Despite the less than ideal weather yesterday, I ended up being super productive. I got a couple of images that I really like. The shot above is of the new JR piece on Houston (same spot as Scharf, Fairey, Os Gemeos, etc.). For a couple more looks of the JR piece jump over here. Since it was Thursday, I also hit like 3 gallery openings. All of the installations were very cool. My favorite was probably the show that opened at Kasmin last night. There were a lot of big names there, which makes it fun. Also, I think that I may have shot the only photo in existence, of KAWS smiling. Anyway, while I was scurrying around Chelsea, I saw this girl running like she was being chased by a dude with a chainsaw (she wasn’t).

Apologies to the girl in the photo for recording her stressful moment. But I thought it was awesome to see a girl straight sprinting while wearing a dress. Speaking of stressful moments, check out this mighty comical story that our friend Katie posted this week.

Have a great weekend!

As promised, here is the first big super exciting giveaway. Instead of attracting more readers, it might actually drive some away. But the purpose is to show some love to those who do read. Incidentally, no one reads blogs on Friday (so says Google analytics). But… for those who do, here is a chance to win your very own Flud turntable watch (featured above). It’s so easy. All you have to do is– 1. watch the video below, which I shot using a Flip cam (so please excuse the camera shake); and, 2. name five of the various artists who’s work appears in the film. Hint: one of them is a perverted photographer who recently did a shoot with a perverted pop singer. Another hint: at least three of the artists’ names (street name, at least) appear in the film. The first one to correctly list 5 names in a comment on this post wins. Go!

Happy Friday!

Don’t you love those weeks where you are so busy that they just fly past and before you even realize it, they are over? I love those weeks (but I hate when that happens on vacation). I have been too busy to even shave (see above). The shot above is perfect evidence of why I should spend my time behind the camera, not in front of it, hahaha. A guy that I was working at an event with, on Wednesday night, grabbed my camera and snapped one of me. I have seriously never felt less attractive, than I have in the couple of weeks. My tan is faded, I need a haircut, my skin is breaking out and I have bags under my eyes. Not a great combo.

Jessica White (below), on the other hand, was looking fabulous, that night. Ms. White was hosting the runway show Wednesday night. Can you believe that everyone is already starting to ramp up for fall fashion week? It is kind of exciting, because I love fashion week. But, it is kind of depressing, since that means that summer is basically done.

I dropped by PS11, again today, for Highsnob and had another great chat with my favorite Brazilian artists. Below is a shot of the finished piece, with Otavio shooting hoops in the foreground.

Thursday night, it was raining, so I didn’t run. No running today either. 14 miles tomorrow, it should be interesting, after so much time off.

I’m definitely looking forward to spending some time with Piper this weekend. Reagan and I have some pretty fun stuff planned, too.

To wrap things up– Ang tipped me off to an error that was happening in IE browsers when she was trying to comment. So, thanks for helping me troubleshoot, Ang. Also, my apologies to the other thousands, actually probably millions (hahahahaha) of people who have been experiencing the same frustrating problem while attempting to comment.

I hope that everyone has a fantastic weekend.

After pulling out several hands full of hair (my own, hehe), and consulting with some of the most knowledgeable programmers I know (maximum thanks going out to Andre and Jansen), I was finally able to get the php garbage all resolved and running correctly. As a double bonus, I was able to eliminate all of the malicious scripts from the MySQL db’s. To top it off, I woke up today feeling quite a bit better. I’m going to hold off with running until Wed., just to play it safe. Things are looking up. Speaking of looking up, check out the image above, of the latest work by Os Gemeos (my favorite Brazilian street art duo), going up in Chelsea. I shot it Monday afternoon. It looks like they will probably be finished with it in another day or two.

Below is a sneak peak of some other stuff that I have shot recently. I was able to spend some time in the diamond district documenting some of the work that goes on there. I really enjoyed shooting it, especially since I have jewelers in my blood line. Props to my great granddad MJ. I’m sure that he could have given a lesson or two. If you enlarge the shot, you can see that the dude has tiny diamonds stuck to his hand with Vasoline. That is how they manipulate the diamonds without dropping them on the floor, when they are positioning them, setting them, etc..

