You Never Know What You'll Find...

...when you go Googling yourself to find out where your pictures are ending up. Thus, I was very surprised this evening when I discovered something that actually happened a few years ago. This was when the great Dr. Brian May of Queen very generously put one of my Chickenfoot pictures up on his site.  As you might imagine, I was elated at the time...little did I know that a Queen fan blog in Mexico reported this fact and re-posted it on their blog!

http://queenmexico.blogspot.com/2009/06/brian-may-fotografia-de-chickenfoot.html

Like I said, you never know...

Goo Goo Dolls @ the Troubadour

John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, live at the Troubadour last night.  The group has a new album coming out in about a month, so this was a showcase event that they were taping.  I imagine that they'll have some sort of promo video to coincide with the album's release and tour(?).  I stuck in there for eight songs, pressed firmly up against the stage by a few hundred very horny females...horny for Johnny, that is.  The girls never go for the photographers, do they...only the artists...

KING at Sayers Club

This is KING, a very interesting girl trio that has caught the attention of ?uestlove and Prince, among others.  I shot them last night at the Sayers Club in Hollywood, which is a kind of supperclub-type venue where the old Nacional used to be.  Yeah, that Nacional, the one that hosted the Monday Social.  The place is much more upscale now, and they knocked a wall down to make the space bigger.  Yet another example of how very little in Hollywood remains the same over time...

Anyway, KING.  These girls put out a video on YouTube in 2011 for one of their songs, which ended up going viral in the music community.  To make a very long story short, Prince ended up really liking them, and had them open up for him during one of his 21 residency nights at the Forum.  Now he's got one of his people managing them.  They have a very sultry blend of soul and jazz, very catchy but not pop in the least.  These three could be going somewhere...time will tell, I guess.

Currently waiting to see if I'm cleared to shoot the Goo Goo Dolls tonight at the Troubadour.  Also let Getty know that I'm very hard up to shoot the Stones when they come through in May..  Needless to say, if I get Mick & Keith I'm gonna be a very happy guy.  Stay tuned.

Updates for Spring 2013

Hello folks,

Yes, it's been another very VERY long break between posts here on this blog, and a lot has happened during that time period.  Here's a very bare-bones update on what's taken place since last August:

For the second time, I've been laid off by Freestyle Photographic Supplies, which means I no longer have to get up at 6:00 AM for the privilege of driving down to Santa Fe Springs every weekday.  Yeah, I'm really, really heartbroken over this...I mean, with more time to pursue my photo career, upgrade my software skills and finish my rave photo book, just what's a guy supposed to do???

Here's one thing: go to Winter Music Conference in Miami to plug the hell out of said photo book. I managed to do this almost two weeks ago, and let me tell you, I don't think I've worked any harder during WMC than I did this year.  I was literally pounding the South Beach pavement almost non-stop for four days, but I think it was very much worth it.  I made a lot of new connections this year (always one of the points of a giant network-fest like WMC), and just may have drummed up some support of some kind for the book.  We shall see how this all turns out later this year...

...when the book is supposed to be published, and by myself.  Yes, after spending over a year trying to land a publisher for the book, I've finally realized that that scenario just isn't going to play out.  These publishers are for the most part clueless about electronic music & how to market it...in fact, I literally read "We don't know how to market this" in one of my many rejection letters. *SIGH*. Well, to hell with it.  I have decided to fund this book later in the year via Kickstarter, and will be published at about the end of the year.  AND...we finally have a title.  Yes, after literally hundreds of ideas, suggestions and more than a few outright idiotic notions, I have settled on a sort of hybrid title...it's a mash-up of two earlier title ideas.  The book is not going to be called:

DANCEFLOOR THUNDERSTORM: Land Of The Free, Home Of The Rave

Not bad, huh?  And just in case you're curious, I've built a new section to my web site featuring the book and providing some details about it...just to whet the public's appetite. :)  Here's the link to that:

http://www.michaeltullberg.com/ravebook/


Still plugging away for Getty Images, as always. Aside from that, the other thing I've been doing as of late is downsizing...more free time on your hands makes one realize just how much crap one can accumulate.  Thank God for Ebay so that at least I can get some resale value out of some of this old stuff I never use.  Oh, and speaking of old stuff, there's a chance that I might be appearing on "Antiques Road Show" when it comes to Anaheim--it's a slim chance to be sure, but it's there nonetheless!  Keeping my fingers crossed for this one...

