Lookit dat shirt! Hide & Seek's all finished! WHEEEEEE!!!

I had a shoot with a great band from New York today called Settings. I got about 4 hours of sleep, after Goodnight Sunrise's show at The Roxy last night, and was dreading shooting. The guys were right on time, and fun and professional. The shoot couldn't have gone more smoothly and we wrapped it up in about an hour! So fast, it was great. I remembered to take a group picture at the end too! I can't wait to have time to edit these. Today is a day of trying to chug through the backlog. Tomorrow I hit the road with Goodnight Sunrise for a couple days and I'll finally have a chance to take some Faith in Fame pictures. I love the desert and I'll be able to get some good ones for the blog out there!
P.S. I've been listening to Punk Goes Pop Vol. II non stop for the past couple days. I LOVE it! Bayside's cover of Beautiful Girls is amazing, and I can't get over Static's cover of Toxic, Dan's voice kills it!

I am slowly but surely chipping away at the gigantic mountain of editing and shooting that's been backed up since my computer crashed. Almost done with editing Hide and Seek, then it's on to Archaean, Rock Jocks, Jade, Radash, Anthony, Raquel, aaaand more... God this is frustrating. I'm going to meet up with Brittany in a bit to pick out some of her Radash pictures and eat our feelings.

Slade from Anarbor, me, Brittany Flickinger, and Arshad from Radash
Last night was surreal and so much fun! I shot pretty much all day with Brittany Flickinger, and Radash Clothing with Goodnight Sunrise, and Slade from Anarbor. After we left the Take Action Tour show at House of Blues we were driving around aimlessly wondering what to do with ourselves. A couple of text messages later and we were on our way to Brandon Boyd's art opening. From there we found ourselves at Lady Gaga's party at Social, it was loud and dancy. Met some cool people, and piled into Arshad's car and went to the Take Action after party, where we met back up with the Goodnight Sunrise guys. It was one of those situations where everyone looks familiar, and it's usually because they've all been in AP. Man it was fun! Talked to lots of really nice people, hopefully something comes from it. I need a manager. Really bad.

Anyhoo, meeting Setting's for a smoothie today to talk about shoot options. Then editing, editing, editing. If I get enough done, maybe I'll swoop down to San Diego with the GNSR boys, but I'm pretty sleepy already.

aaaaaand now I'm shooting The Summer Set for Hide and Seek in April. Damn son. I should just go to bed now, and deal with all this craziness in the morning.

I know, posting again... I have to make up for neglecting it the past week.
Just got off the phone with Arshad of Radash Clothing. I'm super stoked to start working with them. A. Because I love free clothes, and always need some new duds, and B. I'll be working with some really really killer bands! Arshad seems great, Friday we're shooting Goodnight Sunrise, and Anarbor along with Brittany Flickinger. I just landed and I'm already booked like crazy for the next week. It's exciting, but I think I might miss having downtime. Onward and upward!

I'm back in LA! Back to the 65 degree mild wonderland I've been missing the last ten days. Here's a play by play of my trip back to Montana...
Saturday the 28th I drove to Vegas, slept on Josh's floor for about an hour, got on a plane, got off the plane, did a shoot for my friend Brandon, went to the bar, went to sleep. Monday I woke up tried to edit in the labs, failed, ran some errands, went to the bar, got booted from my crash pad, slept at Andy and Jeremy's. Tuesday I woke up, returned the rental car, went and demoed Ian's class, went to lunch with Chris and Dan, demoed Ian's afternoon class, went to coffee with Brittany, went to Senior, went to Goodnight Sunrise's show with Bidwell, went to Kaleen's house, drank some drinks, took some pictures, fell asleep on a love seat and slept about two hours. Wednesday woke up with a stiff neck, packed up my gear, Dad came and got me, met Anthony for his shoot, took some pictures, got a guitar, met Archaean for their shoot, took some pictures, went home, fell asleep in an armchair, ate an artichoke, fell asleep in my bed. Thursday woke up ate some breakfast, wrote some e-mails, booked some shoots, met mom for lunch, met Marilyn and Pat for a catch up session, went home, passed out, woke up, went to dinner at Staggering Ox with Mom and Nana, avoided catching whatever flu my whole family had, went home, passed out. Friday woke up, packed up gear, dad picked me up and drove me to Garrison, Zak picked me up in Garrison, drove to Missoula, arrived and planned stuff for Hide and Seek's Saturday shoot with Ali and Byron, ate a huge sandwich, bought stuff for shoot, back to apartment, listening party for potential Hide and Seek sponsorship bands, planned more, passed out on the reclining couch. Saturday woke up, got dressed, ate muffins, "planted" fake flowers set up lights, Zak took my picture for my sponsorship cards, models arrived, took pictures, card malfunctioned, re-shot all the pictures, did inside catalog photos, cleaned up, said bye to Zak, packed up, went back to the apartment, went to Taco Del Sol, Ate too much food, went home, ate more too much food, passed out. Sunday I woke up, felt sick, photographed some senior portraits for Jade, worked on my website, ran some errands with Ali, went to dinner at the Good Food Store, started feeling ridiculously sick, went home, watched Revolutionary Road with the crew, passed out. Monday slept till around noon, woke up, felt better, worked on the website, ran around with Ali, bought new jeans to replace the ones I ripped a huge hole in on Saturday, went to dinner, went home, picked out Hide and Seek pictures, packed up a box of merch for Versa Emerge and Goodnight Sunrise, tired to sleep, failed. Got up this morning, boarded a plane, flew to Vegas, landed, got a stupid Jamaican taxi driver with no sense of direction, drove Tim to his car, drove aaaallll the way back to LA. Now I'm home... I'm almost back to normal, I can't wait to sleep!

Bozeman here I come! I leave tomorrow afternoon for Vegas and then hop a plane early Sunday for Bozeman. I land around 10:30 in the morning and have a shoot around 12:00. I have recruited a couple of assistants from MSU to help out with the shoot. Hopefully Zak can help out too! Finishing packing in what now seems like the tiniest suitcase ever. I had to cram my Zeus power pack in there, which cut my space in half. I almost bought a new carry on bag tonight but I'm broke enough as it is.

