Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds at Bar Nine - 3/9/10

Friday night my cousin Melanie Riordan performed at Carnegie Hall... that's right. CARNEGIE HALL! I show up to Thanksgiving with my homeless pictures and she pulls out her concert violin... can you say WEIRD COUSIN. But as long as she doesn't learn a fiddle song, at least I've got my dad on my side. If I ever hear 'the devil went down to Georgia' after dinner though, I'm screwed. Anyway after her and her boyfriend David performed, he happens to be in a band with the boy I kissed at band camp at 14, yes, our band camp boyfriends are in a band together now. How cute. We headed over to Bar Nine to see Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds play a much different type of music. It was another great show with fantastic company, who I'd like you all to meet...

JJ Byars

Johnny Butler

Bram Kincheloe

Sasha Brown

Aidan Carroll

Jackson Kincheloe

Ryan Snow and Cole Kamen-Green

And the One and Only... Miss Arleigh Kincheloe

Melanie Riordan and David Connor

And Me by the end of the show... they abuse me.

What a crew!

With their rug pattern shoe!

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds - Rockwood - March 26th

Friday, March 26th, I went to my best friends gig at Rockwood Music Hall. Did I mention that my best friend is Arleigh Kincheloe aka Sister Sparrow, you know, of the Dirty Birds? The band is my semester long project, how convenient! And Rockwood is sort of their home base, where they really started bringing in crowds. This Friday was no different, they pulled in a huge crowd, and yet again I got stuck on the bar side of the establishment. Now this has happened a few times but if I wiggle my little self up to the door and I'm just patient I always get in. Well this time the guy at the door, who still doesn't remember me, was telling another group by the door that it really didn't look good and we probably wouldn't get in. I tried to tell him that I was holding the lead singers' and the harmonica players' beers. But he was having no part in it. I made friends with the other group standing there and we watched them begin their set on the big TV over our heads. We chitchat about the band and I explained how they got started and how far they've come. Then at the end of the second song I hear Arleigh say my name! Yes, she was looking for her beer, but it was going to get me in, right? I started banging on the door yelling "THAT'S ME!!!" when the doorman opened up and asked who Kelsey was? Patience in a virtue! So I got in and was able to photograph and the other group eventually got in too, so all's well that ends well. It was a great show as usual and I got some fantastic shots. Check them out and come to their next gig, you wont regret it!

Saint Patrick's Day 2009

The Halcottsville St. Patrick's Day Parade has been running for like 14 or 15 years and this Sunday was the very first one that I ever missed. It was a sad day. The parade goes up and and back down the main street of my town and from start to finish, turn around included, it takes 15 minutes. There are more Firetrucks then people and the King and Queen get to wave the whole time. Afterward the Firehouse is filled with food and people I've known my whole life. For a long time I marched in the band but soon began watching from my best friends roof... with a lot of other people, which is why we're not allowed up there anymore... it's old. Last year I brought home a 4X5 Camera to take some portraits. The idea was to shoot Polaroid so I could give them a copy then shoot some negatives and Polaroids for my self. These are the Polaroids I decided to keep.

Expired Color Fuji Polaroid Film

The Kincheloe's
(Front porch roof I would watch from, as well as many of the Kincheloe's.)

The Halcottsville Grange Hall.

Color Fuji Polaroid Film

Dave Riordan
(Dad)

Arleigh Kincheloe
(Best friend since she was in my mom's 1st grade class)

Halcottsville Ragamuffins

Black and White Fuji Polaroid Film

Dick Liddle
(Best Friends Dad)

John Kincheloe
(Other Best Friends Dad)

Alex Riordan
(Little Brother)

Abby Liddle and I
(Best Friend since 6 months old)

Central Park Street Fashion

On this very beautiful day I was forced against my will to spend the entire morning wandering around Central Park taking pictures, gosh Art school is just the worst. The class was spread around the city so we could document the street fashion of New York and I covered the Park. I started at 110th St and walked down to Columbus Circle, did you know there is a castle at about 79th street? It was a learning experience on many levels, like how my parents did a fantastic job of instilling a deep fear of talking to strangers; which was fine when I was 9 but makes it hard to be a photojournalist now. Baby steps and I'll get there.

Thank you very much to everyone who let me practice on them.

