Day three of the Juggalos was pretty productive. Most of the day was spent following professional wrestler and viral video sensation Jeff Hardy around for a profile the LA Weekly. We followed him from his hotel room to the Gathering and took shots of him getting ready for his headlining fight at Juggalo Championship  Wrestling’s yearly event Bloodymania. It was a lot of fun since he was one of my favorite wrestlers as a kid and I found out he’s only a couple years older than me. Apparently he started wrestling on TV at age 16.

But before we met up with Jeff I also got to shoot part of WolfPac’s annual juggalo fight club. I saw two matches, the first of which was fairly brutal (see face below). The winner of the day goes on to fight the previous champion Nebraska Warrior who I have spent a few years documenting for different outlets. I hope to catch that championship fight today. I haven’t seen Nebraska yet and I kinda love that guy.

Yesterday was also a fairly nudity filled one. I got to do a proper photo shoot with Sydney Krey, one of the Busey Beauties I met last year. She is such a babe and we shot behind some toilets which is a pretty classic Driven By Boredom vibe I think. I also randomly stumbled into one of the tents last night where they were apparently having a foam party but it was mostly just some naked girls on stage. Good times.

Oh, I should also mention that the wrestling event Bloody Mania was kinda amazing. One of the longest tenured JCW wrestlers (and one of Violent J’s best friends) Rude Boy announced that he was diagnosed with dementia from wrestling head injuries and had to retire. It was heartbreaking and I did not expect to be tearing up at a juggalo wrestling event. Violent J also wrestled for the first time in 8 years. He gained a ton of weight and lost all of it since last year. He did a moonsault off the top rope and was honestly impressive. More on all this later in a separate post so only the wrestling nerds have to read it, but for now links to my coverage in other outlets.

Oh, wait. Did I mention I saw fucking Slick Rick?!

• Noisy: Faces Of The Gathering Of The Juggalos
• LA Weekly Slideshow: The Weirdest Signs of the 2016 Gathering of the Juggalos
• LA Weekly Slideshow: The Maniacs of Juggalo Wrestling
• How to Have Fun at Your First Gathering: Juggalos Impart Advice to a Newbie
• Donald Trump and Juggalos Have More in Common Than You Might Think

And now 5 random photos…

Yesterday was the final day of the Gathering of the Juggalos and it was a pretty fun one. Gotta make this update quick though because I drove to Indianapolis instead of editing photos and now I am about to photograph a really hot lady and then go get food with my friend and then edit four days of photos so I can get them to Rolling Stone and Noisey by the time my editors get into work tomorrow. Let’s go.

They day started off with a fantastic surprise. One of my favorite people, Angel Beau, just happened to be performing her strip circus act in Dayton, OH the weekend of the Gathering and so Freakshow Deluxe, one of the sideshow acts at the Gathering, drove to Dayton and grabbed her and had her perform with them. Their sideshow was rad and it was so awesome to see her there even if she was only around for an hour.

Day four also featured more fighting, more Busey Beauties and more bands. Mushroom Head was totally silly up close. Their masks look like mid level halloween masks and there are far too many people running around on their stage. Really weird. Waka Flocka on the other hand was fucking amazing. Juggalos started throwing shit at him and instead of leaving stage like other acts have done at the Gathering he just jumped into the crowd and played several songs while moshing and hugging juggalos. It was awesome. One of the best performances I’ve seen in my life.

Machine Gun Kelly was next and he puts on a great show even if I don’t love his music. Waka Flocka came out for his first song which was pretty great as well. I’ve photographed him backstage at the Woodie Awards, at the AVN Awards and now at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Pretty random. He did leave with all the Busey Beauties I was flirting with, but I guess I can’t blame him…

ICP ended the music portion of the night and as always they put on one of the most insane shows possible. I don’t care what you think of their music or their fans; if you ever get a chance to see them live do it. You will be blown away. They ended with a slow song instead of their usual closer and I guess they gave out Chinese lanterns because during their last song everyone lit them and the sky was filled with them which was fairly epic. Plus someone shot one down with a fire work which was fucking impressive. Juggalos do fucking shit up very well.

After ICP I saw Judah Friedlander’s comedy set which was mostly crowd work and very funny. I think rolled over to the wrestling matches for a second but it was crazy over there so I visited the mythical burrito man one final time and dipped out.