For the flight I'll have my Crumpler Brazillion Dollar bag with my laptop, 5D mkII, both lenses, and all necessary reading material and music for the trip. I'm checking my Pelican case full of lights and Mafer clamps, and a suitcase with my power pack, and what clothes and necessities I can cram into it. I love how lighting comes first, and clothes and toiletries are an afterthought. Tomorrow I need to crank out a couple more photos for Raquel, and e-mail Laura's headshots. I'm still determined to make it to the LACMA for the Vanity Fair exhibit, so I'm going to try to go to the show at 3 on my way out of town. Somewhere in there I need to finish cleaning my room and bathroom because Bassett's guests are staying in my room while I'm gone.

I'm seriously debating trying to pack my Wacom tablet... hmmmm.

It's FRIDAY! That means I can release the Sleep District promos! So here you go. I'm so happy with how these turned out. I can't wait to work with more bands who will let me make composites like this!

I'm really enjoying VIMBY lately. VIMBY stands for Video in my Backyard. Filmmakers go out into their community and make mini docs on artists, tattoo artists, photographers, designers, and any other sort of creative person you can imagine. I just found this one of Grunge Photographer Charles Peterson, and it's really cool. Check it out.

VIMBY - Charles Peterson

Funny how things change so quickly from terribly bad to amazingly good. Today I woke up to my roommates cooking an incredible breakfast. I had a good meal then headed out to LAX to pick up my friend Andy Bloxham who is in town for a conference. He's an amazing photographer and has taught me a lot over the last year. I met him at SPE last year, and it makes me wish I had the time and money to go this year.
On the drive to the airport a got a text from another great band wanting to book me for promos. March keeps looking better and better. Tonight Andy and I went and saw The Wrestler and it was great! I strongly recommend you go see it. It's intense. I got out of the movie and had a voicemail from my friend Nic about my portfolio I sent to Capitol Records. It was a good message... more on it when I know more about it. Don't want to jinx myself again.
Now it's time for bed.

Today turned out to be pretty productive and enjoyable. I finalized more stuff for my Montana trip. Now I'm photographing my good friend Brandon in Bozeman on the 1st for his DJ business. It should be a LOT of fun! We're thinking mobster suits, and shooting records with a shotgun... photoshopped of course... Gotta love Montana, where you can drive down the road with a shotgun and no one bats an eye.

Stuff is booking up pretty solidly for March! I'm feeling really good about it. Ten days in Montana, then shooting Vogue in the Movement for Avant, doing new promos for Goodnight Sunrise, a shoot for Radash Clothing (I love trading for sweet clothes!) with Goodnight Sunrise and Brittany Flickinger (The girl who won Paris Hilton's new BFF). If there's time we'll even be doing a music video for Goodnight Sunrise while they're here! I'm really excited about the prospect of doing that because it's something I've always wanted to get into. Somewhere during march I'll be shooting a great band from Buffalo New York called Settings. They won the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands back in December, and their live show blew me away. I'm excited to work with them!

I've spent the majority of the day churning out Sleep District's promos. I am so pleased with them so far! It's like my Strange Instances series threw up on my band promos! SO COOL! I'll be throwing them onto the blog the day the band launches them, so keep an eye out. But here's a little sneak peek...

I'm a big fan of using Flickr to upload all my images instead of the Blogger uploader. Neat! Anyway, yes it is almost 4am but I just had to photoshop this one image of London before bed. His face is priceless. Videos from Sleep District's shoot in the morning... er afternoon?

So far so good this morning. I got a healthy 9 hours of sleep, and woke up not feeling like death! I rolled out of bed and ran down to the farmer's market and scored a cup of coffee, a loaf of whole wheat, some amazing cheeses from the Greek cheese man, some pomegranate jam, and almond blossom honey. Breakfast was incredible to say the least. I'm going to work some more on the makeup images for Goodnight Caulfield, and then head to Barstow for the show. It will be good to see the Victorville crew, I've missed the crap out of those guys!

I'm going around the issue with Blogger's photo dealie. Here are some images from my Flickr account.

I'm going to break down if 2009 keeps up this trend. For those not keeping track here's the shit timeline...
Last Thursday the 12th...
Shot with Raquel, then Photoshop started crashing for no reason. I equated this to be the fault of the new ram.
Saturday the 14th...
Took my computer to the Apple store to remedy the problems my Mac was having. It didn't work, so I backed up as much as I could and had Bassett clean sweep my computer.
Sunday the 15th...
I started to have trouble finding files I needed... then realized they were just plain gone. I thought they were only the Photoshopped images, and that I still had the raws so I'd be fine.
Monday the 16th...
Thought the images had to be somewhere. Then realized a lot of images were missing from several band promo albums. Albums that I ALWAYS back up. Always. Especially when my computer is acting up.
Tuesday the 17th...
Josh was here so I shuffled him around the town on no sleep for two days, and almost forgot about the shit show of my computer. I also learned in here that Goodnight Caulfield needs images by Friday for AP, and more images by Monday for Revolver.
Thursday the 19th...
Panic. Take my computer to a friend who is a programmer to run recovery software on my hard drive. High hopes. Come home to discover the screen of my laptop is screwed up like someone dropped it.
Today...
Sit down to re edit all of the promos that I had deleted to find that the raws were also deleted. A whole file gone. A whole file made up of all the images that were "keepers".
I want to die. This week has been so bad that I started taking my arthritis drugs because if this doesn't make it flare up nothing will. It all reminds me of finals in 2006 when I got that terrible eye infection, my car rolled out of the garage into a parked car, and my computer and external hard drives crashed simultaneously.

