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In December in Gowanus, an event called Longest Night transformed an industrial space into a performance venue. My friend Brian worked on video-mapping used there and invited me to the party. It's been a while since I've been to an all out, middle of nowhere, art event and I have to say it was a lot of fun. I hadn't planned on taking photos at all, but after seeing the aerialist flying above us all, I couldn't just leave my camera in the bag.

See more photos after the jump - I never caught her name, but if you know who she is, let me know in the comments. I'd love to see another performance like this.

Continue reading "Longest Night" »

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Last night, I helped Brian of Eat This NY film his upcoming Valentine's Day webisode. You may remember when I filmed his Halloween episode last year. This time around, the stars of the show were Matt & Allison of Robicelli's who give Brian advice on love.

Check back on Eat This NY for the full video to go up next week. In the meantime, check out Matt's new tattoo, which was a part of the Ink Master series on Spike TV. See if up close after the jump.

Continue reading "An evening with the Robicelli's" »

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There's so much going on in Bed-Stuy these days. It seems like a month doesn't go by that a new bar or restaurant isn't opening up to much interest and curiosity of its neighbors.

My friends Alisha and Nicole and I are hosting a crawl of some of the neighborhood's new(ish) watering holes this weekend and I'd love for you to join us. For $25 you get discounts, deals and tastings as we make our way around the neighborhood.

Find out more information and buy tickets at the Bed-Stuy Crawl eventbrite page and keep up on the news on twitter by following #bedstuycrawl.

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This is hardly news to anyone who follows me on Facebook, Twitter or even Pinterest, but I'm still excited two weeks later.

The above photo is my first to be published in The New York Times. It's of black truffle soup dumplings at Red Farm and, just in time for Chinese New Year, it got a fair amount of attention, getting reposted on Zagat and Gothamist.

It's a great milestone and helped me push through as I did five more shoots the following week. Onward.

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Unless you were stuck in a cave, you almost certainly heard about the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills and last Wednesday's day of protest all over the internet that it resulted in. If somehow you missed what the whole bill was about, see The Oatmeal's hilarious SOPA explanation. While websites all over the world were blacking out their pages in a new form of activism, the folks at New York Tech Meetup decided to take an old school approach and led a rally in front of the office building of New York's two Senators.

As with last year's Meetup with Mayor Bloomberg, NYTM brought me in to document the event. See some of the photos after the jump.

Continue reading "New York Tech Meetup's SOPA Protest" »

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Back in the fall, one of the Edible Brooklyn events I shot was "How to Roast," all about coffee. I met some of the folks from Dallis Brothers Coffee and we talked a bit about their roasting plant in Queens and I thought about going to photograph it one day for Food/Work. I ran into the folks from Dallis at one of the holiday markets last month and found out they do tours of the facility. It seemed like a good scouting expedition to figure out if it's something I might want to photograph more extensively. So, the first weekend of January, Tammi and I headed to the end of the A line to Ozone Park to see what it was all about. Check out some of the photos from the tour after the jump.

Continue reading "Food/Work Preview: Dallis Brothers Coffee Tour" »

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Food/Work - Images by clay williams

Happy New Year, folks. 2011 was packed with experiences and opportunities that I hope to build on for years to come. To begin, I'm launching a new photo project that I'm very excited about, called Food/Work.

Expanding on the Butchery project of the last few years and the kitchen shoots I've done in the last several months, Food/Work explores the real effort that gets food on our tables. Following the examples of Michael Harlan Turkell's Back of House series and my friend Donny's Foodaisance project, I want to call attention to the work that goes into cooking, preparing, cutting, cultivating and even killing the food that so many of us enjoy and obsess over.

Although the project will not be limited to Brooklyn, starting Wednesday, I'll be posting some photos on Nona Brooklyn every other week. The first post went up last month with photos of Emily Cavalier cooking dishes for November's Midnight Brunch supper club.

So, stay tuned. The slideshow above is just a preview of what's to come.

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Ryan Farr is no stranger to the blog. I met the San Francisco butcher and chef at last year's Cochon 555, where, among other things, he deboned a pig's head and stuffed it with shoulder meat. Then, on a trip to SF, I managed to catch up with him briefly at his stand at the Ferry Building. One day, I hope to photograph him at work either in his cooking space or in one of the hands-on butchering classes he offers at 4505 Meats.

Last week, he was in New York promoting his new book, Whole Beast Butchery, I caught up with him at a butchering demo he did at the Astor Center, where he took apart a whole lamb. Check out some of the photos from the evening after the jump.

Continue reading "Food/Work: Ryan Farr at the Astor Center" »

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While the eating options were a bit limited in Aguas Calientes, Cuzco was an entirely different story. One night, while looking for a place to grab a drink, we stumbled upon Cicciolina, an Italian place hidden in a courtyard of shops a block or two away from the main square.

We may have come for a drink, but as soon as I saw that our spot at the bar was directly in front of the open kitchen, it was pretty clear that we'd be spending hours there. See cooks, prep, pasta making and cocktail shaking after the jump.

