Jay Peak

This is Jay Peak's incredible mountain top on Monday, photographed from the top of the triple chair. It sits about three miles from our VT pad and six miles from Canada, as far as the crow flies. If you have never skied here before, you are missing out on some of the East Coast's best, not to mention 419 crazy inches of snow this season. The 65 passenger tram house is perched up on top, which you have to take to access the steep wooded face seen above. If that is a little much for you, there is the Vermonter trail, which is on the left and offers some great views looking west towards Big Jay and the valley below. I have still to ski the face, but am setting my sights on next year...

Black Cat VT Safari

Went up to VT this last weekend for, as it turned out, some great spring skiing up at Jay and outdoor fun around the house in 70 degree sunshine. Now that my Kachina is no longer around, I have started taking the cats on little hikes, climbing rocks, trees and jumping over streams, all close to home. It cracks me up to have them follow me through the woods. Here's a shot of each of them in action and then a group photo of all three before we headed home.

Here Little Ducky...

Looking at those recent drawings and their monster like features made me remember this shot of a rather creepy little stuffed animal that was a prop on my Comedy Central Stella shoot. I shot it close up at the art director's request. I remember her saying that a puppet maker from Sesame Street had made it. Funny. I also am posting a tearsheet that ran in Penthouse with an image from that set up.

Actor Ron Livingston

This guy will forever be the lovable Jack Berger from Sex and the City to me. He was also great in Office Space, a trippy Canadian flick. Check it out if you can. This is from LA a few years ago, on set from a Dinner for Five taping, another of the still many portraits that keep on resurfacing from that great job. I like how tight it is, his intense slightly off expression and the little bit of motion there is. Nice.

One Minute Picasso

In a recent exercise at Platon's workshop, we had to draw a person in one minute without taking the pen off the paper, nor your eye off the person, all the while never looking down. This resulted in some pretty interesting sketches completely throwing off the left and right brain that would normally be very challenging to do. Here is one of my favorites from the day of a classmate named Leigh Ann. A great way to train the eye to the truly important features of a person.

Alan Streets Painting

I bought this painting after my Grandmother died along with another one from a street artist named Alan Streets, really that's his last name, a well know British artist working in NYC. It hangs in the hallway outside the bedroom and I look at it every day. I love it. It is not properly framed, instead simply hung on the wall as it was when I bought it. This guy's work rocks and so does his story. Like any good artist he is a bit crazy.

There are many interviews with him on Youtube, including this one which was made the day I bought this painting: Interview. The funny thing is that I also bought the one on the easel he's painting in the interview when it was half done, really liking it in its primitive figural state and the fact that it was around the corner from the studio. But when I returned to pick it up at the end of the day, it was not what I had fallen in love with earlier. Somehow it lost its beauty after the sale was made. But I took it none-the-less. I should have swapped it out for another that he had then and there that I quite liked, even though he considered them crap, as evidenced from the interview if you watch it. After trying to live with it for a while, it bugged me that I didn't love it, so I contacted him and he agreed for me have a look at others as an exchange. Well, when I went to his storage space, I couldn't find any that I really liked, as a dealer had just taken his best, he said. And now I live with another painting I exchanged it for, which now sits packed away somewhere in my own storage. Kinda wish I had just kept the original one. It is at least immortalized on film.

Most importantly, I am very happy with the one above. I love the colors and its fun cartoonish architectural scene of 2nd Avenue and East 7th St in the East Village, painted on Oct 18th, 2003.

Red Cross Redux

Some shots that I tried of my NYC Red Cross phone booth ads and their original models, Stelianie and Emanuele nearby. I never really did anything with them. Kinda too set up, but an interesting take on the adscape idea.

Spring Moonscape, Mastic Beach

A new lunar moonscape from Saturday morning at dawn down at the beach in front of the house.

Ed Asner

Not to compare turkeys, but I was reminded of this portrait of Ed Asner that I recently put on my site. It's from an LA episode of Dinner for Five from a few years ago. I love it, but am sure that some people do not. Probably Ed himself does not like the angle or point of view. A lot of people do not like to see their true portraits, but rather idealized versions of themselves. An interesting line for me to walk as a photographer.