David Byrne, Renaissance Man

Here's a couple of shots that I just love from a shoot a few years ago of one of musician David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame. I just heard some tracks from his new album with Brian Eno and he continues to amaze me. He is also a great artist and photographer that I often see peddling around the streets of New York City on his bicycle. I believe that he was educucated as an architect, something we both have in common. When we did this quick shoot in a dark wine cellar of a midtown restaurant, my focus light somehow blew out and I was left with almost no light in which to focus. A bit flustered and starstruck, he reassured me that with my current f-stop and shutter speed, all would be fine and in focus. Of course he was right. Love this guy. He is currently on a worldwide tour with Eno. To find out more, check out his site at davidbyrne.com.

Sebastian Junger

I saw on my facebook page this morning that my friend Reid Callanan, the director of the Santa Fe Photo Workshops, is organizing a fundraising event with Reza and Sebastian Junger on December 4th in Santa Fe to benefit Photo Teens, a really great cause. Information for the event is located on the workshops site, linked here. It all reminded me that I had photographed Sebastian a while back for Manhattan File, which was such a great magazine, soon after his book A Perfect Storm had been made into a movie. We shot this at the bar in his restaurant, The Half King, on West 23rd Street, near Tenth Avenue in Chelsea, NYC, which is still such a great place to eat and hang out if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Retna Tribeca Film Festival Portraits

I shot at the Tribeca Film Festival on saturday for Retna, my celebrity syndicator, doing promotional portraits, a service they offer to the casts of films on the festival circuits. I hope it was the first day of many. I had a great time, did it without an assistant and on a tight budget, which proves that you don't need a lot of fuss to take nice portraits. The actors are from a film called The 27 Club, starring Joe Anderson. There are also shots of James Marsh and Philippe Petit, the director and star of Man on Wire. Philippe is the acrobat that illegally walked the high wire between the Twin Towers in the 70's. He's in the second photo, just after Joe. These are some pretty lucious portraits, if I do so say myself.

Isaac Mizrahi

I'll be posting some new portraits from Dinner for Five that I had previously overlooked. It's amazing how I missed these. Here's Isaac Mizrahi at the Algonquin Hotel in midtown. We had met at the Washington Square Park in the dog run when I was living at the studio years before.

Marcel Beaudin and his Original Perspective

We met with the architect of our new house, Marcel Beaudin, this summer and received the Durney's original plans from '71, this perspective included. Also gives a little 'perspective' to to the earlier living room shot of Nick which is just inside the large upper windows. Cool.

Sarah

My friend Sarah, a great artist. her site: http://www.sarah-olson.com