Mishka’s 10th Anniversary – 9.26.13

The Brooklyn based street wear brand Mishka celebrated their 10th anniversary last night at Stage 48th last night. For me Mishka turning 10 was less about a party for a clothing company and more about seeing family grow up. When I moved to Brooklyn 7 years ago I happened to move a few blocks from Mishka’s base of operations. I vaguely knew a few people from the brand in nightlife and when they had a warehouse sale I stopped in because it was a few blocks away from my apartment. They didn’t even have a store yet, much less the stores they have in Brooklyn, LA, San Francisco and Tokyo. I ended up leaving their warehouse with a couple things including one of their Keep Watch hats, all black with the famous eyeball on the front.

I wore that hat pretty much every day for a year. Eventually someone from Mishka approached me about shooting a lookbook for them. They wanted to do a nightlife themed book and figured I was a fan of the brand because I wore the hat every day. The truth is I liked the hat but I didn’t want to shoot a look book for clothes. I had done two look books for clothes before and both times the brands failed before I even got the gear. The lookbooks were never even published. I had learned my lesson so I said no. They kept bugging me about it over and over again until I finally agreed.

The shoot ended up being the Spring 2009 lookbook  and while I am not a big fan of the photos I am so glad I did it. Yeah, I ended up with some free clothes but I also gained a family. Back before Mishka took over the world you would see people in Mishka and you could walk up and say hi because they were friends with somebody you were friends with. Wearing the eyeball meant you were down with all the other kids Keeping Watch.

In the nearly five years that have passed since we shot that lookbook Mishka has blown up like you wouldn’t believe. I recently got a chance to check out their massive new office space in Greenpoint and I just was excited for Mikhail and Greg. Their office has a god damn bar in it. So proud of those dudes and how far their little t-shirt company has gone in just the five years I’ve known them.

So last night I went to their party at Stage 48 and saw King Louie and World’s Fair and had some fun but the party isn’t nearly as important as what it meant… seeing the Mishka family grow up. And yeah, I took some photos and once again I shot something for Mishka for free because they will pay me back in a lot more than clothes.

Speaking of all this, I am going to announce it officially next week, but Mishka LA is going to be the location for my Route 66 book release party on October 11th and we are going to do something in NYC too but that’s a bit up in the air right now. This party in LA is going to be amazing and it never would have happened if I didn’t shoot that lookbook back in late 2008. Thanks Mishka and congrats on your 10th birthday!

Click here to see all the photos I took at Mishka’s 10th Anniversary at Stage 48.

Mishka's Mikhail Bortnik & Greg Rivera

World's Fair @ Mishka 10th Anniversary

Mishka 10th Anniversary

King Louie @ Mishka 10th Anniversary

Mishka 10th Anniversary

Mishka 10th Anniversary

Mishka 10th Anniversary

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Whitney: Engineered To Destroy

You guys remember Whitney right? We went on a road trip across the country this summer. You might recall that we took topless photos of her along the way. It was good times. Unfortunately after she dropped me off I didn’t see her again until a few days ago. Whitney was in NYC for a little bit after that but we never managed to run into each other and then she was back to LA from whence she came.  Luckily for us she was in town this past week and we decided we had to do a new photo shoot.

But where could we shoot I wondered? I am pretty much out of locations. I noticed on the Twitters that Mishka was promoting their Black Friday sale pretty heavily and it gave me idea.  Their 350 Broadway flagship store is right around the corner from my Brooklyn apartment so I hit them up and asked them if I could use it as a location. Mishka said yes and we pulled come clothes for Whitney out of boxes in the back (including this Engineered To Destroy snapback that I now own) and we got to work.

350 Broadway has insanely weird mixed lighting so we got to mess around with that a lot. The photos glow of liquor store esque neon lights. We had her play Street Fighter and lay around on top of sweaters. They probably could sell for more now… One of the funniest parts of the shoot was that we did it right around 3PM and school kids and Hasidic families kept walking by.  We hid her pretty good when we could but I think a few people got a pretty good show.

Anyway, enjoy the NSFW photos and make sure you score some Mishka swag for all the hip kids on your Christmas list. They are having a big Cyber Monday sale today only!

Click here to see all the shots of Whitney at Mishka’s 350 Broadway flagship in Brooklyn.

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

Whitney @ Mishka

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Dave Hill

I have been a fan of comedian/musician Dave Hill for a long time. When I first moved to NYC I was very involved in the comedy scene because some of my first friends in New York were comedians and girls who liked banging comedians.  Stand up comedy is pretty boring to photograph so I would usually just go to the shows and then go shoot parties after. I never really did much comedy photography although I always talked about it.