Sometimes when I lack any motivation to be productive I take a shower thinking that will help. I did that today and it was honest to god one of the only hot showers I've had so far this year. We have to find out what the deal with our hot water heater is.
Anyway I got out of the shower, and thought about doing something, then waited around for Vanessa so I can sign paperwork, and she never showed up. Then I fell asleep on my wet hair and now it's so ridiculous looking that I'll probably have to take a shower again just to get it back to normal. I tried going back to sleep for a second time, and failed again. I want to hit restart on today, I'd restart by turning off my phone and not being woken up after four hours of sleep.
Tonight is most likely going to be spent rebuilding one of Goodnight Caulfield's promos which was somehow not backed up when we reformatted my computer. I'm going to supplement it with a couple of my Spanish Peaks beers I found, and then if all goes as planned pass out relatively early.
Tomorrow I'm driving to Barstow (2 hours) to shoot a show there. I hope more bands book, because going for $150 is sounding like a lot of work. Then I drive home, edit more, and then I'm shooting London's band Sleep District, and going to see my Lorene Drive friends and hang out with Kyle at Slide Bar. Sunday should be a good day, as long as I can make it to Sunday.

In other news Sam started a blog, and this makes me happy!

These are from last night's show at Chain with Vogue in the Movement and Bidwell. I had fun, I always like shooting at Chain. After the show I went and met up with my friend Kyle who is in town, and after watching some Ali G show and being a vegetable for a couple hours drove home. Didn't get to sleep until around 5am, and was bombarded with text messages from 9:30 on. Now I can't sleep and I'm still trying to get any lost info off of my hard drive. I'm giving up hope, and trying to get the serial number for my masking plug ins so that I can start over.
To top off my fantastic week, yesterday I opened my laptop and the screen is all messed up with weird lines running across it. I don't think this week could get any worse technical wise, knock on wood. My brain feels like jello.


Edit: and apparently Blogger hates me too and won't post photos. Awesome.

This week has been crazy! Sunday I photographed my second cousin Laura, battled my computer all day, and felt generally like crap. Monday I trucked out to Palm Springs to visit my friends and fell asleep on the couch until 5am when we decided to drive home. Of course we got stuck in LA morning rush hour and didn't get back until almost 8am. I had a meeting with Avant at 12, and my friend Josh showed up at 1. Josh and I went out to Fullerton so he could get a tattoo from London last night. It was great to spend some time out there.
Today was bipolar. Josh and I woke up and had an amazingly wonderful breakfast of vegan eats at Green Leaf on Hillhurst, then bounced down to Amoeba Music. That store is AMAZING! You can honestly find any album, poster, vinyl, or t-shirt you could ever want. I can't believe it's taken me this long to go check it out. After we left we went down to the Natural History Museum to look at all the stuffed animals, birds, and fish. It was super fun and I always enjoy doing things that make me feel smarter in the end. We made it back to Silverlake and got some chai tea from Casbah. I popped into the liquor store where I found... DRUM ROLL... SPANISH PEAKS RASPBERRY HONEY ALE! It's seriously the first time I've found Montana beer in LA! I was so excited, and I'm totally going to be on the look out for more friendly black lab faces in the beer cases at Big Mac's.
After the beer win, we came home, and I sat down to e-mail some promos out to Goodnight Caulfield, which they need for a magazine article... and discovered them missing. So rather than freaking out I called Aaron from the band Abeline, who happens to be a computer science major, and I'm taking my iMac out to see him at school tomorrow where he's going to run some programs and try to pull any info out of my hard drive. God I hope they aren't gone forever. That was so much work! I've spent most of this evening booking more work for March, and working out details for next weeks Avant shoot, and another Avant shoot in March the week I get back from Montana. There is no down time, that's for sure.
Tomorrow Josh leaves, then I take my computer in, edit as much as I can in a couple hours, go meet up with my friend Kyle who is in town from Billings, and go to Bidwell and Vogue's show at Chain. Friday should be fairly mellow... I might go see Murder by Death as a chill out present to myself, but only if I can find a concert buddy. Saturday I think I'm booked to shoot a show in Barstow, and then Saturday I'm shooting London's band's promos before going to see Lorene Drive at Slide Bar. Next week my friend Andy flies in for a conference, and then I think my head is going to explode. If not Lorene Drive and Vogue are playing at the Knitting Factory on Thursday, and a couple of bands wanted to meet me there to talk about booking shoots.
Here's a couple of pictures of London tattooing Josh, the final awesome fern tattoo, and a little video because my camera can.

Oh man I can't seem to set a straight schedule. After yesterday's shoot with my second cousin, I passed out at 5, woke up at 7, then drove out to Long Beach on a whim to see my friends in Abeline play. After the show we packed up and drove an hour to Rancho to hang out at Eric's house. Around 2am the talk turned to freaky stories about their haunted recording studio, and got me way to freaked out to drive home. So I crashed on the couch around 4 I think. I woke up at 10 drove back to LA, got a call from my friend John from Sleep District inviting me out to Palm Springs for a get together at his house tonight. Got home, tried to take a nap, but people wouldn't stop texting or calling me. Gave up on napping and watched Nip/Tuck on Hulu and refused to get out of bed.
I feel almost normal now. I think I'm going to give Germain a haircut, then regroup with a shower and head out to meet some new people in Palm Springs.
I'm meeting with Bradley about next week's Avant Magazine shoot in the morning... Tomorrow Josh AND Kyle get here! Then tomorrow night I'm taking Josh out to see London and get his fern tattoo, and take some pictures for London while he works. Then hopefully over to the Slide Bar to meet up with the Fullerton crew for a while before heading back into town. Thursday is Vogue in the Movement and Bidwell at Chain, and Josh takes off for San Diego.
Long week ahead that's for sure.

Forgot to back up an album titled "Friends". I am a friggin idiot sometimes when I'm stressed out. Luckily most of those pictures exist in Facebook land, but GAH!

Edit: Also forgot to back up iPhoto. So I lost all the pictures from the past two years that I shot with my little Power Shot. This weekend just keeps getting better and better. Stupid stupid STUPID!

A couple pictures from today. The huge mess of packing my computer, my new set up, and the CULPRIT DEMON iPOD!

