It’s all different the second time around.

I had so much to say about last year’s experience from Burning Man.

This year I don’t.

It was, unexpectedly, a roller coaster of emotions.  I have no idea why.

But it was what it was.

I was very happy to be part of a great community of people:

Tunnel of Love
and
Bloop

My photos from this year don’t catch the majesty or mystery of Burning man.

I am not thrilled with the results of my shutter finger.

But I am happy to have bagged some beautiful portraits of some beautiful people.

I hope to return next year.

And get mixed up in the beautiful insanity all over again.

-JoeySee

I was supposed to photograph Amanda and her friend Brad together in NYC.  They’re in a band.  They’re called Jack and Rose.

Brad couldn’t make it.

So I said, “Amanda.”

And she said, “What.”

I was like, “Let’s take some photos anyway.”

She was all, “OK.”

AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED:

Because Amanda effing Rokks.

-JoeySee

My wonderful friend Gewelz invited me to play around in the ICP studio with her a few weeks ago.  I called up two friends of mine who just happen to be very pretty ladies, and had them come model for us.

Every time I get into a studio situation, I realize I only have a vague idea of what I can do, how I can do it, and how this that and the other piece of equipment works.  Lighting is an ongoing experiment for every photographer, but for some reason I feel like I start from square one every time.  I imagine after shooting often enough, one develops their own style – they know what lights they like, they know where to put them, how to modify them, etc.  I haven’t gotten there yet.  I need to shoot a lot more regularly to develop that.

The photos from this session came out pretty alright.  I feel like the photos are lacking life… something original, something memorable.  I blame myself for that.  I have a lot of learning to do.

I also have no idea what to do in post with these photos.  Some are touched up slightly with basic contrast and some curves.  Some are a bit more effected.  If anyone has any suggestions or comments or pointers about post-production work on studio photos, I’d love to hear them.

The good news is, the girls looked great, thanks in part to Liz Piper, our make up artist.

And now, the photos:

Models: Jill Scambia and Erica Hernandez
MUA: Liz Piper
Photos: JoeySee

-JoeySee

It was late on a Monday nite.  I had arrived in Delaware earlier that day, and spent the majority of it reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire inside of a local coffee shop called Central Perk.  After an evening spent eating wings at a bar and watching Michael Vick single-handedly crush the Washington Redskins (I’m not an Eagles fan, I just was amazed at how dominating Vick was), I returned to the friendly Starter Home at the end of Chapel St. where my friends reside.

I walked into a living room full of Deltones.  What are Deltones?  Check out their website – www.deltones.com – to find out.

Their rehearsal was ending, and as everyone scurried about and rushed home to their dorms and places of residence, only a few stragglers remained behind to chat.  Katie was one of them.  I looked at her and asked very simply, “When am I going to photograph you?”  We agreed that Thursday would work.  And it did.

Here’s Katie…

A few weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of going for a walk in the woods with Chelsea.

The wind was fierce, the colours were exploding, and we talked about the bass ackwards idea that Chelsea was raised a NY Giants fan, despite the fact that she grew up in upstate NY, which should put her squarely in the misery camp with the rest of us Buffalo Bills fans.

What a great day for photos it was!

My last post was about the food at Feastival.

This one is about the people and the land.

Beautiful sights, beautiful souls.

What a magical weekend…

–JoeySee

It took me a while to fully understand how much more healthy and delicious local, organic food is, as opposed to most everything else that we buy in supermarkets across this country.  This summer, while I was living in Idaho, I had the great fortune to live with people who were very earth conscious, health conscious, and full of life and love.

The third weekend of September this year, marked the second annual Feastival.

Feastival is a weekend dedicated to bringing people together, sharing a love for the outdoors, dancing, camping, fishing, yoga, eating together, and making new friends.  Everyone that comes to Feastival brings a small side dish or dessert to share with everyone else.  It is our job to cook the main meal for the 150+ people that attended this year.

This is the first of a two part series about Feastival.

Look at this delicious food!

-JoeySee

]]> http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/10/feastival-food/feed/ 1 http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/09/bridge-building-for-feastival/ http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/09/bridge-building-for-feastival/#comments Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:30:49 +0000 JoeySee http://joeysee.com/blog/?p=1360 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

Last nite I sat naked in a wood fire hot tub, underneath a blind black sky with the Milky Way sprayed across the center of it all like a never ending heavenly backbone.

The stars to the east took the shape of a butterfly and were furiously twinkling like the subtle camera flashes of distant paparazzi, and I was Angelina Jolie.

All this after a hard days work building a bridge down in the lower property of Base Camp, here on the edge of the Big Lost River, in the mountains of Idaho.

I had posted earlier about Base Camp (you can read the post here) when I first arrived in Idaho.  Back then, we were prepping the land for the hordes of children that would frequent it during a spectacular Mountain Adventure Tours summer.  This time around, we are doing a thorough cleansing and building for the second annual Feastival, as put on by Mat and Whitney.

