Let’s start with the part about being over the hump.  It is Wednesday (a.k.a. humpday). But this week, today is the equivalent of Thursday, since we are driving to VA on Friday instead of going to work. My sister and her family are on the east coast visiting my sister’s father-in-law and family. Since they live in Alaska (my sister’s fam), we can’t pass up an opportunity to visit them when they are within driving distance. I’m all kinds of excited about seeing them.

Next: Last night I shot some kind of stuff for a fun little editorial that I’m working on for SoJones. It is more stuff from our same designer friend who made the dress in Reagan’s bodega photos. Our friends (the Adams) were kind enough to be my go-to models again. It is especially important to mention what good sports they were about standing out in the cold while I fought with finicky strobes (notice the inconsistent lighting in the photos). Hopefully it will be the last time I have to deal with Canon’s line-of-sight IR triggers. I think that I’m going to use some “Christmas money” to buy a new pocket wizard setup before we go to VA.

And… one more

I guess that “melee” is not the right word to use. But I’m already feeling like I might have been involved in a melee, and the weekend is only half way over. Friday, I shot a Kid Zoom exhibit at one of the Opera Gallery spaces. I’m not going to lie, I am not a huge fan of the gallery, since they still have Mr. Brainwash tripe on display in their Spring St. space. But, whatev. I enjoyed shooting KZ’s work. How often do you see spray painted bears?

Which brings us to Saturday. We were up early and headed to Jerz. Yeah, the garden state. We took a little jaunt to the Paramus Ikea. It was ok. Our friends the Adams came with us. So that made it bearable. After our trip across the Hudson, Sam (Adams, not my brother Sam) had to work. So we dropped him in Manhattan. Meanwhile, Anna (Adams) came with us to W-chester to visit PJ. Below: a shot of Piper hanging out on Anna’s lap and playing with the new elephant hand puppet that Anna brought for her.

Piper was sleeping when we arrived. She was bit groggy during our entire visit. But that wasn’t about to stop her from climbing up for some airplane rides.

We don’t normally shoot Piper with flash. But the blinds in her room are currently broken, which makes it tough to get any natural light. Some of them turned out pretty cute.

I’m sure that the other kids in the room appreciated the occasional burst of light. Sorry, Piper’s roommates.

After a relatively decent visit with Piper, we were Manhattan bound to start working on our Christmas cards. Yes, we celebrate Christmas around the Breinholt house. Try not to get offended, those who celebrate Hanukkah or Universe-mas or some other vaguely agnostic/religious holiday that occurs toward the end of December.

Doing Christmas cards (late) is no easy matter. So we took a break and did a quick photo shoot at our favorite local bodega.

Reagan was rocking this dress from one of our designer friends who operates out of Brooklyn. Reagan had the idea of shooting in a bodega, and I loved it. So, I cleared it with the owner a couple of days ago. It was a lot of fun. The store was still open for business and everything. I had to hurry and move the strobe stands every time that someone was trying to get through, hahaha. Sunday: back to the garden state for a wedding. Happy this-n-that!

Man, I’m so glad that the weekend is finally here. In a few minutes, we will be headed out the door to see Piper. I just thought I would share a few photos from last night’s Converse party at their new store in Soho.  Dr. J. came through (I’m almost his same height, BTW):

Q-tip did a DJ set before Matt and Kim went on.

And my favorite, the elvish Christmas themed Chuck Taylor all stars:

Have a great weekend!

Ok, first of all– feel free to count the number of beards that appear in this post. Second of all– we had a blast last night. There were a lot of cool people who showed up to the party at Kiehl’s. Reagan was chatting it up with Dexter, before I snapped the image above. She was interviewing him for her hair blog.  The shot below is of my homey Zach, in action. Zach is the guy in the middle of the frame wielding the 5D. It was the first time that our beards had ever met. They seemed to hit it off nicely.

I am a big fan of Jeff Koons, so Zach actually volunteered to take the shot below. He is a pretty cool guy. In addition to his art, I can definitely appreciate all of the philanthropy that he does.

Finally, a shot of Reagan in front of step and repeat, in some of  her new digs.  She was looking pretty hot last night.

After the Kiehl’s party, we met up with some of Reagan’s friends for a wrap party for a movie that Reagan was an extra in. It was good times all around. I have been battling a cold, or something for the last several days. When I woke up this morning, it was a bit more than I could handle, so I ended up working from home. This actually worked out kind of nicely, since my brother arrived this morning. We were at least able to get lunch together, etc.. More good stuff later this week.

I though this was kind of cool. I heard that Tissot had teamed up with Hayden for a campaign, but I had never actually seen any of the ads. This month in GQ, the image above was run as 2 page spread. Go Nicky! He has had rough run, since he won the GP world championship. I can’t help thinking that being Rossi’s teammate on the Ducati factory team, next season will give him the boost that he needs.  Part of me thinks that the new found Rossi connection will also help him with more Tissot-type endorsements. Either way, pretty cool.

