MAWWIAGE!

Obama came out pro-Gay Marriage today, which of course makes it a great day in history.

Which reminded me of a great billboard I saw a few weeks ago on the side of a Manhattan Mini-Storage.

Kids

Sometimes kids can be THE WORST photo subjects. They don't pay attention and make weird faces and run away from you and force you to act like a total idiot just to get them to pay attention.

And sometimes you get awesome little guys like this one.



We LOVES little Travis!

Loves my headshot clients! / NEWSIES Star!

Some of my clients have been making me feel very special lately.

I shot Topher at the end of last week. He had flown in from St. Louis and spent 48 hours in NYC, to get his session taken care of.

Quite a versatile actor this one is.




And then today I shot Michelle and her daughter Natalie, both professional dancers.

They flew in from North Carolina last night, shot with me this morning and are leaving tonight.



AND THEN (no and then!) this afternoon I had another shoot. This time for Andrew Keenan-Bolger, one of the stars of NEWSIES on Broadway, which Con and I saw just a couple weeks ago.



Newsies officially opened a week or so ago (we saw it when it was still in previews) and it has gotten rave reviews!

Not only is Andrew a talented actor/singer/gimpy-dancer (he plays Crutchie in the show), but he's a director as well.

Here's a video he made about Newsies' Opening Night: Behind the Scenes.



I'm so happy for him and the rest of the cast, because this is a really exciting moment in their lives. For most of them, it's their Broadway debut. And the press and excitement surrounding this show has been insane. And you can just see the joy in their performances.

I'm pretty positive he'll be a household name soon enough. And he's just SO nice!



And here's another video he made, about the making of the Newsies: Original Broadway Cast Album, which was just released to iTunes today!

I already downloaded it. Obsessed.

Art, FreeChicken, and Celebrity Sighting

Megoon invited me to the opening of photographer Alex Prager's show in Chelsea.




The photos were pretty cool. They were all to do with the theme "Can't Look Away".





Afterwards we went up to Columbia (so pretty!) for Business School Happy Hour.




CBS (Columbia Business School) hosts weekly free eat and drink-a-thons for its students and their friends. It's always mayhem and delicious.

We got to the end of the foodline though and were told they had run out of free chicken.

Because this wasn't just ANY free chicken. It was HILL COUNTRY FRIED FREECHICKEN.

We were SO SAD.

But then... we went to the bar....and saw that one of the bartendresses had stockpiled a plate of freechicken behind the bar.

About half an hour and 3 trips to the bar later I noticed that the skinny barlady was not touching her stockpiled chicken.

So I waved a soggy five-dollar bill in her face and offered to buy a piece of freechicken from her.

She said, "Oh! You can just have it..." And handed me THE ENTIRE PLATE.

You don't understand. People were waiting in line in the other room for the fried freechicken, and were SO UPSET when they found out that they had run out. This was the last of the freechicken and there were hundreds of hungrypeople at the event. P

People in NYC are too cool and proud to ask for someone else's secondhand freechicken, even though they all would gladly eat it. Luckily. I AM NOT PROUD.

I asked for the freechicken. AND I RECEIVED THE FREECHICKEN!!!!!



We ran outside and found a private table away from the staring jealous hungryfaces and destroyed our freechicken.



Then as we left, we noticed a filming taking place.

We ventured closer and there were lots of gathered peoples.



Who could it be? Who could it be?



IT WAS HARRIOUS POTTERMAN!!!!




Not fully satisfied, we went to a beerhall and ate sausages.



Then I ended up at some Brazilian joint w/ Kayvon and Katie and Semmesey, in town from NOLA.




The pomegranate caiparinha was HEAVEN.

Charity Auction hosted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos

I've now shot a couple events for celebrity auctioneer Paul Zekos.

Paul hosts SUPER high-end auctions. Fun auctions where the prizes to be won include autographed football helmets, tickets to the Grammys or Oscars, American Idol finale tickets, super-luxe getaways. Etc etc.

The auction yesterday took place at Pier Sixty @ Chelsea Piers and benefited the Stephen Gaynor school.



In addition to the usual neato items...





They were also auctioning off artwork by children from the school.




The apps were amazing. My favorite were the bite-sized chicken parmesans.

YUM.



750 people or so attended the event. Tickets for the event were like $500 each.





Paul is a really talented auctioneer and jumps around on tables and really gets people laughing and bidding. He must have raised almost half a million dollars last night.




And it didn't hurt that the event was hosted by Kelly & Mark!



There was also a musical perforamance by Laura Bell Bundy, the star of Legally Blonde on Broadway.




Paul and I both work in lines of work where the number and caliber of the celebrities we work with has a somewhat dramatic effect on our business. So he and I were both equally excited to have new pictures of Kelly and Mark to add to our portfolios.



Welcome to my website, A-Listers!






Oh, and I launched a new website:

www.denniskwanevents.com

It's a lot of the same stuff as my weddings site, but I want to be able to do more fancy events like this and people who are hosting events like this don't necessarily want to see all wedding pictures when looking through my portfolio.

I'd love to do more red carpets and premieres and fun things like that. Woo!

My life changes forever today. / David LaChapelle

There are moments in life when you know that you'll never ever be the same.

