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.
Continue reading
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.
I shot Dan Deacon for last week’s City Paper cover story, which highlighted his new album, America. We shot on his roof, and in his studio, with one of his flags behind him (the flags are the cover of the record and he is having them made to be included with the album!). I’m scared of heights, so the roof shoot was harrowing, but I think it came out pretty well.
Here are all the shots from this shoot, including many which didn’t make the story: Continue reading
Baynard Woods and I went and hung out with Billy Bloodshot (check his music out here), a Baltimore rapper, for a profile in the City Paper. Read the article, Baynard and Billy word’s are better than anything I could come up with… Then check out the rest of the photos here.
This was a lot of fun – an annual pop-punk/punk fest from local punk label Insubordination records, I was sent out by the Baltimore Sun to cover this, but was excited to see the Mean Jeans, who I have covered before, as well as Night Birds & the Dopamines (who were playing with Mikey from the Ergs), both of whom I have always managed to miss. House Boat, who I’d never heard of before, was a good discovery – they played until they literally fell down from exhaustion. What a fun show and crowd… crazy crowd-surfing and dancing, lots of fun bands. And the organizers, including the legendary Larry Livermore, were very easy to talk to and chill. Read on for more photos or click here for the whole Flickr set from Insub fest… Continue reading
Motherboard, a division of Vice, found this video I made when I realized my once-waterproof camera had ceased to be waterproof. Unfortunately I only discovered this after submerging it in water, but the video is kind of cool.
They also once posted a short film Ben Claassen, Loren Cox, and I made with a GameBoy Camera, also. Thanks Motherboard!
