Reality TV star hopefuls and avant garde artists, cult screen legends and contemporary icons. These are my portraits.

My approach to portraiture informs all areas of my work. When photographing people, I am intent on pushing past the superficial to reveal the true individuality of the subject. Regardless of whether it’s a 15 minute studio session, or an immersive multi-situation documentary effort, my portraits are always a unique and intimate collaboration with my subjects.

Karen Azoulay
is a fabulous mixed-media visual and performance artist. She and I have been friends, neighbors, and admirers of each others work for a few years now. Karen explores and expresses the relationships between people and the natural world in her work. This is a theme I also investigate in my photography, mostly through observation and literal representations. Karen, however, approaches it from a symbolic and mythological perspective.

I asked Karen to take me to a place in the city that inspires her. She chose the The American Museum Of Natural History.

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Mathieu Miljavac
is a Paris based taxidermy artist. While Mat uses traditional taxidermy techniques to create his creatures, he avoids classical or naturalistic presentations for his animals. His approach is more expressive, creating unique forms, poses, and colors for his creations. He generally uses relatively common animals and I love how he can make me look at a rat or a pigeon in a completely new way by the pose he gives it, or how I suddenly appreciate the unique shape and silhouette of a baby chicken because he died it black.

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Autumn Whitehurst
is a Brooklyn based illustrator, and a good friend of mine. Her clients include Glamour Magazine, Lillet, and The Principality Of Monaco. These images were all taken in or around Autumn’s apartment where she has lived and worked for 13 years. The dwelling, its garden and the things she has collected and displayed in it are all very much a part of her and her history.

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The Brothers Mueller
The editors of East Village Boys asked me to photograph the collaborative twin duo, The Brothers Mueller for their EVB interview. The brothers, or the twins, are Kirk and Nate Mueller. They are a Brooklyn based interactive design team. They create things like iPad apps for magazines, but they also make things like hand printed, heat sensitive wall paper. The Brothers’ aesthetic is ornate and refined in contrast to the generally raw, mechanical and masculine look of most digital art and design.

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Bridget Everett
I took these photographs of the incredible performer, Bridget Everett, for her interview in East Village Boys. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Bridget before she performed in her monthly show, Our Hit Parade, at Joe’s Pub. The day included lingerie shopping at Rainbow, a hot bath to relax and memorize song lyrics, rehearsal with her band backstage before the show, and culminated with her killer performance that evening.

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Frohawk Two Feathers
(Umar Rashid) is an artist I met in Los Angeles. His gorgeous, highly detailed, paintings and drawings are provocative reimaginings of colonial history, but they are also, on a very basic level, pictures of awesome dudes, wearing cool outfits, doing badass stuff.

On the day I photographed him, Umar was taking care of his daughter while hanging out and rehearsing with his friend and collaborator Micah James. Umar is also a performer. Together, he and Micah are the rap group Superdelux. Later in the afternoon, we climbed the hill behind his home so he could chop down a small tree. He needed it to make a spit for roasting a lamb for a feast he was hosting in his yard the following weekend.

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Andrew Yang
is well known for his incredible Kouklitas, a series of beautiful and intricate couture dolls. For this shoot, I met Andrew for breakfast at his apartment in Bushwick and then followed him to his studio in Long Island City where he and his group of friends were getting ready for a costume ball they were attending that evening. Andrew and the others had created unique fauvist reimaginings of period baroque costuming for the evening’s event. Andrew’s own gown was created from cutting up dozens of floral print dresses and sewing them into one large skirt.

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Scott Matthew
I met Scott at a party last fall and soon after came to know his gorgeous music. When I heard that he would be performing at the Tompkins Square Library, I asked him if I could photograph him on the day of the show. We began the shoot at his home in Williamsburg, where he was drinking coffee, beautifying, and practicing for the evening’s performance. I then accompanied him to the library in the east village where I photographed him rehearsing and then performing with his band members, Clara Kennedy and Eugene Lemcio.

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Thanasis Petroyiannis
is A Man To Pet. In Thanasis’s own words, A Man To Pet is “is a Man that likes to pretend that is a sexy woman in a very funny way.” Sexiness and humor, along with twisted glamor and a fiery attitude, are indeed the mainstays of his act. And while Thanasis is quiet and shy in person, A Man To Pet is a total force of nature when he’s on stage. His performances are known for their outlandish and spastic movements, outrageous outfits, and crude prosthetics.

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Rachel Warner
is a Brooklyn based painter and a friend of mine from college. I’ve followed her work over the years as she’s developed a really wonderful and unique style of portrait painting. Rendered in hyper real colors and patterns, her paintings highlight and celebrate the individuality and charisma of her chosen subjects.

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Emiliano Maggi
I met Emiliano when I was in Rome this past spring. He is a visual artist, a performance artist, a recording artist, and a jewelry maker. In person he is quiet and affable, one of those people who sometimes appears to be floating off the ground a little bit. His artwork and his performances, however, are dark and animalistic, featuring rich layers of furs, wigs, wax, and lots of masks.

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George McCracken
is a New York based independent fashion designer. His clothes utilize high end tailoring and elevated fabrics, but his designs speak in a casual minimalist voice, even across a range of garments, from high-end suiting to his new line of japanese-made denim.

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David Jeannerot Renet
is the creator of Les Mauvaises Graines ( “The Bad Seeds” ), a conceptual urban gardening store in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, Montmartre. The shop supplies a variety of well suited plants to Paris’s window and balcony gardeners amongs a carefully curated selection of curios and object d’art. David and his staff also design and maintain custom gardens in private homes.

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Cole Escola
I’ve been a fan of Cole since I first saw him in the well known youtube videos that eventually led to him and his creative parter, Jeffery Self’s, T.V. show, Jeffery & Cole Casserole. While I loved those videos, and the show, I didn’t really fall for Cole until I saw him perform live. He’s totally fearless and really gives up everything he’s got when he’s on stage. And while he’s always hilarious, his performances also have a bit of sadness and sweetness mixed in that really won me over.

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