Over the last few months I have been wanting to do more editorial work but I don’t really have a portfolio for it so I hit up a bunch of comedian friends of mine to try to do some photo shoots. None of them happened because both comedians and I travel constantly so it was hard to find a good time. I kept trying and finally Dave and I had a chance to meet up.

I went over to his place in the West Village the other day and we just hit the streets to find something to shoot. We didn’t really have any ideas until I remembered their was a pet store near his house. He suggested we walk a bit further and see if a place called Citipups would let us take photos of Dave with their puppies. Citipups were awesome and they let Dave and I play with an adorable Westie puppy and the most awkward looking dog I have ever seen, a cross eyed Boston Terrier.

We shot a bunch of photos of the dogs in this awful mixed light that they had in the store and then we went out and hit the street for some just standard portraits.  We eventually ended up at Teen Vogue’s Fashion Night Out event which is even funnier if you knew Dave’s history when it comes to reporting on fashion week.

After you check out all the photos you need to check out Dave’s website because it is fucking hilarious.  But before you do that click here to see all my photos of comedian Dave Hill.

Dave Hill & Puppies!

Dave Hill & Puppies!

Dave Hill & Puppies!

Dave Hill

Dave Hill

Dave Hill

Dave Hill @ Teen Vogues Fashion Night Out

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Mishka X New Era – 2.3.11

I am headed to Philly in an hour or two for a tattoo convention and some parties and some madness. I have no idea where I am staying or exactly what I am doing but I guess that’s the fun part of traveling when you are me and never make any sort of plans. Anyway, I probably am not going to bring my computer with me on this trip which means I won’t be able to update this weekend so I wanted to get something up really quickly today so you guys don’t suffer.  I would hate to deprive you of new DBB content for 3 days.  That would just be mean. So…

Last night I shot this crazy Das Racist show at the Highline Ballroom, but before I went over there I stopped by the New Era flag ship store to say what’s up to the Mishka guys who were having a party to celebrate their collaboration with New Era.  They designed two exclusive hats and matching T-shirts for New Era.  I took a few shots for fun so you can check them out and then run over to the New Era store on E. 4th street and Broadway and check these fuckers out for yourself.

Mishka X New Era

Mishka X New Era

Mishka X New Era

Mishka X New Era

Mishka X New Era

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Behind The Scenes Of The Alumni 2012 Look Book

Back in may on the day of my 30th birthday I awoke strangely not that hung over. The night before I got so drunk that I ate a bag of cocaine and got stuck in my laundry basket. I don’t even do drugs… much less eat them. So when I woke up the next day I didn’t really think I was going to be functional. Surprisingly I was, and the Alumni look book shoot was happening a few blocks away from me so I stumbled over there with my camera in hand.

I was hired to do just a general behind the scenes shoot and just get shots of the goings on so that when the look book was launched I could bring you a post just like this promoting the new line. But I really think I was mostly there to get the Burning Angels and Suicide Girls who where there modeling naked in the bathroom. I am totally fine with that. So not only do I have this wonderful gallery of behind the scenes shots from the look book shoot, but I also have three galleries of hot alt babes that I will be bringing to  you throughout the week… Starting with later today..

So, get excited about the new Alumni line. The shirts are fresh. I have a couple shirts I have been wearing since May and people love them.  Check out the new Alumni 2012 website and buy some shit. And then click right here to look at all of the BTS photos from the Alumni shoot.  The NSFW shots are just tiny previews from the hot galleries to come. I repeat: get excited!

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The IGORR

Check out The IGORR.

The IGORR is some sort of Frankensteinesque version of a Converse Chuck Taylor All Star made by Steve Madden.  While the shoe is completely hideous it does have one main feature that makes me have to buy a pair: it is named after me.  And not in any sort of coincidental way… the shoe was actually named after me.

Last year I had a roommate named Kara.  She was pretty much the best roommate I have had since my freshman year of college.  When she moved in I figured she would be around for ages, but she snuck out in the middle of the night to move in with my good friend and now next door neighbor OJ.  Seriously, they moved less than 5 feet away from me.  As a going away present Kara, who happens to be the male shoe buyer for Steve Madden, named a shoe after me.  That was in September so I figured it would have been out ages ago (and it probably was since they are on sale) but she just sent me the link today.  I am pretty excited about it.  It’s not quite a shoe colab with Etnies, but I’ll take it.

Now the real question is… Which color should I get?

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Married To The Mob Summer Video Look Book Party – 5.13.10

Married To The Mob had a party at the Thompson LES Hotel yesterday to premiere their Summer 2010 Video Look book. The look book starred one of the hottest porn stars on earth, Faye Reagan and you can watch it here.

