Byron from Hide and Seek Clothing sent me this... Bwuahaha!

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

For those out of the loop it's in response to the "Gathering Storm" biggot fest that the National Organization for Marriage posted a couple weeks ago. You can hardly find it now though, because youtube is full of awesome parodies pointing out just how ridiculous the ad is.

I found this pretty amusing too...

MAY MONTANA SCHEDULE! BOOK NOW!

I'm heading out of LA on the 4th of May. If you exist anywhere between LA and Montana, and would like to book a shoot I would love the help with gas money and happy fun time.
Here's the tentative reworked schedule of sorts...
May 4th: Leave Drive to Vegas, linger if a shoot is booked, if not drive to SLC
May 5th: Hang out in SLC (LOTS of shooting time!)
May 6th: Head to Montucky through Wyoming (or is it just a rectangle?)
May 7th: Arrive in a hail of glory and gunfire in lovely Bozeman Montana, I'll be at the Senior photograph exhibition drinking gin and tonic, come hang out!
May 8th: Recovering from inevitable Senior Show hang over. Then going to the Tracy Awards to see the Senior films, then to the swanky after party, come hang out!
May 9th: Tearfully watching the last of my friends graduate from college to embark on their careers as starving artists! They make me so proud!
May 10th: Chilling in Helena with my Nana for Mother's Day since MY mother and father skipped town for Oregon when they heard I was homeward bound!
May 11th: Shooting around Helena, and heading to Missoula to shoot some bands, shoot some sass, and hang with the Hide and Seek crew!
May 12th: Same... want to book a shoot?
May 13th: Take off towards the coast to find my parents and any bands that would like to book a shoot should take advantage.
May 14th: Probably chillaxing in Seattle or Portland with long lost comrades. Finding my parents... shooting your band?
May 15th: Heading back into Cali, shooting some bands... your band?
May 16th: Oh SNAP! I lost track of time, gotta get back to LA for Kevin Devine at the Troubadour tomorrow! Time to shoot your band?
May 17th: Arrive back in LA 3,000 miles later. Going to the Troubadour to see Kevy D, come hang out!

Make yourself a part of this party!

Mark Hoppus has a way cooler blog than I do. But today I feel special because I'm in it.
Behind the scenage...
Thanks to Basset, Jen, Tim, Cale, Erika, Chris, and Mark for making the shoot a success! Cale shot some gorgeous footage with his crazy camera for pretty much the worlds most intense behind the scenes video. So keep your eyes peeled for that popping up somewhere in the future!

People with cooler blogs than me...
Mark Hoppus
Anthony Raneri

So the guy from the Wildlife Refuge we were supposed to be shooting in, who hasn't been calling me back for four days, finally called me back 7 hours before today's shoot. Yes, we can shoot in the refuge. No, we cannot use flash. So after politely pulling the "Oh gee wiz, I'm from Montana" act, which didn't work, I found a new location. I drove all the way there just to make sure it was chill, found an incredible spot (this one even has little waterfalls) ceased the huge brewing freak out I was about to have, and now I'm back home, waiting for Jenni. Bring it on Wednesday... but please don't throw anything else at me, during the shoot, that would just be mean.

Goodnight Caulfield

Octopus...

Blog o Substance #3

Sorry about my fluffy posts this last week. I swear it will all make sense eventually. Today I'm making up for fluff with Tuesday's Blog-O-Substance! YAAAY!

"Duuuuude your photos are insane! How do you come up with ideas like that? Are you on drugs or something?"
Today's Topic...
Creative Brainstorming
No. I'm not on drugs or something. I don't do drugs. Sure I have a beer on occasion and I'm by no means straight edge, but I don't snort and 8 ball and then sit down to edit. I use this little guy. This is my Moleskine notebook. One of about 4 that I have sitting in my car, by my bedside, in the living room and on my desk. I try to always have one within arms reach because if you think you can remember that crazy idea you had for a photo, if you're like me you can't and it will be gone in 10 minutes. Even just jotting down a couple words about an idea will help you remember it. If I don't have one near me, I'll twitter a couple words to remind myself later, or send myself a text message.

So that's how I remember the weird stuff my brain throws at me. Coming up with the weird stuff is a whole different thing. As you know I went to school for photography, but before that I had a stint in graphic design. At Montana State one thing they love in the graphic design department are brainstorm maps. You know, those things where you write down one word in the middle and spiderweb other ideas off of it. Like Cheese leads to chevre, chevre leads to goats, goats leads to herd, and all of a sudden I'm pitching a shoot for a band goat tying a heard of goats at a rodeo... I like that, I'll have to write it down. Sitting down to hash out ideas in this way trains you to think bigger. So never hesitate to come up with the strangest ideas you can. Then you always have a long list of ideas to pitch when a band hates the standard "flying V" band photo.

I'm also very blessed to have a network of friends in the film industry, who are all brilliant and hilarious. Sitting around on a Saturday night with a few beers leads to many many ridiculous ideas for all of our projects. Some are tangible, some we put on our "When I'm so famous I can demand ANYTHING" list for the future. Such as how one day I want to photograph a band in front of a Rube Goldberg machine that blows confetti at them. Think of the most obscure ridiculous ideas that you can, then scale them back to reality. My absolute favorite thing about shooting bands is that you don't have to have an answer to "why?" Fine art always needs a reason, but you can have a band jumping out of a skyscraper for the hell of it and no one will question it, just make the image look good.
Sorry this entry is a bit small, but I'm off to a Hollywood prop company to pick up a fake octopus. Dream big!

