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I actually managed to see the “Hey Hot Shot” exhibit this week. Its pretty good, although I did spend more time looking at framing than images (probably due to my upcoming thesis show). If you haven’t visited the 20×200 site for a while, you should take a look and see what’s selling and what isn’t. The photographs are moving quicker than the drawings or printmaking, especially Andrew Hetherington’s (of What’s the Jackanory) print of a cow that apparently nearly sold out in 8 minutes last week.

I like a lot of the work shown on the website and would even considering buying some prints if I had more money (or a real job). Justin’s friend Kate had a show of her Obsessive Consumption at the gallery and has a few prints on the site. Her drawing is only half sold through, but her photograph has only one $2000 print left.

Thinking of my upcoming thesis and my fascination with framing choices and print sizes, I found this next image an interesting example of how print size can be important. I can’t decide if my prints should be 16×20 or 20×30, or even a variety of sizes based on the image. Most images on 20×200 seemed to have sold through the cheaper size first. This one has no $200 13″x20″ left and 56 $20, smaller size remaining. I would certainly rather have this image in 13×20.

And this image had totally sold out from Carlo Van de Roer who also has some nice work on his website here.

Although it is a kind of interesting new way of working with Video (ignoring phrases like “space time fusion algorithm,” and “novel multi-view stereo technique.”). Kind of like HDR photo’s, but in a moving image. See their website here and the gizmodo post here.

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.

I remember watching airwolf as a kid in England and thinking that the actor who played Dominic Santini was old back then in the ’80’s. Well, he’s still kicking and has 3 movies set for release in 2009, including one called Death Keeps Coming! An appearance he made on breakfast television made it onto The Soup this weekend.

And speaking of the soup, here is a video (from their blog) of how they would prefer the Olympics to look. I would agree that all of the running, jumping and swimming around is kind of boring.

And instead of Time magazine having something from the Olympics or the attacks in Georgia as their most popular story, it seems their readers were more interested in spray on contraceptives. It never ceases to amaze me that sex will sell above any other news.

Watch this tonight on PBS at 10pm EST “Documenting the Face of America,” a film about Roy Stryker and the F.S.A. photographers that airs tonight at 8 PM on PBS. Time’s “Looking Around” blogger Richard Lacayo is back from vacation and already keeping us in the know! I appreciate his assessment of Annie Liebovitz’s photography “Most of her pictures strike me as ingenious and all too efficient in the way they wrap up a celebrity into some high pitched version of the familiar package that they are. They tell us what we already know and they tell it to a T.”

And then I couldn’t resist posting this video where he tries to work out what art is.

We are huge fans of the show “Intervention,” and this week was one of the best so far. Allison had an addiction to a version of dust-off. She inhaled up to 10 cans of the stuff a day, which besides the impact on her health, must have cost her around $100 a day. The buzz only lasts a few minutes, so she is huffing the stuff throughout the entire interview process. It is potentially fatal every time, so if you’re scanning a lot of negatives and want a quick buzz, get some coffee!

My favorite interventionist is Jeff Van Vondren. He is always calm and able to reason with the addict, eventually allowing them to feel comfortable enough to give in and go to rehab. Amanda prefers Candy Finnigan, I think its because she appears to be completely involved and emotionally committed to each case she handles. (I’m sure this is a deep rooted comment on who we are as individuals?)

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I first heard of Anthony Parrino when I was just a wee freshman at SUNY Purchase. George Parrino would tell us stories of how his cool son would carry around a copy of the Diamond Sutra in complete awe of its teachings. There was very little scarier than George on a bad day or in a bad mood, so these tales of his son would be a ray of light among harsh critiques and obsessive yelling about poor manners. “No tapping, No drumming, No whining,” “The teacher is always right,” “Beware of the one-liner,” “If you see the buddha, hit him with a stick,” were just a few of Parrino’s motto’s. I will never forget the time he leaned over in the middle of me critiquing someone’s work and whispered “Shut your fucking mouth.” If none of you have ever had a professor be honest, critical and hard assed then I believe you haven’t recieved a decent education. It is because of people like George that I am getting my MFA at Pratt.

