Clearly this post is a bit behind the times. So were the last six entries. Doesn’t make them any less awesome.

Last October, I finally attended my first real comic-book convention. I’ve been a life-long comic geek; I mean, I literally learned to read by looking at issues of Superman and Star Trek when I was barely able to pull myself up the rack and grab them. I think I did well by making the 2011 New York ComicCon my first time.

My friends Heather and Tim were kind enough to give me a place to sleep and spend a whole Sunday wandering about the crowded halls of the Javitz Center, mostly just gazing slack-jawed and starry-eyed at all the characters I’ve met since childhood, and all the artists who brought them to life. I spent time talking about brush pens with the folks in Artists’ Alley, staring at the DC “booth” which was bigger than my apartment, and chasing around the only two people I could find who were dressed like characters from “One Piece.” And I think we might’ve spent a whole hour in line for an autograph at the Cyanide & Happiness table, but it gave us a chance to talk to Zach from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, what with the line blocking his table. So that was cool.

Last fall, I had the privilege of taking the first formal portrait of the Reid family since the addition of their daughter Elinore. Her proud parents, Derek and Christine, have a very bright and adorable young lady on their hands, but they may need to be careful when she starts cutting teeth…

My friend Liz and I started a photo series over a year ago, informally titled “Project:Deadlady.” It’s a blatant rip-off of Amanda Palmer’s 2009 project, entitled “Who Killed Amanda Palmer?,” and we thank her for continuing to ignore our plagiarism. Recently, we happened upon a demolition site which we thought would be well-suited to the project, but the resulting narrative went a bit outside the lines.

Inspired by a tutorial I found through Strobist.com, I’ve started tinkering with a flash-powered portable strobe-projector. I’ve been experimenting with projected overlays in potraiture for some time, and the biggest drawback I’ve found is the lack of portability. Sure, there are new-fangled digital pocket-projectors on the market these days, but I like the simple, old-school approach of using a slide projector.

Using a Vivitar 383 off-camera flash, an old Nikkor 50mm lens, and a small aluminum box to hold a slide between the two, I can project a 35mm transparency pretty much anywhere. Since I’m not using an actual projector lens right now, calculating focal distance takes a bit of trial and error. Still, I’m enjoying the ability to put pictures on any wall I want.

My basement is weird and creepy. Sometimes I just go with it. All materials were found onsite; don’t know what’s with all the plastic sheeting.

New year, new resolve to keep talking about myself!

The last few months have been very eventful for me, my family, and many of the folks around me. Joy and sadness, triumph and loss, sweet & sour… Stuff happened. I have somewhere between eight and ten updates on deck, ready to catch this site up from August to now. And I couldn’t have done it without the help of the man from Sniper Island!

Okay, so, some of you have watched One Piece, and some of you should click here. My roommates and I are all fans of the show, so when one of them gave me a new-to-me laptop over the holidays, he named it after one of the more ridiculous characters in the show’s 500+ episode run. Being the compulsive doodler that I am, I immediately took some latex paint markers to it.

I’ve used these markers for body-painting projects in the past, and I learned that these wash off pretty handily with a bit of soapy water. So of course I encourage everyone to go draw on their computers!

Now, behold the Sniper King in all his glory:

My friend Allie is getting a very ambitious, extremely awesome multi-octopus tattoo on her back. Ben from Pino Bros. Tattoo in Cambridge did her linework almost two years ago, but life intervened and she moved far away before she could finish. She recently moved back to the Northeast, and got Ben to start coloring in the cephalopods this week.

On a side note, this is my first shoot in a tattoo parlor in about four years, and I was reminded yet again of how I was ruining all my pictures back then simply by trying waaaaaay too hard. Also, now that I’ve seen someone sit for four hours, I can safely say I will NEVER do anything as epic as this.

My back porch is a great place for shooting, brainstorming and generally lounging, but it gets a little spooky in the wee hours.