Neighbors Together

This past semester I had the honor of getting to know many of the people who’s primary food source is a soup kitchen. The organization I worked with, Neighbors Together, feeds 300 to 500 mouths everyday. I started out volunteering and soon began photographing. I worked on the series for the entire semester and created this body of work that shows a story of daily struggle. I was able to use this piece to entered Nicholas Kristof's Win A Trip Contest. Here is my video entry and personal narrative about this series and what it's meant to me all along the way.

YouTube Link

LIfe Savers and Citrus Smells

Deciding what kind of photographer you want to be is a very difficult decision. There are so many things possible and so many places you can go. Some are more lucrative than others and there comes the question of, "Do you pick one that makes money?", because the cool ones pay like shit. There's very little money to be made in photojournalism, and fine art is hit or miss. Yet these are the fields I'm drifting towards. I'm most drawn to photojournalism because of the human-interest aspect. I want to take important pictures that make a difference in the world when I grow up. Which is all fine and dandy but rather difficult. And to top that off, for the past year I've been shooting artsy fartsy pictures. Great… so what do I do?

I think the answer lies somewhere in that vast middle ground. Find something that makes you happy and find a way to live by it.

This week I was told that a piece I created could be sold for $150, which is good because I've never been as proud of anything, ever. It was a wintergreen oil transfer of a self-portrait based on the painting "nude female with a green shawl" by Kathe Kollwitz. It was shot for an assignment where we were supposed to create a photograph based on or inspired by a painting. I did it pretty well but I wanted it to have a more painterly quality so a friend suggested a glue transfer because it would be pretty raw. When I brought it up to my professor she explained the wintergreen oil process. I also found a craigslist forum about it that was very helpful.

Original Painting

It's a very simple process. You need a Xerox copy of the image you want to transfer. Inkjet doesn't work as well because the paper absorbs the ink whereas a Xerox uses toner, which is a powder. The oil and the powder create the transfer ink. I transferred onto watercolor paper, but apparently you can do it on anything. Tape the paper down, then tape the Xerox face down to the paper where you want it. Then coat the back of the image with the oil and rub it with a piece of cloth until the image is as strong on the watercolor paper as desired. You can peel up a corner to check every now and then, just be sure to place it back down in the right place. It'll be wet so don't touch it for a while. You should probably wear some gloves as well and definitely do it in a well ventilated area.

My Photograph

I showed mine around and got a lot of good feedback and suggestion for what else I could use. A friend of mine has been doing this for a while but she's been using Citrasolv which is a natural cleaning supply that does the same thing except it smells like oranges instead of life savers. I've been on the lookout for the past week and finally found some at Gristedes. I played around with it this weekend and it’s not going as well as the wintergreen oil did. I made a big print for the class critique but it got strange lines from my nails and I didn’t have the strength to make it dark enough. I’m going to show the smaller print that I made last week in class and I’m interested to see what my classmates have to say.

My Transfer

Plus, I’ve convinced my Photoshop professor to let me work on this for my final project for his class for the rest of the semester. In which case, everyone is getting some ballin Christmas presents this year.

Tuppence, Tuppence, Tuppence a Bag

On Sunday I took advantage of the lovely fall day and wandered around Manhattan. One of my favorite people at FIT, Louis Lucci, and his friends were feeding birds in Bryant Park as part of a project for Parsons. When I originally heard about it, I jumped at the opportunity to help. I love birds. I have a giant pinhole camera full of feathers I want to use to create a Peter Beard-esque piece. Rats with wings… pffff. I, of course, showed up late, but we kept it going for an extra hour, moving around the park, making friends with small children and small animals.

A couple and their grandchildren were eating cheese doodles at a near by table and decided to participate, rather then waste their own tasty snack. They even said that next time they come to the park they’re going to bring their own seeds, since the kids loved it so much. Perfect, spreading the joy.

Lately, I find myself shooting with a lot of longer exposures. The ‘Night’ series were 7 to 10 second long exposures, with a tripod. I prefer without. I like the blur and the sense of movement, especially for these. We see birds walking down the sidewalk next to us in New York, which doesn’t seem strange, but it is! Birds are supposed to fly and sing and wake up early to eat worms, not walk down the street eating hot dogs and Styrofoam. American culture has not only taken over a large portion of the human race but now birds are being sucked in! Can you imagine if the birds of today pulled a Hitchcock... think about it.

I also made pit stops at ICP, the Apple store, a Verizon store, Tents and Trails, and City Hall Park. I was then attacked by the angriest mosquito that has ever existed. Another troubled winged individual who grew up in the big bad city, but that's a story for another day.