Here are a few photos from yesterday and then starting Monday I will start dropping several updates a day on the main site until you get to see everything I shot at the gathering. Get excited.

UPDATE: Noisey ran my juggalo fight club photos! Go look at them!

St. Patrick’s Day is probably my least favorite holiday for all the reasons that are obvious. Luckily yesterday was a good time despite attempts by drunk morons in all green.

I spent most of yesterday working for the Robert Duvall film Wild Horses. It was pretty good timing since I didn’t have anything else going on yesterday. I shot the red carpet for them and shot the after party which was a lot of fun. Robert Duvall and Josh Hartnett took photos with nearly every single person there and there were a ton of cowboys there which was pretty amazing. Matthew Mcconaughey’s brother Rooster was the star of the party though and is a pretty hilarious dude.

After that I moved all my stuff across Austin so I could check into the Sailor Jerry house. They are doing a pop up art gallery featuring original art from Normal “Sailor Jerry” Collins. It opens tomorrow but I get to go over there in a bit and I am excited to check it out. Check out the flyer below for details.

My friend Erica then picked me up from the SJ house and we got some tacos and caught up. She is pretty much my favorite person to photograph of all time and honestly one of my favorite people to hang out with and it sucks that I haven’t seen her in years. Fortunately she moved to Austin so I get to take photo of her face again.

We also saw Hello, My Name is Dorris which was great but then I had to get her to bring me back to the Sailor Jerry House to write captions for 84 photos for my 2015 “Famous Faces of SXSW” gallery on the Village Voice and LA Weekly. I also noticed my SXSW Gaming Convention photos are up too so check out both galleries!

And now here are a few highlights from yesterday plus the Sailor Jerry Gallery flyer…

Yesterday was my chillest day at SXSW in probably 6 years. I even watched some hockey and took a nap. It was magical.

I awoke feeling exhausted and fucking horrible and the coffee, energy drink and caffeine pill. I had within an hour of being awake didn’t help very much. I got a Lyft over to the Gibson guitar showroom where they were setting up a Tower Records themed party to promote the documentary All Things Must Pass about the downfall of Tower Records. There I photographed director Colin Hanks and producer Sean Stuart.

After that I went back down town and shot Jason Schwartzman for the second time this week. This time for his movie 7 Chinese Brothers. Then I walked over to the Intercontinental Hotel for the third straight day, this time to shoot the cast and crew of Manson Family Values headlined by producers the Duplass Brothers Mark and Jay. It’s actually the third time I have photographed Mark Duplass at SXSW and the second time I photographed him laying down. Finally I ended the day shooting the cast and director of the film Babysitter.

I had a few hours to kill before I was supposed to shoot the Get Hard red carpet but I hadn’t slept in days and I was feeling horrible. I had a head ache and felt like I was getting sick. I decided to go back and start editing photos and rest. I started watching some hockey and fell asleep and woke up about an hour later feeling so much better. It was sort of spectacular.

I went back out but the whole thing was pretty uneventful aside from eating pancakes with Quinn Cornchip and taking a few random topless photos of her before she dropped me off.

Just one more day of film left and then it’s on to music week. Enjoy some highlights from yesterday.

Hopefully this update is going to be a lot shorter than yesterday because I need to watch the last episode of Jinx before the internet ruins everything for me. Anyway yesterday was a pretty good time. I saw a couple of good movies, took some photos, photographed a gaming convention and went to a pretty fun party.

First up I shot the cast/ crew of Fresno which happened really quickly in a slightly too cold place. I loved the film and I love all the actresses involved and I am fairly bummed that I didn’t kill it like I should have. But Natasha Lyonne did Tweet a photo of me taking a photo of Aubrey Plaza which was kinda fun. I would also like to mention that I think Judy Greer is an incredibly underrated actress. She is brilliant always.

From there I had the super low key assignment of photographing two Oscar award winning actors in ten minutes. First I shot Adrian Brody for his film Stone Barn Castle (a documentary about the 7 years it took him to restore a castle!) and then Robert Duvall for his new film Wild Horses. I have shot Duvall now three times and it doesn’t stop being amazing and I actually got hired to shoot photos at the Wild Horses premiere and after party.

I then shot the red carpet for the film Love & Mercy about Brian Wilson. I actually had seen a bit of the film because my friend Teddy did the credits and it looks really great. I didn’t get to see it but I did get to photograph Brian Wilson and John Cusack (who plays older Brian Wilson) so that was awesome.

