to record only water for ten days

2012-01-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

they say nobody's normal, or it simply doesn't exist.
but if you're surrounded by true insanity for most of your life,
you know that normal has to be out there.
in fact, you search for it for a long time.
in a lot of different places.
and as a kid, as a teenager, you crave it.

but idealism fades, you settle into reality.
you wonder what you'd even do with normal if you had it.
because you've lived so long with so little right.
all you are left with is that will to keep searching.
in a lot of different places.
and as a young adult, as an adult, you'll crave it.

it gets hard to put down roots. you open doors, you close them.
california, new york, florence, madrid, montreal, toronto.
they are all the same place.
places you go to never feel lost.
each is a trophy, each is a prize.
to know you can be anywhere in the world,
and still survive.

2012-01-11T16:47:00.000-05:00

you know some days i really just miss landline phones.
or trying to find bookstores that aren't gonna close.

it's getting harder to get away from bad people and times.
when all they do is click a button back into your life.

i'm not trying to date myself here but i might as well.
cause it's getting harder to talk to men through a wall of screens.

2012-01-08T02:43:00.000-05:00

We're not even the same person. Some days I see her in daydreams and wish I could go back and tell her all that she's about to go through. All that will happen to her, who she will meet, how she can prevent herself from being who I was. I believe that I would stop time just for her. Let her be a little kid forever.

9, 13, 16, 19, 21, 24.

2012-01-08T00:43:00.002-05:00

"I wish that you hadn't become all that I despise, it would make it easier to swallow your lies. And if the times get too tough to touch I just break all ties. Find me outside of the world you've made of glass and paper and save yourself the headache, cause god knows I miss the days when I didn't have to watch as you'd fly out in a flash of fury only to lay down and quake."

i found this in my old livejournal. i love it.

2012-01-08T00:24:00.000-05:00

I used to love to walk
past factory buildings, broken glass,
my neighbor's doormat.
Now I can't even go outside.

There were dark bars, small alleys,
your face as it burnt through cigarettes.
so the turnstiles are built for hopping
and our hair is grown and meant for chopping.
Now I can't even go outside.

2011-12-29T16:07:00.000-05:00

she has love lost for a series of boys whose names start with Jay.
with an affinity for a girl who starves herself plain.
it tears at the core of me that i'm not where i want to be
i say that i need the snow and the seasons
but they've only really been a hole in my heart.
and an excuse to sacrifice my art.

lime trees and a slight breeze, skate parks and the open sea.
it's like this town has been specially built to let me breathe.
breathe in smoke breathe in salt breathe in life.
it starts tonight.

2011-12-29T05:27:00.000-05:00

and boy this has got to be the life,
skipping stones with eyes closed
just wondering why
you live across a gap

2011-12-18T22:07:00.001-05:00

Forgiveness lives in a hole in your soul.
Take it easy, let it roll.
I built a castle that was torn down.
I spoke words that he worked around.
Took a train to nowhere just to forget,
But he showed up with fists at my new doorstep.

There was a time I was laying, palms, face
down on the ground.
Afraid, trembling, at the slightest sound.
How heavy was the world, when heavy was the girl.
How small she became as it started to rain.
The battle never ends, and maybe I should feel lost.
But I showed up with fists, fighting at all costs.

Now we live in the thick of it, unprepared for what's next.
Though that end of the tunnel is nowhere in sight,
I can look up at the sun as it peaks through his cracks and still see light.

2011-12-11T19:08:00.004-05:00

And you'll find buried within me
The strength to leave this city.
I've grown too large still
I can't see myself at all.
Cigarette burns and coffee stains
remind me of better days.

So six seven eight years will turn to ten.
What then?
I'll have seen nothing but concrete
And a whole lot of loss.
Though I loved the anonimity
I know what it has cost me.

Time to get out, get to know me.
Outside of this box I call a home.

black boots in the white

2011-12-06T15:22:00.000-05:00

Lights up over Burlington, I light up and the air is so thin, I take a breath I, lose control and, it’s always Church Street in the dead of winter, buried in the snow with a hint of, a little problem, a little solvent, black boots in the white, you think we’ll miss it?

