Hey gang,

Sorry the blog has been a little quiet, but that’s because the photo life has been loud (or busy, if you will). Friday night found me at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco to witness the early Halloween spectacular that was Oona. In full costume, the captain wailed into the microphone while a vampire, a strange bunny, a doctor, and a gruesome-looking zombie complemented musically.

Also on the bill were The Hi-Nobles, Pine & Battery, and New Montgomery. Rare is the night where the whole bill demonstrates musical prowess, but this haunted event proved to be one such event. On top of that, the whole Oona fan club was there, so I ran into some friends I see twice a year! New Montgomery closed the night with a tight performance and left me wanting but lacking a demo CD. My photo bartering, coupled with friendly bands, found the group of us on the sidewalk in a dimly lit SF neighborhood at 2 am….with them burning me a demo. That’s right, the band had given all the demos away already, but they pulled a laptop out and burned me a CD before departing. That, my friends, is the spirit of sharing.

Fortunately, the club had good lighting and I’ve been figuring out how to make this magic picture box (called a camera, I’ve been told) work, so the shots came out quite well. Considering that my mission is to produce images that the bands like, I find it to be a great honor that three of the members of Oona have already selected my photos to be their Facebook profile pics. Add that to the fact that I pulled a quick off-stage between-sets requested photoshoot of the Oona bassist, Andrew, and it was a good night indeed.

You can view the whole photographic selection at slideshow or gallery

Sunday found the Photowalk Monterey County group shooting an invited tour of the Pt. Lobos state reserve in an effort to get better photos of the underrepresented areas of the park. I know I’m still processing my shots, but you might find some up on the Flickr site already.

In a week of my life spiraling (as a friend put it), not out of control, but spiraling nonetheless, I somehow found myself at an election party on Tuesday. In a last minute request for a favor from the photographer of the local weekly paper, my buddy Joe was asked to shoot the results party for Measure K in Salinas. Naturally, I went along and took my camera too, even though I wasn't on assignment. I had some experimental shot fun and he got published!

This weekend is non-stop music with the Chuck Ragan Revival tour at Slim’s in SF on Friday, my biggest invited show yet with Inspector, Mortero de Piedra, and others at the Fox theatre in Oldtown Salinas on Saturday, and the third annual 80s night at Downtown Brew in San Luis Obispo on Sunday. 80s night will be local favorites (amazing band) Still Time opening for their alter-ego, 80s Danish/Austrian/? hair band Uhnstx (pronounced similar to angst, but with an “uh” at the beginning). Rumor has it that Forrest Day will also be pulling a set that night too. Whatever happens this weekend, it will be musical, it will be great, it will be tiring (3 late nights and over 400 miles), but I will love it. Maybe I’ll see some of you there…