Yep, I had a model recently break my guitar.
Nope, I’m not kidding.
Seeing as I only had one shot at this, what you see above is the test shot before she did the real smashing, to make sure I had the look I wanted, she was hitting the right spot on the wall, coaching her to make the right face, etc.
Stay tuned for the real shoot, coming soon!
“I dreamed a dream, but now that dream has gone from me…”
I used to dream, over and over again, of a beautiful blonde. I could never quite see her face, but her stunning beauty was self-evident. Everyone was entranced by her. Everyone wanted to be with her.
I wanted to be with her.
And yet, all I would do in every dream and every situation (the dreams were never the same – only the girl), was wish that she would choose me.
But in every dream, despite all the choices at her fingertips, she would choose me. And she would always hug me… The indescribable feeling of peace as I held her in my arms was such that, being young and naive when I first started dreaming this at the age of 18, I even based some life-changing decisions on the dream.
Seems incredibly stupid in retrospect, but I like who I am now and I like where my life is going. I couldn’t have become who I am without all the decisions I’ve made in my life, good and bad, smart and stupid.
I used to believe I was looking for a soulmate. Some have agreed that it was exactly that. Others have suggested a guardian angel.
I think they were just dreams.
So after all these years, equipped with some Vaseline that I smeared on my lens filter, a model lined up (the gorgeous Reesa Marie), an incredible hair stylist and a location in mind, I set out to capture the dream girl in an image. Not knowing what she looks like however, I intentionally made her difficult to see or just plain unrecognizable.
It took me 12 years from the initial dream, but at last, the whole thing is outside of my imagination now.
“I dreamed a dream, but now that dream has gone from me…”
Here are some random shots from the rest of the shoot, where Reesa is at least somewhat more recognizable 
I’m headed off to beautiful New York City on Sunday and will return that Friday (woohooo!!), so it’ll be quiet here again during that week.
What is The Music Project? Well, it’s a simple concept of mine. Here we go:
The Music Project
Listening to great music, and I mean really great music, elicits an avalanche of powerful images in my head. So powerful in fact, that with the best of songs or melodies, I am completely paralyzed in my visual imagination run amuck. The whole world falls away and all I’m left with is what I see from what I’m listening to.
So one day, I decided to attempt releasing everything that remained a prisoner in my mind.
Because I want you to experience what I do.
I started digging through all the music I loved, asking myself the biggest question behind the concept for The Music Project:
“What do I see?”
This will be an ongoing project with new photography concepts for new songs. I won’t be posting the songs together with the images, or even the lyrics. Hopefully, if you enjoy my work enough, it’ll make you want to go out and buy albums and MP3s. Nothing would make me happier than to find out there’s a spike in sales for every song that inspires me to a shoot.
Let’s kick things off with Regina Spektor’s “Summer in the City”.
Many thanks to Shanda Palmer and Nick Hemsley for the amazing makeup and hair, respectively, and of course my good friend, the endlessly energetic and beautiful Dani Jae for modeling, even in a bar full of men who all wanted to buy her a drink. I was planning on buying her a drink for the shoot anyway, but a customer did it for me.