Here we are whiskey breath on your doorstep, peeling off layers of regret, slipping on ice, saying these words so trite. I know I'll miss it, I think I've lost it, another February in your cellar and another year lost to the high. Another year lost to the high.

a viable character

2011-11-06T20:00:00.002-05:00

fucked up little girl
you hate hate hate with every little missed step
so why all that awful confidence?
lies tumble out of your mouth
they taste like iron
and i plead for safety.
now you build a viable character
but on questionable sanity
in the mirror did you practice much
to perfect that easy breathing, that vanity?
black lace it will fade, black lace it will age
much sooner than later,
you’ll find your place with the blade…

2011-11-06T19:58:00.001-05:00

oh holy night
look at the stars and try to fight
how simple was the world
when simple was the girl
i told the boy the truth
thought there was nothing we could lose

we lost our worth.
came hurtling toward the end
~~ends~~ buttons loose

2011-10-06T17:04:00.001-04:00

san francisco, ca 2011 // orange van, well traveled.

2011-03-05T14:11:00.002-05:00

i've met you before
time will tell if i am right
or just plain wrong
and to quote my heroes
i always say
we can work it out.

i have my masters in memory

2010-10-01T01:55:00.000-04:00

i tell people i've got a master's in memories
making them feel longer than a second
but only letting you see the second that they stuck.
and as for him and his heart well
i'm in for the long haul in my head
though the sad truth is
i'm always choosing the other end of a road
they call it running away but at least it's somewhere to go.

just a snippet

2010-09-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

the days hung on in the wake so
we were mindlessly filling time with algebra
and mile runs and scholarships and a virtually ignored, exploding sadness -
oh the noise we heard when what we saw was madness

he threw his fist onto the world as
she buried herself in her youth and let it decay.

2010-05-10T00:06:00.000-04:00

lighting class project

(flash light and film projection onto file boxes), 2007

2010-05-09T23:48:00.000-04:00

Been flipping through a book I bought on sale at the Strand not too long ago, Annie Leibowitz's American Music. Finally found it for under $30. Photo books tend to be expensive, but when I can get one that cheaply, I have to splurge. I think the layout of the book is incredible, and love how her striking images of that passion which we call music are interspersed with personal essays from some of music's biggest names. Definitely check it out if you haven't already. My local library has a copy in their possession... I kinda lusted after the book for so long, that I finally had to buy a copy of my own.

2010-04-28T17:15:00.000-04:00

I was recently in Rutland, Vermont and happened upon this sweet bookstore called The Book King. Great atmosphere. While there I picked up an anthology of music writing from 2005 - the anthology is part of the Da Capo series, edited by "JT Leroy" (more on this in a minute). I have yet to start it, but upon reading the reviews on Amazon I'm now just a little apprehensive. I've had luck with the Da Capo anthologies in the past, they've featured some great pieces of music journalism.

JT Leroy for those who may not know, is a hoax persona created by Laura Albert in the mid-90s in order to publish writing that she might not otherwise have been able to. It inspired a Law & Order episode, actually. For more on that, I give you the Wikipedia of it. For the time being, I'll just be reporting on the actual literature and not the deceit behind its publication.<a style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em;" href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W94B6S?tag=torecordonlyw-20&camp=213761&creative=393545&linkCode=bpl&creativeASIN=B000W94B6S&adid=1J8RHWE8QQMWQY7H3VCK&" target="_blank"><img style="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TwPlhPoCL._SL110_.jpg"></a>

2010-04-26T00:23:00.005-04:00

I found this essay on my hard drive tonight, it was written as a personal narrative for my freshman year seminar at NYU. Four and a half years later, I look at this essay and it outlines all the goals and aspirations and feelings I still have within me. It reaffirmed that I am doing what I know and all that I can to make it work, and that I've known what I've wanted this entire time.