I haven't even thought about what to write tomorrow's blog about. Time to go through the old myspace e-mails and find weird questions to answer. This whole week has been a blur, and I've been up since my 5am trip to the fish market where I was scared off by a herd of prostitutes.
It hit around 101 today, no we don't have air conditioning. Montana, I miss you right now.

This is our costar for Wednesday's shoot. He was made for My Name is Earl back some time in 2008. I'm going to have to try to figure out which episode that was.

Man if there's anything I've realized this week it's that I really need to stop underestimating myself. I need to just go for ideas and stop trying to think of reasons why they won't work. New goal, be more self confident in my work. If I'm not, why should anyone else be. I think that's a good goal.
In other news it's REALLY FUCKING HOT OUTSIDE! I wasn't prepared for hundred degree temperatures quite yet. My Mac says it only got up to 95 today but I know it's lying. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 95 again and then 98. Luckily it's going to be in the 70's for Wednesday's shoot. But of course it's going to be boiling as I run around LA searching for raw seafood. Lovely. Pray that I don't get stuck in traffic!

This week has been a big old blur. A good blur, but blurry. Doing a pretty cool portrait this week that involves raw octopus. Tomorrow's task is finding a few of them. Not sure exactly where to look, but I'm going to try Chinatown and hope that someone speaks English at the fish market.
I fell asleep tonight on the couch watching American Dad on Hulu. Cold passed out for like two hours. Now I'm all ready for bed, and hoping I'll be able to fall back asleep. I want to start tomorrow bright and early in hopes of resetting my sleep schedule. It's so messed up right now.

Another Sleep District treat for the ears.
Sleep District- There I Said It

Today was another weird day. Lots of ups and downs, but all good and exciting stuff to look forward to I hope! I finished off the day by going to the Knitting Factory to see Astronautalis. He's freaking insanely talented, and if you haven't seen his live show I suggest it strongly. On the way to the venue traffic was diverted all the way to Sunset and back and all around. Once inside the venue Andy (Astronautalis) informed everyone that it was because they were filming a fake movie premiere for Entourage. Welcome to LA.

In other news, The Summer Set have decided to use my Hide and Seek promos for a new myspace. This is going to be the header...

It was a good day :)

Yesterday was such a strange day. I woke up with that nasty headache which was remedied by taking a bunch of Excedrin. Then I looked at my calendar and freaked out. I've been so busy that I crapped out on following through on a bunch of shoots, and it's looking so dim right now. I spent a majority of the morning sending out e-mails only to get replies like, "Oh we got some dude's sister to do them for free". Frustrating. So I decided to one up it all and e-mailed management groups, magazines, and editors. Actually got replies such as the amazingly vague "Your work is great- let's work together, keep in touch" ... I have no clue if I'm supposed to just bug them once a week or so, or if I'm supposed to just sit tight and wait. I think I'm just going to bug them.
My friend Brittany let me know last night that one of her 103 students chose ME as the photographer for his emulation project! He wrote a paper on me, and tried to copy my style for their assignment. That is so flippin cool! I'm ridiculously flattered, Britt's going to scan me one of his images, and send me his essay. I'm excited. I feel way cooler than I actually am right now.
I tried to go to sleep early, then realized none of my friends do that, as they kept texting me. So tonight I turn off the phone before trying to get my sleep schedule back on track!

Here's Justin's Faith in Fame print! It only exists in the blogosphere, and the two prints that were printed. It's been deleted! Woo hoo! This one is titled "Things That Like Air"

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My friends in Sleep District make pretty songs...
Sleep District- Dallas
Hit that HD button on the bottom. I shot this with my 5DMkII. Watch the end... Jon's face is priceless!

I just canceled my photoserve account. I feel kind of bad about it, but the money could definitely be spent in better ways... like the power bill. Today is going to be a long day of editing and trying to send out as many e-mails to bands as possible. Have to schedule a reshoot with a band from Bakersfield who want a different feel in their images that what we did the first time around.
Another thing I'm going to try is cutting back on my caffeine intake. I woke up this morning with a raging headache. I think it had to be because I hadn't had coffee for a day. Caffeine withdrawal sucks! I'm out of ground coffee for the french press, so I'm going to treat myself to an americano up the street.
Yesterday on Flickr I had almost 1,200 hits on my site. That's more than I've ever had in the history of the thing. The day before I had about 500 in comparison. I blame this on the Versa Emerge photos I just posted for Hide and Seek. Those kids are blowing up! Couldn't be happening to a nicer bunch of kids either. I'm happy for them!
My hair is getting long. I need a haircut, but the economy has apparently boosted business for my hairstylist Casey, down at Rudy's barbershop, and he doesn't have time to fit me in anywhere. My roots are getting out of control, and my split ends are even worse. I feel guilty every time I even plug in my flat iron. It's like one of those hair commercials where the model's hair hisses at them or grabs the brush and throws it. I need coffee....

I want to be friends with these guys...

A. Because I am a giant.
B. Because they take good photos.
C. Because dammit, I want a studio!