Emmy Lou Harris

Last week I got the opportunity to photograph the performance of legendary Emmy Lou Harris and her band. They were performing for a charity event in La Jolla to benefit the Foundation for the Children of the Californias
which was produced by Redfearn and Associates, a San Diego based production company that I've been working with for a bit now. It was a very cool event for an exceptional cause. Here are some photos from the performance. Such a righteous lady.

Her voice was all to familiar to me, as my father is longtime fan, and I remember listening to her 8 tracks in his truck as a child. I was very happy when I was able to tell him that I met & photographed her ;) - he said he was very proud. pretty cool. Theres nothing like photographing legends - its quaintly magical.

She played a song and I think its called "All I intend to be" (can't find it.... still looking)- which she said she wrote six years after the death of her poodle-mix, who inspired Harris to set up a shelter rescue program on her 50 acre back yard called Bonaparte's Retreat. The song was about a dog, about being a homeless dog, the life of - yup - i know - right up my alley ;) it was truly amazing - I shed a few tears and you would too - find it, listen to it! & let me know when you do. (I just found the song I think it is - you can watch it here - ‘Big Black Dog’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOaUt9vG-qA )

(Bonapartes Retreat) "The rescue is dedicated to providing nurturing foster care for shelter dogs when their allotted time at the shelter has elapsed; to prevent these wonderful animals from being euthanized and to find them permanent, loving homes. Bonaparte's Retreat was created to rescue dogs who were unadoptable from Nashville Humane Association. It has evolved into rescuing dogs who have run out of time at Metro Nashville Animal Control." -BR Website.


Meeting Emmy Lou and being able t photograph her was another all time life moment - and for that I am blessed & thankful!

Celeste Byers - Behind the Scene

This job was assigned to me by an old friend – colleague I suppose of sorts, Seth Combs. I met Seth back around 2005ish when he was working at Riviera magazine. I used to shoot editorials and events for Riviera quite often when they first were launched in San Diego. Then Seth moved on to the San Diego City Beat where he was the music editor. I did a cover shot of San Diego’s Finest ‘Tim Pyles” for their music issue under Seth’s suggestion. I just Googled and found this Tim Pyles YouTube Video of the low budget – American Apparel inspired photo shoot (click here) OMgoodness. That was some good times. I have heard that the Tim Pyles cover shot is many peoples favorite cover shot to date – awesome…. Back to Seth, he has since left City Beat and moved on to Pacific San Diego magazine. Seth contacted me to shoot Celeste Byers for their Oct 1^st 2010 issue.

Arriving to Celeste’s home in Ocean Beach I found a talkative, goofy, intelligent and beautiful young woman who just back from Southeast Asia from a solo mission where she said she went to relax and find inspiration for her artwork. We talked about her trip and her adventures as we loosely defined what we would shoot. So we set up some lights and went for it.

Celeste showed me her artwork and I was utterly amazed. I assumed she was decent, but I was overly impressed by her quality of work for her age. I’ve been around a lot of artists in my day and this by far blew my mind, absolutely gorgeous works.

It felt freeing to be able to capture the essence of the artist for an editorial. I loved it. We probably shot for about an hour, maybe longer than we should of, but we were laughing and having a good time, getting great shots and that’s what being a photographer is all about.

Overall a successful shoot for Pacific San Diego Magazine. Looking forward to doing more.

Keep your eye out for Celeste Byers. I assume her to do very well in the art world.