September 12, 2005

I look around to see the hustling of legs, the clicking of many high heels on the ground, there are cell phones ringing, and then everything hits my nose. Curry, pizza, Chinese, it all meshes together, like the people of the city. The paved street has turned to cobblestone and it is wearing hard on the soles of my tennis shoes. My mother and I are walking by street vendors of all types, who peddle to us their goods as if we had never needed anything more than we needed their cheap trinkets. And then I look up to see a grand sign, drawing my breath with anticipation. It reads, with gold inlay, “Quincy Market”. This is the city of Boston in the mid 90s, and this really isn’t even a beginning of any sort. Let’s say my life in Lake George is the Adirondack Northway. Trips into cities like Boston or New York weren’t beginnings of new roads, but exits on the life I was living. My city life and my rural life never rivaled one another, because they were escapes from each other. Too much city, and one grew lonesome for the clear lake or pine trees. Too much rural life left one sedentary and disconnected from everything.

It was always my intent to leave home for college. There is something about this will I have to keep moving that wouldn’t allow any other kind of outcome. When I chose Boston University as my first choice for college, it was because Boston knew me. The inner workings of the city and its’ layout were familiar, but foreign enough that I could fulfill the discoverer side of my brain. It was a connection that ran deep. Boston was (in my little girl eyes) the aquarium, Boston Harbor, the science museum, the planetarium… and it was all so very busy. For me, the word busy is forever synonymous with the will to forget. Busy blocked out the fact my father was getting treatment for cancer in Boston, busy canceled out the long car rides, so busy kept me happy. If my mother had just come out and said what it was that we were going to Boston for, I would’ve been a sad, melancholy depressive at age seven. Nobody really wants that, right? Something in me knows that it might’ve been a bad decision on my parents’ part, to shield something so important from my brother and I in an otherwise open parent-child relationship. Now, even at eighteen years of age, I still do not fully comprehend how ill my father was. There have been prescription bottles on his bathroom sink ever since. I still don’t ask him what it’s all for. It is without a doubt something I am reluctant to change in my mind, for fear of ruining otherwise picture-perfect childhood excursions into Boston.

New York City, December 2001. I am standing at the edge of the World Trade Center site, trying to find something. Anything, please. As an eighth grader visiting Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular in 2000, I left brimming with life. I stood a year later, as a ninth grader, completely drained. My uncle had died the month prior, leaving behind my cousin, then fourteen years old. There was a version of myself wandering aimlessly through each day, but I wasn’t involved. Feeling sort of like an over-loved toy animal that had lost most of its’ inner stuffing, I came to the site hoping the city could work its’ magic once more. That perhaps my faith in life would be restored by seeing the coming together of many people in a time where our country’s need was so great. I was trying to feel the energy coming from this hallowed burial ground or something equally spiritual. At least that’s what it was supposed to be like. Still, all I felt when I got there was the same stinging emptiness I’d been experiencing throughout that year. There was, at that point, a part of me that hated New York because it made me feel horrible all over inside, because its’ deformed skyline tore a hole in my heart. The city became a symbol for a year that should’ve been erased from my own history. For a long time, I didn’t visit the museums or go to Broadway shows. I didn’t go to Times Square or Chelsea. I didn’t have the ache to ride to Grand Central on the train from Poughkeepsie. Every time my family ventured out to Long Island to visit my aunt in Hempstead, my eyes would stay shut until we were clear out of the viewing range of the skyline. I wished in those moments that I could be busy again.

Back upstate, I fared worse. Activities that I had to do were simply autonomous motions that didn’t race through my heart. Looking at the lake, climbing trees in my best friend’s backyard, and going on hikes with my soccer team didn’t really excite me anymore. Birds, trees, sunny skies, and things that would generally make a sane person happy just made me all the more lonely and disconnected with my surroundings. Though I seldom use quotes to back up my writing, Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Prozac Nation, says it better than I am saying right now. She writes that depressed persons have a tendency to want to adapt, to maintain a certain chameleon-like quality so that they and their surroundings blend seamlessly into their feelings.

“Occasionally I wished I could walk through a picture window and have the sharp, broken shards slash me to ribbons so I would finally look like I felt.” Wurtzel says.