More to come, I promise.  Stay tuned.

Betsey Johnson

I don't shoot a lot of fashion-related stuff...at least not when compared with all the other music and celebrity oriented material that I normally do.  Thus, I don't get to shoot many fashion icons.  What's a fashion icon?  Someone who puts their own stamp on the industry without necessarily being a supermodel.  Of course, most of the people who do this are fashion designers, and one of the more prolific ones, as far as young womens' fashion is concerned, is Betsey Johnson.  Hey whimsical and often silly clothes have been adorning the racks for a number of decades now.  So, when given the opportunity to photograph Betsey as part of a 10-year anniversary celebration for that L.A. landmark The Grove, my curiosity was piqued. I mean, just how was this going to play out?  Betsey is a woman who is most definitely used to getting her way, and as a fashion icon at the age of 70, she has the power to be intimidating if she so chooses.  So when I arrived at Nordstroms at The Grove yesterday, I was on my best behavior.

As it turned out, this was an excellent strategy to follow, because it ended up putting me in an unexpected position--to do a private photo session with Betsey in her dressing room before she was to go out to do a meet-and-greet on the main floor with her legions of young female fans (who paid $50 a pop to sit down with her a get a photo taken).  I actually wasn't supposed to be up there, as I found out that I didn't have an "official" press invite, just a general media one.  However, thanks to an errant Nordstroms employee who delivered me to the dressing room instead of the downstairs press area, I got the scoop that none of my colleagues downstairs was gonna get.  Betsey was running late, trying to sandwich in some last minute interviews before her exit, and I was told I was going to have about one minute with her to make this work.  That's right. One minute.  Needless to say, I double-checked everything on my gear to make sure it was all functioning normally.

The door opened, and there was Betsey.  Energetic, bubbly and darned near effervescent, she bounded right over to say hello in a gold lame dress that was a 13-year old girl's idea of heaven, and which could only have come from her.  Her publicist suggested that we use a blank wall covered with white linen, but Betsey had other ideas, and immediately bounded over to a leather love seat and perched herself on top of it.  "Whew," I thought to myself, "This is gonna go a bit easier than I thought, now that Betsey's taking charge", and thankfully I was correct about that.  Of course, she's had years and years to figure out what kind of shots make her clothes work, so I imagine this was all quite second-nature to her.  In any event, we joked in between shots, particularly about her shoes, which I commented would be great instruments of self-defense thanks to their numerous spikes.  I was a bit worried about direct flash exposure, as I naturally had no time to get cute with off-camera strobes.  Luckily, the entire room was draped with that white linen, so there was a certain degree of bounce created by that linen which softened everything a little bit.  But before long it was all over, and I made my way downstairs to the press area to cover Betsey's entrance.  That part of the shoot was almost anti-climactic for me, even though the room was buzzing thanks to her fans who were going nuts.  As I said, I'd already gotten what I needed.  Just another day at the office...

The Jacksons and the End of Normality

This is so funny...funny in an odd way.  This picture, taken last Sunday night at the Greek Theatre, is of The Jacksons performing live.  Now bear this in mind--while this show was going on, the Jackson matriarch Katherine Jackson was unofficially M.I.A. at the time (in Arizona, as we all now know), while Michael's kids were Tweeting their little behinds off in protest.  Meanwhile, the group, as seen here, is trying to project some sort of air of normality for their fans...even though Jermaine Jackson (far right) was/is in a totally different camp from the very brothers who he's sharing the stage with.

As always, the show must go on, and within hours, the big bruhaha at the Jackson compound would commence.  I suppose it's just yet another example of show business being what Styx once called "The Grand Illusion".  Here's another little tidbit for you guys...this photo setup was one of the worst I've ever been part of at a live show.  As you can see in the following photo, there was no photo pit or barricade separating the photographers from the audience at all.  The chairs were put up literally right to the front of the stage, to the point where me and my colleagues asses were practically right in the front row's faces.  There was also almost no room to move, we were so packed in there.  I felt so bad for those people, having to put up with more than ten photographers for the first three songs, that I apologized to them, even though we had nothing to do with the setup at all.  What was the Greek thinking??