Today...
I went to the Farmers Market only to discover that the ATM on the way was broken, so I couldn't buy anything
I tried again to fix my computer, and backed up everything and filled up my entire external hard drive.
I took my iMac to the Apple Store, they worked on it for an hour and a half, I brought it home to discover all their work had solved absolutely nothing.
I replaced my Ram with the old 1G stick and it solved nothing.
Bassett reformatted my entire hard drive, which did not solve the iTunes problem.
Started to wonder if all this suffering is just because my iPod hates me.
I spent 10 minutes sobbing because I thought I had deleted my entire second semester thesis.
I spent two minutes searching for it and found it on the external in the wrong folder.
Now I'm having another beer, and backing up files from the Caboose external onto my new external Martin, so that the files will be saved in three separate hard drives.

I'm sick of today and now I'm drinking another beer and trying to forget it ever happened. Next step reinstalling all of my programs and hardware. Woo, CS4...
Beer me.

For some reason Photoshop decided to work again. My iPod still refuses to sync though so Mr iMac still has a doctor's appointment.
Anyhoo here's the first finished image from yesterday's shoot with Raquel Marmor. I found her through Model Mayhem along with our make up artist Tiffany Saxby. Both girls were amazing to work with! I originally just wanted to shoot for a composite I'm going to do using an image of Raquel, but we kept shooting for Tiffany and Raquel's portfolios after I had what I needed. I'm really stoked with the results, and can't wait to start on the composite when I have some free time.

So I'm having a nice rainy day sitting in front of Mr iMac backing up everything I care about onto my Lacie hard drive so that Bassett and I can restore the whole thing to a new clean slate. We're hoping that will fix the problem and save me the hassle of driving my computer all the way to the Glendale Galleria to most likely have the Apple people do exactly the same thing. It's times like these that I really wish I had set up Time Machine on my computer... le sigh, oh well.
Music's done, now on to backing up photography!

All Ram is not created equal. I found this especially true after my Mac crashed for about the ninth time last night, now refuses to restore my iPod, and won't save anything in Photoshop. It used to be slow as hell, then everyone told me to just upgrade to 4 gig of ram from Fryes, now it just doesn't work at all. I'm totally pissed off.
I'm taking it into the Mac store tomorrow where I'll probably just end up having to fork over $300 on their brand ram. SO PISSED OFF!

So I printed about a zillion portfolios last month... here's some pictures because I have really really pretty portfolios...




One of them looks like it's made out of iPod, and the other one looks like it's made out of sheet metal. The third, plain ugly black one, is still floating around the black hole of EMI, in post Grammy nothingness.
Oh and in case you were wondering, this is what Five Hundred dollars looks like.

Whoa. So I sold a print for Faith in Fame already! Thanks Justin, if he's reading this...
Excited to see where the project goes, and how many people jump on board. I might spam this blog with links to it, so I apologize in advance.
My friend Zach leaves for Germany tomorrow for a month. Jealous. I want to go on a trip! In March heading up to Montana, but stuff is booking up steadily for that trip. Funny how I have to go BACK to Montana to book stuff. HA!

Matt brought home a really really expensive daylight balanced continuous light by Profoto the other day. Thing cost probably around four grand, so of course we played with it. This is Nick van Atta, my friend who is part of the great Montana migration to LA.

FAITH IN FAME PROJECT
This is something I'm going to try out and see if something comes of it. I think it could be an interesting project.
Here's my first post to the blog...
Okey doke.
Let me explain this project here. I happened upon another photographer with a PayPal donation button on the side of their blog. It's not the first time I've seen this either. Bands, artists, lazy people all seem to be jumping on the mooch train. I don't agree with this. Why should someone be expected to give you money for nothing? It doesn't make sense to me. So in response I'm starting a project called the Faith in Fame Project. How it works is you send me $30 and I send you a print.

Ok... what's the catch?

Well along with your $30 you attach a note that includes five things you like, and five things to describe you. I take said list and go out into Los Angeles and photograph something I think that you'd enjoy based on your lists. If you don't attach a list, I'll go out and photograph something completely random that I think is crazy awesome! I send you your archival inkjet print, post the image to this here blog, and blam, destroy the file on my computer! GASP! So you, the buyer, has a one of a kind original image by me the photographer.

Here's where the "Faith in Fame" part comes in. Think about it, if I become crazy famous for my work, you have a one of a kind piece that is signed, numbered (1 of 1) and you can do with it as you please! Sell it, hang it on your wall and brag, give it to someone, throw it away, whatevs, it's yours!

That image will only exist in three forms, your print, and artist print for myself, and on this blog. Future generations will look onto this blog and go "Grandma! You are so cool!" Ok maybe not really... But it could happen.

So what are you waiting for? Be the first to put your Faith in my Fame!

I started a new blog for my Mom...
It's going to be a humorous little blog dedicated to the really random things that go on in my house.

New look. I'll probably change it in the next couple of days. I don't really like it, but I couldn't stand how it was cropping photos and videos like it did. And on that note, I'm addicted to www.blogotheque.net lately. They do guerrilla style video shoots with some great indie artists. It's what I want to one day start doing with bands after a photoshoot if I can convince them.
I'm in love with their shooting style and how they find these incredible acoustic spaces. The one with The Arcade Fire is the most incredible thing ever, same with Yeasayer's video. But this one is for mom...

#89.1 - R.E.M. - Until the day is done
by lablogotheque

Ugh. I slept horribly last night! Bassett decided to do laundry at 2am and my GOD our washing machine sounds like a rocket ship, and it's right against my bathroom wall and closet so it's amplified all over my room. I was almost asleep too, then vrooooorrrgghhhh!
I had a weird dream/ nightmare last night too. In my dream I got a ton of poorly thought out tattoos, with lots of bright colors that were all the opposite of what I would ever want. I had some sort of totem pole on the back of my left arm, and something on my right about cupcakes. Oh and the worst was a Hawaiian themed Montana tribute all around my entire right calf and shin. It was pink and had all these flowers, and an outline of Montana, and it made no sense. It went all the way from my ankle and sleeved up to my knee. I hate leg sleeves! It was god awful and I think seeing that one is what made me wake up. I've had nightmares like this before, and I think they're brought on by seeing people around here with terrible, poorly thought out modification decisions. I always have to wake up and look at my arms and legs to make sure it was just a dream, then breathe a big sigh of relief when the bad tattoos aren't there.
I remember part of the dream I was sitting talking to someone, and I had gotten all my white tattoos colored in. Whoever I was talking to said "Oh it's too bad you got those filled in, you used to be so original... now you just look like everyone else" GAH! It was such an awful dream! I'm glad it's over, and that I do not and will never look like this guy...