Anyway, much love to everyone who has helped me out with this massive debacle, the last several days.

This piece was done in Berlin, earlier this year. I saw several different photo-sets of the work. These were my favorite. I borrowed them from the Just.Ekosystem.org blog. The artist is Mentalgassi. You can check out some of his latest work over on the Mentalgassi blog. I’m a total sucker for these perspective pieces. Maybe because I feel like you have to be so clever to pull them off, well. A couple more looks, below.

I have written about Os Gemeos before. They are a Brazilian duo that does street art. When I say duo, I mean twin brothers. Os Gemeos actually means “the twins” in Portuguese. There is a very distinct look to the art that they do. They use a lot of bright yellows and reds. I first learned of Os Gemeos on some graffiti documentary that I watched with Reagan. It had footage of them touching up a piece in Sao Paulo. The cops showed up and one of the twins went over to deal with them while the other kept painting. The dialogue was something like:

Cop: “Do you have a permit for this?”

Gemeo: “No, no we don’t need one. We had one when we originally painted (probably BS). But today we are just touching it up”

Cop: “Who issued the permit?”

Gemeo: “Oh it was for charity. You know… for the kids and stuff (probably BS)”

It was a lot like watching Obi Wan do Jedi mind tricks on storm troopers. Aaaaaanyway– the shot above is one that I took last fall, of a mural that Os Gemeos painted on Houston St., when Dash Snow died. The installation is currently covered by a temporary wall featuring Shepard Fairey’s May Day mural.

Os Gemeos recently started keeping a blog. It features their work, as well as cool stuff that they come across in their travels. They just barely launched the blog a few months ago. I have really enjoyed following it. You can find it at osgemeos.com.br. Check it out.

Haas and Hahn have teamed up to work under the moniker “Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn.” Their latest project is to bring a little color to the infamous favelas of Rio de Janeiro. I love Brazil. I love Rio. I can’t wait to get back there and check this out (from a distance, hehe).  Graffart.eu describes the work as:

Over the last month, Praça Cantão, the square at the entrance of the community of Santa Marta has been the scene of a spectacular art intervention and was turned into a vibrant artwork of monumental scale. 34 houses on the giant hillside favela, located in the center of Rio de Janeiro, have been painted in a design of colorful rays, radiating into the city. This 7000 square meter artwork is part of the ‘Favela Painting’ project by Haas&Hahn (Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn), a project that aims to transform communities into landmarks and inspirational monuments as a part of Rio’s image, next to the statue of Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf mountain.

Click over to their page for more images.

Then, of course, we grilled up some burgers for dinner (a veggie burger for Reagan).

The title of this post sounds like a children’ s movie about a pet who dies. I didn’t have a pet who died (recently). But I have to say that I’m pretty bummed out that all of the pieces (that I know of) that Banksy left around the city this weekend, have been defaced, if not completely destroyed. I’m so glad that I was able to see them in person before they were messed with. I shot all of them for Highsnobiety early Monday and had someone (in most cases, a passer by) snap one of me next to the art, with the point and shoot cam.

The photo above was by a really nice guy I flagged from the street. He asked me if I wanted it to be a creative shot (only in DUMBO), then accidentally dropped his diet Pepsi shooting it.  He wouldn’t even let me reimburse him for the drink.

I’m doing the same face as the guy in the painting. Thanks, German guy for shooting this one for me.

Thanks, Col for snapping the one above. Finally, remember this one? Here it is 48 hours later.

(Photo: Aman*Duh.)

I was going through the images on the point and shoot, from the weekend, and found the shots above the Reagan grabbed during Passion Pit. I thought that they were pretty cool. Thanks, Reag!

Also, I was hoping so bad that I would come across a Banksy this weekend. In fact I’m such a nerd, that while I was getting ready this morning, I was thinking to myself  “I wonder if Banksy was working last night.” Imagine my elation when I discovered the piece below right across from my work, this morning. I think it is pretty cool that Banksy chose a street right across from the World Trade Center to do his first NY piece (assuming that there will be more). I also think it is cool that the nature of the piece seems to be a nod to the City, instead of a political propaganda piece. Anyway, thanks to the random construction dude, that I flagged down to snap this shot of me next to Banksy’s I heart NY stencil.