Happy birthday to Eric Judy, founding member of the band Modest Mouse. I went back into the archives to dig up some unpublished pics from a recording session for Yahoo! Music at famed Westlake Studios in Hollywood.

 

 

 

 

I was shooting with the original Digital Rebel that day. Ha! Here’s video of the day. Good times!

 

 

Sitting there on the cool grass of a polo field, my ears ringing and my feet throbbing, I was waiting for The Cure to wrap up the third and final day of the Coachella music festival. My exhaustion spoke eloquently to me about a job well done, about having photographed thirty-three bands in three days, and how that was quite enough for anyone. Just sit, my fatigue said. Rest up, shoot The Cure and go back to the house and swim. And, I was fine with that.

Except, I didn’t want it to end. As grumpy as I’d been at times, and as much as I struggled in spots over the weekend, I had a moment of purity. I let in the good vibes of fifty thousand music fans flowing through the air over my head, got up off the ground with a gleam in my eye, and I strode through the night towards the distant Mojave tent to take pictures of those sexy kids in The Kills.

Another strange year at Coachella. I photographed it for Yahoo! Music and the lovely and talented Lyndsey Parker – rock writer par excellence. I spent quality time chatting up strangers this time: Fernando traveled from Mexico City to cover the event, only his publication got him a photo wristband, but failed to request an actual ticket, which he had to buy. The security contingent came from a nearby military base. One staffer confided to me that they were “voluntold” to be there until two A.M. and had PT at five the next day. I met fans in the front for Paul McCartney who inexplicably got there at eight-thirty in the morning. I met a girl whose most amazing festival highlight was Peter Bjorn and John, a band with only memorable song in their repertoire. She wanted to know how “deep” she could get in our musical conversation. Clearly she was on a higher plane.

As much as I saw and heard this weekend — Karen Oh as Christmas decoration, My Bloody Valentine’s tsunami of distortion, crazy denizens from all species — I know I missed so much more. Coachella adds more visual stimulation every year. Even on my way out for the final time, I was seeing all sorts of artsy things I didn’t even know was there. The spectacle can be oppressive in its immensity. You capture what you can, and remember a fraction of the rest. I could go and not shoot a single band and still get lost in the photographic opportunities in that magical place. (article continues beneath photo)

But, musical artists were there and it was my job to get them with their eyes open, without microphones obscuring their face, and standing in or near dramatic lighting. I did that to varying degrees of success. Of the thirty-three hundred images I captured over three days, these here are my favorite photos.

This was also a year of operational SNAFU and hindrances. Certain performers restricted photographers from their sets, an annoying practice getting more common over the years, though I was surprised it had spread to include random nobodies at three in the afternoon in side tents. Before the festival I got notes from talented photographers telling me how difficult it was to get credentials this year. Apparently the publicity agency MSO held back most of their photographer and press wristbands to hand them out to the army of seventeen-year-old girls in minidresses, oversized sunglasses, and flipflops that were wearing the credentials and clogging the photo pit. Wielding Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoots or Blackberries, these pros spent half the time calling their friends to give them tips on how to sneak in as well. In previous years on the first day of the festival, the photo pit would be clogged with VIP and backstage wristbands as well as credentialed photographers and press. This would inevitably lead to complaints, and the next day security would start checking for photo wristbands specifically and keeping the VIPs backstage where they belong. This year, the rich and wish-they-were-famous were onto the game because they all had press and photo bands. Maybe it was intentional on the part of MSO to ensure a lot of coverage on teen girls Myspace pages.

Even getting in was an adventure. On the first day, I was personally escorted past the throngs to the front gates no less than three times only to be told that press actually couldn’t enter at that particular point, but not to worry, they would personally escort me to another entry to repeat the scenario. I should have been wearing my minidress and big sunglasses.

Still, it’s all in good fun. You can’t have an event like this without long lists of WTF moments. I never saw anything too terrible. The biggest problem is that after coming to this festival for so many years, I finally faced a real hardship. I lost a lens cap here for the first time ever. I’ll be checking the lost & found photos that Coachella will put up in the next few days. Maybe I’ll get lucky, yet again.

Listen while you read: “I Don’t Wanna Hear It” – Minor Threat

You may or may not have seen the new Flickr Home page. You can read about it at the Flickr blog, or at Wired if you want an objective take. Like any update, there’s a handful of useful tweaks that will please some, and enrage a few. You should check it out. If’ you’re not seeing the new page, look at the bottom of the page for a link to turn it on.

Here’s my favorite tiny detail:

Flickr has long understood that people need a way to follow the responses to their own comments. So they’ve had a prominent way to see “Comments you’ve made.” This lets you see if anyone said “thanks for the nice words”, or “screw you, I like it underexposed”, or answered your burning question on how they got that heart-shaped bokeh. It was a great feature that encouraged a lot of back-and-forth, the sort of sticky social interaction pageviews that sites love.

The problem came if you commented on a picture that was destined for popularity. If you commented, and then a hundred other people commented, you’d see all the follow-up comments in perpetuity — comments that had nothing to do with you.  In fact, if you’re a jealous sort, they’d eventually start getting on your nerves. “Nice capture?” That’s a dumb comment. Or, hey why am I not getting all these great comments? Ah, please shut it off! And the way to do that was delete your own comment — a really anti-social solution for sure.

But, with the update tweaks to the Flickr home, they’ve offered a mute button for individual items. So you can stop seeing followups long after it’s clear that the original photographer is never gonna thank you or say hello or whatever, and you don’t want to be confronted with how popular they are while you suffer in obscurity. Here’s where the glorious mute button is hidden, under a mouse-over in the time-it-was-posted element:

Flickr blog: There’s No Place Like Home

Wired: Flickr Home Page Update Exposes Hidden Social Features

Flickr Co-founders Join Mass Exodus From Yahoo

TechCrunch reports this sad news. Their replacement (at least on the product side), Kakul Srivastava, was the driver behind Flickr video — and the one who wasn’t too receptive to my idea for an L.A.-local Flickr product evangelist position for the Media group when I was DFA’ed the first time at Yahoo! Sure, my idea smacked of a cool-cushy job for me, but we could have discussed it more. (insert-smiley-face)

Since I felt Flickr Video was a mistake, I can’t like this news for my favorite site on the Web. I predict further dilution and decay at Flickr without Stewart and Caterina there to demand excellence. For example, I bet Flickr’s excellent customer support gets folded into the crappy Media group support. They can’t keep spending money on dedicated support for one site.

Then again, can you really trust people named Butterfield and Fake?! Maybe this is for the best after all. Is it telling there’s nothing on Flickr.com about this? Where’s the heartfelt goodbye, we’re-sure-nothing-bad-will-happen, great people, time-with-family, etc. etc. letter? Coming soon I suppose.

Hulu is kicking Youtube’s Ass – Blog Maverick

Read one of Mark Cuban’s better posts.  I was dreaming of using Youtube similarly to promote video content on Yahoo! Music (before I left) But, here’s the idea — embed pre-roll and post-roll in the clips you give to Youtube — why has this been so hard for people to get their head around? Use it as a commercial, use it as direct-response ad! Youtube is a free marketing platform — but you’ve gotta use your marketing skills — and not just your production skills — when you dive in.  Why Yahoo! Music doesn’t do this with their programs like Live Sets and Who’s Next, I have no idea. Well I do have an idea — no resources for edgy ideas, and jittery advertiser shackles.