I have two live shoots this weekend--here's hoping that I don't get another setup like this one!

Roger Waters: THE WALL - post-show

Wow.  It's less than a day after "The Wall" hit the L.A. Coliseum, and I still feel a bit residually on edge...I spent so much time and energy preparing for this gig that it's a little hard to let go of all of it.  More than that, though, is the feeling of great satisfaction I got last night, because I shot the hell out of that show and am very pleased with the results, especially considering the restrictions we had.  "The Wall" is truly an epic show, and I wish that I could have shot more of it, but I'm happy with what came out of it.  Here's the rundown:

I showed up at 6:00 PM so that I could beat the traffic-from-Hell that I knew would be swarming the Coliseum...which I fortunately did.  After settling in and getting all my gear together, I went over to the Media Check-In tent, looking like this:

I actually was the second one there--I was beaten out by my friend Paul Hebert.  As you can see, I brought three camera bodies and four lenses...the most I've ever had hanging off of me for one gig.  Yes, I came prepared.  After waiting for than two hours--the publicist's claims that the show would start at 8:00 sharp being bogus--we were led out through the tunnels and all the way down the Coliseum steps to the photo pit in front of The Wall.

The show started with a bang at about 8:30 with "In The Flesh?", where Roger came out and flashed his dictatorial side in black leather and his trademark mirror shades.  Very Nuremburg-esque, which of course was the point of that particular song.  Once the song ended, following the crashing of the Stuka into the back of the Wall set, we photographers were ushered over to the side of the stage for "The Thin Ice", "Another Brick...Part 1" and "The Happiest Days Of Our Lives".  I was frantically trying to change lenses on my D700 & put on my 200-400mm howitzer, and almost freaking out about how I was going to miss a shot.  Well, it turns out that I needn't have worried...because Roger's microphone quit on him at the beginning of "The Thin Ice".  He was so pissed that he stopped the entire show and made the crew fix the problem, so I had a couple of extra minutes to fix everything, which I did.  It was so funny...it was totally reminiscent of what happened at Roger's 1989 Potzdammerplatz show in Berlin in 1989 after the Berlin Wall fell.  He said in no uncertain terms, "I want you guys to fix this, and we're gonna start again, because I wanna sing 'The Thin Ice!'", to a huge roar of approval from the massive audience. 

Something struck me at that point--the audience.  The people were naturally far removed from the stage, and I remembered that one of the conditions that gave birth to "The Wall" in the first place was the sense of isolation from the audience that Pink Floyd was experiencing during their stadium shows in the 1970s.  And here we were again, doing another stadium show, separated from the audience.  I was wondering if Roger appreciated and understood that fact, and how he apparently was able to reconcile that within himself.  Or, was it a case of "To hell with it, a stadium's the only venue that will hold this show"?

Anyway, the song was re-started, and off we were again.  The big problem for us photographers was the main stage--it was perched very high up and unless Roger came right to the front of it, you weren't gonna be able to shoot him properly without being cut off by the stage.  Fortunately, my 200-400 meant that I could back up a little bit and get a decent angle on Roger.  Some of my colleagues had brought stools or ladders, and to my surprise, they set up a system where they rotated us on and off of their ladders.  I was personally very grateful for this, as it allowed me to get some very good shots of Roger that I knew no-one else was gonna be able to get, since no-one else brought a lens of that size along.

