My friend and shadow

I am happy to announce my collaboration with Roberto Farruggio who is a New York based sicilian filmmaker and has been shadowing me for Darshan for the last several weeks. Roberto and I met in spain during "Espacio Nudage" a festival we were both invited and selected to attend in Spain this January. Roberto assisted me for a job for AOL in Madrid and we soon knew we would get along like peas in a pod. This friendship grew and has led him following my recent project Darshan all the way to India.

Darshan my most recent pride and joy, was a project that got successfully funded on Kickstarter a month ago. I have just freshly returned from Mumbai where I was deep into production creating the next four images in this series of 9. I just wanted to share Roberto's work with you and say that many of my behind the scenes stills and movies to come, will be owing to his ardent following. Below is a picture of him in india with me capturing footage for Darshan.



Here is a quick sample of Roberto's work below but I encourage you to take a look at his style and imagery on his website.



Please keep tuned to some incredible production stills of how Darshan was manufactured and touched by many people's hard and ardent work on sets.

Lord Ganesha!

While i've been silent on the social networks Its been a whirlwind for the last 20 days. I have much to catch you all up on! But here is how my trip kicked off.

I arrived a day before the Ganesh festival ended. Ganesh Chaturthi is a very celebrated festival in India and particularly Mumbai. This timing was intentional.
My trip is sandwiched between Ganesha Chaturthi and Navratri which is the Durga Festival. Inspirations of these idols surround the city with lights, festivities and tons of artistic inspiration. Painters and sculptors who have done this for years shine during this time.

[caption id="attachment_3640" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Ganesh Chaturti in Pune - Shot by Urmit "][/caption]

Above is an image shot by a student and Camera assistant Urmit. This is a scene from the Ganesha idol being carried down the streets to be immersed into water. The idol lord Ganesha is placed in a decorated temple on the first day of this festival and then worshipped for days until it's immersed in the waters only to return the following year. Here are some shots from the Ganesha Idol that was in our home in Mumbai.

[caption id="attachment_3654" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="The 2011 Ganesha idol at the Sharma residence"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3655" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Mom and dad praying before the immerse the idol ta the beach"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3658" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Dad lights the fire using camphor at a very windy Versova beach"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3661" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Children rejoice as they sing hymns of Lord Ganesha"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_3663" align="alignleft" width="450" caption="Taking the idol away for immersion on the last day of Ganesha Festival."][/caption]

Streets gets jammed and traffic packed as people navigate to the shores with idols that fit in your palms to a few floors high. It's quite the sight! It had been ten years since I had celebrated this festival with my parents and brother. I was glad to be home.

Old 33, final piece in hand!

I am very excited to share this latest project with you all! I was hired to do the photography for Megan Palmer’s new album Old 33. Megan is extremely passionate musician with tons of talent to back it up, and yay, the production work on the album just wrapped up! Art direction and design of the package was done by the very talented Bill Gaines. On 18th of September at the Rockwood Music Hall, Megan Palmer will have the official NYC CD Release of Old 33. If you're in town swing by I am certainly going to be there.

Two incredible Shows, 3/4 and 3/18 2010

I wish I didn't miss both of these! But please go to them if you can. The two artists I am speaking of are : Eric Ogden, Brooklyn based photographer who has a very cinematic approach to his lighting and Greg Miller who shoots all his work on the 8x10 format and rocks my world on a daily basis! I have had the good fortune to work with both and both have shows in the same month March 2010. To my misfortune I will be in Mumbai and will miss this awesomeness. If i were you and you were a photo lover and came upon this post I wouldn't dare to be anywhere but to these two venues. Dates: March 4th, Greg Miller at Kris Graves Projects in Dumbo and March 18th Hous Projects for Eric Ogden. Please find Flyers announcing both of their shows below!

