“I love worlds that are so complete that you just can relax,” Regina Spektor said, “because when the art is that complete, it makes something in me just calm. But a lot of new things . . . there’s this tension. I’ll take everything that is awesome from it and leave everything that I don’t like. It can be an uneven piece and still worth it. But you put on ‘Rubber Soul,’ or ‘Sgt. Pepper,’ or ‘Freewheeling Bob Dylan’ and it’s just . . . solid. From the first note you hear, it never goes wrong. Why can’t everything be like that?”

From a profile on Regina Spektor in the NY Times Magazine this coming Sunday. Her story is so inspiring.  Sticking to her guns.  Staying totally focused.  Not giving in.

Video for her new single is alittle blown out – but love the song.   Her new album drops the end of June. Can’t wait.

This shot of Cherice Barton and James Gregg was shot for Aszure and Artists. I also shot the flash intro to Aszure’s site and lots of the images inside.

Elise just got a new job and came by for a head shot.  It is funny seeing my good friend all corporate, but Elise is really an HR genius.   Just as I started shooting, her husband Shlomi ducked in.   I gave him reflector duty – then pulled back.  I loved seeing both of them in the frame.  Elise got her head shot.  I got these.

Our new video for Google on Jeni’s Ice Cream has just been posted.  Check it out here.

Thanks to Ashley Chandler & Sinead O’Mara at Google.   Danny Bresnik for editing.  Stephie and David at our studio for everything before, during, and after the shoot.

And as always, our friends at Jeni’s who are so wonderful and generous and fun.  Especially John Lowe, Jeni and Charly.

Met Bon Iver in person a couple of weeks ago at Jazzfest.  Not to say hello, but to stand holding Stephie only feet away from a performance that had the dozen or so musicians led by Justin Vernon switching instruments on every song.  Percussion to bass.  Sax to guitar.  Keyboard to finger cymbals.    “Bon Iver” comes from the French, “bon hiver” meaning “Have a good winter.”    Yet it somehow sounds right on these rainy days of late spring.  Have let their music take me to work and drift off at the end of the day.   Made for rich dreams.

Dreams of skipping rocks and the taste of waterfalls.

Tangled spices. Latent pancake mix with no eggs or milk. Then rice and oats.

From the next room recording Asher waking up although the microphone slipped and is pointing at the ceiling.   “Home….HOME!”

On the train, quick dreams looking out the window with my eyes closed listening to “Halocene.” Then reading the saddest article in the Times about a horse’s death in Tennessee, after winning the race of it’s life.

Not quite raining enough for a rainy day

“I was afraid. I was a boy. I was a tender age.”

Sitting under a bridge. Rocks held back by fences.

Train stopped here for a breath. Give it a sip of water and a nice pat.

All the Bon Iver albums are amazing.   This link from a piano duet session in England is not so typical, but wonderful to hear and see.

Start here with the Halocene video.

Here are some links from Jazzfest:

Towers

Michicant

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, it never occurred to me to me that I would ever create something that would hang in the Carnegie Museum.   I understood art, I just didn’t understand being an artist.  Didn’t understand it at RISD.  In many ways, still don’t understand it.

Today I got a note from Ellen Fleurov of the Silver Eye Gallery that the Carnegie Museum of Art has acquired a print of mine for their permanent collection.   That must mean I have become an artist.  It makes me very  happy.

I do not try to be an artist.

I try – always – to do work that is me.

Now I have to become a better artist.

or…as Bob Dylan says,

“An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere. You always have to realize that you’re constantly in a state of becoming. As long as you can stay in that realm, you’ll sort of be alright.”



Your choice on Spotify.

As for me….I am listening to Maggie Hamilton today.   I had my head out the window talking to her. Watching the clouds’ indecision of what kind of day they wanted to give us.  Watching the parking lot squeeze tight.  Trying to zoom out into the big picture. And breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe…..

A client last night asked if they pay me more, will I work harder?   We both laughed hard at that one.  I don’t even know less than 1000 per cent.   The compensation is great, but not the motivation.

Listening to this old Warren Zevon song which was the soundtrack for the last blog post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQWUdtU1t4k

Watching Will Epstein’s thesis from Brown – http://vimeo.com/41809923 Will is an old friend.  This piece is so soulful and beautiful.  Like Will.

Then the new King Charles album – which I am not sure I love….. – although my 1 year old is singing Bam Bam NON-stop!  Is that okay?

This is a light on my friend Jonny Daniels.  I met him in Poland last summer and instantly found the same wave length.  We were both in foreign territory  (Warsaw and Krakow), strangers instantly thrown deep into joint histories that connected us all.  Crazy soul I instantly bonded with.

Jonny is an operative in the best sense.  He works every scene.  He worked me until I was laughing so hard I begged for air.  He worked out of the Kenesset in Jerusalem sweating his way just ahead of the mob, still managing to get in every picture. He worked the lobby of the King David, got his room and a big Sunday brunch picked up, then showed Jon Voight how to wash his hands.  Jonny now works NY and LA like a pro. He grabs a stack of my business cards and calls from the road with his auto signature, “All The Best.” – which is his equivilant of have a great day.  Really Jonny!