I then met Anthony in Burgos on the craziest summer of my undergrad life. We partied hard, studied little Spanish and spent a huge amount of time in the dustiest garage/studio creating assemblages in the mirror of Spain.

Anthony goes by the musical name Elite, and has been involved in some pretty impressive musical accomplishments. None of the music is really my thing, but I must admire a ‘westchester-white-boy’ entering into this world and being successful. Here is his blog that I was just linked to by George
(and inspired this posting).

Rey came back to the press tent during All Points west, and told me that he had complimented a woman for having such a nice moustache, before he realised it was Marisa Tomei. None of our guys caught a snap of her for the websites, but one has got out on Flickr from malisser and used on all sorts of blogs (gawker etc…). Mike Lawrie also said today that he had wondered about the mustachioed lady walking around VIP. I guess disguising yourself with fake facial hair could actually work, think on Britney Spears!

This (above) is Scott Grier shooting Grace Potter (of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals) out in the VIP section of the festival. She was ’super’ friendly and willing to play along with any publicity (not to mention very attractive and apparently quite talented, I wrangled her brilliantly!). We had to set up under a tent and then decided to use the outside of Ben Harper’s trailer for a backdrop. the images came out great, and can be seen here. Scott made the best out of a bad situation and got some really nice work from the cloudy, rainy day.

And here begins ‘Ben Harper Day,’ where all I got were shots of him all day. This one I stole while Scott was shooting him for Getty. I actually like it a lot and am happy that I thought to shoot closer. Ben was also really nice and willing to join the publicity train. Cat Power was not very willing, and actually avoiding committing to a shoot by using the ‘age old’ excuse of “later.” The second time I asked, she tried to stick her French Bulldog on me, and then promised a post-show-shoot. Denied!

Check these shots out on the link above from Scott. He did an amazing job with such little stuff.

The bonus of being at these type of events is the opportunity to shoot a little yourself (plus - meet cool musicians, plus - meet cool photographers, plus - earn plenty of money, plus… well you get the message). I only shot two bands, but I shot a lot of images of them (many back focused and blurry). Scott lent me his Canon 1D Mark III and his 70-200 2.8 IS for this concert, and it rocked. This is shot at 800 ISO and looks cleaner than most cameras at 200 ISO. I truly love to shoot live shows, and wish it a) payed better and b) was more accessible more often ie. payed better!

Ben Harper was great. I need to reinvest in his music again. He rolled in to the VIP area with wife Laura Dern and his family. They were all backstage watching their daddy rock his little socks off. The rain had stopped and he played the first big show of the day, even though audience numbers were less than half of Saturday.

The biggest let down after two days of Radiohead live is one day of not Radiohead live. I decided during Jack Johnson’s set to delete all his music from my ipod. Not because he sucked, in fact he was actually great. I just realised how mediocre he is compared to Thom and the boys.

All in all it was an amazing few days, full of expensive junk food, cool slightly famous bands and some really cool people to work with. My advice for aspiring concert photographers is to not bother, or win the lottery and follow them all. I also met my first ‘professional-groupie,’ called Bridget. She wanted to know all the bands, and spent plenty of time following them around in a small bikini and miniskirt. She would have wrangled way more people than me had she been with Scott!

Here (above) is Scott shooting “Metric” at the ‘exclusive studio’ backstage for the festival. They were all great and willing to be part of the APW website. The guy on the right was shooting some kind of 8mm film for some production to be finished in Canada?

MTV were crowding the press tent and wanted to be in the crowd reporting on all things that pointed west. I recognise them all from being 12 and obsessed with MTV News and the idea of being in America and working for MTV.