Before too long the fourth song had ended, and we were shepherded back into the front for "Another Brick...Part 2", which of course featured the famous Schoolmaster marionette:

This was pretty much the highlight of the show for us shutterbugs, so all of us naturally concentrated hard on this song.  The chorus was sung by a large group of local L.A. schoolchildren, who staged a "confrontation" with the Schoolmaster.  It was all great for me, visually...unfortunately I can't show all of those great images here.  You can, however, find them in my Getty gallery here:

http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?EventId=131686371&EditorialProduct=Entertainment

Roger had one more surprise for us...instead of going straight into "Mother", he threw in a new version of "Another Brick...", which could almost be called Part 2.5.  It featured new lyrics that illustrated the disillusionment and devastation that spring from the isolation caused by a Wall.  It meant that we couldn't shoot "Mother", but having previously seen the extremely sparse visuals of that song on YouTube, I wasn't all that disappointed.  Then the song ended, and we were all herded out of the pit and back up that enormous flight of stadium stairs to the place where we came from.  Some of the photographers decided to stay and see the show--they had tickets--but since I didn't and since I of course had to file the images for Getty, I got out of there quickly and went home.  I finally finished editing and transmitting the pics at about 1:00 AM or so...a lot of work, but a job well done.

So, that's that.  I leave "The Wall" behind, and get ready to shoot a video for Deadmau5 tonight somewhere in the Valley.  No rest for the wicked...

Roger Waters: THE WALL - pre-show

I'm a bit on pins and needles at the moment...completely understandable, considering that I'm slated to shoot Pink Floyd's Roger Waters performing "The Wall" at the L.A. Coliseum in six hours.  I've been preparing hard for this show, as it's almost certainly going to be my show of the year as far as rock concerts are concerned.  Thank God for YouTube...it's allowed me to really do my homework on the show, so I'll know almost exactly what to expect when it starts.  I do not want to be caught flat-footed for this gig--this is an epic, and I have to shoot it accordingly.  Therefore, I'm bringing three cameras and four lenses, so I can capture as many aspects of the show as I can.

This event is going to be a bit different for me, as I'm going to be allowed to shoot six songs instead of the normal (and minimal) three songs.  The songs will be:

1. In The Flesh?

2. The Thin Ice

3. Another Brick In The Wall, Part 1

4. The Happiest Days Of Our Lives

5. Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2

6. Mother

Another unusual item of note is that for songs 2, 3 and 4 I will be shooting from the side of the stage...which actually will probably be all right since those songs are not all that particularly interesting in a visual sense, going from the YouTube videos I've seen.  Songs 1, 5 and 6 will be shot from the front.  The highlight for me is almost certainly gonna be "Another Brick...Part 2", since this will feature the enormous marionette of the Schoolmaster.  I can't wait to see what super-wide shots I'll get of that thing.

It's funny...my moods are fluctuating between calm and prepared--because I really am prepared for this one--and nervous anticipation.  I imagine the nerves are going to increase once show time approaches.  That, and the crazy L.A. traffic that's snarling downtown thanks to the Clippers & Kings playing at the Staples Center, are not going to help me calm down later this afternoon.

This is so funny...I never, ever expected that I would get to shoot this show.  "The Wall" Live is one of those mythical events that most people look upon with awe, and I'm going to be at the center of it.  Well, there's only one thing to say about that:

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

Dick Clark

The great Dick Clark passed away early this morning, and having worked on a couple of his productions so many years ago, I couldn't help but think about Dick today. No, I wasn't working as a photographer, in case you're curious...I was a production assistant on both the American Music Awards and the Cable Ace Awards, waaaaayyyy back in '92 or '93. I still have my crew laminates somewhere...I should dig those up.

Anyway, sadly I never met Dick in person, but I can tell you that his company's productions ran like clockwork. I learned a lot of valuable production experience from working for Dick Clark Productions, and had some great moments as well. I remember in particular working the after-party for the AMAs, where I had the chance to get caught in the middle of James Brown, MC Hammer, Evander Holyfield, Bel Biv DeVoe (remember them?) and their massive entourages. Oh, and I had to tell them to move away from the entrances or the Fire Marshal was gonna shut the party down. Let me ask you: are you going to tell the heavyweight champion of the world and the Godfather of Soul that they have to move? Of course not, and neither did I...I had the smarts to convince Bel Biv DeVoe to tell them. ;^)

Anyway, God bless you, Dick. You did a great service to both rock & roll and television, and that, as anyone in show business will tell you, ain't easy. At least you've got a solid gig now on "Heavenly Bandstand", or at least "God's Favorite Bloopers & Practical Jokes".

