From the Archives : Furnace Fest 2022

As the final chapter in the current incarnation of Furnace Fest is just a couple of weeks away, I’ve gone back and looked at many of the photos I took in 2022 and reminisced about seeing old friends, making new ones and how the DIY punk scene has shaped every facet of my life since the day someone gave me that first Minor Threat record. While its super cliche to say we’re out of step, I truly believe that merry band of misfits and sense of friendship I found in the scene has made my life infinitely better.

So have a scroll through some of my favourite frames of the weekend and get ready for the final chapter. I’m super bummed I won’t be able to make the flight this year, but I’ll be there in spirit.

Travel Diary: Zurich, Switzerland

I booked a flight to Zurich to meet up with family and did absolutely zero research on really anything. I pretty much outlined the last meet up with the family and this time they had taken care of most of the planning, so I figured I’d let the places just kind reveal themselves to me. My first time to Switzerland, I had only the stereotypes and I was sure there was more to it than visions of cowbells, Alpine chalets and expensive watches. That said, I didn’t expect to find some grittiness in the cities. I should have known there will always be areas where the misfits, the strange, and fringes go. Leave it to me to stumble into these areas without realising it. I basically chose my hotel based on its decent proximity to the train station and it ended up right on the edge of the red light district. Needless to say, it’s a bit of a departure from the quaintness of the old part of the city. Aimlessly wandering, I popped into Old Love Tattoo shop to check it out and ended up hanging out with a few of those guys on the street just watching the endless stream of amusement on Langstrasse. Side note, go check out Bug Nasty aka Marlon Muralles’ work. He’s actually in LA right now for you folks back in the States. Go tell him I said whats up. Anyways, even though it was filled with all kinds of sketchiness, I never felt unsafe. The American in me experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance in that places like this in the States necessitate your head being on a swivel for sketchballs and people trying to jack you. This didn’t feel like that. It’s this juxtaposition that I love seeing anywhere I travel to…The swirling mixture of modernity and tradition, clean and grit, new and old. It’s where all the interesting stuff lives.

For the photographers, I shot all of these on my trusty Fuji X100V. I took along the tele conversion lens to give me a 50mm equivalent, so I guess I cheated the system a bit on the whole fixed lens camera game. This little set up is so light and easy to run and gun with it makes me wonder how I ever traveled with the bigger, heavier set up. Yeah, the files may be better on the other camera and I may have been able to shoot some things that the smaller setup’s limitations prevented, but, you know, who cares. I’m not trying to be a pack mule and lug around a ton of gear and end up looking like Quasimoto hunched over shuffling around. Maybe I’m lazy….maybe I have it figured out. Maybe neither, but here we are, and I’m not mad at the images, so I’m going to keep it going this way. After all, if “F8 and be there” is good enough for Arthur Fellig aka Weegee (if your’e not familiar, it’s time you get acquainted) then its good enough for me.

Travel Diary: Hoi An

This past week, I headed up to Quang Nam to meet up with some photographer homies for a motorbike trip up into the mountains and up the Ho Chi Minh Road for a few days. I expected epic photo ops and to come back with a memory card filled with bangers. Mother nature had other ideas and it was overcast and drizzled off and on the entire time so my camera stayed in my bag more often than not. So, instead of focusing on photography, the same weather that made for pretty forgettable photos was absolutely perfect for riding. That said, when we got back to Hoi An, I was itching to find some light to make some photos. While the light wasn’t the best that afternoon, I headed out on a sunset tour with Etienne. If you’re not familiar with Pics of Asia, it’s time to get acquainted. I’m a little biased in that Etienne is a long time friend, but his tours are incredible. Everywhere from Hoi An to Bangladesh, Pics of Asia runs photography tours based on ethical travel photography and breaking bread with locals. Shameless plug, I’m co-leading a workshop in Sri Lanka this January and we may have one spot left. hint hint.. It’s going to be incredible.

So, off we went into the fields and into the villages on the outskirts of Hoi An. First stop was a little spot making My Quang noodles. My Quang is one of my favourite Vietnamese noodle dishes and is a speciality of Quang Nam. Thus the name. We then headed out into the neighbouring fields as the workers finished up their day and were heading home as the sun quickly dipped towards the horizon. It wasn’t exactly one of those show stopping golden hours, but there was nice drama in the skies and sometimes, thats enough. The drama in those skies turned out to be an absolute downpour around 7pm, so when I met a friend of mine for dinner in the Old Town, it was largely empty after the rain stopped. Right after a rain is one of my favourite times to shoot, so I happily snapped away. Reflections, mood, atmosphere…. love it..

