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…