singer/songwriter Jake Hill. Over a two day shoot we completed the cover for Jake’s soon-to-be-released third album, In The Mountain’s Shadow, shot a wide range of promotional portraits, and filmed a video for lead single and album opener ‘Down From The Sun’.
While I can’t reveal much along the lines of final album artwork and the video is in the very early stages of post-production, I have posted an outtake from the blooper reel below. Do take note of the high production values.
In The Mountain’s Shadow releases on the 24th of April. Check back then for a reveal of the album cover and video, and a record review will follow shortly thereafter.
In the meantime, you can head over to Jake’s MySpace music page and preview two tracks from the album now- ‘Blowin’ In From Newfoundland’ and ‘Unlock My Door’.
Shirley & Co. over at Eubiq NY have updated their site with some new looks from their Spring 2010 collection that I recently shot for them. Follow this link to see what you should be wearing in the city come springtime (if you’re a contemporary young urban male, that is).
Unfortunately it looks like Tristan (aka ‘The Cute One‘) will not be in attendance as he is currently ‘out of town.’
Allegedly.
Did you just hear that? That was the sound of the collective heart of a throng of prepubescent Jersey City middle school girls breaking. Sad, sad day indeed.
So look for 2/3 of Loud Objects to bring their unique brand of no bit lo fi chip tune mad scientist circuit bending with silhouetted hands projected on a wall tomfoolery.
Ready your eardrums, prepare your eye sockets, and save the date:
Tokyo Juxtaposed + Loud Objects @ Supercore
Thursday, February 11th, 7pm
305 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn
To hold you over for now, I’ve posted some outtakes below from the nigh-infamous ’stretchy blue fabric’ photo shoot debacle, the one that broke my light stand, left Kunal with a permanent limp, and got Tristan a parking ticket and a pair of chafed forearms.
Katie walked away unscathed. Way to take one for the team Katie!*
(*Not all of the information presented above may be entirely true. In fact, quite a bit of it might be made up.)
Next month I’ll be showing a select number of photographs from my Tokyo Juxtaposed series at Supercore in Brooklyn.
The opening event is set for Thursday, February 11th at 7pm and the show will run through the middle of March.
There will be drinks (of the caffeinated and the alcoholic variety), there will be live music of one kind or another (to be announced soon), there will be professional networking, there will be Japanese tapas,
Below is a shot from a weekend shoot with Yuki Mark Lim- former fashion stylist, current bedroom linen designer, private New York City realtor, entrepreneur, owner of a Jack Russell Terrier named Walter, and all around cool guy.
Yuki is the owner of Apt 168, a short-term boutique apartment rental agency. His website, apt168.com, is in the middle of a pretty significant aesthetic overhaul, and his contact-page-portrait will look something like the one below when the new site launches early next year.
I wasn’t sure if I had a place for his portrait in my portfolio, but I liked it enough to show it, and figured that I’d show it here.
Photographed Norm Peterson George Wendt recently for Crocmedia and Ralph magazine, an Australian men’s periodical.
It was a challenging shoot- having only about 40 minutes of George’s time, at least half of which needed to be used to conduct an interview concerning Mr. Wendt’s recently released book about, well, beer.
On top of the time constraints, we met George in midtown Manhattan, at the end of the work day, in a packed bar. Of course, this is the perfect setting to meet and photograph one of television’s most iconic beer drinkers, but needless to say, he most certainly was the center of attention.
The bar was dark, the time was short, the room was loud and crowded, but I think that we managed to pull off some fun and candid photographs. Cheers!
I will be attending a concert this Saturday afternoon by ‘The Maverick Organist,’ Cameron Carpenter. I worked on a shoot with Cameron earlier this summer and posted about it here.
Since then, Cameron and I have completed two more photo shoots together, both with the intention of providing images for his upcoming double CD/DVD album releasing in the spring of next year.
I’ll have a few selections to show from these most recent shoots in a blog update in the not-too-distant future, as well as an update to the Musicians portfolio on my website.
Saturday’s performance will mark Cameron’s first at The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Times Square and will be recorded and released as the live CD portion of the aforementioned double album. All proceeds from the concert will go to benefit Cameron’s non profit Models Of Excellence musical heritage project.
…
Below is a look at the concert program, using a portrait of Cameron from our summer shoot as the main image. A full size PDF of the program can be downloaded at his website here, and tickets are still available here.
Consider it a unique opportunity to see a once in a generation performer whom has been called ‘a talent of Mozartean proportions,’ and leave your ecclesiastical-pipe-organ-funeral-dirge preconceptions at the door.
I was in the City of Champions last week, working on a shoot with good friend and outstanding photographer Matthew Furman. It was a quick flight out of LaGuardia, only spending about 45 minutes in the air.
We would only have twenty-four hours in the Steel City, and most of that time was to be spent scouting and shooting. After dropping our gear and luggage at the hotel, we met with the art directors and enjoyed plates of pierogis and hand-crafted beers at The Church Brew Works- a brewpub set in the nave of a hundred-year old Roman Catholic church, and a worthy mecca to any beer drinker’s pilgrimage.
An early call time in the morning was followed up by a long and rewarding day of shooting in the city. And the perfect parting meal upon leaving Pittsburgh? A quick trip to the Strip District for a Primanti Bros. sandwich, famous for its fistful of cole slaw and french fries between the bread, a staple of hard-working steelworkers and hungry truck drivers for decades.
Recently had the chance to photograph celebrity trainer Simone Ayesa for Crocmedia, an Australian PR firm.
Simone is the personal trainer for Matt Damon and Kirsten Dunst to name a few, and works at a very exclusive boutique gym in TriBeCa, owned by Gwyneth Paltrow. So exclusive, in fact, that there is no outdoor signage for the chique second-floor gym. It seems that if you know about it then that means that you’re supposed to know about it.
Any papparazos out there, I can tip you off to the location but it’ll cost ya. (Just kidding Simone!)
We were fortunate enough to have permission to shoot in the locker room as you can see from the image on my site here, which is accompanied by a casual lifestyle shot at Peace & Love Cafe. An alternate shot of Simone jogging by the Hudson is below.
Below is a shot from an impromptu, ‘in-house’ portrait session that I did earlier this summer for Rebel Ink magazine’s launch party at the Coney Island Freak Bar. It was a humid summer night filled with friends, beer, tatts, more tatts, and, um, some guy hammering nails into his nose and a girl breathing fire and swallowing swords.
Loud Objects, an experimental noise and chiptune trio, have released an album called Cory Arcangels on Free Music Archive and have used a shot from a session that I did with them for the album cover.
The original image and an alternate look can be seen in the Musicians gallery on my website, here.
Oh and maybe they should be considered a four piece group if you count the overhead projector. See one of their organic, spontaneous live shows and you’ll understand.
Two final selects from the shoot can be seen in the Musicians portfolio on my website, here.
Sharon’s debut album, Because I Was In Love, is available on iTunes and her original, eponymous self-release is available through her online store. Sharon’s moving, soulful voice and intimate lyrics are offset by her softly strummed acoustic guitar, and are accompanied by a trembling organ on standout track For You, the video for which can be seen at Pitchfork.
I’ve had the opportunity to see Sharon perform in small, dimly lit rooms around Brooklyn. If you happen to see her name on a flyer for an upcoming show or in the concert listings of, say, The Village Voice, don’t hesitate to see her live, to hear her voice- equal parts longing and lamentation, fill the space around you and in your heart. As you can tell, I’m a big fan.