Ta Da!
I finally finished this one for Goodnight Sunrise. I miss these kids.

Today was actually a really good day... GAH!

Here's the first finished image from my shoot with Goodnight Caulfield on Monday. The next couple of images are way crazier and involve Mary Poppins and falling pianos. Keep an eye out for those.

NEW TOY! I picked up a Rosco Light Pad the other day. It was a total impulse buy, which I bought with the express purpose of making stuff glow in images. So today I made my lap glow and tested it out. It's awesome and I want to get more of them!

February so far has been insane. Monday I shot Goodnight Caulfield and the pictures are going to be so cool it's ridiculous! You can tell I haven't been working much by how weird my ideas are for the post process. Yesterday we were shooting some talking head stuff on my 5D for what I can only describe as Google Earth on crack. Then I met with a lovely model named Raquel for an art piece I've been wanting to do, then it was off to The Slide Bar to see A Hope for Home, the band that crashed here last night. Tim and I wandered over to a bar a block away and ran into pretty much all of my friends in LA... in Fullerton. Small world. Then back to the house to unwind, Matt FINALLY got back from Montana, and Bassett got back from work and we chatted and long story short I went to bed at 4:30 again. UGH! Today I shipped out my portfolio and mailed the images to Major from the Aqua lounge last week, then got an e-mail from an editor I'm meeting with tomorrow asking me to bring a portfolio... after I had just shipped it. SO back to Samy's I went to spend another $170 on a portfolio and paper to print the third one in a month.
WHEEEW!
Tomorrow is the meeting, the a Vogue in the Movement show at The Viper Room, and then Friday through Sunday I'm working at The Grammys. I'm so sleeping all day Monday.

Sooooo tired! OH MY GOD!
I stayed up way too late talking to my friend on iChat last night, urrrrgh. Now we're shooting some sort of commercial or something in my living room... and it's really loud and Bassett is sleeping, and I feel like a jerk.
I want to go back to bed.

This blog usually pertains to a lot of my ranting, and this entry isn't going to be different. I'm going to rant on "fauxtographers" shooting live at shows. Leslie came up with the word Fauxtographer and I thought it was so brilliant, that I'm adding it to my vocabulary. On with the rant...
Last night I photographed my great friends in the band Run Doris Run while they played at Chain Reaction. They opened for a couple of larger acts from Arizona, This Century and The Summer Set. The show was sold out and had a great crowd. Security is pretty lax at Chain and there's almost always a slew of people backstage without proper wrist bands, or clearance and last night was the same except for this time the slew of people were all armed with shiny new Canon Rebels. There were two other photographers who seemed to be there with a purpose, and I've seen them before, so I paid them no mind, and they are exempt from the rant.
What drove me to the brink of murder were the kids on stage with absolutely no reason to be there! When shooting live I like to adhere to the unspoken rules, and these kids had no idea what stage etiquette should be. I didn't have much problem during Run Doris Run because they were opening, and since they asked me to be on stage, I hid behind an amp for most of the show. Before This Century I asked the lead singer if it was cool if I took pictures, and he looked at me bewildered and said "Sure, I don't care". I gave up taking pictures half way through their set because of the other six chicks on stage holding their little Rebels and pretending that they knew what they were doing. I didn't even try to fight that crowd for The Summer Set. See image above, all those people on the left thought they were supposed to be up there. I saw two people working and the rest were holding cameras and dancing! It was ridiculous.

I was so peeved by the end of the evening I started making a list of the unspoken rules of stage etiquette in my head. I've narrowed it down to these...
7. Having a camera in your hand does not give you the golden ticket to stand on stage. Ask permission first, and only shoot from stage if you're supposed to be there! Usually the best photos are from the crowd anyway... just saying.
6. Be courteous to the crowd, no one is there to see you on stage, they paid to see the band. Be respectful of that.
5. Ask the band if you plan on using flash, and only use flash if they say it's okay. Getting blasted in the face with an off camera flash sucks a lot when you don't expect it.
4. Only use flash for the first three songs! This is probably the only spoken unspoken rule. If you're shooting professionally, this is what security will tell you. Use it at small shows too, and deal with it.
3. If another photographer is there and wants to trade places for 30 seconds do it. Be courteous.
2. Stay out of the way of the band! Once again, no one there came to see you. Hide behind an amp if you can, and don't walk across the stage during a freaking song! I've seen that happen so many times since I came here it's been driving me nuts.
1. WEAR EARPLUGS! I can tell you from experience that losing your hearing from shows sucks. I'm 25 and I've lost almost 40% of my hearing, and it's all from not wearing earplugs until I was 21. I carry them with me at all times on my keychain, and I never ever EVER shoot a show without them.

So there you have my rules. I want to print them out on little business cards and hand them out at shows to clueless chicks with cameras. But hey, last night was still a fun time, and I got that top images of Run Doris Run which is printing for my portfolio as I type.

Holy crap last night was awkward. In case there was any question, I am white. Really really white. REALLY REALLY WHITE and from MONTANA! Last night I got a job taking party pictures at some hip hop club. I did not know it was a hip hop club when I took the job, and I was pretty much the only white girl there. I felt like someone was just waiting for me to bust out the cabbage patch or the running man. No dice, just stood there, awkwardly, not trying to get in anyone's way and taking pictures of people who are apparently well known, but like I said I am whiter than white and had no idea who anyone was.
When I'm saying I'm whiter than white I mean it, and in a bad way. I listen to Indie rock music, I have no rhythm, I can't dance, and when some dude tells me he's waiting for his "artist" I assume he means tattoo artist, and ask to see his ink. He meant his rap artist... he's a manager... but he did have some cool tattoos... awkward.
The performers were really awesome, and something might come of it when they need pictures. Everyone was really nice,but 90% of the night, I just felt like the most awkward thing in the room. At the end of the night (1:30 or so) I made $50, zero dollars in tips, and had spent $30 on batteries for my backup magazine for the 5D MkII, and my ring flash, and $3 on parking. So I made $17, and learned I am in fact a white girl, and taking jobs off of Craigslist is a 50/50 chance.

