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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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Continuing with the Street Photography theme on Analog UltraClay, the last couple of days has been all about Gowanus. Around the end of the summer, I found myself in the border areas of the Gowanus on the subway, on foot and on the bike quite a bit. I took the opportunity to explore a bit.

Check it out.

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The last few weeks have involved a lot of burning the candle at both ends, shooting late night shows and getting up bright and early to get to the office. Sooner or later I'm going to crash, but for now, enjoy the photos.

Monday night, I was in the meatpacking district shooting Afro-German singer, Nneka and Sierra Leone rap group Bajah + Dry Eye Crew, who I saw on one of my earliest shoots last year.

The next day, I was at Brooklyn Bowl covering the monthly Talib Kweli and Friends show. Despite a late start that had some in ill spirits and me wondering how I was going to wake up in the morning, the show was worth the wait. Having grown up with 90's Hip-hop, I was blown away by the guests he brought through that night. The whole Boot Camp Click was on stage rocking Who Got The Props, Bucktown and more. Mister Man, of the much slept-on Bush Babees came through performing his verse from Fortified Live with Kweli. I definitely want to go next month just to see who else he'll manage to bring out.

After the jump, MJ Impersonators, elaborately fake rockstars, mermaids playing with fire and more.

Continue reading "Recently on Examiner: Shows Shows Shows" »

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Yes, that is Snoop Dogg. Yes, he's wearing a Yankees jersey. And yes, I I got to shoot him performing at Brooklyn Bowl Monday night.

Yes. Snoop Dogg performed at Brooklyn Bowl. And I was there to shoot it. Crazy.

It was a pretty fantastic show, he performed old and new songs, going through all the classics along with some of his newer hits.

It was surreal standing in Brooklyn and hearing the voice of the west doing Hypnotize in tribute to BIG. More surreal was the fact that he was playing a space like Brooklyn Bowl instead of the Garden. The concert space fits 600 people, which can be huge or intimate depending on the show. The venue has become one of my favorites to cover, not just because of the amazing acts they book, but also the food and a choice beer selection. Without turning into a shill for the place, let me just say that I'd be coming here regularly even if I wasn't shooting for Examiner.

I've been there a lot lately, covering I Love Vinyl's first Brooklyn party and the night before I shot the Air Guitar Regional Championships, which was a whole lot of ridiculous.

Like I said, ridiculous.

I didn't spend all my venue love on Brooklyn Bowl. I did find myself at The Bell House a few times this month. Last week, I went to a blogger meet up hosted by Brooklyn Based, FIPS and Brokelyn. That was a lot of fun just for finally being able to put faces to names.

A week earlier, I was also at Bell House grazing through the snacks and cocktails on hand at Good Spirits, Edible Brooklyn's tribute to food and booze in the better borough. The spicy red sangritas that this lady was pouring as chasers was probably my favorite drinks of the night, which probably goes to show that liquor is wasted on me.

That's all just a bit of what I've been posting about this month. Habana Outpost reopened for the season and I'm starting up the Brokelyn 25 bar survey again this week after a bit of a hiatus. So, stay tuned.

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It's been a busy Brooklyn week on my Examiner column. Monday started out with a recap of the weekend's Donuts are Forever, hosted at the Bell House by RareForm and the J Dilla Foundation. The event was a celebration of the life and music of the man many consider to have been the best producer in hip-hop. Aficionados jammed into the space to hear a slew of DJs, headlined by Questlove of The Roots take on Dilla's body of work.

I was pretty excited to have the extended access that I did, allowing me to be on stage and behind the scenes. I'm also pretty proud of myself for not swooning about being right up next to Questlove and instead getting what I think are some pretty good shots of him on stage.

Monday night, I went in an entirely different direction and covered the Franklin Park Reading Series in Crown Heights. I really enjoyed the Mixer Series reading I went to last month and was glad to go to another similar event. I never seem to have time to read books and I really regret that. Hopefully, going to more of these readings will motivate me to focus on something longer than a blog post or a recipe.

The readers included a familiar face, Melissa Febos, who I met last month hosting the Mixer, was reading from her own new book, Whip Smart, to be released next month. Masha Hamilton, above, split her time between reading from her book 31 Hours and stories written by her students at the Afghan Women's Writing Project. John Wray rounded out the evening with an except from Low Boy, which took me back to my days as a teenager wandering the streets of New York.

This week, I also posted about the Brokelyn Beer Book, a collection of drink tickets for one beer each at 25 of the better beer establishments around the better borough. I ordered mine right away and plan to make a regular feature of reporting from each of them as I go from place to place.

Check out more photos from the reading and the Donuts are Forever 4 after the jump:

Continue reading "This Week on Examiner: Beats, Books and Beer in Brooklyn" »

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IMG_6019, originally uploaded by ultraclay!.

Gowanus, Brooklyn. 2006.

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