Da Boss

This just out in People magazine last week, my shoot with Buddy Valastro, also known as The Cake Boss. The concept for the shoot was to have Buddy and his team make a cake facsimile of him, and see how it looks and photograph it side by side next to the real buddy. Awesome shoot, Buddy and his team of baker magicians did an excellent job as you can see. At the end of the shoot, the photo editor, Brenna Britton, suggested Buddy cut the head off the cake. It sounded a little strange at first, but Buddy really got into it, and yelled "someone get me the Sawzall", which is a cool power saw thing. Buddy got the saw, and went to work on the head. It was strange watching it, as the cake was life size and even though a cake, still looked real-ish. I think it was so cathartic for Buddy, maybe a bit like being an actor in a movie and your character gets killed off. Must be really cool to kill yourself like he did, better than therapy. And of course, being the big italian baking family that they are, they would not let myself of my assistant go home without some major sweets and goodies, and they were definitely yummy. Heres to you Buddy, I hope that self execution was as much fun as it looked....

The war on truth

was very disheartened to see this video today of andy cooper talking about the new law down in the gulf...seems in their ultimate wisdom, the 'bama admin decided to throw a steel towed boot into the flow of images coming out of the gulf showing the oil damage. Its really taken the wind out of my sails today, heard about it in an aiport this afternoon waiting for a flight, and made me want to just quit taking pictures. But of course after a build up of steam in me, it has me more pissed than ever and want to get back down and get arrested for taking the same pics i took 2 weeks ago just 2 posts down in this blog, and being charged with a felony offense....effing unbelievable...if you havent heard, the feds have decided to not let the press any more than 65 feet from the oil damage down in the gulf. considering all of mine were shot as close as 2 inches an as far as 10 feet, i'd be screwed and arrested. they say its for our safety, but we are so much smarter than that at this point as news and government shenanagins consumers. i'm tired now, time to bed as have a flight to miami tomorrow, but really please watch at least the first 2 minutes of this video of andy cooper on his CNN show talking about this major major decision and now law by the feds trying to shut us out of showing the truth.....sleep well if you can.

Richard Clarke for Discover

I recent shoot with ex government big wig and counter terrorism czar Richard Clarke....If you ever photograph him, be quick, he's not one to sit for a picture long...

Streetfood Nirvana

I just had a story come out in men’s health magazine that used 33 pictures for one story, a new record…....I spent a week on the road a couple months ago with writer Matt Goulding, the same writer that I worked with last year on the Mens Health “Beauty and the Beast” story about pork (scroll down for it). That story won a pile of awards both for the photography and writing, so I think the editors wanted an encore to see if we could pull it off again. My gut tells me this one will be well received as well. This story was about the best street eats in the country, and the general acknowledgment that the sidewalk culinary experience has taken huge leaps and bounds in the last 5 years or so. We started in our hometown of NYC, and went to Austin, Portland, San Fran, and LA as well, all cities with stellar streetfood scenes and excellent mobile food. This really was a dream assignment, Lots of great food, in great cities, and getting paid. Some highlights include: in Portland a margherita pizza with fresh basil and homemade mozzarella, made in a wood fired brick oven (in a trailer) that was the best pizza I’d ever had. In Austin, the tenderest BBQ ever out of converted yellow school bus called “old school BBQ”. In SF a succulent heritage pork porchetta sandwich from the roliroti truck and chef Thomas. In Austin, a homemade doughnut called the “porky’s”, with whipped cream cheese, spicy good jalepeno jelly, and Canadian bacon, all served out of an airstream trailer. Also in Austin, easily the best tacos I’ve ever had, the seared ahi tuna taco with pickled red onions, from Izzos tacos. I had sushi out of a cart, foie gras, escargot, a kimchee quesadia, a double cheesburger called the “cheesus”, with grilled cheese sandwiches on either side as the buns. Those are just the highlights I remember. Its really amazing and crazy the stuff we ate while standing at a window to order. I know that I will look back on this one fondly, wishing that we could do it again and again, it was that much fun. The only sad part really is that we ate at so many places every day, that we could only sample and take bites of everything, as we were perpetually stuffed and popping Rolaids to keep going. Work.