I too, am certain that I wanted everything around me to also look how I felt inside: broken, maniacal, fastidious. The rag doll needed a dollhouse with a collapsed roof. Knowing that sitting in my room depressed had made me into a bit of a reclusive homebody, I jumped at the opportunity to visit DC in the fall of 2003. The special leadership conference that I’d been invited to attend looked like the prime opportunity to test city waters once more. To the average person visiting Washington, everything seems so bleak around Capitol Hill, but it was so perfect for me at that moment. Abandoning my inner artist, I fell in love with the routine rush rush rush of these busy individuals in their suits and skirts. Before leaving the conference, I had somehow convinced myself that securing a spot at Georgetown or George Washington University and majoring in something like speechwriting, international relations, or political science would make me happy. That it would keep me busy (god, that word again) and out of the grip of my obvious depression.

Prolonged depressive states make the sufferer prone to illustrious highs, nights of mania that infuse a false sense of creativity into the body. It was during one of those episodes that I discovered political science was not for me. I was downstairs in my art studio, ripping apart newspaper and photographs into a collage. It must have been about 4 in the morning, there was George W. Bush sneering up at me in a little caricature on the front page of opinions, with a long-faced donkey/man combo kicking up some dust behind him.

“Oh no”, I thought to myself, “these are the kind of guys that will be the central male figures in my life for all my days on this earth? YEAH. I need to think… like, a lot.”

There was something that happened that night, symbolic in the ripping of newspaper. Using words to rip apart the status quo, using pictures and documents, it all seemed to fit into place. Journalism sounded like an admirable career switch. Later that month, I spent ten days touring Spain. All those Spanish cities infiltrated my soul, my camera logging over 900 pictures taken. I think what happened there was an intervention of sorts, a reminder that cities did not always have to make me fall into a routine. The energy of a good city should make you feel alive, not numb. I learned that spontaneity would last longer and satisfy my desires better than a structured fulfillment. Maybe it was crazy to do this, but when I filled out the GWU application that coming fall, it was just more going through the motions. I applied to the English Dept. because the application was shorter than the one for the Journalism Dept. My essay was half a page long.

The summer between that trip and the fall of my senior year was pretty important. I was taking art classes for credit at Skidmore College, thinking that maybe I’d like to go to art school. NYU had Tisch, and then there was Corcoran School of Art and Design, RIT, and Art Institute of Boston. For about a week, I thought I’d apply to RISD or Parsons, anywhere with a good art program. Art school just seemed logical after spending a summer covered in paint. Ultimately, I dreamed of being a photographer and though art school would get me there. I’d seen the works of Jacob Riis and Dorothea Lange, photographers who changed people’s perspectives and intervened with their artwork. But of course, with just a visual arts education, I would have no cultural base upon which to create. Michael Moore’s “Farenheit 9/11” and Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me” were the talked about mega-documentaries of that year. Upon noticing that these people were creative like me, while also making an impact on society, I began to really think about that night of mania I’d had earlier in the year. I found the connection between what I’d been doing that night, and what I was thinking about at that moment to be one of the most important connections I’d ever make.

Maybe I wanted to document others tragedies because I could not begin to explain my own. Back when I first decided on photojournalism, there was the sugar puff response as to why, “because I’d love to travel the world and document suffering so that others who cannot travel themselves may see it. I want to get emotionally attached to society’s problems and adopt them as my own”. To an extent, I did and still do mean part of that. Giving my heart to a cause might end up being rewarding.

European photojournalist Zana Briski lived in the Sonagachi red-light district of Calcutta among the prostitutes and their children for years, documenting their stories in the film documentary “Born Into Brothels”. Briski invested her heart, soul, and body into the project, befriending the children of Sonagachi and earning their trust. Forming this type of bond with another culture’s people is something I continue to feel strongly about doing in my lifetime. However, I wonder sometimes if I have the capacity to hold in my heart the problems of others. That’s where being in New York might aid me. The thing about New York is that you can let things affect you, but you may let other things slide by without them penetrating your skin. In the career I’ve chosen for myself, I believe that’s the most important skill one can possess.

Visits to both NYU and BU changed my irrational ideas to go to a big name art school into something a little more accessible. After BU rejected me (just because I didn’t take pre-calc, in case you were curious), I was faced with a real tough decision. I had those damned art schools, Northeastern, the waitlist at GWU (hey that’s good, I only wrote half a page!), and NYU Gallatin, which I’d applied to solely because admissions told me I could take both Journalism and Photo classes in that college. Northeastern I’d applied to because according to my “guidance” counselor, I needed a safety school. I never visited, and they didn’t even have a photography program. And so there it was, New York City, staring me down once again. So of course, I reluctantly let the city flow back into my veins, and visited three times over the course of making my decision. My teachers, my counselors, my parents… they all thought being proactive in the college process would be key.  