Let's Go Sailing

As promised in an earlier post, here are images of Devin Sprague, the nephew, sailing into the waters of Mattapoisett, MA. Sailing hits Devin's sweet spot! It makes Devin happier than I've ever seen him be. We researched the wind speed, made sure it had the miles per hour we wanted and sailed into the water. The Captain was young, daring and ambitious. The photographer and the assistant were managing camera and lights and the sunlight and the water were like marmalade on fresh toast. Click on the images for a larger view!

In between places

This shot was taken during a very early walk. It was one of the first views as the road turned from concrete to dirt. The light in the distance looked promising...

New images from Northampton, MA

My photobuddy Gabriela Herman and I have lately spent time geeking out about photography. We were away to Northampton, MA for a photo workshop and we decided to collaborate and make these images. By virtue of being around, we have lately turned into each others muses! Gabi is not only beautiful but also most certainly bold!

The Firescape

Mitch was climbing out of the fire scape and the stars in the sky lined up. All the necessary equipment to create this image was right by my side, but most of all what the shot would have been impossible without, is attitude and Mitch knew exactly how to deliver that.

New Images

In these images I particularly enjoy the warped perspective of the ground and the uncanny shape of the subjects body. This year & very unconsciously I have been drawn to the cyan/blue green palette.

Time to Lach on

Everything about this woman was attractive , but especially when she put her shoes on. Michelle Lach was ordained on the internet to marry my friends Jill and Ryan. While she did a fantastic job of putting the event on a pedestal, she also found a way to look too cool for school while she did it. If any of you blog readers know Michelle, then you know, looking counter culture comes very easily to her. If her shoes are any indication to you, Michelle pretty much knew exactly how to rock the casbah & In fact I know that she is up to exactly that wherever she is and whatever she is doing. This one goes out to you miss Michelle. Rock on.

Bravo Stephen Mallon!

Stephen Mallon, Friend, Photographer and President of ASMP-New York has had a smashing 2009 so far! This post is to commemorate his action packed last few months. In January Steve "exclusively" photographed the rescue operation of Flight 1549 that had to emergency land into the Hudson river. The assignment was right up his alley. Click here to find out why http://stephenmallon.com

The images were kept under lock and key by agencies for insurance purposes for several weeks and now that the curfew is lifted the pictures are making more than a dent on people's mind. The story got picked up by WIRED, Communication Arts Annual 2009 & Steve just got interviewed by CBS. I sit on the board of ASMP NY with Stephen and he deserves all the success in the world. This post Steve, is for you! Click on image for the WIRED story. Here is the link to the CBS interview. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5012471n

New Photo Shoot

Sneak Peak of the new photo shoot. I recently shot this during my trip to Martha's Vineyard . I guess Water is the theme for 2009. 

Thomas Holton

Thomas Holton is a photographer who was chosen as the Top 10 Photo Assistant's by American Photo in 2006. When I was brand spanking new in the city Thomas was a very positive spirit to meet and shared great insights about the city and our crazy photo industry. I recently was pleasantly surprised to learn that Thomas has taken a few trips to India and is doing a very interesting project about a train station in the holy city of Varanasi. There was no doubt in my mind that the images would be a blog post as soon as I set sight on them. Thomas is also currently teaching photography at ICP. Eye candy hunters, please do visit his website in order to learn more about him.

Living Tapestry

Sandhya Kochar is an installation artist that puts countless hours into creating what she calls The Living Tapestry. Sandhya designs in CAD, drills holes, suspends hundreds of test tubes using fishing line, grafts plants, waters them individually and over several laborious months of tight planning and hours of pain staking execution. This is born. Her website http://www.bouncingideas.info is currently under construction. I had the good fortune of making images of her artwork. I will update Ishaara, once it is completed and launched.

Here is another installation purely made with test tubes that have fiber optic cable dangling through them. This installation is connected to a switch that turns these fiber optic cables on. Here are a few views of these installations at day and then at night. These installations look like constellations, it was fascination shooting these pieces of art.