Next I hit the SXSW Gaming Convention and saw over a hundred people watch some kids play Street Fighter. It was insane. They had announcers and everything. I just had never shot the convention and I love photographing hardcore fans of anything and nerds go all out. I honestly had a great couple of hours doing that weirdness.

Finally the moment I was most pumped for, I got to see A Wonderful Cloud the film edited by my brother. It was directed by my brother’s friend Eugene who is a really intense and awesome dude and it stars Eugene and Kate Lyn Sheil who I have sort of become friends with after photographing her so many times at SXSW. The film also featured credits by Teddy because Teddy kills it always. The movie was great at the most accessible thing I have seen from Eugene. I would very much recommend it unless you get offended easily and since you are on my website that is probably not the case.

I ended my photographing by hitting the red carpet for Paul Feig’s new film Spy featuring Melissa McCarthy. Jason Statham, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale were on the carpet as well. I got to see Spy since I was done for the day and it was pretty fucking hilarious. But you don’t need me to tell you to see it.

The night ended with the after party for A Wonderful Cloud and that was a lot of fun but I didn’t really take any photos so yeah. Look at a few highlights below. All my film stuff should be up on the Village Voice/ LA Weekly on Wednesday.

My SXSW trip got off to an interesting start when I got to the airport and they needed volunteers to fly a day late. I didn’t have too much going on Friday and they were offering a ton of money so I took it and left on Friday instead of Thursday. That meant I got to sleep in a bed one more day and go with my lady to get Friday the 13th tattoos in NYC. When I go to Austin Friday night my friend Keith Underwood was still doing HIS Friday the 13th tattoo and I got a second one. Two in one day. Not bad.

I had some catching up to do and the film fest was in full swing. I ended up shooting portraits of the cast/crew of seven films and I shot three red carpets.

I started out shooting the Ross brothers, directors of the documentary Western who I had missed on Friday because of my delayed flight. After that I shot Judith Godrèche and Jason Schwartzman for the film The Overnight and shot the cast of Creative Control in the street across from their premier at the Ritz. Creative Control starred two musicians I run into all the time, Reggie Watts and the homie Heems formerly of Das Racist.

Heems and I both needed our SXSW badges so he and I hit the convention center and then I shot some more photos of him before I left him to go visit my friends at Indie PR to grab shots of three of their movies Ava’s Possessions, Excess Flesh and Lamb.

From there I hit the press junket for The Final Girls and got to shoot the director and a ton of the cast in the bar/restaurant behind where they were doing press interviews. It was quite the challenge to find eight different looks in a restaurant with almost no natural light but fortunately the cast was made up of nothing but hilarious and/or pretty people. Seriously, it was an impressive group of people.

After that I was done with my set up shoots and hit the red carpets. I went over to the premier of Michael Showalter’s new movie Hello, My Name Is Doris. It starred Sally Field and she seems like the nicest human ever. After the carpet I left to say hi to my brother and when I came back 20 minutes later she was still outside signing autographs. I didn’t get to see the movie because I had to head to the Fresno red carpet. I didn’t want to shoot the carpet so much as just see the movie since I have a shoot scheduled with them this morning. The film was great and starred nothing but hilarious babes in Judy Greer, Natasha Lyonne and Aubrey Plaza. More on that tomorrow.

Lastly I ended the night shooting the red carpet for Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut Lost River and then eating a massive amount of Taco Bell and heading back to my buddies couch to edit pictures and write this stuff that you are reading right now.

I have (at least) four films and two red carpets today plus I get to see A Wonderful Cloud which was edited by my little brother and hero Benjamin Moses Smith.  Got some good stuff coming so get excited.

Here are some shots from the day. More will be posted on my Tumblr… 

Okay, technically SXSW starts Friday but I am packing and getting my shit together so I can leave tomorrow. It’s my 12th year in a row in the Austin festival and I seen it change in ways I cannot imagine. The film festival is still my favorite part and I will be shooting portraits of actors and directors and stuff from Friday until Tuesday. Hopefully I will get to see a bunch of movies too.

Every year I do a “Famous Faces of SXSW” gallery for the Voice Media papers (Village Voice, LA Weekly, etc) and this year I have a bunch of great shoots lined up. In preparation for the trip I put together a gallery of my favorite SXSW Film portraits from the last few years.

Check out the gallery and then come back every day starting Friday for daily updates with the new photos from my SXSW trip!