It turns out that being proactive doesn’t always help, because there my parents and I were, in Washington Square Park talking about how to pay for New York University. I had been so hasty trying to create my own future, my own “perfect plans to keep busy” and out of a depressive state, that my actual future had snuck up behind me when I wasn’t looking. My dad was still pushing Northeastern upon me. But he was speaking to a future New Yorker about a school in Boston. Sure, E.B White wrote an essay about three types of New Yorkers, but there aren’t three types. There are over 8 million types of New Yorkers. I am just one of them who has her own connective thread to the city. Though at some points my thread may entwine with others, it originates uniquely from my own mind, and from my own life experiences.

Which brings me to now. I have arrived home to find this sane girl looking out her window onto 10th street; across the street are apartment buildings where the stairwell is always fully lit. She can hear the shouts of her fellow freshmen returning from a trip out to the shady bars on St. Mark’s Place. The girl is making out a letter to her best friend in DC, complete with her 5th Avenue return address. Like the girl, like the street, like the park is alive, yesterday her camera was alive, and it met people without even speaking to them. That girl, she looks like me, but she breathes like I never have.

2010-01-30T21:17:00.004-05:00

i miss the old Knit on Leonard Street
the sunset on the west side concrete
your eyes on fire with a lust for the ages
turned only toward a book's thousand pages

stamp my hand, let me in
the drum beats to the sound of my sin
we fought more often than not but we fought fair
and i know you're calling me home but it's all up in the air.

2010-01-18T21:46:00.005-05:00

scans of gelatin printed double exposures (in camera), 2004/05?

2010-01-12T03:38:00.002-05:00

barcelona, 2007

2010-01-09T00:38:00.001-05:00

from christmas lights set, 2009

2009-12-12T18:41:00.001-05:00

Spencer Chamberlain of Underoath,
12-2-09, Clifton Park, NY

new writing.

2009-12-07T04:13:00.001-05:00

music speaks louder than their voices.
options just seemed so much easier than making choices.
i'm not here to be social or a saint.
these aren't lapses in judgment or something insane.
here you are and
you do not subscribe
you are here but
you do not subscribe
hover goes this moment i'm alive so
the karma doesn't work here,
the love is never free
and i'm not the only one suffering
from their misery.

i don't let it define the way i move through crowds
i'll be in your face but they never taught me to be loud.
they those in that bed are coddled, cuddled
when they up and vanished with a trace
monsters live inside this sheep
monsters from which i've yet to weep.

2009-10-24T03:45:00.002-04:00

toronto, august 2009

2009-10-21T02:52:00.004-04:00

hanson/hellogoodbye/steel train/ sherwood @ northern lights
oct 16th, 2009, clifton park, ny

2009-07-09T16:47:00.002-04:00

coney island fourth of july :: 2009

2009-07-09T00:59:00.001-04:00

It is time, i think, for me to reacquaint myself with my camera. to put head to heart. for awhile, to just get rid of the madness. to be able to find vibrancy in simplicity. that's how i always learned to take photos. i'm not sure how i got here, a stranger to the lens. perhaps it is time to revel in the glass once more. doubt changes a person. it suffocated me for years.

i'm ready to be free of that doubt and put finger to trigger like i'm shooting a gun.
so fuck it, i'm going to put all these things out of their misery and just take their god damn pictures.

(from my livejournal, june 22nd, 2009)

2009-07-04T07:50:00.001-04:00

you used to talk to me till i fell asleep i like slipped through your hands then. i used to walk with you to feel the weigh of it so try to look alive alright?