The Kings of Leon had a crowd for the photo pit too. I tried to let you see what competition had to deal with. The massive Soul Brother is taking front and center (that is his actual photographers name, his real one is Donald).

Kings of Leon are post modern or something.

See the Tibetan Flag and the support shown from Radiohead. Talented musicians not wanting many photos taken at all. I did see them backstage in their fenced off area playing cricket and doing Yoga, so at least they appreciate the seclusion. Apparently the first night we missed a big Radiohead crew party in the VIP tent.

This was the first view of Manhattan from where we picked up our passes and tickets.

This is the editing/press tent provided for us. They didn’t even have any power, chair or tables for the first hour, so we all stood around texting.

Here is Vanessa and Kate’s crafty editing-in-the-sun trick. The weather fluctuated from freezing sweater weather to burning sun. It really only rained for a little bit, which moved the studio equipment under a bus (the VIP tent was declared unsafe at about 3pm and we were not allowed to store it in there!!)

This is the main stage (Blue Comet) in the middle of the day when my new found ‘friends’ the new pornographers were onstage. Carl Newman was really nice when I strolled up to him and asked “Hey, are you in a band?” He said that he also never knows anyone at festivals and happily had a few shots taken at our makeshift outdoor studio.

Here is the first band I wrangled (apparently an industry term for someone who sweet talks the talent into these studio situations) called Lowry. They were pretty quiet and very compliant, so were essentially an easy group to cut my teeth on. Scott Gries was the photographer, and is quickly raising the ranks of one of the nicest ‘entertainment’ photographers I know. To see his portraits from today go here.

Possibly the only good idea I will have all weekend is this makeshift tree support for the light that wanted to take a dive toward the statue of liberty when using only sandbags.

This is one of Scott’s test shots where I don’t look too cross-eyed or confused.

Thankfully Underworld kept the whole event in place and made the required political rant (they were incredible live too!!!). They brought on someone from Columbia University (apparently not Robert Thurman) who ranted about a Free Tibet. Mostly an encouraging speech, but sometimes a little lost and certainly not really worthy of 10 minutes of stage time. This photo is of the recent release that they were promoting and raises funds for the cause. Apparently each song is individually written for the project and not just part of a compilation. Buy one now (also available on itunes - of course!)

And here is my terrible photo of Radiohead performing. They absolutely fucking rocked. I was so happy to get to hear them again (last time was Bonnaroo 2006). Thom Yorke followed Underowld and had a Tibetan flag on his piano and he also played his arse off! They are amazing live and they knew it this concert, playing all the hits regardless of how old they were. The only downside of radiohead is that they don’t allow many photographers in the pit so most of our guys were hiding from security in the audience. We got some amazing images nonetheless, and I am even angling for one of the Thom/piano shots for the blog.

I will be working at this all weekend, hopefully at a desk with an internet connection and an awesome view of the stage. Although I think we will be huddled in a muddy corner with no power outlets. And here is the really sucky part. No professional cameras. This is defined by the festival organisers as - “Any camera with a removable lens will be considered a professional camera, and will not be allowed on the festival grounds.”

I was reminded today of Justin’s, Camille Paglia random essay generator (it came up when I googled his name). Although I find that my general understanding of most things she says are incomprehensible after a few lines, this page can create some interesting/funny combinations of thoughts. It randomly puts together an essay of her sentences that never appears too different in nature to her normal writings.

My favorite section so far has been -

“The female body’s unbearable hiddenness applies to all aspects of men’s dealings with women. Tragedy’s inhospitality to woman springs from nature’s inhospitality to man. The search for freedom through sex is doomed to failure.  suffers unresolved contradictions. Emotion is passion, a continuum of eroticism and aggression.”

and

“There are no accidents, only nature throwing her weight around. Art makes things. Man’s metaphors of concentration and projection are echoes of both body and mind.”

And here is a good quote from her - “Pornography is human imagination in tense theatrical action; its violations are a protest against the violations of our freedom by nature.”