Posts tagged musician
Meghan Tonjes is Awesome…And Her Little Dog Too
The continuation of this project I keep running my fingers about. This time it’s a woman! An extremely talented and beautiful woman called Meghan. Also, there’s her dog Margot. The day sort of became about Margot in a way. Because are you kidding me? She’s adorable and wants all the love you can give and then some. She’s also big on naps, Margot that is. Meghan and I had a lot of fun with this shoot. She’s funny and charming. She’s also very photogenic, and has a beautiful voice. I was fortunate enough to hear some of it while I photographed her with her guitar. If you don’t already know who she is you should:
Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, More YouTube, DFTBA Artist Page, www.MeghanTonjes.com
Christening a New Camera Body & Going “Home”
During the formative years of Daughtry I photographed them, for them, a lot. I helped them build the beginning of their road photo catalog and it was a lot of fun. Being there at the embryonic stages of a band and documenting the first part of that ride with them was a lot of fun. I haven’t shot them since April 2010. Last night was great fun. Getting in front of them with a lens again and seeing friends I used to tour with was like time travel.
It was also the first show on my new camera body. The body I just retired/relocated to back up made its concert/tour debut at a Daughtry show in December 2007 in Nashville, TN. That body served me well and went on a great many tours and to a few countries with me, I hope that christening the new one with these guys yet again brings good things to it.
The band’s line up has changed a bit since I was touring with them. This is the first of a couple entries with shots from this show - I chose to focus on the three guys I toured with for this one. They’re wonderful people and it brought a big smile to my face to see them and the crew guys that I lived on busses with last night.
They also brought a very talented fan on stage to sing with them for their hit song “Home”, she blew it away! I was at front of house with my friends, we were shocked. So that’s who the girl on stage is. Chris let her sing the bulk of the verses solo due to her talent. She certainly had the ability to hold her own and he recognized that.
What a lovely night with great people I’m fortunate enough to have shared a portion of my life and journey with.
Zombie Feels (Video to Come): A Photoset of Alex Carpenter’s New Video of the Undead Part 1
Accept it, this will be zombie week on my tumblr. It’s happening. Alex made a video, I was a zombie, it was fun. But this is me we’re talking about. Of course I brought my camera. What’s that mean? It means a few things. One of them being a handful of photo sets. A photo set with it’s own story for the character in it. A vlog. A behind the scenes montage. And I don’t know, lots of fake blood and zombie feels? Ok. Yes. Thanks to my lovely friend(s) for making art that’s fun.
Also this:
The All-American Rejects at the Grove Photos: Part 2
Another photo set of wonderfully talented friends. It just doesn’t get old. It was a really great day and night of great people I’m so fortunate to be surrounded by. The caliber of each of these human beings is well above average. I’m talking about everyone in the photos, not just the four guys you see on a poster. Dexter’s a people too, so that statement applies to him as well. :)
The All-American Rejects at The Grove of Anaheim
Thursday November 1 I shot my lovely friends The All-American Rejects in Anaheim. It was, as always, the right kind of photographic fun. The kind that reminds me how much I love using my camera in the right musical setting. Hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed shooting them. This is the first of a couple photo sets from this show coming your way. There will be some kind of video component at some point as well. Mutual artistry among friends is what makes my world go round.
Chandler: You know what’s weird? Donald Duck never wore pants. But whenever he’s getting out of the shower, he always puts a towel around his waist. I mean, what is that about?
NEIGHBORING FORESTATION: ALEX CARPENTER, AS WE LOSE OUR LEAVES
YouTuber by day, exceptional friend by night. It’s the return of Alex Carpenter to the blog! But this time as a tree. Wait, what? I’ve obviously extemporized on the subject of my friendship with Alex before. Mostly though I’ve focused on a brief explanation of how we met and then talked about how he fits into the world of pop culture.