Click here to see my favorite SXSW Film Portraits!

Day five consisted of a few SXSW Film gigs and then moving over to the Sailor Jerry house stuff I am shooting. I am so damn tired I don’t even know how I am going to finish this post.

I started out shooting Michael Peña, Rosario Dawson and Gabriel Mann for their movie Cesar Chavez. I had less than a minute to shoot them which was sort of absurd. Peña talked to me about my tattoos for longer than I was able to take their photos.

After that I went and shot Tobe Hooper who directed Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There is a new restored print of it for the 40th anniversary and I can’t wait til it is shown in NYC. It’s in my top five horror films of all time and the sequel is up there too. He was running late but I got to talk to him for a few minutes about the print and TCM 2.

Then I got a chance to watch the Take Me To The River press conference. The movie is a documentary about the music scene in Memphis and features Snoop Dogg himself. I got to take a couple photos of him after the press conference and R&B legend William Bell ask me to text him the Instagram I shot of him and Snoop.

For my last SXSW Film gig of the year I shot Peter Vack and Natalia Dyer from the movie I Believe In Unicorns. Natalia got stuck in traffic so I talked to Peter a lot and turns out he lives pretty close to me. Good dude. Natalia is adorable and they look very cool together. Now I just need to see the movie…

So now my life takes a turn and I move to SXSW Music stuff. I am shooting all day every day at the Gypsy Lounge which is the Sailor Jerry House for the next few days. The kick off party was a total blast with a line down the block. Free tattoos, cheap rum and a secret Kurt Vile show brought in a ton of people including a bunch of cute girls. I had a blast and took photos and flirted with babes to a sound track of lo fi rock and roll from bands like Destruction Unit, Cosmonauts and the Residuals.

Come by today for a day party featuring my favorite rock & roll babes the Coathangers and the Third Man Records rolling record store! I actually have no idea who is playing the night party but I am sure it will be awesome. Now look at some damn photos from Day five of SXSW 2014!

Yesterday was the last full day of Film/ Interactive for me. Today I start my work for Sailor Jerry. Come by if you are in Austin! We will be at Gypsy Lounge all week. I might not survive that long but I am going to try.

So yeah, let’s run through day four. It was fucking exhausting. My day started out at 10:15am which meant I was up at 8:30am which means I got three hours of sleep. I shot portraits of the cast crew of Late Phases and Starry Eyes. The terrible thing is I don’t know anything about the movie yet. I did a terrible job of figuring all that out but we took some cool photos.

After that I got to shoot the cast of Mike Judge’s new HBO show Silicon Valley. I saw Mike Judge while I was waiting for the cast but I didn’t get to shoot him. I did however get to shoot the rest of the cast including one of my favorite dudes in comedy Kumail Nanjiani. The first time I saw that dude do stand up I knew he was going to be huge. TJ Miller, Martin Starr, Thomas Middleditch, Zach Woods and Amanda Crew. The only one of them I didn’t know was Amanda Crew and she impressed me by pulling out a 35mm camera and shooting me while I was shooting the rest of the cast. I tried to talk a little smack saying she had a kit lens on her camera but it was pretty much the fastest 50mm lens that exists and I was defeated. Turns out she is a bad ass photographer. These are some funny motherfuckers and I cannot wait for this show to come out.

After that I got to shoot Robert Duvall! I shot him once before with Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek for their movie Get Low but this time I got Mr. Duvall alone and think I got some pretty nice shots of him. I shot some black and white too so I can’t wait to see how that stuff turned out.  I got to see his film A Night In Old Mexico and it was pretty great. Well worth watching if you get a chance.

My last film work of the day was to shoot the Cesar Chavez red carpet but unfortunately I didn’t see the movie. I was on so little sleep I almost passed out during Old Mexico so I decided to skip the film and get more coffee into my brain. I get to shoot the cast later today so I hope to see the movie soon!

I took a break and got some food and coffee before heading over to this AT&T/Vice “Mobile Moment” party because Reggie Watts was going to be there. I have been a Reggie Watts fan for many years and it’s awesome to see that dude get all the attention he deserves. Fun fact, his photo has naked photos I have taken saved on it.

Lastly I went and got my final coffee of the day with my old naked model friend of mine. She stopped getting naked but she still rules and it was awesome to see her. Plus I got a ride home!

Highlights below. Much more coming soon!