Interruptions, portrait in nature…

Well, I really will try to get up more of the New Orleans pictures and strange stories of avoiding the Dixie Brewing Company because “the junkies will KILL you.” I swear I will.

First Friday came upon us again; sweltering heat and a scaled back event (due to the Downtown Getdown… why why why, its not football season?) did nothing to stem the flow of eager patrons of the arts. I had several people with obviously excellent taste purchase my works at both South of Soho and Simply Artistic. I debuted three 8×12s from New Orleans and had a great reaction to them… ended up selling two of the three. Star Seas Cafe’s recently acquired beer and wine license helped keep the PBR flowing into both Ed and myself throughout the night. Olan Thorton’s new piece brings his usual elegance to divergent subject matter… and I’ll need to snag a good photo of the painting as soon as possible to post. Ended up at the Fermentation Lounge later, as usual, enjoying amazing beers with my strange friends. As much fun as Fermentation is on First Friday, I’d suggest either Sunday movie nights or sometime during the week as it can get terribly crowded in the bar.

As I talked about in the previous post, my friend Ed and I are starting a portrait studio…. and I had my first photo shoot with Nikki March this past week. It was more testing out the lights and getting used to the equipment but we snatched some great shots. And now we have the two strobes with accessories, a backdrop stand with two 10×20 foot backdrops and a list of esoteric ideas. I’m looking to post a casting call on Model Mayhem for some more guinea pigs and hopefully have some more promotional material by the end of next week. Also, I’m revisiting a few collages I gave up on about a year ago. Massive buggers. Minimum of 20″x30″ but probably larger. Will post production stills as soon as I have something tangible. Planning on breaking down the characters in the collage into smaller vertical frames to display along with it. And on a minor side note, I might be doing some stills for the Cosa Nostra production of Tom Wait’s Alice this week. Waiting to hear from them about dress rehersals and such….

A Belated New Orleans Post…

So I might be a failure with regards to blogging. I’ll attempt to be better… be a better narcissist, self absorbed in my every day life. I promise to try. Er. Anyway, so a bit of a retrospective. Moments from months ago, a week long trip to New Orleans. Brief news blast before hand. I have the photo studio that rock built; vinyl records paved the way for a pair of high powered strobes, lighting kit and backdrop set… life is good. Ed Babcock, god amongst pirates, and I have teamed up to terrorize the portrait landscape. More info, images and question marks to come.

I drove out to New Orleans early on a Sunday, hoping to make it into town with enough time to check out the French Quarter before we hit up a burlesque show that my friends had setup as the evening’s entertainment. My FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING doesn’t work. Six hours… in the heat… listening to a strange mixture of Burial, the Frogs, the National and Madlib…. I was baked in my Caprice. Arriving in New Orleans I found myself hailed by the community, enticed by the make and year of my car. Driving blind by sweat, ignorance and a lack of a local map, I parked and waited to be found by Ansley and Jon. Onward throughout the Quarter with moments for photography;

After a bit of walking, we ate at Angeli’s on Decatur… wonderful wonderful sandwhichs. A locale that we would return to as you got basically two meals for $7 and change. Lovely stuff. And good beer on tap. A necessity.

We eventually retreated from the heat to find refuge in our hotel room. The Hilton on St. Charles, which had previously been a masonic lodge. Baphomet watched over our sleep. A brief interlude for another photo;

That evening we ventured out to the so-called burlesque show. So-called burlesque. A much more particapatory event, the doorman says with a grin and a wink. Worried, we are. He’s not. Coke and Jack help encourage us upstairs. Goth tinged love den of darkness and teddy bears. Hosted by the Dragon’s Den, we found it was more of a mutual meet up for fetishists in the NOLA area. I was mildly drunk and kinda stoned and not really feeling the fifteen year old mascara wearing, too young to know skinny puppy music (speaking of the darkwave music, not the denizens). So, after watching the two cute girls start making out with each other in front of the large screen that projected Betty Paige stripping, I went home. Well… home to the apartment. Cue day two and the next blog entry. Will attempt to relay the whole trip this week as I should have new images and prints from NOLA on Friday for FF at Soho.

-The Marzza

Covert Operations with Boyce Avenue…

A few weeks ago I found myself back in Sarasota for a shoot with Boyce Avenue at an “undisclosed” historical location. Upon arrival at the location we found ourselves set upon by an unwashed hoard of elderly folks. The youngest visitors by at least forty years, we were put under watch. Thankfully we attempted to subvert those stares by appearing as young couples, out for a stroll. Although, as an afterthought, perhaps my rough looks broke the illusion as the elderly wondered if I was bear to Fabian’s cub. First stop was a complete wash. Foucault’s Panopticon don’t have shit on two historical recreationist actors wary and wise to our presence. Ducking into an orange packing plant we established a lookout for those wiry old folks and their tour. Faint voices could be heard growing louder in the distance as we hurried and scurried. We spent a moment or two at a church and then sped to small home where we could change and recover. Unfortunately, we found ourselves trapped by another of those blasted tour groups. I, coward that I am, retreated out of the house to the garden where I paused to ponder Boyce’s fate. Thankfully, they escaped unharmed and regaled in new attire. Tracked by tour golf cart, we headed to a few final shots upon Cock’s Footbridge. Seriously. Anyway, without further ramblings or character defamation, below are a few images from the shoot.

Follow the links either on the right or via the photos posted above to reach my flickr account for more images from the shoot as well as other madness, mayhem and mild diversions. I still have a few images from the shoot to work over so I will be posting those to my Flickr account as I complete them. For more information on Foucault’s Panopticon and other fallout from Althusser’s theories…. read more.

A second trip…

On the second trip of Mr. Mazza’s Magical Mystery Tour, we ended heading out to Chattahoochee and beyond. Despite the rain and my car’s less than stellar condition, we ventured to some lovely locales. Between the bridges and dam at Chattahoochee and a rundown shack masquerading as a Cracker Barrel, the best location was in our back yard. An abandoned factory off of Southwest Capital Circle is an untapped gem. I’ll be returning hopefully some time this week to spend a bit more time shooting it. And if tresspassing, photography and hedonism sounds like a fun time to those few who read this blog… come along on Mr. Mazza’s Magical Mystery Tour! Either find us on Facebook through my profile or search through the groups for us. Its a bit sporadic but hopefully we’ll be coordinating more trips on a regular basis as I get myself more organized and focused…