Second to last Sundance gallery.  This was my last day working at Sundance and I had planned to go see the Yes Men movie, unfortunately I was needed to shoot this 25 Anniversary Gala because there was a rumor that Robert Redford was going to show up.  If he did show up, we needed the shot.  I tried to get out of it to no avail.  I had to blow off the movie, and a date for the off chance of Redford showing…  Well, he did show up, and it was worth it.  I got shots of him with our absinthe fairy, Met Andie McDonald, Steven Soderbergh with a glass of absinthe, Kevin Bacon with absinthe at the after party and I flirted a bit with Elizabeth Reaser from twilight.  It was great and I still got to see the girl after.  But I am still waiting to see the Yes Men Fix The World.

Click here for photos of the Sundance 25th anniversary event.

PS. Just so you know what’s going on… The event started at the Entertainment Weekly Loft.  There were cocktails and a dinner (we couldn’t shoot at dinner) and then everyone went down to the tent outside to see Stew perform before dispersing.

As soon as I got to Park City I had to get my press credentials.  One for Sundance and another for “The Lift” which was the area of Sundance that included private party areas such as Tao, The Entertainment Weekly Tent, and the Myspace Cafe (and free food!).  We made the mistake of getting the Lift pass first, because by the time we went to get my Sundance credentials they were about to close.  They told me I couldn’t get the pass until tomorrow, but I was scheduled to shoot the opening night event of the festival.  After some complaining they told me that if I waited around there might be a chance I would get mine, but they didn’t think it was likely.  About 5 minutes later they handed me my pass and thanked me for my patience.  Very odd.

Anyway, when we got to the event we had to wait around while it opened.  They were letting some VIP’s in and things but we just stood to the side.  At some point I made up something about how it was very important that I needed to get photos of our product before there was anyone inside the party.  They whisked us through the line and we got upstairs before the event even started.  The party was not the star studded gala you might expect.  It was however, very crowded.  I spent several hours shooting all manor of people drinking our product, Le Tourment Absinthe.  The Absinthe did it’s trick and by the end of the party everyone was pretty inebriated and people were dancing up a storm to some questionable DJ’s.  I met a girl named Laura who worked for Sundance and showed me the best places to purchase dead animals to eat.  I also got a milkshake with her on my last night despite it being winter… in Utah… in the mountains.  I ran into my friend Julius there who I did not expect to see, although maybe I should have.  We ran into each other pretty much every day I was there.  It was good to see a familiar face as I went up there pretty much knowing no one. As I mentioned before, the event was not exactly jam packed with celebrities, but I have to say I was pretty excited to meet the Dude himself, Jeff Dowd, who was the inspiration for the Big Lebowski.  I ended up having a lot of fun and stayed until they kicked us out.  So I opened the place and closed it down.

Admittedly, these are not the most exciting shots I have ever taken, and they tend to run a bit dark, you should check them out anyway.  It’s what the Dude would do, because the Dude abides.

Okay, so starting today I start putting up my Sundance shots. I probably have 4 or 5 galleries of this stuff and then we will be close to caught up with everything.

Other than The Boxmasters stuff I posted already I saw quite a few bands/artists at Sundance. In this set I posted photos of David Archuleta from American Idol sound checking (I left before he actually played), Computer from Three Six Mafia doing stand up (What?!), Reeve Carney, Broadway singer/songwriter Stew, and female singer being presented in live 3D!

Okay, let me explain some of that. Computer from Three Six Mafia showed up at this art gallery. I was told it was going to be the whole band, but when the day came around it was just him. The poster said “Computer from” in small letters and “Three Six Mafia” in huge letters with a picture of the whole group. He came out doing stand up which was the most awkward thing I have ever heard. The sound was so bad and everyone was talking over him. His jokes could not have been worse. It was the most sublimely surreal thing I have ever seen. I just felt like I could not be enjoying anything more ironically. The girl I brought with me was losing her mind, I kept telling her how great it was. I only remember one of his jokes. “So who here is from Salt Lake City? Oh, no one? I guess I will tell this anyway. In SLC there is a store called “Top Shop”. That is a little to close to “Top Cop” for me. I don’t like cops.” Seriously, I am not making that up. After that they played an iPod for 20 minutes and he came back on and did one of the worst live performances I have ever seen or heard in my life. I couldn’t make it through one song. You can probably blame the bad sound system for some of it, but the emotionless delivery of horrible music did not help either. Let’s just hope he does not have a Google Alert for his name and decides he wants hurt me in some way.

