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LA BOUND AND DOWN!!!!

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It's one of our regularly scheduled pilgrimages to LA coming up from Aug. 9th until Aug. 22nd! I'm really stoked for this trip since I've started a new personal project about immigrant entrepreneurs in America and I have some subjects set up to shoot when I arrive. Instead of bringing my Mamiya RB with a bunch of film backs this trip (which is the only one I usually bring when LA bound.), I'm taking along my digital gear (a first for me when not on assignment) to shoot this project. Of course, if any of my fantastic photo editors and art directors wanna throw me any LA work...I certainly wouldn't mind.

Here are a few of my fav's that I shot in LA recently.

MR. COMPLEX DROPPING A NEW ALBUM!

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Last month I received a call from Mr. Complex about working together again, this time on his newest album coming out at the end of May. The concept was to shoot him on an empty train here in NYC, because of his underground hip hop title. The empty train was to symbolize how few acts are getting mainstream exposure that have a positive message. Let's be clear, there are a few greats that are out now, but with the influx of "mumble rap"....nuff said.

We first went for one in Jamaica, Queens where he's from, but we were unable to make that one happen. So we jumped on the L train at Broadway Junction and headed to Canarsie. Since we were shooting guerilla style, we couldn't bring a bunch of lighting gear, luckily the day was in our favor and we had plenty of light on an above ground track! Here's where we started off...

I dig it, but we can do better than that!

This was our final image for the back cover. Keep an eye out for the album to see what else we packed into the inlay of the vinyl!

DRES OF THE ICONIC HIP HOP DUO, BLACK SHEEP!

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A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of photographing Dres, co founder of the hip hop group Black Sheep.  It was a year in the planning with schedules, shoots and tour dates all pushing it back.  But it finally got here and we couldn’t have asked for a better day for it.  Minus the fact that we were shooting in Corona, Queens, NY in front of the Unisphere which is located in front of Citi Field (Shea Stadium) during opening day!

Our first polaroid of Dres went something like this.

I was diggin' it, but I wanted a more dramatic looking image so we fired up the lights. Here's what we got after that.