Every year I shoot a gallery of film portraits for the Village Voice, LA Weekly and their 9 other sister papers. Every year it’s some of my favorite work. I love cinema and the SXSW Film Fest is always really well curated. I have seen so many good movies there. So photographing the festival is always a great time.

I don’t normally enjoy shooting celebrity stuff, but I do enjoy the challenge of having to get a good portrait in the sometimes seconds I have to shoot them. I also occasionally get to meet people I really admire and I sometimes get to meet just some really good people. This year I really busted my ass and photographed the cast and/or crew of a TON of films. Let’s see if I can quickly break this down!

First of all I shot the cast and director of Two Step. Two Step is a Texas thriller that I wanted to photograph because my brother edited it. My brother has a pretty serious IMDB but Two Step was the first feature he edited by himself. Turns out it is WAY better than I thought it would be. It was probably the best film I saw at the theater and if you get a chance to see it you NEED to, especially if you enjoy really fucked up violent films. And violent in a realistic way, not a cheesy ultra gory way. The star of the film James Landry Hebert is going to get a lot of work after this and he couldn’t deserve it more. Fantastic actor and really good dude. Oh, and they got a great Variety review that mentioned my brother by name!

A highlight for me was meeting Tobe Hooper director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We had a pretty awesome conversation about the underrated sequel. Really brilliant dude. I also got to meet Tom Savini, the make up artist who is pretty much responsible for the look of zombies today. His film Doc Of The Dead looks amazing even though I didn’t get to see it.

I got to shoot Juliette Lewis for the third time. I have had a crush on her my entire life and every time I meet her I get slightly more smitten. She retweeted one of my photos saying how nice it was to be photographed by me so you guys need to see her film Kelly & Cal right away. Don’t be fools!

Speaking of smitten, Emmy Rossum is the most attractive human I have ever seen in real life. She is in a movie called Before I Disappear with Ron Perlman of Sons of Anarchy fame and Paul Wesley who is a very pretty famous vampire or so I have been told. I heard great things about their movie so I am gonna see that one for sure.

Alia Shawkat is the most photogenic person I have ever seen. She is in a movie called Wild Canaries that features my friend Teddy Blanks title sequence. Teddy did four title sequences in the festival including Ping Pong Summer which he was nominated for an award for. I went with him to the Wild Canaries after party and ended up dancing with most of the cast until they kicked us out. The next morning I photographed them all. Only slightly awkward.

I shot the Heart Machine which features John Gallagher Jr and Kate Lyn Sheil two people that I have taken fantastic photos of in the past. John Gallagher is probably my favorite person I have met doing these things and I hope the Heart Machine does as well as his last film Short Term 12.

Did I mention I got to shoot Robert Duvall for his film A Night In Old Mexico? I got to shoot him once before and he and Bill Murray gave me Hell for being late. It was an honor to be mocked by them. This year I got him one on one and he was great. Really amazing experience. Another hero I got to photograph was Snoop. He was in a documentary called Take Me To The River about music in Mississippi. I shot him with R&B legend William Bell and other musicians. Pretty cool.

Shooting comedy stuff is always the best cause the photo shoots are fun and the people will do entertaining things. Jemaine Clement has a new film called What We Do In Shadows  and I got to photograph him eating a sandwich. When I shot the cast of Mike Judge’s new HBO show Silicon Valley it was 10am and was probably the only good time I have ever had before noon. Those guys are so funny I know this show is going to be amazing. I have known Kumail Nanjiani for years and it’s awesome to see him be as successful as he is now. Also, apologies again to Amanda Crew for giving her shit about her camera lens, she is a way better photographer than I am.

This is getting way too long, let’s stop name dropping and wrap it up. Other films in the gallery include my friend AJ’s film Take Care, tennis comedy Break Point, Late Phases, Starry Eyes, I Believe In Unicorns and the cast of the new Dusk Til Dawn TV show including Danny Trejo and Robert Patrick!