A dramatization of how white I am...

Things I would like to do in February... A list
1. Go to Denver to shoot
2. Go to Denver to see Sam
3. Go to Denver to see Dylan
4. Go to Denver to see Dylan's beard
5. Go to Denver to see Murder By Death
6. Go to Denver to drink some Fat Tire
7. Go to Denver... basically.

Things I choose never to do in my life... a list
1. I will never in my life, get a neck tattoo. Ever.
2. I will never in my life do coke, heroin, acid, meth or crack. Never ever ever.
3. I will never in my life partake in paparazzi photography. EVER!
4. I will never in my life wear Ugg boots with a mini skirt... seriously.
5. I will never in my life tattoo my significant other's face on my body.
6. I will never in my life live in Compton... more a choice to remain alive in the long run.
7. I will never in my life have large gauge facial piercings... just not for me.
8. I will never in my life master mathematics. I've come to terms with this.
9. I will never in my life be President of 'Merica. Something I've also come to terms with.
10. I will never in my life go to the moon. Don't wanna.
11. I will never in my life live with a blue tooth headset grafted to the side of my head.
12. I will never in my life have 17 kids. That show with that family is effed up.
13. I will never in my life live in Sauget Illinois... same reason as Compton.
14. I will never in my life love German Industrial music... EVER!
15. I will never in my life sing in a German Industrial band.
16. I will never in my life be a famous musician. Could have happened, but I'm in the game way too later, and I'm okay with that.
17. I will never in my life get a perm.
18. I will never in my life be a club girl. I'm completely okay with that.
19. I will never in my life be a Scientologist.
20. I will never in my life marry someone twice my age. That's icky.

FIELD TRIP DAY!!!
Today Rian Flynn, Dave Hill, and I went to the Natural History museum after hours with photo passes, and free reign to do pretty much whatever we wanted. Best day ever. Animals are so damn cute, even if they are stuffed! We were doing test shots for a photoshoot for a band Rian is working with. In the end we scored some free passes to come back! I love that place and I can't wait to explore it for a full day!

I swear to god the most depressing thing in the world is sending out 12 e-mails to potential jobs, and then only getting two back that just say that your message was undeliverable.
Oh and one of the Phototherapist's accounts is completely full.
Meeting with a wedding photographer tomorrow about working as a second shooter. Wish me luck, because if I don't get some soon I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do.

Oh a happier note, I'm upgrading one of my lights, and selling two of my Alien Bees for $500 help do so. Whee for getting ridiculously cool new lighting... boo for having no work to play with it.

I'm currently obsessed with a little local band I found called Olin and the Moon. It's really great folky music, and I can't get enough of it. Just so happens that I went to high school way back when with one of the members. Small world. We both move to LA and he starts up an amazing band that I love. Go figure. Mom, Dad, and Amy, you would probably like this band a lot too. Their ambitious 13 song album, 40 Miles of Bad Road is on iTunes too.

The slow economy has been good for one thing. It's making me far more creative. My brain switched over from commercial back to fine art, and I've been shooting a lot of models for a new project I'm working on that's kind of similar to my last thesis. It's what the Phototherapists told me to do back in September, but I haven't had time to. Lucky for me there's Model Mayhem.com to search for people willing to work for free. So far I've been doing the composites of my friends who I can convince to take their shirts off and act out my little story. I guess right now it's kind of dealing of the fear of disappearing in this city, and fighting against becoming irrelevant every day. I'm pretty excited about working on it more. It is nice having something to work on to break up the constant job searching.
This is an image of my friend Kyle that's not quite finished, but figured I should post something...

Things I currently love...
1. The Monkey and Son's Sumatra coffee that I bought from Casbah Cafe. That shit is gooood!
2. Hulu.com for all my Must See TV needs
3. My 5D Mark II because the dang thing just keeps getting COOLER!
4. Rice... nuf said
5. Those bags of frozen mixed veggies from Safeway because they cost $1.75 and go well with the aforementioned rice.
6. Not paying for Downtown Disney Parking because I left at 1am and the parking guys had already gone home! HA SUCKAS!

Things I currently do not love at all...
1. Our outrageous power bill that skyrocketed for some reason in the last month from around $90 to $300. No bueno.
2. When I run into a cool band and have this conversation "Dude we would totally love to shoot with you, but some kid just shot us last week for free"
3. Did I mention the power bill?
4. Paying to get into shows... never bueno.
5. Dry skin. My skin is freaking out on me for no particular reason.

An Open Letter to Photoshop...
Current mood: ashamed
Category: Romance and Relationships

Dear Photoshop,
Hey friend, how's it going? Things are good here. Listen I know we've been spending a lot of time together over the past couple months. It's been great! But I've been seeing a lot of stuff all over myspace that you've been with some other photographers. Don't get me wrong, I know this is supposed to be an open relationship, and you're free to do as you like with whoever. Well I guess what's been bugging me is just... well... you're giving photography a bad name. You're getting used, and spread all over town. You look sloppy out there! Come on, you used to be so classy and refined. You were like a fine whiskey that only tasted good if you babied it and warmed it over a flame. Now your high pass filter is all over the internet! You look cheap. Stop it. If I'm going to be seen with you I really need you to show a bit more restraint with your dodging and burning. With your saturation layers, and your gausian blur. Step it up a notch! You can be classy again. I mean look at what we've accomplised through our relationship. We were a golden couple in PDN for Adobe's sake!
I really hope you understand. I don't want this to jeapordize our beautiful relationship. I want to continue to work as a team baby, and not have to break up because you're cavorting all over the town with 17 year olds. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Until I hear back from you, I'll be with Wacom tablet, having a beer down the street. We miss you, and you're welcome to join us.
Love always,
Megan

My house is lonely. Bassett works from 4-4am and Matt's in Montana. I feel like I live alone, it's boring.
I've been applying for every job with "photographer" in the title on craigslist there is. I've had two people write back. One was for a wedding, and they liked my work, but I guess liked someone better because I haven't heard back since. I just sent the specs of my equipment to another photographer who needs a second shooter at weddings. Thank god I just upgraded everything! I used to not even apply for jobs where they asked what camera you had. Now I'm a proud 5D Mark II owner with nothing to be ashamed of! HA!