The night before at the same art gallery they had a woman singing, I unfortunately did not catch her name, while being filmed in 3D. The gallery was promoting 3D Television, so this old man was filming her with a 3D camera and it was showing up on a giant TV in live 3D. Only about 10 people had 3D glasses on, but I am sure you can get the idea, since you are in fact seeing her live in front of you already. I shot several photos of the contraption that was filming her and the excited old man running around touching gizmos.

The two enjoyable performances were Reeve Carney and Stew. Reeve played at the after party for Ashton Kucher’s new movie Spread. I guess he has music on the sound track and he did a solo performance after a toast by Ashton. It was pretty great, everyone was into it. Demi Moore was filming the whole thing and Alan Cummings sort of fell in love I think. I talked to Reeve after the show and he was pretty upset because his guitar had some feed back issues, but I thought it actually added to the sound. The next night I saw this guy Stew and his band play. Stew had a musical on Broadway called Passing Strange that Spike Lee retold for film. The movie was at Sundance and Stew gave a performance at the after party for the Sundance 25th Anniversary dinner. Stew was pretty hilarious and everyone in the audience was really digging it. I talked to Elizabeth Reaser from Twilight and she told me she had seen Passing Strange on Broadway and loved it. Kevin Bacon and Peter Gallager were hanging out in the back and left as soon as he was off stage so you have to imagine they were fans too.

Okay, that was a pretty long blog for some pretty uninspired band shots, but you can see that for yourself if you click here.

So finally I have found a day to relax. I have been watching old Aquateen Hunger Force episodes, catching up on 30 Rock and The Office and watching the season premiere of Lost. Later my friend is going to come over and we are going to watch a movie. And I slept for 8 hours. I did wake up from a dream very upset that I wasn’t going to play in the Super Bowl, but I guess that’s just how it goes. I am going to Philly tomorrow for no reason at all, and I will be back in NYC, ready to start working on this site again on Monday. I have so many photos to get up, it is going to be nuts. I am shooting a photo booth at Cain next week and hosting Trash Friday. And possibly shooting a look book over the weekend. I can’t wait to see you kids again. Let’s fuck shit up.

I have had a bunch of my Sundance photos show up on the internets, mostly the photos I did for Flavorpill, but a bunch of stuff none the less. I figured I would link it here and continue relaxing instead of doing an actual update. So enjoy, and a nice photo of a still sexy 72 year old Robert Redford talking to Andie McDowell who I have had a crush on since I saw Groundhog Day for my 13th birthday party.

Ashton Kutcher On HollyScoop 

Bossip On Kim Porter And Russel Simmons (Here Too)

Pop Culture Madness Le Tourment Vert Celebrity Sightings

Zach Gilford Interview

World’s Greatest Dad Interviews

Lauren Lee Smith Interview

Robert Redford Photo

This place is nuts. So much more fun than last year. I am completely stressed out but getting some good shots. I am working primarily for an Absinthe called Le Tourment Vert. They are the main spirit sponsor to the festival so we get a lot of access to cool things. Last night I was at a party at Tao with Sting, Paris Hilton and Russel Simmons. That was pretty nuts. I have shot a bunch of celebs; the three aforementioned, Amy Poehler, Kim Porter, Wesley Snipes, Guillermo del Toro, Jeff Dowd (aka The Dude), Monique, Kelli Garner, Jason Ritter, Brett Rattner, Aaron Paul and a few others…

Many of these images are being serviced to media and things so I can’t post galleries yet, but here are a few photos that appeared on the Flavor Pill blog. Flavorwire also posted some of my photos from opening night party, but I didn’t run my batch Photo Shop filter through them so they are all upsettingly dark.