(from my LJ, january 2009)

2009-07-04T07:27:00.000-04:00

we had to put her down.
she was my best friend.
this was the worst part
i wanted her to lick my face
just that one last time
but she didn't have the strength
so she lifted her head instead
i let her go and suffocated myself
in her absence.

but i'm not too sad, it's kind of like that movie
"marley & me" or whatever.
she was the sweetest animal and my first dog
but we saw it coming, she led a very full life
14.5 years is something like 105 dog years
i brought her home when i was 8 in 1995
blue blanket in my lap
runt of the litter.
just like me, right?

2009-06-26T17:53:00.002-04:00

belmar mall :: belmar, new jersey 2009

I took this with my phone. For some reason, I like it.

2009-06-25T03:26:00.003-04:00

It is sad that the musical landscape of what was once a scene is now destitute -
And I am screaming at all my old heroes because their heads have been chopped off.
God I wish I could hate you for the rest of my life, alright? Just not tonight.
Saw the glitter on the grime coming from summers away.
Most of my friends packed their bags when I chose to stay.
Sunbathed in it awhile but the groupies got too pretty.
Started dressing like a neon rainbow, tearing up the city.

It needs to be asked.
Do you really believe what you're saying?
You're a bible salesman,
The kids are constantly praying.

2009-05-30T22:28:00.001-04:00

I’ve been thinking lately about all the ghosts I’ve been chasing. Apparitions and whispers of these things I’d never seen complete. Like I’m in still Plato’s cave and I can only see the shadow. Shadows are a fine dwelling and all, I revel in the dark, but maybe I should see how these shadows are cast.

2009-05-21T00:15:00.004-04:00

(courtesy of Atlantic's country girl, Jesse Lee)

Someone alert the lovely people over at the Art Department at Atlantic, as they might need to hire me exclusively to do things like this incredible masterpiece (thank you to fellow intern Stephanie for the co-creation of said masterpiece).

All those years of photo class have paid off to the fullest extent. That's aligned by SIGHT. Can't mess with these eyes. Yes mom, I am proud of the things I've learned and skills I have acquired on my long journey to unemployment. :)

2009-05-14T15:50:00.004-04:00

I held onto that thought that one day, years into the future, I'd learn to live life outside of the mirror.

snippets of writings from my livejournal

2009-05-11T06:41:00.003-04:00

the life i built in this city is being thrown to the wolves that lived in the deep wood of my childhood. i've never made it out of here with clear eyes, but as the fog of a love affair lifts, i could guess why. [28 february 2009]

when you hear words you've waited years to hear
the ice on your body melts.
it flows into the hudson with everything else
and i'm looking up the river
at this girl i used to know
who had this hundred year headache
even when her world moved slow.

she wonders why i don't visit
she wonders why i don't call
she asks her if i miss her a bit
i don't think i miss her at all
and if she ever came down here
i'd have to turn my heels away.

and he could say
sorry a million times over but i'm not
i gave what i gave, got what i got
it wasn't because i was just a wreck or
something, i know it wasn't my fault
[16 march 2009]

i'm feeling peculiarly self-destructive tonight.
like tired of keeping up the good fight.
nine times out of ten i'm strangling this nostalgia as it comes out of me.
and i'm still kicking up dirt in the midst of this life,
nowhere near where i wanted to be.
[27 april 2009]

2009-05-09T03:59:00.002-04:00

i wish i knew what i took to live in a daydream
spin around the pinwheel and look in
the inner tube flipped over when i was a kid
and what defines me now is what i did.

he read me my rights hundreds of pages deep
you are not what you make but the company you keep.

hoodwink

2009-05-02T00:34:00.003-04:00

tonight was special. although it was raining and sort of annoying and a pain in the ass to get to, hoodwink was worth it. not in terms of what or who i saw, but just the feeling it gave me. like there are still bands out there that actually believe in what they're doing or playing. these were current bands playing songs by other recent and relevant current bands. new found glory playing green day, we the kings playing jimmy eat world (which i regrettably heard only a few notes of from across the way), mercy mercedes playing midtown, etc.

all the acts really showed their roots tonight - they have sort of restored my faith if you will. destroyed some of the jadedness that builds with having a life or your career function so close to the business side of things. i don't think most people get into the music industry to make money or at least they certainly don't intend to destroy all the beauty from music, but it is easier than you think it is to let happen. you fall asleep at 16. you wake up after college nd you're nearly 22 and faced with the sudden necessity that you have to "network".

