I had to photograph a horse stable in Northern Liberties that developers are proposing to turn into condos or whatever they think should go there. When I photographed it, though, I thought it was funny because it really looked like it shouldn’t belong where it was. You tell me, though. The sky and the fact that there are horses grazing on this plot of land, even though there are homes only a few feet away, makes me feel like I’m outside of the city somewhere.
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If you’re not in the Philly area then you don’t really get the gravity of the snow we’ve gotten in the past few days. I had to go out and photograph a few assignments for the paper so I took a couple of pictures to try and let you in.
Dozens of people flocked to the Art Museum steps to sled and snowboard. They even dug out a return area to the right if you look close.
This is the view from my front steps last night...still a few more hours of snow fell after this was taken.
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So last month I photographed a few days on set of the new movie “Booted” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504353/) that filmed here in Philadelphia. Essentially it was just a documentary assignment but I came up with some really cool portraits that I liked.
The basic plot of the movie follows this guy Will who is a lovable deadbeat and picks up after his car gets booted for unpaid parking tickets. The story revolves around him trying to shake the deadbeat stigma so he can get his girlfriend back, which entails him turning his car into a food truck…I’d say it’s a must-see but no-one has seen it yet. The footage I’ve seen was pretty funny, though.
Brian Gallagher as 'The' Homeless Man
Joe Gariffo as 'Hot Dogs'
Matt von Siegel as one of the 'Homeless Person's
Jacqui Schneider as 'Fancy'
'Hot Dogs' and 'Fancy' kind of have a thing going on...
I have to admit I was impressed with the level of professionalism I saw on set. Most low budget films I’ve been able to check out during the filming stages in this city have reflected their budget in the way they handled themselves. Not so with this movie. They were extremely professional, didn’t seem to be shortcutting anything and even pulled in some more well known names, both locally and larger, to participate.
You should check this out when it comes out.
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A few weeks back my buddy Colin (www.colinmlenton.com) passed my name on to the photo editor at the Harrisburg Patriot News for an assignment they needed shot in the Philadelphia area. It was fun because most times freelancing for newspapers means shooting the stuff they can’t get a staffer to take but this was a bit different.
There was a school in Harrisburg that was shut down and the students were all scattered around. The paper was doing a story just sort of catching up with some of the athletes and where they had landed. They asked me to shoot two football players that were starring at their new schools here in schools in Philadelphia.
This is Sean Christmas.
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So my friend’s Shaun and Joe, the two guys on the couch from my previous post, are shooting a new movie. It’s called “Booted” and it’s really funny. It’s mostly locals but they do have a handful of bigger names in it including Marc Summers (from Double Dare fame) and Alan Ruck (better known as Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).
Anyway, they asked me to shoot one of the movie poster ideas they had, which I gladly accepted, but it has to be shot in parts and according to the principal actor’s availability. That pretty much means I have to set everything up and wait for proper gaps in time to shoot who I need.
The last day while I was hanging around one of the guys working on set decided to jump in front of my white seemless and joke around for a bit, so I made this out of it.
I will post some more later when I finish up the poster but it’s been a blast being on set with these guys. It’s mostly younger guys who are really enthusiastic to be there but it’s extraordinarily professional.
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…from my work at the paper. So I haven’t really posted too much lately (I bought a house and then had to move in.) BUT I have shot some stuff for the paper that I thought was really cool. The assignments were pretty basic, I’ll explain each…
We did a story about a plaque dedication a while back for a firefighter who died as a result of a heart attack he suffered during a fire. Sadly this kind of thing happens more often than you’d like to imagine. Anyway, I found this during the ceremony (it’s the hand/scepter of the band’s leader).
Cafe Zesty’s has been open on Main Street in Manayunk since 1993. Tom, the owner, wanted to show off some for the photos…I’m not positive but I think the fire started getting away from him.
One of the photogs for the other paper in my office was off for a week and an assignment came up to photograph at Citizen’s Bank Park. Of course I jumped on it as soon as I heard it being talked about. I snapped this as I was walking out after the assignment.
This is from the assignment above. I know that you can’t really see Charlie Manuel — the Phillies manager — in the camera but I thought it came out cool regardless.
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So my buddy John got married a little while ago. I know what you’re probably thinking but, no I didn’t photograph the wedding. Not because I don’t like him (I don’t!), but because I was going as an attendee (unfortunately!).
I did, however, do engagement photos with my friend Natalie (we have an event photo business, Fairmount Photography, together) prior to the actual wedding. It was my first time doing something like this and I was admittedly a bit apprehensive to do it. I was pretty happy (and I believe John and Rachael were, too) with the outcome.
We started at Rittenhouse Square and kind of just wandered around the streets and alleyways around the park. Here is my favorite from all of them:
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I recently did a headshot of Sandy Hall from the North Ridge Music School for a new CD that she’s putting out (separate from the school). We played the music while we did the shoot, it helped Sandy get in the right mood (because she usually just smiles and laughs all the time). I really had a lot of fun, just used one light and had her move around that.
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So I made a movie a while back with a couple of my friends and some really talented actors.It was awesome because I started out studying film in college and then switched to photography because I enjoyed it better.
Anyway, we were able to get a handful of really great actors to fly home from Los Angeles for a long weekend to shoot this little project with a bunch of local production people. The project is called “Committed” and is available on iTunes.
It was fitting that we World Premiered in Los Angeles at the LA International Shorts Fest, the largest short film festival in the world. The writer/director Dan Kalai, the executive producer Kevin Sheridan and I went out to represent it properly.
These are just some random photos from the weekend.
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So I recently wrapped up working on the Philadelphia Film Market (www.PhiladelphiaFilmMarket.com) and I had a blast. It’s taken me some time to recover from the long hours but I wanted to post these.
I drove by this couch everyday that was just sitting in the middle of this vacant lot. I thought it looked funny and out of place but it took me until the last day to have to the epiphany that I should do a photo there. I grabbed (from left) Shaun and Joe, two actors that were exhibiting their movie Swooped (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1409805/) and this is what we came out with. Only took like five minutes, didn’t want to get all fancy. Just thought it would be fun.
Let me know what you think.
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