So yeah, here are a few celeb shots to hold you over until I get to the rest of the photos in later updates.

Way back in January when I was at Sundance I photographed an alumni event for NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. They asked me not to put up any images until they put theirs online. They did. So now you get to see them. It was only two hours work and it paid for my plane tickets and I got to eat some pretty amazing food at Robert Redfords’s restaurant. There were some NYU Alumni celebs in attendance like Clark Gregg who directed the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke, Jason Ritter, actor and son of the late John Ritter, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck who wrote and directed Half Nelson, and Marley Shelton from Sin City and Grindhouse. I was talking to Marely Shelton for probably 15 minutes before realizing she was a reasonably famous actress. I knew she looked familiar but I couldn’t really place it. I started telling her about shooting celebrities holding products for gifting lounge things and told me how weird it was for her to have to hold the products for pictures. We talked for a long time, defiantly longer than anyone else at the party. She seemed like a rad lady, but I still couldn’t place where I knew her. When I got back to the hotel one of the girls working working with me at the gifting lounge told me who she was. Neat. Anyway, other than a few famous faces, these photos are pretty uneventful.

I was going to go to Salt Lake City Saturday night to hang out with my friend Presley, but I was told that the Friends Of Animals Benefit Brunch would be packed full of Celebrities so I stuck around. I had to sleep in the lounge and I had to be locked in so no one would rob the place. One of the other lounges was robbed, so I was stuck inside all night. It also meant I had to wake up at 8AM, which meant I couldn’t stay out or have any fun that night. Then, no celebrities showed up at all. After the brunch two actors and one of the heads of 20th Century Fox showed up, but Carlos Moreno Jr and Hal B. Klein don’t exactly turn heads. Then after that Presley fell asleep and didn’t pick me up. Luckily this girl Miriam saved my ass and drove me to SLC and we met up with some people and had dinner before I had to go to the air port. Anyway, have some really boring photos if you want.

Here are the shots from day two of my Sundance experience.  I actually shot an NYU party this day too, and I hope to put up those photos one day, but I am not sure Tisch wants their photos on my site.  Anyway, this day had the biggest star of the weekend in Danny Glover.  My photos seemed a bit dark this whole day and my photo of him holding a purse, while hilarious is unfortunately under exposed.  David Blue from Ugly Betty was there, as was Shar Jackson and her kids.  Deidre Hall from Days Of Our Lives was staying in the same suite as I was and on my way back from the NYU shoot we had to squeeze into a shuttle bus.  The bus fit 11 and we fit 15 people inside.  She had her assistant sitting on her lap.  When the ride was over she made everyone stand in front of the shuttle and pose for a photo.  She was pretty amazing.  But she did take the bed I was sleeping in so I had to sleep on a cot in the lounge.  But since it could only be locked from the outside I had to be locked in which meant not getting up during the night to pee.  Luckily that didn’t come up.  Anyway, check out the photos.

So I sort of explained this gifting lounge thing.  Celebs come in, and they talk to people about their products, then if they are famous enough, they get free products.  And then they hold up their product and I take pictures.  Our lounge was off the main street so we didn’t get anyone too exciting, but they were all surprisingly nice and listened to everyones rants.  We had Faune Chambers who is in epic movie and had a film in the festival with Brad Pitt called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  We had Cisco Adler and Shwayze who were on tour together.  Shwazye and I have the same watch and we talked about shoes for a while.  Those guys were pretty much the only celebs I met that I figured I would hang out with in real life.  What is funny is that they were at the Cinespace party I shot last week, but they didn’t show up in any of my shots.  Those guys also showed up with Simon Rex, he was that guy who got fired from Mtv for doing gay porn.  Pretty exciting.  Lastly very late in the day a woman named Emily Wagner who is best known for her role as Doris Pickman on ER.  Check all of them out, holding stuff, here.