I also shot red carpet stuff for Chef (which I loved), Supermench (I got to photography Mike Myers aka Wayne Campbell!), Neighbors (Zac Efron selfie), A Night In Old Mexico and Cesar Chavez. I also got to shoot Cesar Chavez portraits but they gave me less than 30 seconds and were missing a cast member and Diego Luna and they were kinda rude about it (the publicists not the actors0. Rosario Dawson is also insanely attractive in real life. I have had a crush on her since the mid 90’s.

Okay, I am done! Click here to see the giant gallery of 2014 SXSW Film portraits!

Saturday at Fun Fun Fun was even more packed with bands I wanted to see. I got there early so I could check out one of my favorite newer bands Bleached. I like them better every time I see them and I listen to their record all the time. Low fi female fronted rock and roll is oddly becoming one of my favorite types of music. After Bleached I got to see Brooklyn’s finest Flatbush Zombies. I once photographed them playing on a skate ramp and they always put on a hell of a show.

I took a quick break to catch some comedy. My old pal Jenny Slate told a bunch of jokes and then the JASH comedy tent turned into a hot box when the weed obsessed Doug Benson came on and proceeded to be hilarious. Either that or I had a serious contact high. Craig Robinson came out and did a pretty epic comedic musical performance with a full back up band.

After that I was walking over to the press tent for a second when I passed the Glass Candy performance. It was super weird and high energy so I stopped by for a few shots. After that it was on to check out Television. I know people love them but I just never got into them. Seeing them live didn’t really change my opinion but I only saw the first few songs before running across the festival to the Black Stage catch mother fucking Body Count!

Unfortunately when I got there Ice-T was already a song into Body Count’s brutal set. My punk band covers Cop Killer and I loved Body Count growing up so I was really bummed when they wouldn’t let me into the photo pit. I said “Fuck it” and jumped into the crowd and watched the show from the mosh pit. I got some okay shots but I missed a lot of others as I was dodging stage divers and trying not to get killed. I ended up smashing my Ray Bans in the process. Damn. It was worth it though and they were one of the highlights of the fest for me. They are coming out with a new album soon and the new shit they played sounded awesome.

After Body Count I got to knock another band off my must see bucket list. I came to this festival mostly to see two bands, Flag and Sparks. Flag’s set yesterday really lived up to the hype and I was so excited to see Sparks. They have been around since the early 70’s and have more than 20 albums and very few people know them in the US. It’s really strange because they are so brilliant. I got turned on to them about a decade ago and I consider myself a huge fan despite owning barely a quarter of their albums. Seeing them live was really awesome but they played so much stuff I didn’t know that I was a bit disappointed over all. But that’s on me. They still put on a hell of a performance to a pretty impressively large crowd.

After Sparks I walked over to M.I.A. to see the start of her set. I missed a chance to see what I believe was her first show in the US in Austin about 10 years ago and I sort of always regretted it so I wanted to at least try and take a couple photos of her. Unfortunately the photo pit was overfilled with photographers and I mostly got shots of her from the side or the back of her head. I was pretty disappointed but it was a good lesson in shooting that stage which served me well when I got to shoot Slayer there the next day. My M.I.A. photos were also lacking because I only saw about a song and a half of her set before I ran across the grounds to the Black Stage once again.

