Roller Derby Girls, Volume One

I'm always looking for new projects and opportunities to get up close and personal with people I find interesting, using my camera as an excuse to really LOOK at them and admire them for what would otherwise be awkwardly long periods of time. 

The roller derby culture was one that had been on my radar for awhile.

I spent some time this summer driving around the south and attending several different derbys. Like the dirt track series I did, each venue was drastically different and took place on different days of the week/times of the day. Some were on Saturday nights, some were on Sunday afternoons. Some were at roller rinks, others at Lodges. I started out shooting the series in black and white, but initially felt like the images were missing something so I switched to color after the first day of shooting. I revisited these images last week as I started going back through my archives to update my site. 

A special thanks to the Hard Knox Rollergirls for hosting me that night (and to Paul Seylar for coming along for the ride and lending a helping hand). 

Paolo Nutini

Sometimes pictures really do say everything. Another one of the stellar performances I got a chance to witness up close and personal at Bonnaroo 07. Amazing voice, great debut record. I think he toured with Amy Winehouse for awhile. Would love to have caught that show.

Yellow Medicine, Controlled Burn, Knockemstiff

I'm a pretty avid reader, consuming about a book a week. My interests are pretty varied, but I'm especially drawn to crime fiction. I also subscribe to over a dozen magazines (tear sheet references, tax write offs) and usually come across potential new reads that way (though the NY Times Book section is still my favorite way to discover the overlooked or forgotten). One of the cool things about iTunes and Amazon is the People Who Purchased X Also Purchased Y Z link/section.  I had just finished Donald Ray Pollock's collection Knockemstiff . It had a blurb from Scott Wolven on the backside of the book. I remembered reading Wolven's collection Controlled Burn. Several of the stories/images had stayed with me a year later. I normally get all of my reads from the library, but I thought, I'm still thinking about these stories, so maybe I oughta go ahead and purchase the book so I can reread them whenever. I searched Amazon and was able to pick up a copy for a couple of bucks. Then I noticed the People Who Purchased link on the bottom. There were several I hadn't seen before. Yellow Medicine was one of them. I picked it up from the Nashville Public Library and it sucked me in and spit me out about three days later. If you like Jim Thompson (especially his masterpiece The Killer Inside Me), then check this out. In fact, check all three of them out. Pollock and Wolven are like modern day versions of David Goodis (another hero of mine).

David Rawlings, Gillian Welch, John Paul Jones at Bonnaroo

I've set aside the month of December for finishing up a couple of screenplays that have long since been promised delivery and on redesigning my website. I think one of the new 'books' on my site will be dedicated to documentary work. Here are a couple of shots from Bonnaroo 07. Although Manchester, TN is just a short drive south of Nashville, I had actually never been to any of the previous Bonnaroos before getting the call that week and asked to go on assignment for Women's Wear Daily (Thank you Michael Norseng at Esquire for the referral). Discovered a ton of great new music (the Cold War Kids were phenomenal), ran into some old friends and had a chance to catch some magical moments -- on stage, and off. I've probably been lucky enough to have seen Gillian and David play at least a dozen times and I've never been disappointed. Even so, I'd never seen them so on top of their game. Their two songs with John Paul Jones joining in on the fun were pure icing on the cake.