If you are in Montana PLEASE STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING!!!
This bill is uneducated, bigoted, and ignorant. Rep. Driscoll should be ashamed to even introduce it! Pit Bulls are just as prone to attack someone as a cocker spaniel. Punish the irresponsible god owner, not the innocent dog.

Hearing Set for Bill to Kill All the Pit Bulls in Montana
Posted Jan 11, 2009 by lauraallen

* Breed Bans

Sweet pit bullThere will be a hearing on H.B. 191 Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 3:00 PM in Hearing Room 172 at the Capitol Building in Helena. Plan to attend.

For more information on this bill and how you can contact Montana legislators, read Animal Law Coalition's report below.

Original report: Montana state Rep. Robyn Driscoll, a Democrat who represents the 51st District, has introduced a bizarre bill calling for the elimination of all "pit bulls" from the state. If the bill, H.B. 191, becomes law, owners must surrender their pit bull dogs which must then be euthanized within 10 days.

Those who don't give up their dogs to be killed? Well, any peace officer is authorized to obtain a search warrant and come and get the dog.

The cost of paying animal control and other law enforcement officers throughout the state to round up family pets and kill them will be substantial. A task force found that a pit bull ban in Prince George's County, Maryland, just one county, cost $560,000 in one year.

There are exceptions for pit bulls temporarily in the state, passing through, or attending an exhibition, show or competition "sponsored by a dog club, association, or similar organization". Even for the dog to attend an exhibition, show or competition, the owner must obtain written permission from the county and the sponsor must take steps to "prevent [the pit bull dog] from escaping or injuring the public." The only other exception is for a pit bull wearing a tag indicating it is a registered pit bull, but the registration and tag must have been obtained before the law's effective date. Here is a copy of the bill.

The National Canine Research Council reports that between 1965 and 2008, there were 3 fatalities in Montana from dog bites. Yes, 3 in 43 years. In 2005 alone, just one year in Montana, 1,400 people died from smoking and 251 in traffic accidents. (Maybe Driscoll should work to protect Montanans from smoking and second hand cigarette smoke or negligent or drunk drivers; that would at least be something useful.)

The NCRC notes, "All the dogs involved ... were ...not spayed or neutered....All three cases involved unsupervised children left alone in a yard with unfamiliar dogs (2 cases) or the child wandering off and encountering an unfamiliar, chained dog (1 case)."

Significantly, none of the dogs was a pit bull.

The bill, H.B. 191, is now in the House Local Government Committee. Check Animal Law Coalition for updates.

Take Animal Law Coalition's poll on breed bans on this page!

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Write or call Rep. Robyn Driscoll and urge her to drop this breed ban. Tell her dogs don't bite because of breed and breed bans don't make communities safe from dog bites. Instead, they penalize responsible owners and greatly increase animal control costs. Send her the information found here. Be polite.

Robyn Driscoll, (406) 534-4874, rdriscoll@peoplepc.com

Contact the House Local Government Committee by calling Joe Kolman, 406-444-9280

Find Montana legislators and email, fax or call them and urge them to say no to H.B. 191. Here is the fax number for the House: 406-444-4825

I'm sunburned in January. It was 81 degrees today on the beach, and I spent a good half the day holding up a 12x12' diffusion silk for Dave. So now I'm really sunburned. I had fun though! Luckily there wasn't much wind so the silk wasn't a complete nightmare to hold upright. That thing might as well be attached to a sailboat, and I totally want one.
Here are a couple pictures I thought were really funny. Dave was trying to sync the live view on my 5D Mark II with those weird little TV goggles you get for iPods. It didn't work, but I still think it could if we actually researched it.
Dave was shooting with his new Mamiya for part of the day and I'm totally jealous of that little camera. I'm going to start shooting film again soon, I just wish it wasn't so expensive to process it. I got to play the roll of film bitch for a good chunk of the shoot, unwrapping and tightening rolls, and sealing and tightening up the exposed rolls as they left the camera. I can't wait to see the images from the day once they're finished. Dave took my portrait being goofy on a BMX bike too, so believe me it will be on here once I get my hands on it!

Whoa. Revolutionary Road was really REALLY good.
Damn son.

Hokay...
I was just perusing the internet and came across some magazine's list of best living songwriters. Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra and Right Away Great Captain wasn't on it. In my opinion this kid is my generation's Bob Dylan, but with fewer drugged out metaphors. I think he's now maybe 22 at the oldest, with a really killer beard, a wife, and probably more life experience than anyone I know. His albums are the only albums I can listen to non stop for a week and never get sick of, because after seven days I'm still trying to figure out what he means. He's profound. No song has ever effected me like Where have you been? which is why part of the bridge (I've gotta take what I'm making and turn it into something) is tattooed around my wrist. Any time I'm getting down on myself about work, I just have to look down at my left forearm and suck it up. I just watched the documentary Whats Left Behind in which Sam Erickson follows the members of Manchester Orchestra around the South East as they tour on the verge of blowing up into the best kept secret in music. It's completely inspiring. It's the type of documentary that I went to Montana State wanting to make some day. Bands like this are the reason I love music so damn much.

I'm going to stop ranting for a second... along with the DVD came a CD of new songs and a couple old favorites performed acoustically. One new song I can Feel a Hot One has been repeating on my computer since I opened the packaging. This song sums up why this kid is going to be around for decades. You can hear their music at Jango and on their myspace page.

I could feel a hot one taking me down
For a moment, I could feel the force
Fainted to the point of tears
And you were holding on to make a point
What's the point?

I'm but a clean man, stable and alone man
Make it so I won't have to try
The faces always stay the same
So I face the fact that I'm just fine
I said that I'm just fine

I remember, head down,
After you had found out
Manna is a hell of a drug
And I need a little more, I think
Because enough is never quite enough
What's enough?