The Descendents were about to go on but I made it in time, unfortunately they still wouldn’t let me in the photo pit. I was pissed because I supposedly had a “headliner” photo pass but they still wouldn’t let me in so for the third time in two days I jumped into the mosh pit and took photos from the crowd.  I love the Descendents and I hadn’t seen them since 1998 so it was awesome to see them. I remember thinking how old they were back then and Milo was only two years older than I am now. God damn. They put on an awesome show but I didn’t take great shots. I was having way too much fun. At some point I told a guy in the crowd that if they played “Pervert” I was going to stage dive with my camera. My band covers Pervert so I know every word and two songs later they played it so I climbed on stage, tried to take a photo from stage and then jumped into the crowd, camera in hand. Unfortunately my settings got bumped when I climbed on the stage and I set it on self timer mode so my camera didn’t take a photo. I changed modes while crowd surfing and was getting ready to take some photos from the air when a guy stage dived right on top of me for some reason. I got dropped but my legs stayed in the air. Fortunately I have a life time of crowd surfing practice and I let myself fall but kept my camera up. I got trampled on the ground and fucked up my shoulder but managed to keep my camera safe. I did lose my flash diffuser but it could have been a lot worse.

I limped out of the pit to a bunch of high fives and slaps on the back. It was a lot of fun but I was done for. The fest was almost over so I slowly walked out of there with the sounds of the Decendents soothing my painful trip back to my friends couch. I was ready to call it quits but I had 1400 photos to edit and another whole day of the fest. Bring it on.

Click here to see all the photos from Saturday at Fun Fun Fun Fest 8 at Auditorium Shores in Austin, TX.

Normally I don’t shoot music festivals unless I am getting paid a lot of money. I shot nothing but bands for the first 8 years of my photo career and I sort of hate doing it now. With digital camera’s and the “three songs, no flash” photo pit rules every single photographer gets nearly the same shot of every band and every band gets photographed by a million people a year. So what’s the point? On top of that shooting festivals is even worse. But yet I headed to Austin over the weekend to shoot a music festival and I will be lucky if I break even.

Fun Fun Fun Fest has year after year the best line up of bands in the country. They bring in legendary artists in hip hop, punk, metal, pop and even comedy. They tend to have very diverse bands that all work so well together that you are running back and forth because so often there are multiple bands playing at the same time that you want to see. During the fest I knocked a couple bands of my life time bucket list and got to see FOUR bands that my punk cover band Fucking Bullshit covers. It was epic.

On top of that I love Austin and will take any chance to spend time there. I got to see a bunch of friends and I even photographed four naked girls there including one I ran into in the street and a stranger I was introduced to who had never posed nude before. Did I mention breakfast burritos and BBQ? I fucking love Austin.

Anyway, I got to a late start on Friday after photographing Quinn Cornchip again, but I got to see Little Boots, Kurt Vile, Big Freedia, Lupe Fiasco, Patton Oswalt and mother fucking Flag. Black Flag is probably the most important band to me in my life. They were my introduction to punk and their early material when they were fronted by Keith Morris was fucking life changing. Keith got the band back together with four Black Flag members but can’t call the band Black Flag because guitarist Greg Ginn owns the name. Ginn started his own band called Black Flag that only has two former members (although Ron Reyes was my favorite singer) and they just released a new album which is honestly better than expected. Still, I was way more excited about Flag than I was about Black Flag and they did not disappoint. Two songs into their set I jumped out of the photo pit and into the mosh pit and it was honestly one of the best experiences I have had at a concert in years.

On top of all that I got to meet BMX legend Mat Hoffman and eat free Twinkies (they are back and way worse than I remember). It was a pretty good Friday and I was wrecked by the end of Flag’s set but I was ready to do it all the next day and Saturday was jam packed with bands. I will have those photos tomorrow but in the mean time check out the pictures from Friday!

Click here to see all the photos from Fun Fun Fun Fest Friday at Auditorium Shores in Austin, TX!

A few months ago I got a chance to shoot author Chuck Palahniuk for an interview in Hustler Magazine. Palahniuk is most famously the author of Fight Club but has written tons of incredible and fucked up books like Choke, Survivor and Haunted. As someone who doesn’t read much fiction I always enjoyed Palahniuk mixing of disturbing stories with massive amounts of interesting facts so you are learning things as the tales unfold.