Yesterday was very productive. I attended the J. Crew Mens Spring 2011 preview (above), as well as the Levi’s Spring 2001 preview (Below). A nickel if you can correctly name the venue for the Levi’s event.

I capped things off at the Rubenstein Gallery, where there was an opening party for the Brooklyn based art collective Faile (below).

Tonight is going to be equally busy. But the best part about tonight, is that I’m also picking up my sister from the airport! Woo hoo. I love having family in town. My cousins are actually already in NY, and went with Reagan to visit Piper today. I’m imagining that there will be more of the same tomorrow, this time with Sarah coming along. Let’s not forget that my #5 ranked Utes go up against #3 Ranked TCU tomorrow. It should be a bruiser.

Now let’s talk brass tacks. I picked up my NYC Marathon race packet at the Javits center this morning. So I now have my bib in hand.  My lungbutter situation has not really improved over the last two weeks. Because of this, I have ruled out getting a good time on Sunday. Reagan is in a similar place, health-wise. She was even talking about skipping the race, at one point. I’m glad that she changed her mind. Although, I have to admit that the thought has also crossed my mind.

Part of me is absolutely devastated that I am going to be running the premier running event of my life at half mast. Especially since this is the hardest that I have ever trained. Another part of me, is almost kind of glad that I have something forcing me to just go enjoy the experience. Not that it wouldn’t be a better experience in some respects, if I PR-ed. But I think that when I get into competition mode, I tend to miss out on aspects of the race that can only be enjoyed, when I’m not pushing myself and stressing about pace the entire time. One of my most favorite races that I have ever done was the Queens half-marathon, last year. It was a logistical disaster before it even started. We had to walk 3 miles to the starting line. We crossed the starting mats, as the winner was crossing the finish mats. Reagan so pissed about everything that had happened, that she said she wasn’t going to do it, unless I stayed with her. I ran the whole thing at a conversational pace with Reagan and Mike, and enjoyed every mile, even though I scored my worst h/m time that race.

So, my goal for this race on Sunday is to love every minute of it.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

First stop, last night was the Reed Space for the 13th Witness photo exhibit.

I really like this guy’s work. I feel like we share a lot of stylistic commonalities.

Tim (13th Witness) went on tour recently with John Mayer, and documented it with photos. Mayer showed up to the exhibit with Leica in tow. It was my first time meeting him. He is as mellow and funny in person as he is on Rob’s Fantasy factory. After snapping the above shot, I joked with him about Zoolander.

After my chat with JM, I had to bolt over to Pier 59 for the Triple Fat Goose runway show.  It was looooooooonnnng. But, for the most part, cool.

Saturday evening, I was able to shoot Band of Outsiders. The space was in the same building as the Capsule Trade Show, earlier this summer.

The display was awesome. In the shot above, the models were standing in front of a greenhouse wall created from windows in white frames. The plants were being sprayed with water mist that was flowing out into the space. Awesome idea.

The men’s portion of the display wasn’t as captivating, in my opinion, But it was still styled pretty cool.

Aaaannnnd, here is a shot of Reagan with Jake Burton.

Yesterday I shot the Phillip Lim runway show. Kanye was there, minding his manners.

At the Burton FNO party, they had a little quarterpipe set up on Spring St.

And probably my favorite character of the evening, the Brazilian DJ at Burton:

Just when you thought that the Hudson River could not be anymore toxic, the red tide shows up and makes the water even more of a health hazard. Pardon the crappy b-berry cam photos (I’ll get to that later). I read some reports about red tide in Gothamist, yesterday. But, I didn’t realize how visible it would be. Again, these photos are pure crap, but can you sort of see the purplish areas in the water. It is even more obvious in real life. Anyway, it is the first time in my life that I have seen it, and I thought it was pretty cool.

One of the reasons that I’m only armed with the b-berry cam today, is because I packed light. The reason: I will be running home from work today. For whatever reason lately, I have been having a tough time getting motivated to put in the hours in the early morning. So I’m trying to come up with ways to keep myself interested in training. If I stick to the Hudson path the whole way, it is about 14 miles. I’m only slated to run 11 today. But, I figured that a few extra couldn’t hurt, especially since I skipped a 6 mile workout on Monday.

I have run home from work before. It isn’t the distance that makes it tough. It is the logistics. Last time I was wearing a backpack. I was so chaffed from it afterward that I’m not going to try that again. So, I’ll be going the fanny pack route this time, and just leave all of my work clothes locked in my office.  I’m excited to see how it goes.

Switching gears completely, I was hired by Burton to shoot the event above. I’m pretty freaking excited about it. Yeah, it is just an event, but Jake Burton is going to be there. That’s a big deal to me, since I have never met the godfather before. Afterward, we are going to hit the Bottega Veneta party, thanks to Reagan’s hookups. Not a bad way to kick off  fashion week. I’m still trying to schedule out the details for next week. But I should have some pretty good stuff to show for it, if everything goes as planned.

Happy Wednesday!