got a great look from my homie Shid. picked up some Ilford HP5+ film from Webbcam and i’m ready to rock. in other less pleasant news, i broke my 50mm ƒ1.8 on sunday. one drop too many.
new pics and scans coming soon.
shot for Philadelphia Weekly’s music blog, Make Major Moves, over the weekend.
see the rest of the shots here.
The Trip – Chinatowns (NYC-Phila) from 12RND on Vimeo.
i’ve been getting more and more inspired on the video tip. i’ve been working on a documentary project with my homie Rashid, and as a result, the ideas have been flying around like flies at a cookout. decided it was time to open up the software and start getting the meat and potatoes down.
this video was shot over the weekend, on typical a trip back from new york to philly via the chinatown bus. i started filming on the bus, and stopped on the bus, so there’s nothing particularly special about the footage. however, the track playing along with video is a yet unnamed demo from my forthcoming album, Galaxy Revival Theorem. i’ll keep you all posted as that project develops into a concrete reality.
back to premiere. i like it alot. having worked extensively with various linear sequencers on the music front for 8 years, general concepts hold true and once you understand the peculiars in video editing, the basics are relatively simple. i’ll be spending more time with this: it opens up so many avenues for creativity that i never considered exploring. not to mention other thing$.
shot EL-P last night for Okayplayer. came out okay, really wish i had a wider lens with me. i can live with the shots i grabbed though.
in other news, been staying busy on the freelance front. i also have been developing direction for 12RND heavily, and am really excited with the basic plans for the near future. things to look for in the next few weeks/months:
- interviews
- music
- 12RND sponsored events
tons of work to do, of course, but as i’ve said: i’m game. let’s get it!
liked this shot so i uploaded it.
in other news. if you’ve been kind enough to stay interested in what’s going on over at 12RND, trust me. it’s bout to be bananers.
look alive.
my mans dave ghetto, preparing to rock on a bum leg!
another year, another banging b-boy bbq, this time closer to my stomping grounds, west philly. it was ♥ to see everybody out, it’s times like this when you give dap to people you believe in, left and right, and everybody knows your name, that you feel like this is a movement.
you know the drill, choice joints after the jump. if you’re doing any write ups on the show and need my images to go with your story, just email me and let me know, that’s what i’m here for. 1!
epic show. and i had the best seats in the house. special thanks to my homie Taty for everything! also, a shout out to LiveNation. WERD! a few choice shots taken from my full sets after the jump.
boy oh boy, did i get a gift in the (e)mail today! two of the homies, producer fantastico Algorythm and music curator/archivist/cratediver/designer fantastico Darien Victor Birks of Flwrpt linked up to smack us all in the back of the head with some dope music. Enter The Stuyvesants.
here’s why this is on my blog.
- this is clearly a labor of love. from the great cover design to the dope site, to the t-shirts and most importantly, the great music within, these guys got together and put their creativity to work for the love of it. for a person like me that’s attempted such things so many times and experienced so many hitches and hiccups along the way, i know the elbow-grease it takes to see something all the way through to a release date complete with hi-qual packaging. kudos.
- the whole thing goes hard. if you didn’t already know Algorythm had beats, well. now you do. and note the other-ly feel of the music, it doesn’t feel like somebody slapped a bunch of random beats in a zip file and said here, take these. (not that you shouldn’t support those, too.) there’s a warm, classic feel and continuity to the tracks that feels like a band sat down and jammed out some compositions.
- mr. Birks’ knowledge of music is well known. before i ever had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, i was getting put on to all types of gems and great downloadable mixes. that he’d lend his beat hunting skills to a project like this is a sure sign that the source material will be top notch.
- this is the kinda stuff i want to do. period.
if you’re on twitter, you can follow The Stuyvesants here.
so, the homie Suzi over at SWRV had a lookbook release event at her art space, “The Range”. I decided to stop through and see what was cracking, meet some new nice people and groove to some music. it was pretty cool, ladies were getting their nails did, beats were banging and i had a free alcoholic beverage of i-don’t-know-what-but-i-could-tell-it-used-to-be-Sunny-D. yum.
if you know me, you know that i’m a perfectionist. you also know that i like to do things by myself. top that off with this tidbit: i’m a jack of all trades, but a master of none a few.
how’s all that add up?
many things that i embark upon, i do alone, armed with not much more than a healthy dose of chutzpah and guesswork. so it takes time. because the perfectionist sentry at the door of my creative laboratory doesn’t let much of anything out. quality control runs the show. long story short, i’m working on it.
the past few weeks have been split between getting my blog design into shape, taking more and more pictures and educating myself, and integrating my virtually ground-up rebrand into an already existing (albeit floundering) presence online. heading up your own biz is one headache after another, and i don’t expect it to end any time soon. i ain’t mad tho. do i sound mad? i’m not. promise.
above is a mock-up 12RND logo i’m tooling around with. it’s quite basic, but i think that’s okay, considering graphic design is not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination. i have a minimalist bias anyway, so it fits right alongside my innate design concepts.
12RND will be rolled out as an independent multi-branch firm that focuses where i see fit. my music and my photography are my immediate concerns, so you can expect to see things related to either concentration addressed in this blog. as i begin to build out to other ventures, they’ll also be represented here.
i’m just getting started and there’s so much to do. but below all the headache, there’s nothing i’d rather be doing.
stay tuned.