I was pretty excited about the shoot and I don’t often get a chance to shoot celebrities that aren’t drunk or naked. The shoot was at a sex shop (Thanks Pleasure Chest!!) but I was still not sure how comfortable Mr. Palahniuk was going to be with all the sex toys behind him. The shoot started out pretty tame but at some point I got him to pick up one of the sex toys and he just started tossing it up in the air and I got some kinda amazing shots. It’s not every day that you get to take photos of a best selling author juggling dildos. I was pretty psyched.

I haven’t had a chance to read the Hustler interview yet but it’s in the February 2014 issue which is somehow in stores now! Magazine publishing is a mystery to me but go buy that shit, read the interview and look at my photos. In the mean time you can check out the outtakes below!

Click here to see a full gallery of outtakes from the Hustler interview with author Chuck Palahniuk at The Pleasure Chest!

The LA release party for my Route 66 book “Get Your Kicks” was a huge success. It was so humbling to see all the people who came out to support me. I sold some art, a bunch of books, and Mishka LA was packed all night. Art shows are terrifying to me because as much as I think I like attention I really hate it when it’s actually happening. In retrospect it was awesome but during the show I was kinda freaking out. Talking to people about my “art” is pretty much the worst part about this whole process. I was running like a chicken sans head and trying to talk to everyone.

It was such a cool group of people who came out to the show and they well represented the diversity of the things I like to photograph. Two of the stars of the book Charlotte Stokely and Ash Hollywood came out but so did a lot of other adult film stars including Kimberly Kane, Dana DeArmond, Aiden Starr, Skin Diamond, Andy San Dimas, Veruca James, Claire Robbins, Catie Parker, Phoenix Askani, Tommy Pistol and Lee Roy Meyers, plus nude models Alysha Nett and Shay Laren. A bunch of nightlife peoples came out including DJ Skeet and Justin Tranter of Semi Precious weapons. In the tattoo world Oliver Peck and Brooklyn Payne. Comedians Maddox and Steve Agee showed up and so did amazing fine artists Coop & Shark Toof. A bunch of my photographer friends showed up including Rony Alwin, Tyler Curtis, JM Darling, Steve Diet Goedde & Victor Lightworship. Plus tons of my really good friends including my brother and CHIPS the designers of the book!

These photos kinda suck because I was too busy having an art show to take photos. I just sort of mindlessly snapped shots without a flash and hoped they would come out. I think I took better photos on my Instagram but whatever, hopefully I will eventually see some of the photos that other people took. Also, this gallery is NSFW thanks to both the art in the show and Veruca James & Catie Parker taking their clothes off.

Thanks Mishka LA for hosting the event, thanks to Kimberly Kane for helping me hang the show, thanks to Sailor Jerry and PBR for the booze and thanks to everyone for coming out! Oh, and the show is up until late November if you are in LA and still want to check out the photo show!

Lastly, remember that the NYC release party is tomorrow night! Hopefully you can make it out, but if not I just put the book on Etsy! Go order one!

Now click here to see all the photos from the Get Your Kicks book release party and photo show at Mishka LA!

height=”752″ />

A few months ago I headed down to BaoHaus, the Taiwanese bun shop on 14th Street in order to photograph chef and owner Eddie Haung.  Eddie had just come out with his book “Fresh Off The Boat” and was making news with his Vice show of the same name. I was hired by a magazine to photograph him for an interview that unfortunately never happened but I got some cool shots so I wanted to share them with you.

The magazine liked his street wear style and I wanted to do something different than just photos in BaoHaus. I had an idea to go down to a sneaker shop like Alife Rivington Club and have him try on shoes or something, but he had a better idea. He wanted to get his nails done. He had never actually had a manicure before but we both thought it was a pretty hilarious concept so we walked down the street to a place and he got his nails did while I took pictures. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes and then we went back to his restaurant and I took a few more pictures of him there while he made me some food. It was fucking delicious.

Now click here to see all the unpublished photos of Fresh Off The Boat’s Eddie Huang getting his nails did.