(Not that God produces any bloopers...)

Holga DSLR & Macro Experiments

Hey all,

Yes, the Holga experiments continue, but in an entirely different direction from the Crystal Holga...which has been getting rave reviews in Hollywood clubland, but that's a subject for a future date. I was recently inspired by some pictures that a photographer made using a Holga DSLR lens combined with Holga Close-Up and Macro lens attachments. The results were quite remarkable, so I decided to take a whack it it myself. The following pictures are only first attempts, but I'm encouraged enough to want to play with this new technique some more in the future. No, it doesn't produce the light leaks that a regular Holga 120N film camera does, but I'm certainly pleased with the results nonetheless.

Some extreme close-ups of the Crystal Holga. As you can see, the Macro Lens' resolution is actually pretty damned good.




Tiny anime and kaiju eiga figures, ranging from 1 1/2 inches to 3 inches tall(!). The detail is quite impressive for a pair of plastic lenses.

Tachikoma from Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex.


Mogera from The Mysterians (R) and King Ghidorah in the background.



Butterflies in the L.A. History Museum's Butterfly Arburetum. I was particularly impressed with some of the results I got here, since butterflies very often don't exactly perform on cue when you want them to!




Lazy grasshopper. This guy was actually about three inches long.


More examples can be found in my Pbase galleries, and on my Facebook account. As you can see, I'm quite intrigued by the possibilities that this combinations could provide. More experiments are definitely in order. Stay tuned...

The Crystal Holga - First Public Reactions

Wow. That's really all I can say right now...wow. If you're wondering what I'm "wow"ing about, it's the reactions I've been getting when I've been taking the Crystal Holga out for its first public outings. In a few words, phenomenal, immediate, visceral, amazement, even near-joy. The best example is from yesterday, when I brought the camera up to the rooftop club at the Standard Hotel in Downtown L.A. As soon as I got out of the elevator and pulled the camera out of the bag, the girls started going crazy for it. Over and over, I kept hearing "I love your blinged-out camera!", or "Where can I find this?", or something similar. Not just the girls, either--a lot of guys were pretty impressed as well. I mean, I pretty much knew that I was going to get some sort of positive reaction from people, but I did not expect the strength of it to be this big!




Here's something else that's funny--while the party was going on, there was also this Australian photo crew there shooting some sort of fashion thing. They were using a Phase One medium format digital camera, which as any pro will tell you is an incredibly expensive piece of gear. I was chuckling quietly to myself watching them work, knowing that I would be getting more attention with my $40 camera (pre-bling price) that they would with their $15-$20,000 monster. And you know what? I was right...so many people just gravitated toward the Holga. There were a bunch of girls who asked if they could take pictures of me, them, or both with the camera in them. The fact that people want to be seen with the Crystal Holga is a very cool thing.


I've been getting all sorts of suggestions about where to go with this...like making more of them, for one. I mean, making Crystal Holgas is certainly doable, but it's sooooo labor-intensive. It took me forever to get this first one done, how long would additional models take, even with hired help? There are all sorts of questions that need to be answered...but not tonight, 'cause I'm still trying to adjust to Daylight Savings Time!


Until later, then...the film is at the lab, so I'm of course anxious to see what the proof sheets are gonna look like! Will have more Crystal Holga updates when the events are right for more public unveilings!


p.s. Thanks to Jenny Dann and Lysa Carlson-Oldhams for providing the pictures!

The Crystal Holga - Part 2

Finally! After a really enormous number of hours, the Crystal Holga project has come to completion, thanks to the addition of the brand new Crystal Holga Flash. Like the camera, making this flash involved applying 4mm and 3mm square-cut rhinestones all over the flash's body. Needless to say, this is a really time-consuming process.


It won't be long now before I take this thing out into the field...I can't wait to see what sort of reactions I get with it. I think it's gonna be a real attention-getter.


You can see here below the tools I had to work with; pretty sparse stuff, I agree. But, it gets the job done, so that's all that matters...