I have pictures that could instantly kill a political career, or make it take off if all news is good news.  But I won’t be sharing those.  I won’t even show you pictures of those pants he was wearing last summer with the cuffs and pleats.  He promised they were disposed of.  I can’t tell you most of what we talk about.   Nothing is sacred.  We almost died laughing at our driver in Israel who had a huge fake smile plastered on his face from 5 in the morning until  midnight.   It always feels like we are dodging bullets, and following the smoke trails.

Jonny shows up in NY with both phones dead, desperately needing an outlet.   He talks about actresses and Hollywood producers he is meeting with.  He talks about Dwayne in Nashville and Glenn in Dallas.  Jonny is breaking velvet ropes, hanging out on rooftop bars in NY and Soho parties in LA.

Is is not easy being Jonny Daniels, riding in coach from Tel Aviv to LA.  He belongs in the front.  He has one of the most angelic singing voices you have ever heard.  Didn’t expect that did you?  He holds his little daughter like the most precious knock on the back of his knees.

Jonny is my friend. Some people don’t get Jonny.  They are missing out.

Mac is one musician who will never need a teleprompter to remember the lyrics.  His audience is on every single word.  The shows are loud and tight.

There are all new videos on huge screens behind him. They begin with scenes from a park I played at as a child in Pittsburgh.   Mac holds onto those parks and memories from growing up in Pittsburgh like little pictures in a locket.

If you want to see the whole series of images from Roseland, you can download the pdf here: Mac Miller: Roseland

Mac Miller: Roseland

This is the shot from my phone

It is always funny to me when a stranger hands me their camera and asks to take a picture. I like taking pictures. A family on the beach. A couple in the park. I do my thing. Hand the camera back.  Keep going on with my day.

The next day on the beach, that same stranger will come up to me and ask, “What did you do when you took that picture of us yesterday? It is the best picture of us ever. It looked completely different than any other shot we have taken.”

Those little moments are how I see the world. That is what I do.

This past Sunday at Jazzfest in New Orleans, there were 100,000 of us all out in an open field, taking Bruce Springsteen in. Listening. Singing. Crying. Dancing. All pointing our phones at one point or another at Bruce. I had scored tickets for the front section which gave me an advantage. I took 5 pictures with my iphone. This is my favorite.

I posted it on Instagram and Facebook – and got more likes and comments than any image I have posted. It made me alittle crazy – how is it this is my most popular picture posted in social media ever?

Then I thought of the anonymous family on the beach.

Bruce Springsteen is at the height of his powers. Not his most agile. Maybe not the most daring. Still – he has a toolbox of songs, a trunk load of experience, and a clarity that he can summon at will. He is in front of tens of thousands of people every night – mixing it up live, using his band like a finely honed blade to cut through all the clutter in our heads – able to steer the show down different roads as he feels it. He came out a couple of nights ago in LA an hour before the show was to begin. He brought his family out on onstage to take some pictures. Only a small portion of the audience was there. Then he picked up his guitar and played, “For You” and disappeared. In New Orleans he summoned ghosts, wove “When the Saints Go Marching in” seamlessly into a new song of his, and made us all imagine our personal and shared losses then how to take the next steps together all in a single song (City Of Ruins). He plays his 30 year old chestnuts as gifts that somehow seem just as vital as when you first heard them. He doesn’t embarrass himself. That is a big one. Rockers in their early 60’s either evolve or make us wince. It is amazing the place he has found to work out of.

I told a friend I find that way he leads his life really inspiring – not so much the music and the way he can still burn hot with dignity. She said the songs are my way in.

I was in the passenger seat grabbing a moment to page through the Times on Saturday morning. My two little boys were in the back, my wife driving – all going to the farmer’s market. Then the sudden jolt staring back at me with the obituary for Hillman Curtis. Instantly all my greatest fears were on the surface.

I never met Hillman, but I followed his work religiously, spoke of him constantly, and was infinitely inspired. He understood this medium we are all working in before we did. He laid the red carpet – and with passionate generosity wrote the book to guide us. His films are the bible for those of us exploring video portraits and his work the living evidence of his curiosity.

It is heartbreaking to read of his family. I know that parenting is the process of letting go. I also know that parenting is planting seeds, and I am sure Hillman sewed rows and rows of seeds that will produce an incredible harvest – still – the days we have are so precious. So precious….so precious. And it seems so sad losing Hillman.

Those of us who know Hillman through his work know that he is alive. He triggered so many ideas, shared the genius of his heroes, and in the process made us all better human beings.

Nothing matters except for the way we touch eachother. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

Some links for Hillman:

http://hillmancurtis.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=519133478

and I really enjoyed reading this: http://gdeu.tumblr.com/post/21424093446/hillman-curtis-1961-2012

and watching….this: http://vimeo.com/38130536