Oliver Peck is not only a bad ass tattoo artist and host of TV’s Ink Master, he  also happens to be one of the only Republicans that I get along with. After spending the last seven weeks in NYC filming season three of Ink Master Oliver is headed back home to Dallas. Last night with the help of Sailor Jerry he threw an insane going away party at Arlene’s Grocery.

Back in Dallas, Oliver and his friend Josh Hammertimez host Good Luck Karaoke, which is pretty much like regular karaoke except Josh and Oliver cause a ruckus on stage while you are performing your song. They brought the party to NYC last night and did karaoke until everyone was too drunk to sing anymore. I have seen a lot of karaoke in my life but never as out of control as last night. The Alkaline Trio showed up and Matt Skiba got wasted on Sailor Jerry and decided to play the drums during about ten people’s karaoke sets. It was pretty amazing/ hilarious.

Oliver also brought his friend and co-worker at Elm Street Tattoo, Carl Hallowell, to tattoo Sailor Jerry flash on people while the karaoke madness was going on in the other room. Skiba got a death head moth on his hand, my dude AK Murda got a hinge, Steve Lewis got a pin up, etc. Lot of rad tattoos all around.

Oh, I should probably mention that everyone was wearing wigs all night. Why you ask? I have no idea actually, but it probably has something to do with Oliver’s drag queen Ramones tribute band The Ramonahs. They played a set in the middle of the karaoke party and it was fucking awesome. Oliver does a pretty good Joey Ramone impression only with a mustache and fake tits. Seriously it was wild.

Enough with the story let’s get to some pictures. It was a wild night…

Click here to see all the pictures from Oliver Peck’s Wig Party at Arlene’s Grocery featuring Good Luck Karoke and The Ramonahs!

Last night I went out to the Roseland Ballroom with almost no idea what I was going to see. I knew my friends from Trouble & Bass were DJing and I knew it was part of the massive month long Red Bull Music Academy. Other than that I didn’t know much, I really just wanted to get out of the house and shoot some photos. I’ve been so busy working on a bunch of random project that I haven’t had  much time to do any actual work.

So it turns out the event was “Culture Clash” a battle between four NYC DJ crews hosted by Miss Info. Trouble & Bass were squaring off against the reggae  crew Federation Sound, the “Global Bass” duo Que Bajo and hip hop producers/djs Just Blaze and Young Guru. I am not gonna lie, I was pretty psyched for Just Blaze and Young Guru even though I was rooting for my T&B fam.

The contest works like this: There are four rounds and the winning team gets a point for rounds two and three and two points for round four. The first round is just 15 min to do whatever you like to get the crowd hyped and no one wins. The second round is more of the same but it the crowd votes on it. In the third round each crew has to play another team’s type of music and the fourth round is all originals and live performances.

I am not gonna talk a ton about Federation Sound or Que Bajo too much because this post is going to be way too long as it is and they don’t really play music I am into. I am a massive Jimmy Cliff fan and I fuck with some other reggae stuff but dub reggae is just not my jam. Que Bajo plays some sort of mix of reggaeton, moombahton and other latin and island stuff that is pretty interesting but again, not really what I am feeling.  I will say that Federation Sound really brought it to the competition, handing out whistles and noisemakers, doing a ton of original stuff written just for the Culture Clash and as you can see in the photos basically went to war with the other groups. Que Bajo put on a fun show with dancers and MC’s and some funny disses but their photo pit was way too small so I didn’t focus on them as much as the other groups.

Just Blaze and Young Guru killed it all night. They have produced for everyone in hip hop and brought most of them on stage with them at some point in the night. They had guest appearances by Raekwon, 2 Chainz, Wale, Jadakiss, Memphis Bleek, Pharoahe Monch, Syles P and a ton of others. It was pretty wild. Just Blaze brought a t-shirt cannon and was giving away stuff all night. At one point he filled it with money and made it rain on the audience. Unfortunately I was on the other side of the room taking to a friend and I left the event just as broke as when I walked in. They killed it all night and I am a way bigger hip hop fan than I am any of the other genres so I was psyched for their sets.

