I was up to about seventeen packs a day.

I’m not really as good as I’d like to be about updating this, but I’ve been shooting here and there, editing here and there, and doing lighting here and there. It really makes the work weeks pretty interesting. Below is a smattering of images that I’ve made recently and one that I made a really long time ago that I never got to talk about.

Zachary Caceres for The Boston PhoenixMichael Edwards for a Kenneth Cole test shoot. (The light across the forehead makes me crazy too, I guess thats why it was a test.)

The scene directly behind me while working on a portrait for Creme De La Mer. 

And Nic Ratner’s home from the very short lived series “Shelter” that I was working on last year for the Village Voice. Nic had a ton of taxidermy in his East Village Apartment and I had spent the afternoon with him a few summers ago. His tip to me if I ever got into collecting taxidermy was to never get anything done to an animal that means anything to you. Pretty heartbreaking to see your dead-not-dead dog everytime. I wouldn’t do that to Moxie anyway.

On top of all that, I’ve redesigned some of the aspects on my personal site with some text overlay on my favorite images from each section.

Somebody get my shotgun, somebody get my blade.

Its been quite some time since I’ve actually said anything on here. A lot has happened since we last spoke. I’ve been really cutting down on assignment work in hopes of working on bigger projects that I’d like to work on, but also because I picked up a gig at Conde Nast as a retoucher / photo editor (real job!?). It’s really given me a consistent income and that has really helped me focus on doing some actual projects. Other freelancers know how much of a pain in the ass it is to get a consistent pay. Even if you are shooting all the time, the whole “companies paying you when the feel like it” vibe finally beat me up enough after 4 years.

A few friends and I banded together a couple of weekends ago for one of those 72 hour film competitions. Below are some screen grabs from it. For a bunch of rag tag dudes with no experience filming a movie, I like to think it came out well. I cant show it yet, but if you can figure out what this movie is about based on the stills, I’d be really impressed. Mostly because you’re going to have a hard enough time figuring out what the movie is about after you actually watch it.

We only made the movie because I really just wanted to kick someone in the face.

Also here is David Barker, one of the creators of the 33 1/3 book series. The books I would read in line at college while waiting to buy my actual text books. For the Boston Phoenix.

We came from nowhere.

Been pretty busy with work and such these days. Didnt want to make it look like i forgot about you.

I made  photographs for fun yesterday, which never happens. At some point I forgot that this is supposed to be fun and not feel so much like work.

Know what i mean?

my fake plants died because i forgot to pretend to water them.

Its been quite some time since I’ve posted anything, but its definitely not because i dont like you. So far 2012 has been super productive and I’ve been doing my best to stay on top of everything. A lot of stuff is waiting to be published, so I can unfortunately not share that with you. Below is a tiny bit of what I’ve been up to though.

A good friend of mine and great writer up in Boston put together a book about the occupy movement and I had the pleasure of being included with a piece that I did for the Boston Phoenix back in November. First images published in a book? I’ll take it.

I also got to do a portrait of Kian Freitas, a Baritone based out of New York City. Here he is. Sitting on a couch. Riveting.

Jokes aside, I’m currently cooking up a few big things for this year and hopefully they actually manifest themselves into something greater than me talking a bunch of shit on a blog.

Also, heres a few things taken from my phone. If you are on instagram, my handle is paulnonymous. handle it.

And if i havent already mentioned it, i am also on tumblr here. Mostly videos taken while hanging out, but check it out anyway.

THEY LIVE, WE SLEEP.

Last Friday the 13th I totally blew off the Friday the 13th tattoo extravaganza and ended up photographing The Undead Prom at the Bell House for the Village Voice. If you’ve ever spoken to me personally for more than 10 minutes, I’ve probably had some kind of zombie discussion with you.

I recently heard that zombies will be getting a twilight-like treatment with zombies loving each other and all that nonsense, pretty much the worst news I’ve ever heard.

Ingrid Biorck.

see the rest here.

