The Peace Artist came to visit

We had a house guest this past Saturday, his name is The Peace Artist.

So here's the story... One of Gina's besty's, turned us onto this guy who is running 10,000 miles around the US in the name of World Peace. "Peace," as we shall call him, decided some time back to abandon all of his worldly possessions with the exception of a couple changes of clothing and a push cart/jog stroller to carry his art supplies. Rather than trying to explain with eloquence his path, I've just cut and pasted this directly from his website...

"What can I do for Peace? The Peace Artist can run, and he can do art. His pilgrimage is one of faith. Faith in the goodness of others and faith in love, art, and peace. His 10,000 mile journey around the continental United States is a trek for peace between nations, amongst people, and the often most difficult...inner peace. He runs until given shelter, and fasts until given food; he never asks. He takes no money, only art supplies. He gives away his artwork as a peace offering to those who will accept them. People are good. His only hope is that others will be encouraged and inspired by his example, and they will do what they can for peace."

So on Saturday we hosted Peace. We made dinner together and talked about everything until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. The next morning Peace allowed me to capture him during his process creating a beautiful watercolor of a canary sitting on a steel rod.

It is one of my joys, photographing people doing what they love. I truly feel our most truthful moments come when we are engrossed in our craft.

If you're curious about Peace then I encourage you to visit his site and read about his experiences.

His is a noble cause and I was very glad to meet him and draw inspiration from his story.
http://thepeaceartist.com

Old timey picture

I was hired by my friends at the Geffen a couple weeks ago to shoot an image that would later be made to look like a daguerreotype of Marie Curie and her husband for Alan Alda's play, "Radiance." (At the Geffen now if you want to go see it)
John Boersche is the brilliant projection designer who took my raw image and transformed it into a daguerreotype.
The photo is of Anna Gunn and John de Lancie. Anna plays Skylar White on Breaking Bad and played Martha Bullock on one of my favorite shows, Deadwood. So needless to say I was a bit starstruck.

This is that image



I've been on a serious black and white bender lately so it was alot of fun working with the production team at the Geffen on this project.

Magazine cover shoot with my pal Kirsten

It is serendipitous that one of my oldest and best friends, Kirsten Vangsness, who appears on the television show “Criminal Minds,” recently asked me to shoot a portrait of her for the cover of Curve magazine. To this I said, only if I am handsomely rewarded with praise, adoration and a healthy paycheck! Just kidding, I would do anything for Kirsten after all, she is the person who introduced me to my beautiful wife and whom I hold partially responsible for our amazing one year old son, Walker.

Additional photos from the series of portraits also appear in The Advocate magazine and on the Human Rights Campaign website. Check out the cover and if you want your own copy, (the article is really great) it will be on newsstands October 23^rd!

p.s.

I will be posting a new blog entry of some of my new art work very, very soon, like next week!

Whalewatching

So Gina and I went whale watching last month out of Dana Point
It was a gorgeous day, super clear and great for spotting wildlife.
Well after about an hour of cruising around all we'd seen was a whole lot of seagulls and one sea lion.

That's when the captain announced a sighting a mile up the coast. They spun the boat around and headed towards the sighting.

Granted it wasn't whales and we didn't see any at all that day but it was a huge pod of dolphins charging full speed through the water.








I've been whale watching twice now and haven't seen whales either time. I'm beginning to think that like the Lock Ness, whales are mythical creatures.

Etsy does it

I just signed up for an etsy account. If you don't already know, Etsy is a website where crafters and artists can show and sell their work. So, if you're creative and want to try and profit off of your controlled insanity do what I did and set up an account. I have these pieces that I can't really include into any of my portfolios so this seemed like the perfect outlet. If you want to get a feel for it, heres the URL for my store:http://www.etsy.com/people/kSharpArt.


This is my angst driven piece about Chicago that I shot while on christmas vacation a couple of years ago.



UUGH! I'm done describing this stuff because no matter what I say, it always feels disingenuous. I am a visual person and I think it looks cool!



Birds... or rather, cool birds that look awesome hanging on my wall



This is totally photographic... no photoshop!



This is a Crape Myrtle tree. The bark of these trees is as smooth as skin. Does that sound weird? Why does it always sound strange when one describes something as being flesh like?




