W

The W Hotel is coming to Austin. They had a big ground breaking event yesterday. Magic Johnson was in attendance. He almost ran into me while I was taking a photo of someone else, but was very nice about it and apologized. Will Wynn had a few things to say. It was interesting being the "official" W photographer. People kept asking which publication I was photographing for and the only thing I could think to say was all of them. :) I admit that on the way to the car someone stopped me and asked if I would take there photo I refused on the grounds that I was "out of film". It's true... sort of.

This amazing event was organized by local Austin event company Kennedy Creative . I'm looking forward to doing lots of work with them in the future! They made my job easy and fun.

RIP Uncle John Turner

I photographed Uncle John Turner for the Chronicle a few months ago. John was such a sweet man. He was very generous with his time and told me lots of great stories about old Austin. At the time I was unhappy with the photos because they seemed flat and over simplified. Looking back they seem honest and appropriate.

"Uncle" John Turner, the Austin bluesman who kept time for, among others, Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Lightnin' Hopkins died last Thursday morning due to complications related to hepatitis C. Turner, 62, was born in Port Arthur, where he first met guitarist Johnny Winter. With friend Tommy Shannon on bass, the threepiece made blues history ("The Power of Three," April 13), cutting three seminal LPs, The Progressive Blues Experiment, Johnny Winter, and Second Winter, and taking the stage at Woodstock in 1969. Follow­ing the Winter trio's split, Turner moved to Austin in 1970, forming Krackerjack with Shannon and the immortal Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar. For the past two decades, the skinsman has remained active in the local blues scene, backing Alan Haynes, Erin James, and Appa Perry's Blues Power, along with his own eponymous trio. Last November, Turner reunited with Winter and Shannon one last time at La Zona Rosa, playing together for the first time in more than 20 years. Both guitarist and bassist were scheduled to perform at the Aug. 1 benefit and tribute concert at Antone's, whose proceeds will be used to offset final arrangements and medical costs. The beat carries on Sunday at Threadgill's World Headquarters, beginning at 6pm, as friends and fans gather to celebrate Turner's life through stories and song.

Found this great thing I wrote ages ago for the chron. It is about how I came to be one of there photographers. Makes me happy to think about how such a lucky accident had such a huge effect on my life and career. Link.

Chronicle Cover

My photograph of Sound Team was on the cover of the Chronicle this week. They were photographed in the capitol because there latest album was relased on the capitol lable.

Bill Clinton

Spoke at the Texas Book Festival today. His speach was pretty good. Not suprisingly he spoke about the current problems the Rebuplicans are having telling the truth.
He is looking much much older. Also interesting his style of answering questions. You can tell when he is about to move on to another question because he repeats the question he was answering. Wonder what he would think of my Hillary picture? :)

Jason S. from Rushmore and Shopgirl

Don't want the blogbots to find this. Rrrgg. Photographed Mr. Jason today. He was SOOO funny!!! Nice guy.

Amanset

At long last this cover comes out. Looks pretty good. They look a bit peaved... but thats ok.

I'm much more excited about next weeks cover because it has a photo of my #1 A+ crush the boy from arcade fire. He's sooo dreamy!!!

I got another bad hair cut today. Usaully I don't care, but todays was really expensive. Nothings worse than an expensive bad haircut.

Cindy Sheehan

Grandma asked me to go to the Cindy Sheehan "Bring them home now" protest because she is too old to be in the heat or to walk very far with out her wheel chair. Yesturday was her 86 birthday. Meaning she stole 16 years from someone else...

So being the good grandchind that I am I went to the protest. And being the good blogger that I am I took my camera... although more than once (i use a really big camera and take tons of gear) people asked me who I was shooting for and I would just tell them my blog (this is my favorite answer to this question. i often use it even when i'm shooting for big magazines). it usually is met with chuckles or confused looks.

Anyways. Not sure what i think about cindy. hopefully she'll do some good. i'm guessing she's going to write a book and go on some speaking tours when shes done. we'll see.