Anniversary

 This week is the anniversary of two things I did creatively. Feels like by mid to late April the frost started defrosting enough to allow me to realize how little I've been doing every year. Two of my friends have invited me to help document their projects and these seemed to be as good of a time as any to ride their coat tails and try catching some artistic momentum off of their talent. 

 Haste- Untitled official music video

2024 was the release of the Haste music video I directed and filmed formally. It was a half assed, impromptu, and ill prepared. Jim Chaos, a roommate I had during my college years, reunited his previously defunct punk hardcore band and invited me to their practice. I threw my camera, a newly acquired prime lens kit, and some cheap led lights into my car and hauled ass to the practice space. I feel like I was more excited over the prospect of essentially getting a free show than I was about film making. These guys had been making music for longer than anyone wants to do the math on, and Haste seems to be more therapy to them than anything. The Guitarist, Eric, had been making music with Jim for so long and their ability to create together is inspiring and to me it seems like they had used the band as an outlet for burning off any rage they have to bottle up between the times they can't play. They play as fast and loud as they can, and the lyrics express their frustrations with the world (as any good punk band should), and if you're lucky enough to catch them live, they usually disappear before fans can buy any merch off of them. They are joined by a generational standout talented musician on bass, Trevor. 4/20 was when they booked studio time to record their last EP(LP?) and most of what came from that never saw the light of day, but it synced up with the official release of the music video.

My strategy for filming was to shoot wide open and try getting everything in focus while using as low ISO I could get away with. We liked the high contrast "deepbw" lut edit on the videos and Jim spent a week or so editing it together on a laptop that struggled with the task. 

Link for the album

2025 was the year of the crab 🦀 . Well, I don't know if that's actually true, but Tommy had been commissioned to build a crab Sculpture for an arts festival in Maryland. 

Tommy, Myself, Laura, and Diego posing in front of the crab

Tommy had recruited another artist/carpenter/renaissance man, Diego, to help create the crab on top of the hill where we were camped for the festival. My first time camping with Diego made it clear this guy is a force of nature that I can also learn from. My plan was to carry it down the hill backwards and take photos so I could stop motion the reversal and make some silly edits of the evil crab emerging from the pond and destroying our camp. Once we started carrying this beast down hill it became obvious my plans were getting scrapped. Momentum is a motherfucker. The highlight of the night was when we almost fatally learned a lesson of what "Burning Man" could mean, as a woman ran past our safety perimeter to play a "super funny" and "harmless" prank of "Flick the lit cigarette at the dude inside of the wooden sculpture prepping it with lighter fluid". It was super hilarious and no one at all thought she owed an apology or an explanation (/s).  That's probably the last time I'll be doing the perimeter with a camera in my hands, even the safety lead she ran by was equally responsible. I occasionally watch the video if i want to make myself feel sick. Lessons learned and nobody was hurt.

link for the Album

2026- Oh shit we're here now aren't we??? Okay I've been slacking and don't have anything to show and tell at the moment. I mowed the lawn this Saturday and pruned my fruit trees. that has to count, right?

Damnit. Guess I'll have to do something