Thanks for visiting, y'all come back now

My boy Walker

It has been a long time since my last post and with good reason. My wife gave birth to our first child 3 weeks ago and so naturally our lives over the last 3 months have been centered on preparing for and tending to our new bundle of pooh... I mean joy. At any rate, I've compiled some images that I've taken of Walker along with some other stuff representative of my current head space to help break it up a bit.


Gina at 38 weeks looking fabulous.


We did a fun shoot to commemorate her prego bod.


I shot this from the roof of tower 44 at Park La Brea the evening before the contractions started


Our cats have no idea whats to come




This is the sunset on Toes beach the evening that Gina had her first contraction


This is not a contraction... just a cool pic


Okay lil man, seriously... get out



Now, if I showed you photos of Gina having contractions, which I did shoot, she'd probably divorce me so we'll just skip right over that 30 HOURS! and get to pics of the boy




Walker and mom roughly two hours after he arrived looking totally blissed out and in love


The midwives are preparing to take the boys weight.



8 lbs 8 ozs! Much better than 10 lbs 8 ozs which is what I weighed upon birth. Needless to say,
this factoid had Gina a bit worried


"What in gods name is going on! " says Bella who stayed with us in the room through all of it. Good kitty! Where's Bo you ask? He bailed out at the first contraction. Nice Bo, real nice.


Ginas mom came to visit and help a week after he was born.
She was such a great support and really helped us make the transition.


Walkers yawn face is my favorite next to his smily gas face


Out... he sleeps like I do, furrowed brow and all


Its hard to tell from this image but he's got giant feet!


Baby's first headshot


Just the other day Walker got to meet his new pal Farrah Ivy. Our dear friends Phinny and Andrea gave birth to Farrah just five weeks earlier.


This is what he looks like in the rare moment between sleep and fussing


Walker started his fitness regimen yesterday and this morning he was very excited to show us the results.

Not long now before I start dressing him up in ridiculous costumes for photo shoots!

My Whitney Expedition

About 2 weeks ago I went with family, my sister and a group of her coworkers to the eastern sierras to attempt to hike Mt. Whitney in a day. The plan was to go up a few days early to acclimate and enjoy the great outdoors. I've put together a "brief" photo report of our trip and the amazing places we saw.


On the first of August we headed to the east fork campground half way between Bishop and Mammoth off the 395. This was a fantastic campground with tons of trees and a creek that passed the campground on the eastern edge. This is Rock Creek.


Because of the elevation its like perpetual spring up there so everywhere you turn theres wildflowers


Rock Creek Lake a little ways up the road from our campground


The next morning we woke early and went for a short hike in Little Lakes Valley a couple miles up the road from the campground. The Mosquito Flats trailhead is the highest trailhead in the Sierras at 10,000 something feet.


Little Lakes Valley is quite appropiately named


More wildflowers... this is called Indian Paintbrush... I think


Another "Little Lake"




This is Ruby Lake and our turn around point on our morning hike. All of the bodies of water up there are unbelievably crystal clear.


Nice shot of the creek on our way back down




In order to prepare for our 3am start time on the big hike morning Brent and I decided to wake very early the day before and go for an easy conditioning hike out of Horseshoe Meadow a short drive from Lone Pine where we stayed for the two nights before and one night after our Whitney trek




Brents hunting wabbits!


umm... more wildflowers. Those tall green plants in the background are called "Glacial Milk"


More pretty stuff along the horseshoe meadow hike




The next morning we started the hike up Whitney. This is Mirror Lake about 4 miles up the trail.


Keep in mind, this is August 4th. Note all the patches of snow. There are small bodies of water all over the place which make for awesome foreground




8.5 miles in and after ascending the famous 99 switchbacks, we made it to Trail crest at 13,600 ft. This is the ridgeline where the Whitney trail meets up with the John Muir Trail.


The view down into Sequoia National Park to the west at Trail Crest


Along the trail to the peak looking down at the glacial moraine infront of Whitney


We reached the top at 12:30pm, a full 9 and a half hours after we started the hike... and we still have 11 miles to go.


OKAY, this is Melvin the Marmot. He only lives at very high elevations like 14,500 ft. He is also known as a bear squirrel and is the largest rodent in North America.


On the way back down, we stopped and took some pics of the areas that we couldn't see on the way up. This area is called trail side meadow. There are no clever names up there.


This is the first and last meadow on the hike at about 3 miles up.
At this point I was so exhausted that I decided to put the camera away and just focus on getting down the hill. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, my back hurt, and the next day all I could think about was doing it again.