But what I’d like to talk about in this entry is Alex, the tree. I’m just running with this plant life metaphor today aren’t I? It could be worse, I could have called him a shrub. But lower plant life he certainly is not in my life. He stands tall and proud and as a wonderful human on whom I can count no matter what. Alex is the man who is there for me with a hug and shoulder to cry on when I need it. Whether that is the result of life happening in a way I can’t control, or the result of my having made a poor decision and paying the price. He doesn’t judge, and he is a force to be reckoned with.
This wonderful human is either the centerpiece or at minimum bit player in some of my favorite memories that Los Angeles has to offer me. When Alex and I became friends my life instantly got brighter. He was my hero on my first LA Christmas Eve, nine years ago, when I couldn’t get back to Atlanta because of work. It was the first one I’d ever spent away from my family and I was pretty blue. I sat in my Miracle Mile apartment watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and Alex called to see what I was doing. I told him that was watching Snoopy cartoons and being sadfaced, missing my family. He came to pick me up and we spent that Christmas Eve at Mel’s Diner in laughter and happiness. It was one of my favorite holiday celebrations to date.
In doing his Forestation shoot we talked about how in a lot of ways these photos embodied our friendship as we know it and have known it. This is just a small sample of these photos, some of which probably won’t make the light of day (the ones where he gives me that knowing look I get when I’ve acted against my best interest, say, in my dating life). He also took photos of me for my plant based segment, more on this later in the week.
We also talked about the fact that when I posted the photos of him a few months back from our nerdy photo shoot I may have jumped the gun on what to say about our friendship. The reality is that there aren’t enough blog entries on tumblr for me to tell you how much I value this friend. There aren’t enough to hold the years of memories, good, sad, happy, bad-wait, no. I can honestly say I don’t have a memory of Alex that I’d classify as bad, because they’re all pieces of the relationship that makes us who are today.
I will leave you with one that I was only actually privy to via video chat. During the days of the Remus Lupins, in the summer of 2007, Alex and company were on tour and going through Atlanta (that actually prompted my first venture into YouTube, which Alex says all my videos should be - just me telling the world how awesome he is). This is the city from which I hail, and my mother, having met Alex on her previous trips to Los Angeles, and being a fan of him as a human as well, offered the guys her house as a landing point for two nights in Atlanta. She is, in all of her amazing glory, a wonderful mother, and a true Southern Belle. Having heard that they had fallen on some difficult times that week (the van was burglarized, etc) she wanted to feed them a proper meal. She roasted two onion and garlic stuffed whole chickens and made a truly absurd number of sides to go along with it in preparation of hungry young men arriving to her and my step father’s house. My beagle danced all day on the floor of the surrounding counter space, guarding the chicken smell. When the Remus Lupins descended upon their house my mom lifted the lid to the roaster to show them their meal. Almost six years later my mother still laughs about the looks on all of their faces and the brightness of their eyes when they saw the chickens. Alex likes to point to it as a high light of having been in that band. My mom fed them and opened a video chat feed for me to converse with Alex on her computer for the next two days, I was stuck in Los Angeles working so I couldn’t skip home to witness it.
There aren’t many people I’d so happily share my family, my dog, and the chicken that was so rightfully mine, as I always will be glad to with Alex, when he’s passing through Atlanta.
**I’ll post a vlog from this day as well soon!
Here’s our respective perspectives of each other yesterday:
FANCY ALEX ELSEWHERE:
Alex Wants to Be Your Facebook Friend!
His Music:
http://www.alexcarpenter.bandcamp.com
http://www.itunes.com/AlexCarpenter
http://www.itunes.com/TheRemusLupins
So the other night I went over to help my friend Alex Carpenter shoot a music video for his cover of the Killers single “Runaways”. Here’s the finished product, I hope you enjoy it! You can (and should) subscribe to his awesomeness on YouTube by visiting the video page or clicking here.
Friend |frend|
noun
1. A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection.
Friendship is immeasurably important. Real, true, unbreakable friendship. I don’t mean the people you talk to casually, the ones that float out of your life and say “I remember that person - maybe”. I’m talking about the people on whom you can count, and who can count on you. The ones that you go through life changing experiences with. The ones who share in your joy and your pain. The ones you grow up with.