what i did, i think, was latch on to some of the only facets of my adolescent life that made me feel not completely worthless - that was my interest in going shows or photography. with shows i had the community i never had anywhere else in my life. when you're 16, it's okay to feel totally compelled by certain things and obsess over them. at 22, with music, it's called being a stalker. so in order to "network" i must quell that which tells me "OMG THIS SONG ACTUALLY SAVED MY LIFE THAT ONE TIME."

and in turn, i am then to turn into one of the industry folks who make it totally uncool to get excited about anything.

trajectory of the record label employment scale:
intern: "oh man! paul mccartney came into the office last week."
CEO: "oh yeah, Paul McCartney is in CEO2's office? Well, I'm busy answering emails but I'll try and make it over before his meeting ends."

well i'm not having it. i'm a photographer. it is my "job" to be compelled, and fascinated, and outraged, and enthused, a million times over by my subjects.

2009-04-24T12:14:00.001-04:00

subway jam, j train platform, 2008

featured photo on FriendsorEnemies/Buzznet.com

2009-04-14T18:35:00.004-04:00

hey all, a photograph I took on set at the video shoot for VersaEmerge's "Past Praying For" was featured on Friends Or Enemies, aka Buzznet. The photograph is of Devin Ingelido, the band's bassist. The video premieres this Thursday. Enjoy!

http://www.friendsorenemies.com/web/foe/photos/versaemerge/?id=70737611

preview of versaemerge interview pix

2009-04-09T02:51:00.002-04:00

sierra k. biting one of our "classy" (index card) interview cards

intense band discussion? i love jerry's face, i feel like he's astonished at whatever is coming out of sierra's mouth.

hope you enjoyed the small preview of photos from last night's shoot. the video and more pictures from the interview will be up asap. these guys were pros! <3

shoots w/ versaemerge, halestorm

2009-04-08T17:54:00.004-04:00

i haven't posted many images this week, apologies. we had an InklingsTV shoot with the kids in VersaEmerge last night. if you don't know them, check them out. i think what they are doing musically is definitely different than a lot of what's out there. so many times I see interviews with bands who have been interviewed a billion times by a billion people, and it starts to sound flat. we always try and make bands feel like we're working for them and not the other way around. i'd say we did a good job with Versa, every question was definitely met with a genuine appreciation and interest. it's so rad when we have a shoot with a band who are still eager to answer questions in interviews. they are just starting to go places as a band (early this morning they left for their first stint in the UK - good luck guys) and each time i see them they are doing something they have never done before. the one thing they'll always do - make Anchorman references. good thing i have that movie memorized line for line. the behind the scenes photos I took for Atlantic on the set of "Past Praying For" will eventually be featured on Buzznet, so if you haven't got an account, get one (free) and friend VersaEmerge for all their updates. i'll let you guys know when they are planning on posting these.

at some point in the last week, i also shot for Atlantic on the set of the new Halestorm video, "I Get Off". without revealing anything (it's in post right now and not out yet) it's going to be an amazing video. pretty intense. the whole band were super sweet, and it seems like they have a really loyal & bad ass road crew family. i overheard that they are selling CDs like bottled water on the Shinedown tour. good for them!

so, that's all for now. i'm going to be editing photos all afternoon so maybe something will catch my eye and i'll post. later.

news

2009-04-05T16:26:00.004-04:00

be honest with me today.

did you see my work up at gallatin arts festival this past week? it was taken down yesterday, unfortunately. what are some of the questions you had about it? some of the reactions? aesthetically, which do you prefer, the newer collages (what i call the "sculpture" colored ones - the paler skin) or the older ones with a more "painter-friendly (yellowy)" quality. i know my titles were wrongly ordered (it was my own fault, maria was following the labels i had given & some were covered up from me re-taping the backings onto them) but if you noticed i was using a lot of song titles, band names, or book titles. does this bother people? attaching the titles of other works of art to a new piece of art?

for those curious, "andiatarocte" is the native american word for something like "lake that is closed in" and it is what the native americans called my hometown "Lake George" before the white settlers came.

i will tentatively be having some work in an upcoming gPhoto exhibition which should be on view from April 21 until May 7th. Same location, different work. i'm thinking about showing a first cut of photographs from my "images of my wandering" series/exhibit/retrospective travel photography bonanza. it's less boring than it seems, i assure you. it's more "transit" than travel, which are two words people mistakenly interchange. it's not about the destination i am travelling to but more about the similarities that come from being constantly in transit. these are places i captured not with intent (ie. going to the Eiffel Tower and taking a picture of the Eiffel Tower) but with meandering, with transitioning, interruptions on my way to perhaps, take the picture of the Eiffel Tower. except none of my photos are from France, as i've never been there. <3

some random shots.