I took it like a grown man crying on the pavement
Hoping you would show your face
But I haven't heard a thing you've said
In at least a couple hundred days
What'd you say?

I was in the front seat, shaking it out
And I was asking if you felt alright
I never want to hear the truth
I want to hear your voice, it sounded fine
My voice, it sounded fine

I could feel my heartbeat taking me down
And for the moment, I would sleep alright
Invading with a selfish fear
To keep me up another restless night
Another restless night

The blood was dry, it was sober
The feeling of audible cracks
And I could tell it was over
From the curtains that hung from your neck

And I realized that then you were perfect
And my teeth ripping out of my head
And it looked like a painting I once knew
Back when my thoughts weren't entirely intact

To pray for what I thought were angels
Ended up being ambulances
And the Lord showed me dreams of my daughter
She was crying inside your stomach

And I felt love again

This pretty much sums up a work day with Rian Flynn. This is from a month or two back when I assisted him on a shoot for the band Kingsley. We were trying to high five midair, but we failed miserably each time. I like this one because it looks like I'm about to slap him in the head.

Planes Crash

IMG_7553, originally uploaded by M. Thompson Photography.

This is the band Planes Crash at Chain Reaction. They opened up In Fear and Faith's CD release and put on a pretty sick show. I've seen them a few times around the valley. Super nice dudes, hope to shoot their promos sometime soon.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Back page from the portfolio that I just dropped off at EMI... I really hope to god something comes out of all that work I just did. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain and stuck on a stair stepper. I just talked to Jon and London and they're making some calls to help me book stuff, and I talked to someone who might be interested in being my agent.
I need some good luck.

Here's another fun picture from last week's shoot. This is Danny from National Product. He just also happens to be in the mashup side project with my hairdresser and Dan from A Static Lullaby. Good times.
I'm printing the last of my portfolio today and hope to drop it off tonight. Wish me luck!

I spent the last couple of days in Victorville with my friends in the band Sleep District while they recorded their EP. It was a rousing good time even if I am sicker than a dog now. I used the video function on my 5D seriously for the first time and I'm editing the ridiculous footage into a studio update for the guys. I first met Timothy the Blasian (Black and Asian) Guitarist way back in October when I didn't know anyone. Then I met London (who is an amazing tattoo artist in addition to a musician) a couple months later, and just met Jon their vocalist on Monday for the first time. We became pretty fast friends! I love these guys. London invited me to the Vegas tattoo convention to take pictures and I'm really considering it. My buddy Josh Meek just moved there from Helena and he actually has an appointment with London on Saturday during the convention. It would be great fun I'm sure. We'll see if yet another band cancels their shoot this month. Ugh. Why does money suck so much?

Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.
Do work. Do work. Do work.

I have no idea what I did, but I did something, and that something made my printer work. I replaced two ink cartridges and the maintenance tank, and now it works like a dream.

But now it doesn't want to print high quality 11x14" prints. It wants so upscale them from an 8x10"... and it looks bad. Win some lose some.

Epson 3800: 2
Megan: 1

All I want to do is print my portfolio.
That's ALL.
But my printer has been in a box since August and is now all effed up. I did two power cleanings, the automatic alignment thinger won't work, and it's off register by about 1mm.
All I want to do is print my damn portfolio, and I've had to replace two ink cartridges, and now the maintenance tank is full and I can't buy a new one until tomorrow. I'm also almost out of light magenta now. Grand total to get my damn 3800 working again will be about $170.
All I wanted to do was print my stupid freaking portfolio!

Things to do in 2009:
1. Do a photoshoot in Skid Row (X)
2. Do a photoshoot with "hot chicks" (X)
3. Forget about my pledge to never photograph a band smoking (XX)

This is my favorite image from yesterday's shoot with my hairstylist's band. They don't have a name yet, but this is Dan Arnold. He also plays guitar and sings in A Static Lullaby. We shot at the Cecil Hotel in downtown and during the course of the shoot heard gunshots (fireworks?), heard a screaming fight from the floor below, and saw a cockroach. This was a non smoking room as well, but Dan didn't really seem to care. I have a policy never to shoot bands in scenarios that make smoking appear cool, but it really added to this shoot, and I didn't have much of a choice. He was smoking, and we had a limited amount of time to shoot so there ya go.
Still, this is totally going into my portfolio which I am finally printing and putting into a book today.

So far I'm going to say that 2009 pretty much sucks.

Here are a couple more of In Fear and Faith from last night. I bought their CD on iTunes when I got home and it blows me away. I usually hate post hardcore and screamy music, but Scott and Cody's voices compliment each other so perfectly on this album.

I couldn't wait until morning to look through In Fear and Faith's CD release show pictures. This one keeps catching my eye every time. I think for me it sums up the amazing experience of their live show.
Tonight made me love live photography again!

Oh sweet Jesus are my arms tired. I love my new camera but it's DAMN heavy with the battery grip attached. I just got home from shooting In Fear and Faith's CD release show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim. The crowd was completely insane for those guys and Lower Definition. I had so so so much fun! IFAF is probably my new favorite live act to shoot EVER! That lightshow, and their light up riser boxes are SO sick!
I did get kicked in the head though. That wasn't fun.
Last night I stayed with my friend Eric from the band Abeline to try and defunk my funky mood. Totally worked. There's very little that Rock Band, a few beers, and really awesome cats can't make better. I decided to get a little practice for tonight while I was there. Here's Eric playing some ridiculously hard song on expert or something...

I'm slowly falling back into the swing of things. My new lens came yesterday with a much needed battery grip. My camera is a giant legitimate pile of parts! I'm breaking in the lens tonight in San Diego. I was commissioned to shoot the CD release show for a band called Goodnight Caulfield at Soma. There's 7 bands so it should be a good time.
I'm going to go get some tasty Farmer's Market coffee and start packing.

Note to self...
When pitching really ridiculous ideas to bands, make sure you have all needed items for ridiculous shoot.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how to do a No Country for Old Men theme shoot next Friday with no budget. I need a compressed air tank, and a seedy hotel room. This is a nightmare, and one thing an assistant would be awesome for.