Annadobos.com

This blog is alive. Kind of.

So I’m holding down the fort for the holidays while everyone else went home. This’ll be my first Christmas alone, but that’s fine, we stopped celebrating it years ago anyway.

I figure what better time make myself a hermit by drinking chai, watching bad TV and letting the cat sleep on my face all day. And updating this blog/reviving it from the dead. I always feel kind of weird updating about my work, because I’m not a big talker/self promoter and my art can speak for itself I suppose. So I’ll make this more short and personal? Sure, let’s try that.

Chloe Norgaard & Brooke Kao

I got to shoot with Chloe Norgaard from Photogenics yesterday, and had the shoot co-styled by Brooke Kao, a very cool fashion blogger (who once had a feature on Teen Vogue) who I finally managed to connect with during her various visits to LA. I also got to work with Dana Delaney for makeup again, who always works wonders.

This shoot was thrown together fast (probably a bit too fast), but went fine regardless.

Things went somewhat downhill however, when my SD card and my computer simultaneously freaked out in a fashion I’d never before witnessed, the result of which was the complete erasure of about 75% of my images. But 4 hours later and $40 poorer I have them back along with trusty file recovery software. I would say I learned a valuable lesson, but the SD card malfunction seriously came out of nowhere before I even had the chance for a file backup. Dick move, SD card, dick move.

Either way, here’s a sneak peek at the shoot. This is going to be a mixed media type project though, the final result will be pretty different.

Brooke brought a lot of pieces from designer Black Milk, who will now be my #1 stop for amazing one piece bathing suits and crazy leggings.

India, here I come

It’s now official, I’ll be spending Jan.17-Feb.14 in India with health and fitness writer Nancy Deville and a few others. After her book tour, we’re planning on traveling throughout the country, recording material for a small documentary. Since I’ll be acting as cinematographer, director and editor in this endeavor, it’s safe to say I’m damn excited. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to blog about once the ball gets rolling for this trip.

In the mean time, I thought I’d share some of my various mood boards I’ve made over the past few months, some for shoots that have happened, some for shoots that haven’t but still might.

I actually have my second Tumblr at ANNAMADEIT, (that I’m far more active on sadly) which I just use as a giant, endless mood board of things that inspire me.

shooting more bands

I haven’t posted in far too long, so thus here is what is new.

My friend Jess Newham, aka Betty Who, a very talented musician recently flew over to LA so that we could create some promo shots for her and her record deal in making. So keep your eyes open for those. I also recently made it back from yet another quick jaunt up to San Francisco to shoot Unknown Mortal Orchestra, a newcomer to the Fat Possum label.

I also have Chelsea Wolfe planned for promo shots sometime in the near future, which will be great fun I’m sure. June will also be the month when I hopefully get to play catch-up as far as personal and pro bono projects go, including more editorials for submission (which we all know make close to no money sadly).

In the mean time, I get to post the pictures I took of Sonny that have already been published, so here they are.

It also seems I’m headed up north to Michigan in about 4 days, to hang with old school friends during their last week of school/thesis screening/graduation. Going to treat this as a mini vacation/recuperation retreat from the woes of being a self sufficient adult, which is hard work, damnit.

Sonny & San Francisco

So this past weekend was spent in San Francisco, and this time it was me driving and us staying in a crazy orange hotel called the Vertigo, which happened to be one block down from our friends’ dorm. (Spiffy film photos will emerge once I have enough expendable money to process my damn negatives.)

(Shireen and Steve)

It basically started with a job offer to shoot Sonny Smith of Sonny & The Sunsets. We’d been looking for an excuse to spend a weekend in SF anyway, and here it was. The shoot itself lasted less than two hours, and the photos should be posted as soon as I hear back from the label.

To be honest, the rest of the weekend was somewhat of a blur, which means we must have had a good time. Albeit, sandwiched between two 6 hour drives on the most painfully boring stretch of highway, made interesting only by the van of Texan fratboys we tried to pass and the crazy couple who followed us to a rest stop to lecture us on the manners of cutting people off.

In other news, I recently did the artwork for Tropics’ album. It’s not guaranteed to be used, so I won’t be posting it quite yet. Images from Unearthly Creature of a Dream should also be showing up in the April issue of Vision, a Chinese fashion magazine Tumblr is not letting me hotlink for some reason. Meanwhile, my stylist and partner in crime, Scott Park, is living it up in NYC. Which means I need a new designer/stylist to fill his shoes, no easy task in LA.