ALSO.

get to the top, im too tired to rock.

I shot the 11th annual no pants ride in NY on sunday for the Village Voice. Its become quite a media circus with a bunch of non participating weirdo photographers. If you want to make a photographer uncomfortable, take his/her picture.

I’m not above participating myself.

feel it all around.

So I recently got showcased on virb, which has since driven my website and blog traffic up about 500%. Id like you to notice that I forgot how to take a screen shot on a mac and also how to close a tab, hence the chrome tab “HOW TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT” appears, im kind of an idiot.

I’m also working on some sweet promo materials for the new year, give me your address and maybe ill send you one.

And to keep the nostalgia boat floating from last time, here is a portrait from my 2nd year in college. Handguns in pictures are so 2004.

Happy new year.

ninjas. hijacked. my mother.

This will probably be one of my last posts of the year, but the past few weeks have been interesting to say the least. I shot a portrait of Dan Holzman, Co-Owner of the Meatball Shop for AMNY, was on the Rachael Ray show for a good combined 3 seconds (skip to 1:55 here), moved into a fancy new apartment (send prints please, my walls are bare), and found a bunch of photographs on a hard drive from when I was in college of which I’ll sprinkle in here and there, you gotta remember where you came from.

Somehow it hasnt snowed yet here in New York and this makes me very happy.

Dan Holzman

Me standing in for Mike Jones.

Norio. Circa 2004. 2004! We’ve come so far.

Also, have you seen this? Video of the year for sure.

See you in San Francisco.

electronic surgical words.

Since we last spoke, I shot a style piece for Karen Millen, I placed in a contest, I’m moving to a new apartment, I did a job for Ragu requiring me to make spaghetti, and I’ve been drinking kind of a lot ($5 beer+shot is a gift and a curse).

I also managed to place 2nd in the adventure category for this years APA|NY photo annual.

(its still real to me damn it.)

the lengths to which he’d go.

It has been a little while since my last blogpost, but I didnt want you to think that its because I havent been photographing a gang of shit and trying to keep a balance of personal work and work that puts the gyoza on the table. The last few months have been kind of all over the place culminating in what can only be described as the most terrifying and liberating thing I have done in a long time. I deactivated facebook.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

I’m about to talk about my disconnection from the social network because of my personal gripes with nothing better than a ranty, whiskeyed, personal blog post, as backwards as that is.

You see, this will be the first time since I started college where I wont be actively on some sort of social networking site. The direct access to my personal life and to have access to all of your lives felt so damn off putting today that on a whim, I decided to just disconnect all together. Not to say that I dont care about what you are all up to and how you are doing these days, but its nothing that an email, text message, or phone call couldn’t resolve. I mean, our parents didnt have facebook growing up, even though some of them do now.

At the end of my facebook life I had a fluctuating number of friends anywhere in between 485-490 friends, which leads me to believe that some of you have deactivated and activated right back, which isn’t a big deal, but when the number would change I would have pretty much no clue who was gone unless we speak more often than not. Out of close to 500 people I’ve ever met, I’d like to think that at most, I talk to maybe 20 of you? Its clear that people come and go in your life, it doesnt devalue our friendships, but to lump you all into the “490” feels like something less meaningful.

There is no doubt that what readership I have here is surely to take a sharp decline, since most of my hits come after i post on facebook, but for the anonymous few  that check this, i’d like to think we interact regularly and i dont have to tell you on facebook to check out what kind of photos ive been making lately.

So heres to the end of pictures of my dog, one liners from songs im listening to, pictures of me drunk, declining invites to parties that arent even in my city, reminders of how things used to be, reminders of how things actually are, not having to check the weather update because everyones status update does it for me, likewise on how the 49ers are doing, links to blogposts like these, lurking, and liking your updates.

dont worry though, you can still find me on flickr, instgram, tumblr, words with friends, and linkedin. and if you feel so inclined to drop a note here, i will respond accordingly.

fuck off, facebook.

Elliot Erwitt didnt have a facebook.