2009-04-03T17:50:00.003-04:00

sleeping on the subway : new york, ny. 2008

a man's sport at the meadowlands : east rutherford, nj. 2005

gallatin review rejects.

2009-03-31T14:19:00.006-04:00

these two images, along with the one a few posts down of the antique store in fort ann, new york, got REJECTED from my school's "review". think what you want:

from a double-exposure project i did freshman year. 2006

raver kids in welland, ontario. 2007

election photos

2009-03-30T22:31:00.007-04:00

election night crowd, williamsburg, brooklyn. 2008

early night election results, east village, manhattan. 2008

times square bleachers, times square, manhattan. 2008

obama 08. times square, manhattan. 2008

election celebration on the lower east side, manhattan. 2008

i never posted these anywhere but facebook, but i took a lot of photos election night and these were some of my favorites.

2009-03-30T01:33:00.000-04:00

"la jabega" through playground chains : malaga, spain. 2007

2009-03-30T01:26:00.001-04:00

beach shack : malaga, spain. 2007

2009-03-30T01:02:00.005-04:00

they asked me what i wanted to see
i said the California coastline
something to make mine.
the way the summer seems
in a place you've never been.

there were people in the way
of letting me have my say.
my mattress on the bare floor
i can't sleep anymore
lying down underneath the weight.

we all fall like snowflakes in the sky, tonight

2009-03-29T19:08:00.006-04:00

geoff rickly of thursday @ the taste of chaos tour, nyc. 2009

the rest of the pictures from the show, including sets from Thursday, Four Year Strong & Bring Me The Horizon can be found under the PHOTOS section of InklingsTV.

alone on the sea.

2009-03-29T01:21:00.000-04:00

funny jack antonoff (of steel train). bowery ballroom, nyc. 2008

2009-03-27T03:23:00.003-04:00

firework smoke : lake george, ny. 2008

fireworks on the water: lake george, ny 2008

la ragazza dice sempre "io conosco la lingua dei fantasmi, ma no lavoro per il diavolo"

more work from the past several months

2009-03-26T09:24:00.005-04:00

an antique store: fort ann, ny. 2008

rocks at the long island sound: wading river, ny. 2008

snippet about heavy steps & fog

2009-03-26T06:43:00.000-04:00

I felt that everything around me was roaming aimlessly with heavy steps. The pounding grew, the fog thickened, and I didn't care I couldn't see, I just went.

gallatin arts festival show coming up

2009-03-26T05:41:00.001-04:00

"andiatarocte (dharma bums)", 2009

"wool", 2008

tuesday march 31st @ 7pm i will be showing the first round of collages from my "reconstructuring the fractured body" series at New York University's Gallatin Arts Festival. the building is located at 715 broadway in manhattan. there will be other artists' work there, but there will be signs & guides telling people where everything is. these are some images of the collages to give you a preview. i hope you can make it out. i'm planning on giving a gallery tour of my work at some point as well, check in with me after friday if you'd like to know when.

2009-03-26T03:25:00.001-04:00

packing for nyu. queensbury, ny. 2005

you start to realize time isn't the same all the time.
you start to realize your time isn't the same all times.
and no matter how much i mock this place i still hear wind chimes.

we got to the point in the road where we could brake,
or gas. i doused myself in it and lit a match. i turned around cause,
one minute i was on fire, the next i was twenty-two and tired.

that summer was unreal. i fell asleep on the beach and woke up
on concrete. the shady swing onto a busy street. we told the lies
that nobody else would touch. you touched my shoulder but it never
really meant all that much.