That's right, this profile which I really have not been terribly active with, is going to be deleted soon. I do however want to start being more active on DA again. I'll be starting a brand new profile tonight. I have not actually created it yet, but this SHOULD be the new adress once I do:

[link]

If you would like to keep in touch and keep an eye on my work through DA, go check it out. I will leave this profile up for at least a week during the transition. The new profile will not be identical to this one. It will be a chance for me to sort out a lot of material and basically clean house while updating the new profile with a plethora [I love that word!] of new material that has never been posted on this old profile.

So come check it out and be sure to leave many many comments on my new profile's submissions as they will be starting over anew with no comments at all! It will be a rebirth! ....yeah I'm a dork. ;]

So not much had happened as far as photography goes over the winter. I worked a lot. I haven't shot a show since Gwar played the Silo in Reading. I moved up to Quakertown with my partner in crime Steevo and his girlfriend (and my other best friend) Jess. Finally I went ahead and invested in more studio lights so I can start doing real studio work. Those arrived the other day and I'm excited to start playing around with them. We are moving again very shortly. Hopefully I'll have space in our new place for a small studio set up. I have about 30 different people interested in some TFP/CD work to beef up my portfolio and get some practice as I'm not nearly as experienced as I'd like to be. I'm still waiting for a backordered high quality tripod to arrive. The one I have now was cheap and substandard, not meant for serious work. There's always the old beanbag trick in the meantime!! lol

As far as more concert photography goes, Oi Fest is coming up 3 weeks from today. I'm anxious in a good way and a bad way. It's being held this year at Croc Rock. Last year was at the Sterling with very nice lighting considering the size of the place. Croc Rock is a bigger, nicer venue, but the lighting is horrible for photography. I'm not particularly fond of the set-up in general either. It's a much narrower venue as opposed to a wide set-up which is so much nicer for photography. So because of the substandard lighting I decided to go ahead and buy that Canon 580EXII I've been eyeballing. It was expensive, but probably well worth it. Unfortunately it too is back ordered! It supposedly was supposed to ship out the end of April, which would give it ample time to arrive for Oi Fest. Here it is a week later and it's still back ordered. If it doesn't ship in the next two weeks, I'm going to have to cancel the order and look to find it somewhere else where it is not back ordered.

One really big deal with Oi Fest is that my wonderful friend Emma will be coming down from New York state to stay with me that weekend for the show. I almost don't even care about the show now. I'm just going to be so incredible happy to spend time with her.

Other updates: I am currently working on a website to display my online portfolio. When it does go live it will be a little basic in design and contain solely concert photography as that is all I have ample material of. Little by little I will be tweaking and streamlining the design of the site and eventually changing it to include less concert photography and more of the variety of photography that I will be working on beefing up during the rest of the spring and throughout the summer. These areas will include portraiture, headshots, landscapes/cityscape, glamour, artistic nudes, street photography, and of course promo style work for bands, artists, businesses, and whoever else is interested in having work done.

After shooting one of my absolute favorite bands (Gwar) with pretty good results, I'm looking forward to shooting them again in December when they're back in the area, but the first time was more exciting. After that I don't really have much to look forward to. I don't have the connections to get photo passes. I just got lucky with Gwar. Blah. I need to set up my own website to get some business coming in. I'm also working on organizing Philly Punk Rock Magazine. I need to set up a website for that too. Hopefully I'll have both of those set up by the end of the year. I guess that's kind of exciting. It'll be nice when they're both up and running. Designing them is the freakin hard part. I been going back to the drawing board repeatedly trying to design a website for my photography. I haven't even begun to try for the PPR site. I think I'm going to remove a lot of the old photography I've posted on here and post some more new shit and never before seen re-worked old shit. Considering Gwar is some of the best work I've done so far there's going to be alot of them on here. lol Ah well. Somebody cheer me up damn it!

So the Gwar show this past Monday didn't quite go as planned. Long story short, the record company came through, the venue did not. I did however get in for free and get my camera equipment in. There wasn't really anywhere to get good shots from. Fuck Crocodile Rock. The rest of the night was great though. The show was awesome. The set was a little short but good. I came to the show with three hot chicks (and my buddy John), two of which are known as "the metal twins" if you happen to know them. After the show was the best. We hung out with several band members. The ones I met before remembered me, especially Todd Evans (Beefcake). Dave (Oderus) called me the "photo dude". It made me giggle like a school girl. haha Most importantly, I talked to their stage manager Bob Gorman. More specifically he is interested in my photography and wants to get me full access to their Electric Factory show in Philadelphia in October. So in just about 7 weeks I shall finally have the full access I've been wanting to a great venue for a Gwar show. I can't freakin wait!

So I was contacted today by the publicist for DRT-Entertainment, the entertainment company that handles Gwar. It's not set up yet, but it looks like I'll be getting a photopass for the show on Monday. I was going to go regardless because it's Gwar. It's nice to be able to take pictures though. Of course it is a Crocodile Rock which isn't as cool as if it were at the Electric Factory again. Ah well, Croc Rock is a decent venue with better lighting than I'm used to. I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping to actually make some money of these shots for once. I think magazines like Metal Edge might pay for good live shots of Gwar in their new outfits, especially before their official fall tour kicks off. Money isn't why I'm doing it of course. I just love Gwar and want better pictures of them under my belt. Maybe someday they'll use me to do some studio shots as well. That'd be nice. It could happen!