Continue reading "Cuzco: The open kitchen at Cicciolina" »

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Over the summer, I had the pleasure of photographing Something I Ate, an art and food event hosted by On Plate Still Hungry and Skimkim Foods. The dishes served included multilayered savory push pops, a set of brass knuckles made from watermelon and hanging hor d'oeuvres that were torched before serving. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to shooting the latest in the series tonight. Check out the Skimkim blog for more details on tonight's event and check out some of the photos from the summer party after the jump.

Something I Ate, November 18, 7-10pm. Acme Studios, 63 N 3rd Street, Williamsburg.

Continue reading "Self-Promotion: Something I Ate - Tonight!" »

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I've kept busy since returning from South America in part by running around photographing events. Among the events that I've been shooting like Midnight Brunch, New York Tech Meetup and the Fleisher's Opening, I've also been brought on a number of times to shoot events for Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan.

Check out some of the highlights after the jump.

Continue reading "Self-Promotion: An Edible Events recap" »

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When I started talking to the fine folks at Scout Mob about being a local scout for them, I think we all assumed that I'd be pitching stories about food. I certainly didn't expect it to be about a sporting event. Then I remembered the annual tradition Tammi and I have had for eight years now and it just sort of made sense.

Check out Today's Culture Hunter and see my photos from the 2011 New York City Marathon and a bit on how it turned into the ritual it has for us.

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Yes, Halloween is over and everyone's looking to either Thanksgiving or just going straight to Christmas, I've decided to linger a bit and look back. Two months ago, I was wandering the aisles of Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires enjoying a tranquility that is almost unheard of in my life or my city. The days and weeks and months since I've returned have been anything but calm - its been great and I hope to take some time to write about it - but it certainly hasn't been tranquil.

As the spiral into the holidays approaches, this week seemed like a good time to appreciate a moment of stillness. I'll be posting photos from Recoleta today on Twitter and for the rest of the week on Analog UltraClay.

Enjoy.

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Brian Hoffman, a fellow contributor to Midtown Lunch, hosts regular videos on his site, Eat This NY. The other day, I joined him to film his Halloween video, which profiled artisanal candy shop, Papabubble. It was my first time seriously shooting video and thus quite a learning experience. We also got to geek out watching them create some of the unique handmade candy right on site.

As I'm incapable of watching people work with food without photographing them, of course I took a few stills along the way. Check them out after the jump.

Continue reading "Finding Halloween candy with Eat This NY" »

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Fleisher's, the butchering mecca that inspired so much of the whole animal cooking that we've seen in the last few years has come to Brooklyn. The new shop is located in Park Slope on 5th Avenue off Sackett. I've been a big fan of theirs since I photographed their Pig to Pork event last year.

The grand opening of the new shop was last week and co-owner Jessica Applestone asked me to photograph the big day. Borough President and Brooklyn cheerleader Marty Markowitz was on hand to celebrate the big day.

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If you pay attention to food television, you've probably already heard about The Chew, the new ABC Daytime show that ostensibly covers 'all angles of food.' Last month, through the kindness of Nichelle of Cupcakes Take The Cake, I scored a ticket to one of the first tapings of the show.

You can read my reaction to the show on at guest post I did on Mouth of the Border.

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Last week, I got called on to photograph the October edition of New York Tech Meetup, a monthly event wherein tech startups present their projects and ideas to other tech types, entrepreneurs and potential investors. Wearing my geek hat for a moment, it was an event that I'd been hoping to check out one of these days regardless, so I was really excited when my friend Jessica Lawrence, who works for NYTM asked if I'd be available to shoot it. Things got even more interesting when I heard that their special guest this month was going to be the mayor.

See the full set of photos from the event including more of the Mayor and all the presenters at ClayWilliamsPhoto.com.

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It's been a busy month since I got back from South America. In addition to shooting Midnight Brunch, I shot The Vendys for Midtown Lunch and the Feast or Fashion dinner for Bon Appetit.

The event, hosted at the TriBeCa home of fashion designer Lela Rose, was catered by Dan Kluger of ABC Kitchen. Unlike so many of the other events I've photographed lately, almost all of my shooting this time had me in the kitchen following Chef Kluger and his team.

I've posted an extended gallery from the event on claywilliamsphoto.com.

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I don't know where to begin and I have no idea where I would end in thanking Steve Jobs. For everything I know about computers. For a dozen year career in technology. For Tammi, who I met at a Macworld Keynote.

More than most, I can't begin to imagine where my life would be without the contributions Steve Jobs made to the world.

Thanks Steve.

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As I mentioned yesterday, the town of Machu Picchu, formerly known as Aguas Calientes, is pretty much a tourist town. That includes the food. Pizza and Mexican and Chinese all stand next to restaurants selling the same ten Peruvian dishes, no one offering anything quite good.

There were a couple exceptions that we enjoyed and a month later, the one that sticks with me is The Tree House. Check out the space and the food after the jump.

Continue reading "Peru: The Tree House" »

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