When I say grow up, I’m not necessarily implying they with whom you shared childhood, we are always continuing to grow up as we grow older. Growing up is a relative concept anyway I suppose. I am an adult, I also act like a child at times. It is that part of me which calls out for Disneyland, toys, comic books, and fantasy. It is that part of me which fuels my art. It is the part of me which allows me to smile when life isn’t easy. I’m grateful for my Peter Panism.
I do know that Neverland isn’t the place where one can perpetually exist, unless it’s where they make their living. My friend Alex Carpenter is one such person. He took his talent for music, comedy, and prose and made a life out of it - basing it on the subjects he loves. This exceptional talent that I’m proud to call my friend - of the variety I just spoke - makes music, videos, and magic about all the things he loves in this world. It’s really pretty fantastic.
In the summer of 2003 I packed my bags, kissed the South goodbye, and headed West for Los Angeles. As the summer was ending and the most magical of seasons, Fall, was beginning I came across the young man who I would later refer to as my first Los Angeles friend. He was tall, had long hair, was a native Angeleno, was spectacularly fun, and he made me laugh. This person was of course, Alex. As the time has progressed since then we’ve had more fun than I have with most of the people I’ve encountered in my lifetime.
I am a nerd. That much is more than apparent if you even take a look at me, I’m covered in my nerddom, permanently (tattoos and the like of Disney characters and the things I love in this life). Alex too, is a nerd. It’s pretty great, I decided that it would be a lot of fun to document said “nerd” factor of him. So we did a photo shoot where we started small, just a couple toys and a knight. Then Alex soared through outer space with his guitar, and kicked back nerd style, and then….explosion!
I like to think that the culminating set of this shoot is what you’d find if you had an Alex piñata at a party. Upon breaking out would come magic, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Disney, wonder, joy, Dr. Who, Hunger Games, and smiles. I’m sure there’d be more, maybe Michael J. Fox in a wind breaker, possibly Buzz Lightyear, and of course a camera and a guitar.
So here’s to my first Los Angeles friend, and the kind of friends we should never take for granted. Alex would tell you here to be brilliant.
Wanna check out all things Alex? Of course you do! Click one of the fancy phrases!
Alex Wants to Be Your Facebook Friend!
His Music:
http://www.alexcarpenter.bandcamp.com
http://www.itunes.com/AlexCarpenter
http://www.itunes.com/TheRemusLupins
Petfinder.com has released the next in the series of photos that Nick Wheeler and I shot to raise awareness to adopt. Check it out and reblog to help save some cute buddies like his handsome fella, Dexter!
First of a few shots that Petfinder will release of Nick and Dexter Wheeler that I shot. Feel free to share this and encourage others to adopt, not shop like Nick and Dex did!
Also, make sure you “like” petfinder on Facebook and share the photo there:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151005952513215&set=a.10150912426718215.421434.8354538214&type=1&theater
Nick Wheeler & Dexter for Petfinder!
Here’s the first of a few promos I shot from Petfinder that’re coming out featuring Nick Wheeler of the All-American Rejects and his most adorable dog in the universe, Dexter. Check it out, and if you have Pinterest, repin it to support pet adoption!
Finally, a Dextination!
For the last few years I’ve been working on a series of photos of the people I photograph on stage at home with their pets. These photos are of Nick Wheeler from the All-American Rejects and the ever resplendent Dexter.
Nick and I have been talking about taking these photos for a long time, but our constantly conflicting schedules made it difficult. That’s the reality of two people who tour trying to find time where they’re both in Los Angeles and not working. Back in May we finally got to spend a day doing this. Dex is such a good sport, though he continued to look at us both as if to say “I’m not sure I signed up for this part guys?”. It’s always great when I get to do these shoots, they’re more special when they’re folks I’ve known a long time and know pretty well as was the case here.
There will be more photos of Nick and Dex released through Petfinder in the near future in conjunction with a promotion they’re helping out with to encourage pet adoption.
Dexter is the dog that I award the “cutest dog alive” to these days. It’s just true, see for yourself:
To learn more about how you can adopt a pet or to read about Nick and Dex’s journey click here.
