Jamaica

I'm Off to Jamaica for a week, see you on the flip side.

Alador & Smith 08

This is a sneak peak of the look book I shot for Alador & Smith this past weekend. Stay tuned for the complete book in a couple days.
Whoa.

Bala

Since 1942 Bala Muskoka has hosted the Cranberry Festival, a popular carnival type event celebrating the area's plentiful cranberry marshes. Bala Muskoka is also my family's home town, were my mother was born and raised and from 1956 to 1963 my grandfather, Walter Templeton was the mayor and with My Grandmother ran the town hardware store and marina.
I have worked at, got drunk at, stuffed my gut at the Cranberry Festival my whole life. The small village of 400 year round residents really depends on the festival to do well to stack up some revenue for the slow winter months. Not only that but its such a positive community event, welcoming the change of season, surrounded by the amazing northern Ontario fall foliage.
The Cranberry festival has games, rides, food, everything cranberry, shopping, a very popular beer tent, and an arts competition. A few years ago I had given my Aunt Jane a picture I snapped of The Moon River for Christmas. As much as she liked the photo never got around to framing it. So just before last years festival, Mom Dukes saw the unframed photo and took the liberty of entering my picture in the competitions photography event.
I remember when I got the original 11x14 Iris print from the lab at work and showed it to some co workers,Paul Collins told me it was sentimental. At the time I was a little offended, but taking another look at the image, he was right. Either way I couldn't be any more flattered that people liked this snap, and am proud to contribute my art to a festival that means so much to my family and home towns history.

Palisade Magazine cover

Check out the cover I shot for Palisade Magazine.

All Points West wrap up

Finally finished the edit, after having my puter' crash last night just before finishing, doh! The whole document turned out to be a huge file, to big for one link so I had to break it down into 2 parts, all very worth it, I promise!
Check out very live pictures The Roots, Jack Johnson, Chromeo, Metric, Animal Collective, The Felice Brothers, Kings of Leon, Ben Harper, and more.


Part.1 <-----Little Bother, The Felice Bros. Sia, Trey Anastasio and more...

Part.2 <----- The Roots, Jack Johnson, Chromeo, Kings of Leon and K'Naan

All Points West - Day 3

Sorry this post is a couple of days late! The final day of All Points West was amazing ... the rain was nothing, it only made things better!! The most awesome thing about this day of the festival was how much new music I was turned on to.

Rodrigo y Gabriela really rocked. Their show was tight. It was my first time hearing the duo, and they mos def made a new fan out of me. For real, check out their music. It's incredibly original relative to all the indie rock sameness out there.

Another band that earned themselves a new fan was The Felice Brothers. Their rock / folk hybrid sound was very authentic and had the crowd jumping, especially during the song "Whiskey in my Whiskey'.

Cat Power, of course, took the main stage and played a great set, notwithstanding the rain. Her heartfelt lyrics really came through in her performance. She was followed by Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals, definitely a crowd favorite.

Being familiar with jam band Phish, I was curious to see Trey Anastasio perform. A true guitar acumen, TAB played a really great, guitar heavy set. There were many loyal Phish fans in the crowd, half way through the show it looked like a love in. They played at dusk, which provided a beautiful warm light, which made for an incredible backdrop resulting in some of my best shots of the day. To all you Phish fans out there, hit me for some free pictures!!

Bringing the incredible festival to an end was Jack Johnson. He played songs from his latest album, "Sleep Through the Static," and later got into songs from "Brushfire Fairytales" and "In Between Dreams" -- both of which are worth checking out, no matter what genre you usually listen to. Melting the hearts of all the female fans in the crowd, Jack dedicated the song, "Staple in Together" "to the little girl the pink sweater sitting on her dad's shoulders there in the sixth row."

All in all, All Points West was an amazing festival. The artist line up was diverse, ranging from internationally known acts to obscure artists on the rise. The art installations on the fair grounds only added to the ambience, differentiating this festival from all the others. Of course, the Manhattan skyline in the background also made the experience all the more cinematic. And for those that care, the grounds were kept clean the whole time (without having tons of workers everywhere) and the port-o-poties weren't all that bad. Every show started on time, and the sets were thoughtfully staggered so that you could grab a brew and eat some grub when you needed to. The arepas (corn tortilla with mozzarella) were great, and Rita's water ice also held it down. As for sound quality, it was crisp and clear on all the three stages, and the light shows were different for each act (check my snaps for proof).

The All Points West Music and Arts Festival really hooked it up the first time around. I can't wait to see the line up next year.

All Points West - Day 2

Another amazing day of music, food and sunshine at the All Points West Festival. The weather was absolutely perfect yesterday when K'Naan took the stage and put on an amazing show. Chromeo was entertaining as hell, The Roots were flawless, The Kings of Leon rocked and The Black Angels' bass pounded. Radiohead's set was simply amazing: The light show matched every song and lit the sky with incredible colors. They ended the night by treating fans to a half hour encore.

Check out Black Thought on stage, and stay tuned for a complete photo portfolio and review of the entire event.

All Points West - Day 1

Here's a sneak peak of Phonte of Little Brother getting busy on stage at the All Points West Festival going down at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ, across the street from my gates! Stay tuned for more exclusive photos of The Roots, K'Naan, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Radiohead, Cat Power, Jack Johnson, Andrew Bird and Chromeo.

MUTO

You should watch all of this. It's about 7.5 minutes and well worth it.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Goodshit Radio

As far as hip-hop webcasts go, Goodshit Radio is as good as it gets. Check out Fred Fades and Don Martin every other week for the finest rap music from all over the world.

The Doors X Converse

Converse X The Doors

Summertime in the City

Barack Update

I stopped in a local corner store for some water and noticed these watches on display. As much as I think the bootlegging of Barack's name is in good faith, it also seems to trivialize his candidacy. It's one thing if all the people wearing a XXXL Barack T-shirt and matching Air Force One's go out and vote, but statistics show otherwise.

It's no wonder John McCain's campaign has been focusing on race so much these days -- it's a classic political move called deflecting -- to avoid any media attention to John McCain's classic statement;

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."

Irwin Tang wrote a book called "Gook; John McCain's Racism And Why It Matters". See the author talking about it here.

Sign him

Watch out Fifty, this dude is going to blow up. This song is genius, you heard it here first, before Russel and Jay get a hold of this dude, The Northern Touch Blog broke the news first.

Calm before the storm

This is a snap from my window just before the rain came.

Random Sanps

Just a random snap, from a series focusing on straight lines.