This week required an emergency trip to Philadelphia to shoot with my favorite photographer and hero, Philip Warner (aka Lithium Picnic), who happened to be in town briefly for Catwalk Tragedy. Not only was the experience thrilling, it was also severely humbling - modeling is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than most people accredit. Granted I will always be my toughest critic, but I feel that though I can make dynamic physical shapes, my face looks like I'm either sneering or bored.

Photos to come as soon as possible!!!

Today was especially exciting... Chris and I teamed up for an extensive freelance collaboration with charismatic John Luisi, running for Staten Island Boro President. His website goes live Wednesday with his announcement of administration. With Chris video recording on his Canon XL2 (including body miking) and me taking stills on the Olympus E-volt SLR, we made quite the professional crew. The three of us visited about half a dozen locations around the island, filming statements about various issues and interviewing frustrated citizens about the current stagnation in structural and environmental progress.

Got stranded a bit at the 161 Firehouse, in which I impressed the guys by sliding down the fire pole, then climbing my way all the way back up two stories before sliding down again.

This project with John has really fired me up - Staten Island has such potential but the current legislation is offensively lining their pockets and ignoring even the most obvious community priorities. In addition to photography (and Chris editing their videos) I am going to be acting as a internet marketing consultant to Mr. Luisi, helping him better spread his message not just locally but GLOBALLY with the web.