I ran out of time today to do a write up about it, so just look at the pictures for now, and I will be back either really late tonight or tomorrow to update this post.

So yeah, the party was on a sort of roof deck on the Thompson and there was Belvedere Vodka and a ton of chocolate candies everywhere which I kept eating because I was starving.  The party started a little bit slow, but by the time I had to leave the place was well over capacity I am sure. They had the video playing on repeat and there was a large balcony for the smokers with a great view of the LES. The one drawback to this smoking balcony was that it had two sliding glass doors and as I was going through one opening, someone else was going through another and slid his door into my door crushing me in between. While hilarious, the whole thing really fucking hurt my spine. The party was DJ’d by N.I.R.E. and DJ Jazzy Joyce who both were both killing it with really amazing hip hop all night. Jazzy Joyce spun like three of my favorite songs in a row, so I have to give extra love to her.

So anyway, I took a ton of pictures and then I escaped to do a photo shoot with a girl in Hell’s Kitchen and then on my way back home I saw a really fantastic fight in a bodega that involved a guy jump kicking the shop keeper in the chest and then getting beaten with some sort of club until the cops showed up. I took a few pictures with my 35mm camera so when I develop them I will let you know.

In the mean time click here to see the pictures from the Married To The Mob Summer Video Premiere party at the Thompson LES.

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WMC Randomness

So if all goes well everything I shot in Miami for WMC will be up today.  I have two big parties to update later with some of the more fun I shot in them, but in the mean time I am just going to give you all the other random stuff I shot at WMC.  In general I took WMC pretty easy.  I had two parties that I was hired to shoot, and then I could shoot whatever I wanted for the Village Voice and I needed to put a tattoo gallery together for Inked Magazine.  Other than that I didn’t have a lot to do and I took advantage of that by just loafing about most of the days.

In this gallery you will find a few shots from my first night in town where I slept all day and then went to White Room for about an hour before taking a cab back to the hotel I got by the airport just so I could take a nap. My cab driver meanwhile was taking a nap while he was driving me to my hotel.  It was insane. He was driving 40 MPH in a 55.  People were zooming past us while he was drifting lanes. I thought I was going to die.  I didn’t.

After that we have some pictures from the Raleigh Hotel pool where Steve Aoki was Djing for about 25 people drinking free Alize. That was pretty exciting.  I think one of the first times I met Steve was at the same hotel, but we were on the roof and we had a conversation about how we would jump off if there was a fire. I am glad to know that people think about weird shit like that as much as I do.

Aslo in the gallery are shots from this fashion takeover of some store.  I really wish I had the energy to figure out what it was exactly, but I am really tired so I will just wait until Paloma or Robb sees this and yells at me until I put in the correct info.

There seem to be shots of DJ Loli and Tommie Sunshine in here, but I have no idea where they came from, and then there was the night that I went to a few spots for no reason and then the girl I was trying to entertain left with her exboyfriend. That was fun. And then tehre are a few shots that just seem to be lost.  Whatever, it’s all Winter Music and its all Miami. Deal with the disorder.

Oh! This gallery even has some boobs! NSFW!

Click here to see all the randoms stuff from WMC that didn’t fit into any of my other galleries.

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Brooklyn Royalty Fashion Week Closing Party – 2.18.10

Brooklyn Royalty has a new home.  Bob Bland and her partner Jeff opened a new spot in Williamsburg called Kingdom. It is on N. 4th street between Bedford & Driggs. It is right next to the San Loco.  The reason I am getting all specific about the date is because I am throwing an event there tonight at 9pm.  But of course you know that already. What is more important at this moment is that Bob threw her Brooklyn Royalty fashion week party at her new spot.  It was the official opening of Kingdom and while the place isn’t finished yet, it is a very cool looking spot. I can’t wait for the show tonight.

Bob had some models on hand showing off her new line.  They took turns posing in a picture frame.  I got there pretty late, but I ran around and got a bunch of shots anyway.  I took a few cute ones of Bob on the Skee-Ball machine.  Any place with Skee-Ball has to be amazing.   In the 30 mintues I was there I manged to annoy a group of four girls, walked in on one of the models changing and managed to take some absolutely horrible pictures (now deleted).  Fortunately I managed to take some good ones too.  I hope you like the shots, Brooklyn Royalty’s new line, and of course the venue.  Come check it out for yourself tonight.  Free! 9pm! Bands at 10!

 Check out all the shots from the Brooklyn Royalty Fashion Week party at Kingdom by clicking here. Oh, and there is a show there tonight too, just incase you didn’t get the memo.

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