Last month, I shot The Evens (Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina) in their home for Ghetto Blaster magazine, for a feature about their new album. I was a little nervous, unsure how it would be working with Ian, but my worries were totally unfounded – they were both great to work with, friendly, firm about what they wanted, and full of great ideas that made the final product better. A great shoot, and I think the final product came out well!
I spent a pleasant afternoon in Matmos’ Baltimore City studio, photographing them for a recent XLR8R piece on their studio, their gear, and their new album. A really interesting pair of artists, they explained some of their process and a lot of their gear to me, and they even demonstrated the basic concept of how they came out with the concepts and raw material for their new album – having a friend of theirs undergo sensory deprivation and describing the music that he heard (pictured above). A really cool shoot.
Two shows I shot for the post, both bands I hadn’t heard before. Imagine Dragons (playing at the Fillmore) were super energetic live, or at least the singer was, but not really to my taste. Veronica Falls (playing at the Black Cat), however, I loved. Very poppy indie rock with melodic vocals… I thought they would fit in opening for the Smiths in the 1980s, or something. Check them out!
Ruth Moore, a veteran, went to Capital Hill to deliver 160,000+ signatures to her petition that the VA re-evaluate the way it deals with victims of sexual assault. I documented her meeting with the VA representative. See all the photos here.
Every year in Maryland, there is a Polar Bear Plunge to benefit the Special Olympics. It’s grown from a modest event, to one that is huge, with 10,000s of people crowding near the base of the Bay Bridge to watch the brave souls that jump in the freezing cold water. There are bands, contests, and costumes… this year the Baltimore Sun sent me out to take photos of some of the creative costumes of the event. And, as you can see, there was a lot of Ravens pride this year…
The photo at the top, of Matt (from Arboretum & Big In Japan) & his partner Lane in their home is from “Open Houses”, a feature I worked on for B Weekly (along with other photographers). The concept was to go into the home of a local musician/artist/creative and make a portrait of them in their home environment, as well as capture some details. Fun little assignment. I suggested Matt & Lane’s place because I’ve always admired how well-decorated it is.
See the rest of the photos I took here, and see the whole feature here.
For the inaugural City Paper Whiskey issue, the intrepid photogs were asked to take photos of people drinking, or just after drinking, a shot of whiskey. So I rigged up a simple little one-light setup at my home bar and shot it quick and dirty… See all the “shots” here or read the feature at the City Paper site.
I was lucky enough to have my photo of SUNN O))) at Hopscotch Music Festival selected as #5 on SPIN’s Top Music Photos of 2012. Pretty cool.
Stoked to be able to announce my photo of lead actress Deragh Campbell is being used for the festival poster for I Used To Be Darker, the new film from Baltimore director Matt Porterfield. You might know Matt from his previous films Hamilton & Putty Hill. It’s great to be a part of this project, which has just premiered at Sundance as I type this.
Some coverage of the film at MovieScope and MovieMaker, and you can also read Matt’s journal from Sundance here at Baltimore Magazine’s site.
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They featured a few of my photos on MuchMusic, which is Canada’s MTV that is still about music, in a story about Dan Deacon’s green skull getting stolen.
Dan’s segment is towards the end, and the whole thing is hosted by Damian from Fucked Up! Pretty cool.
Shot the second of two sold out shows at the Black Cat to celebrate the impending release of Salad Days, a documentary about the 80s punk and hardcore scene in DC. Great show. I had seen GI before, so knew what to expect – always fun, though. But Scream I had never seen, and honestly, hadn’t listened to that much in a long time… so I was pleasantly surprised at how much they killed it. Seriously a great performance.
Read the Washington Post article about the show here, and look at all the photos here on my flickr.
This year’s Scapescape was a blast. Bigger than any previous year, hosted in Station North, with 4 stages over 3 nights with 80+ bands, and for a low price of $20. Click on to see the rest of my favorite photos. Continue reading
This was a challenging assignment, as we didn’t have access to the subject and instead had to take a last minute photo illustration approach. I think it came out pretty well, all things considered. Read the story here, or read on for outtakes from the session that didn’t make it to the paper… Continue reading
This month’s Decibel magazine has a 3 page spread with five of my photos (Electric Wizard, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Brujeria, & GODFLESH) from this year’s fest. Check it out, it’s the one with Testament on the cover. (That reminds me, I should post my MDF recap… look for it this week, I promise!)