Hollywood Awards Season, 2012

Well, that time of year is upon us once again--that period known exclusively to Los Angeles residents as "Awards Season". This is where the entertainment business strings most of the major (and a lot of not-so-major) award shows together in the usual annual orgy of self-congratulations. And of course with all of these events come the attached parties and get-togethers, which yours truly has been covering almost non-stop for Getty. After all, this is where a good percentage of my yearly sales come from, so I naturally need to be out there getting as much quality product as I can. To give you some idea of what I've been dealing with, consider my activities from this past week alone:


VISUAL EFFECT SOCIETY AWARDS - 2.07.2012

This was one of the several tech-related award shows that leads up to the Oscars. In the case of VES, this means heavier and heavier reliance on CGI, which is where the bulk of these awards were directed to. The red carpet was rather ordinary--Stan Lee and Antonio Banderas being the exceptions--but then I got quietly tapped by the publicist for a private backstage shoot featuring Antonio, Patton Oswalt, and the one and only Martin Scorsese. Yes, the legendary director himself was before my lens...this was one of those nights where I felt on top of the world. Yes, there are definitely perks when working for a company like Getty.



Another one of those perks took place shortly afterward, when another photographer and I got into a conversation with Antonio Banderas, who was telling us about his experiences during a recent filming in Tunisia--during the Arab Spring uprising! I mean, the stories he told of getting moved from place to place were pretty startling. He also was recently in Morocco, and it was interesting to hear his observations on the differences between Moroccan and Tunisian societies, and why the uprising flared up so quickly in Tunisia but not in Morocco. The man very clearly has a keen mind, I certainly wouldn't mind getting in another conversation with him in the future. Oh, and MSNBC.com ran with one of my pictures of him as well. Nice.


JERRY LEWIS "THE JAZZ SINGER" DVD SIGNING - 2.08.2012

Then the next day, I was at Barnes & Noble at The Grove, shooting a DVD signing with the one and only Jerry Lewis. Let me tell you, when you see Jerry Lewis in person, you realize that even at his advanced age he is still a force of nature, in the same way that William Shatner is, or Charlton Heston was. Jerry is still the clown supreme, and he did not disappoint this day as he unleashed his vintage rubber face and gave all of the photographers something goofy to post.



WILL.I.AM's TRANSF4M BENEFIT FOR BOYLE HEIGHTS - 2.10.2012

This gig was at the Palladium, and was for me the most productive evening of the week. This was because MSNBC.com, who runs with my material from time to time, this time obliged me with two pictures for their daily Celebrity Gallery. One was of Taboo and apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas, and the other was of singer LeAnn Rimes arriving with her husband Eddie Cibrian. That one was shot when they were coming in from the parking lot, paps-style. I normally really frown on stuff like this, but as this shot involved nothing more than me turning around 180 degrees to get the parking lot shot, I won't bitch about it too much. This was actually the first time that MSNBC.com has run with more than one of my pics at the same time, which is a pretty nice feeling.

The Black Eyed Peas, minus Fergie.

Paris Hilton and DJ Afrojack.

LeAnn Rimes & hubby. She is gonna break her ankles in those shoes.


Last night was a really low-level party at the Roosevelt, which isn't really worth commenting about, to be honest. Now I just need to relax until I go to--yes, you guessed it--another shoot tonight in Santa Monica with Amy Poehler. No rest for the wicked, I tell you...

***POSTSCRIPT***
I just found out that Jerry Lewis went through my pictures of him on Getty's site, and he wants some of them for his personal collection! YES!!!

The Crystal Holga

I'm really jazzed about my latest creation. I call it the Crystal Holga, for obvious reasons. I literally covered a white "Casablanco" model Holga 120N plastic camera with rhinestones. I actually initially wanted to use Swarovski Crystals, but those proved to be too expensive and I couldn't find them in the size and cut (square) that I wanted.



Let me tell you, it took me forever to make this. Each crystal had to be applied by hand, one by one. This was the first time I've tried making a project like this, and taking that into consideration, I think this turned out pretty darned good.



I think that there will probably be a second model on the way, eventually. I have some ideas on how to improve this design and make it look even better. Still, for now I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. :)



And, this is a working camera. I haven't actually run a roll of film through it yet, but unless it's a defective camera this should crank out pictures just like any other Holga. I'm thinking of painting a Holga Flash white and covering that with crystals as well, so that it complements the camera...that would look pretty cool, I think.