But as awesome as Blaze and Guru were, Trouble & Bass brought it even harder. They were a late edition and had only a few days to get ready. Despite this they had really dumb/funny signs and Ninja Turtles prepared. They won every single round and walked off stage Culture Clash champs after calling their shot with fake NY Posts that declared them the winners after the third round. Speaking of the third round, they were the only ones who did a great job DJing another genre, but they had a ringer. They had to imitate Que Bajo, so they brought out Dave Nada who actually invented moombathon and he clearly killed it. They had some awesome special guests as well. Aside from their host all night Teli from Ninjasonik they also had Flatbush Zombies and Nina Sky perform. They brought out the big guns in the last round with an amazing performance by Robin S doing her early 90’s hit Show Me Love. Everyone lost their minds instantly. She killed it so hard. They ended their set with a great dis, bringing out Cam’Ron doing tracks that Just Blaze produced. It was amazing and they deserved the win. I jumped on stage and hung out with them while they DJ’d everyone out of Roseland. It was a special moment. So proud of those dudes.

I took SO many damn photos so if you want to get into it there are nearly 400 images in this gallery. It’s gonna be hard to pull my favorites below but I am gonna try my best.

Click here to see the HUGE gallery of pictures from the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash.

Gotta make this quick as SXSW Music week is in full swing, but I wanted to try to get some more stuff up while I had a chance. I saw five films at SXSW and I shot the red carpet for each film. I have seen some really great stuff at SXSW and this year was no exception.

The opening film was the Incredible Burt Wonderstone with Steve Carell, Jim Carrey and Olivia Wilde. Steve Buscemi and Alan Arkin were in it too, but sadly they didn’t show up to the red carpet. Huge films that open at SXSW tend to be really, really funny and Burt Wonderstone was fucking hilarious. Go see it even though it’s about magicians.

The next film I saw was Prince Avalanche directed by David Gordon Green. It had Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in it. It was a slightly confused movie, somewhere in between a comedy and a slow meditation on loneliness. I enjoyed it but I think Paul Rudd fans will find it pretty boring.

The highlight of the festival for me was Joe Swanberg’s film Drinking Buddies. I have known Joe for about 10 years and I have seen probably 5 of his films and enjoyed them all but Drinking Buddies blew me away. It was his first film with big name actors and that helped make the film more accessible and added a lot of emotion that you don’t get from Joe’s indie film friends. I remember thinking Hannah Takes The Stairs was the most real film I had ever seen, but this film had that same realness with a lot of talent and acting chops behind it thanks to Ron Livingston, Anna Kendrick, Oliva Wilde and Jake Johnson. Jake Johnson is really a fantastic actor and was in my favorite film of SXSW last year, Safety Not Guaranteed. At the press conference after the movie all the actors were so complimentary of Joe, I was so damn proud. I think this movie is going to do really well and make Joe a household name. Fuck mumblecore jokes.

Spring Breakers had the most hype at SXSW and it totally lived up to it. Harmony Korine is a fucking lunatic and makes the most insane films that exist. Spring Breakers is no exception. I don’t even know if I liked the film but I was really glad to see it. You need to see it. James Franco plays his weirdest character yet and a bunch of teen idles play over sexed criminals. Also, on the red carpet watching teen girls try to trample each other to get to Selena Gomez was pretty amazing too.

The last film I saw was Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s film Don Juan. He wrote and directed and starred in it. Tony Danza played his father and was really great in it. Tony Danza needs to be getting more work. Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the other hand can fuck himself because he made a film about how bad porn is. Fuck that shit, you puritanical motherfucker. Don’t go see Don Jon. Stay home and jerk off to porn instead.

Click here to see all the red carpet pictures from the 2013 South By Southwest Film Festival.