Saigon Punk Chronicles: The Metal Edition

Not really a hardcore or punk show per se, but this show still had a lot of overlap in the crowd. The bill consisted of Orca from the Philippines, Diarsia off their brand new release, Method, Obsess, and the Korean shred machine Oathean. I grabbed the Fuji x100v and an old speedlight and rolled the dice. These shows give me a chance to experiment with different set ups - multiple cameras, light set ups, techniques…No pressure if I shit the bed and they turn out awful, but at least I learned something, right?. That said, I don’t think I’ve run into any insurmountable challenges, and different tools yield different results. I wanted to shoot a bit more abstract images to bridge over from the usual dragged shutter and speedlight combo and I think they turned out interesting. Tried a bit of multiple exposure shenanigans. Essentially played around and threw everything at the wall to see what stuck. Maybe a bit artsy even..

Recent Work : Cameron Foggo Design

Back at it with the amazing team at Cameron Foggo Design, we wanted to create some dynamic new images for the line coming out this summer. We built new sets, came up with new ideas, and overall had a blast shooting the new line. It’s always so good to have repeat clients so the work can evolve and improve over the course of multiple shoots. Many thanks for the trust and can’t wait until the next one. The last image is a bit of an extra as we blended ambient light with our strobes to create this evening vibe.

For all the photographers, these are a mix of images from my Sony kit as well as the little Fuji x100v. I’ve been taking the Fuji to commercial shoots for behind the scenes shots as well as documenting my lighting for future reference, but on this particular shoot, I grabbed some frames to see if they held up. I think they did, and it just goes to show you, the megapixelZ aren’t the end all be all for cameras. See if you can tell which ones are which. Put it in the comments and if someone gets it, I’ll mail you a free 8x10 print of anything on my website.

If you’re keen on seeing the first shoot, have a look here!

Travel Diary : Alor Archipelago, Indonesia

It’s hard to really convey into words about how special some places in the world are. That said, if there was a list, Alor is currently sitting at the top. These images have been waiting to get published for around a month. During that time, I’ve been staring at the screen trying to figure out how to say how incredible this place is and I don’t think it’s possible to really convey with words, my photos, or even the mix of the two. These images are from the small time I spent above water in between diving and seeing all the incredible creatures of the ocean. Time seems to stand still. I know I’ve spoken about how time seems to slow down in some places, but somehow in Alor it feels like the world just stops and you’re in that place you’re supposed to be. At least it is for me. I can’t get enough of it.

Every morning before heading out on the dive boat, I tried to catch sunrise and meander around the small town near the dive shop. Only after one day, I was recognised by half the people I came in contact with. I guess the western dude wandering around aimlessly is a bit noticeable. That being said, the people of Alor are so wonderfully friendly. I was greeted by handshakes, hugs, high fives and smiles. This was my second time to Alor and you can check out the photos from that trip here. I was pretty much convinced it was perfect on my first visit….until I came back and realised it just keeps getting better and has me counting down the days until I go back. I think I’ll make this a yearly trip, and I’d love to spend some real time here and setting in to a routine to really soak it all in. Hopefully some of these images will do this place justice.

As far as diving goes, I can’t say enough about the folks at Air Dive Alor. It feels like going to see old friends rather than just going diving. I feel lucky I’m able to call them friends now, and I can’t wait to get back for more epic hangs.

Saigon Punk Chronicles : Aftershock

This past Sunday I headed out to a show and to see some old friends I hadn’t caught up with in a while. The bill consisted of HSA, Song Am, Katto Katto, District 105, Cut Lon, and Luan Quan Collective. A mixed bag of genres and I wasn’t familiar with all the bands, but I knew there’d be some thrashy goodness with Cut Lon and of course the homies in D105. I didn’t get images of everyone, but I decided to shoot this a bit differently than what I’ve been shooting this project and brought my studio lights in much like I did back in the day in the States. It’s going to take some tweaking, but here we are and it’s nice to get a different look. I’m not going to divide the images up into bands this time around but rather an overall vibe of the show.

On a side note, I tried to mosh last night and father time quickly put me in my place and now I’m limping around like geriatric. Lesson learned. Stay in my lane. Press the shutter. Stay out of the way of the kids. This is a game for the youngins’. Until next time, here are the images from last night.

The Week in Photos: Volume 5

We’ve wrapped up a few commercial projects and had a few days before preproduction started on a couple of others, so I wanted to go out and shoot some images for myself a few days this week. Technically some of these are from the week before, so this is the week(ish) in photos. I’ll get better about the scheduling of this whole thing, but it’s been hectic lately so this will have to do until I get it together on the schedule.

Looking at what I’ve shot recently, I’ve noticed how I’ve gradually been shooting more and more at night. I think this probably has to do with a smaller camera that I can take with me on social outings and snap some images along the way, but also I think I’ve just become more and more intrigued with how pools of light and their contrasting shadow makes for such dramatic moody images. If you’ve been to Saigon, you’ll know how frenetic it is and how there’s never any shortage of energy when you’re walking around the city. Similarly, its easy to have very busy compositions and I’m a minimalist at heart. Using shadows to hide distractions and isolate my subjects is always going to be my first approach. So here’s the last week and a half in photos.