I wonder what this might go for on Ebay?

Recent Internet Stuff Of Mine

Hello universe,

Yes, once again it's been a long time between posts, but that's something that's going to change pretty soon, since I'm likely going to have a bunch of things to post about in the near future. One of the things that's been keeping me busy is my writings for other web sites, which has picked up somewhat as of late. Here's a link to my review of the classic L.A. rave Flammable Liquid's 20-Year Anniversary Reunion Show:

www.urb.com/2011/09/30/live-review-flammable-liquid-20-year-anniversary-reunion/

And here's a link to a piece I wrote for Magnetic Magazine about plastic cameras:

www.magneticmag.com/2012/01/plastic-cameras-ready-prepare-to-flash/

Hope that provides you guys with some entertainment for the time being. More cool stuff to come soon.


Michael

More Alice Cooper

No new pics, but I just wanted everybody to know that my Alice Cooper pics from last week have been bouncing all over the Net. No less than MSNBC, Rolling Stone, the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard have picked up my images for their reviews of the show...nice. No, rather, kick-ass. Here are some of the links:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/alice-cooper-surveys-rock-history-at-the-whisky-20110916

https://secure.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/backbeat/backbeat-alice-cooper-returns-to-the-whisky-1005356602.story

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/alice-cooper-at-whisky-a-236608

Enjoy!

Alice Cooper, live at the Whisky A Go-Go

Man, this was a great night. Not only was it my first time shooting Alice Cooper, but the first time I had shot inside the Whisky in like forever...the last time was way back in the mid-90s when I shot my old friends the Humble Gods. On top of that, there were no photo restrictions (rare for any L.A. venue!) and I had clearance to shoot the entire set. Fucking fantastic.


"We're a bar band!" Alice proclaimed this night, and he was absolutely right--this band rocked with a real kick-ass, no bullshit attitude. They played one new song, a real rocker called "Bite Your Face Off" which I liked a lot. There were some guests throughout the evening, such as Robbie Krieger of the Doors (back in the place where the Doors played as the house band), and later Ke$ha, who joined in for "School's Out", which had Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall Part II" in it for good measure.


Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine was also there, but he didn't join Alice onstage. Cheech Marin was there too--in fact, he was peeking over my left shoulder when I was shooting alice fron the Whisky's front staircase up to the upper section. He was definitely rocking out, and for good reason...this band was loud, rude and very heavy. One particularly good example was their cover of the Animals' "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place"--much faster, chuggier and harder than Eric Burdon & company's original version.



Alice was telling a number of funny stories this night, like the one about the last night he played in the Whisky back in 1969...opening for a little band called LED ZEPPELIN. Robbie also had a funny story about when Alice first met Jim Morrison. Apparently Alice was on pins and needles, anxious as hell to meet Jim...who, in one of his many booze-filled foggy days, totally blew off the extremely disheartened Alice. The entire Whisky audience all collectively went "Awwwwwwww!" in response to this tale.


One cool thing was the fact that they opened up covering "The Train Kept A-Rollin'", which as a lifelong student of rock music I heartily respected. Rock on, Alice.

Deadmau5 at the Hollywood Palladium

Just shot the electronic producer Deadmau5 at the Palladium last night. For those of you who don't know, Deadmau5 is one of the biggest electronic music artists in the world, thanks in part to his liberal use of visual effects in his show. He's certainly rocketed to the top of the genre--you should have seen all of the fan-made Mau5 heads that the Palladium security people confiscated. This was the second night in a four-night stand that Deadmau5 is doing at the Palladium, a first for an electronic music artist in that venue.


I shot this one with my Nikkor 200-400 f/4 lens. Nikon really knocked one out of the park with this lens--it enables me to reach all the way across the room and get right in there. I should note that I shot this from the very back of the room, which is pretty large as anyone who's been to the Palladium knows. That is one impressive lens, folks.

Here's another perspective, to show just how far away I really was.

Next week should also be interesting as the new electronic music festival called Identity makes its way to the vary same venue. I will likely be there to cover it--should be fun.