The purpose of Feastival is many fold.  The primary purpose is to raise money for the building of an eco-retreat center at Base Camp, for use by the community in and around Sun Valley and Trail Creek.

Other purposes of Feastival include eating delicious home grown Idaho food, listening to live local music, dancing your pants off, enjoying nature and everything else around.

Before coming up to Base Camp, I designed posters for the event.  My favourite one is below…

Cutting fire wood, splitting fire wood, clear paths in the lower property, set up stage for musicians, clear out camping spots, get rid of all the cow pies littering the property, etc.  But by far the biggest task we had to undertake, was building a bridge that spans the 25 foot wide river running thru the property.

In years past, there have been bridges built.  Without fail, every year, the bridge gets destroyed over the winter and spring months because of snow, ice, and floods.

We wanted this bridge to be different.  We wanted this bridge to last for at least a few years.  We called in our friend Mark, who took the reins on the project.  In two days, we had a bridge.  Please enjoy the before and after series below, and if you’re in the Idaho area, come to Feastival this weekend.

And now that that’s done, here are some extra photos from the past two days.  Mostly of Mat and Mark, for the lady folk.  But I do apologize ladies, they are both happily taken.

-JoeySee

]]> http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/09/bridge-building-for-feastival/feed/ 1 http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/07/base-camp/ http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/07/base-camp/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:15:01 +0000 JoeySee http://joeysee.com/blog/?p=1193 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

I’m in Idaho!

I’ll be honest, I never thought I’d ever have a reason to come to Idaho.  But my oh my is it beautiful here.

I’m working as a counselor at Mountain Adventure Tours, a kids camp started up by my friend Mat.

Here’s a photo if Mat, looking über-Manly.

Mat has 12 acres of property in the heart of the Big Lost Valley – mountains, rivers, and a plethora of sky surround the land.  It is known as Base Camp.  Base Camp is made up of two parts:  The Upper Property (Base Camp) and the Lower Property (Graceland).

The properties are outfitted with 4 Mongolian style Yurts, a broken down trailer that we are trying to get rid of, a tiny office, and an old whore house or cat house from the early 1900s.  We’re not sure which.

Mat, his dog Squirrel, myself, and our friend Spencer (who is the perfect cross between Matthew McConaughey and a cowboy) spent 3 days at Base Camp last week prepping it for the arrival of campers next month.

It was truly “Man Camp” as the 3 days consisted of stereotypical “Man’s Work”.  We laid concrete for the wood fire hot tub, mowed [what little] lawn there was while sucking down half a mountain of dust, chopped firewood, fixed and rigged up a large deck to serve as an outdoor dining platform, and we cleared out log jams in the river to return the river’s path to it’s natural flow.

My favourite activity was clearing the log jam, because it meant we had to spend hours at a time in the bitter cold (yet surprisingly refreshing) water of the Big Lost River, painstakingly removing pieces of this natural dam that even a family of Beavers would envy.  I must admit, it looked an impossible task at the start.  The dam was 25 feet across, 15 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, to the bottom of the river.  We spent an entire evening in the water.  At the end of the day, we were soaking wet, chilled to the bone and eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we had defeated the log monster, and the Big Lost was flowing like new.

Until it got to the next dam.

That one we may actually have to use dynamite to clear.

Here are some more photos from Base Camp.  I’m sure there will be many more as the summer unfolds…

Starry skies to cap off the nite

With the Milky Way Galaxy burning up bright

-JoeySee

]]> http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/07/base-camp/feed/ 1 http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/07/idahoedown/ http://joeysee.com/blog/2010/07/idahoedown/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:40:55 +0000 JoeySee http://joeysee.com/blog/?p=1240 NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

My first weekend in Idaho was spent road tripping with some new friends to somebody’s cabin in the back woods who I didn’t know.

I’m well aware that this sounds like the makings of a horror movie.

The short of it:

Full on, actual log cabin, with 70′s style pistachio green shag carpeting in the midst of the Sawtooth Mountains.

Two days of a hillbilly themed family party, complete with a mini-high school reunion of kids from Twin Falls.

Friday Nite:  A stop in Stanley, ID at the Kasino Club to watch Jeremiah James Gang play some footstompin’ country/bluegrass.

Saturday Day and Nite: Live band at the cabin, face painting, laying beach-side and swimming in freezing waters at Redfish Lake with a dreamlike view of evergreens and the peaks of some lonely Sawtooths, Mexican food, a keg of beer, PBR in the cooler, a raging bonfire, s’mores, 6 lbs of bacon and a pancake breakfast in the morning.

Not a bad first weekend, if I do say so myself.

Now that I’ve managed to return to my homestead without any missing limbs and with the breath of life still in me, I feel compelled to post photos from the weekend excursion.

Thanks to my amigos Ian and Katie for inviting me out.  And to Melissa for letting us take her car.

And now, a brief look at some photos…