This happened for me last night.

It was going to be a great night either way, but around 3pm I got a Facebook message from roommate Kayvon that David LaChapelle was going to be speaking at the event space in his office building in Soho.



I was SO excited.

I've never stated this publicly, probably because I don't have that many artist/creative friends, but I WORSHIP David LaChapelle.

He is the most brilliant photographer IN THE WORLD. Not an exaggeration.

You may not know him by name, but unless you live in a hole, you have seen his work. He's taken some of the most provocative, incredible, ICONIC pictures of the most famous people ever. No body of work will ever compare to his.

Michael...



Becks...



Angie...



Britney...




Madonna...



Lady Gaga...



Mariah...



Kanye...



Hot Dog...



Pam...



Paris....



Jesus...



Even Whitney...





In my mind, he is even more famous than the celebrities he photographs. You aren't a celebrity UNTIL you've had your picture taken by David LaChapelle. THAT is when you know you've made it.

You may remember that he sued Rihanna last year for ripping off his images to make her video for S&M.




Yup. He is THE BEST. Incomparable.

I WORSHIP him.

So he gave an incredible talk to a packed gallery. He showed some of his work. Talked about how he got his start (working for Andy Warhol), his struggles as a young artist, his struggles as a super famous artist. He talked about his process, his life, living in the East Village, how friends dying of AIDS in the 80's and 90's really influenced his work.... he shared his views on religion and celebrity and life and it was just really really captivating and candid.



One of his early and funniest anecdotes was about a shoot he did for Tupac.

Basically Tupac had arrived early for his shoot, "rappers are NEVER early", and he was still naked in bed with his boyfriend at the hotel but Tupac just came into his room sat on his bed and was completely unfazed and was like, "So what are we doing today?"

David explained how he'd read about rap originating in the fields, etc etc etc and Tupac interrupted him and was like "You want to shoot me....as a SLAVE?"

And David's like "Yeah, basically."

And Tupac's like, "I'm cool with that."



Anyway the takeaway from that was that Tupac was at his core just an amazing artist and that over his years as a celebrity photographer he's learned never to judge a person by their public image or whatever because everyone is different, everyone is human, everyone's an artist, and people can surprise you. Or they can be awful bitches.

Anyway...it was SUCH an inspiring talk.

And I've never told anyone this, but during Q&A after his presentation, I asked him two questions.

A: Would he sign my book?

and B:, well B: isn't really a question, but I was worried that I might not have time to talk to him after so I just wanted to make sure he heard what I had to say. Which is that back when I was a "starving artist"...back when I charged like $100 for a headshot and was collecting unemployment and didn't buy clothes for a year and a half and ate exclusively off the Dollar Menu at McDonald's and questioned almost daily whether or not I should be looking for a "real job"... I bought my first photography book.

It was his book "Heaven To Hell".



It was $120. Which in my mind was SO MUCH MONEY back then. It was like a week's worth of photography income. But the book has always sat on my shelf. It's a monstrosity...it weighs like 20 pounds. And it has always inspired me to keep doing what I'm doing.

Anyway. He was so nice. And he had actually planned to speak about the cover image of the book for a good half hour and even showed a behind-the-scenes video of Courtney Love being a superpsychobitch. It was a definite sign. And for the rest of Q&A he looked directly at me when he was answering questions about photography as a career and stuff.

I was the ONLY person in the audience who had brought one of his books with me. (I think in NYC people are way too cool to bring a book or ask for a person's autograph or photo, but I'm not!)

I was giddy. I almost wanted to cry. I felt like a silly teenage fanboy.

Literally I was so nervous attending the event. I had even written a letter to him (in case I didn't get the courage to speak) which I gave to him afterwards anyway.

Nervous because he is SO FAMOUS and successful and I was scared he might be cocky and mean (he did sue Rihanna, after all) and look down on me because all I do is take stupid headshots and stupid weddings (which when you compare it to his ART, is just...well silly). But he was the exact opposite. He was so kind. And he talked about how he used to shoot weddings as well. And it was like...he just understood.

And in that moment I realized duh....he's been through it all too. And all superfamous super successful people start somewhere. And they understand the struggle.

And in my letter to David I told him some really nice things and asked him to think of me if he should ever need an extra hand on any set, or to take behind-the-scenes photos, or party pictures, or whatever. I'd fly anywhere and do anything to work with him. For free.

Anyway. One thing I've learned in life is to never underestimate the power of a really nicely-worded letter. I got my life-changing job with Bjoern due to an unsolicited letter. And if there's anything I took away from going to Brown, it's how to craft a really good letter...or apology email.

So regardless of whether or not Mr. LaChapelle does ever contact me, he has changed my life.

Forever.




Oh, Marky is staying with me this weekend and he took a picture too and then gave him a kiss on the cheek and turned bright red. (Mark did, not David)



Marky then proceeded to make friends with some of David's friends. Other super successful jetsetting artists.



Wanna see what David wrote in my book?????



The crown on my growing collection of beautiful photo books!



Phew. Very therapeutic. Thanks for reading. Have not stopped thinking about how awesome it was and it's nice to get it written down and out there.

SO happy right now. Literally I've been on the giddy verge of tears for the past 18 hours. I will look back on this day fondly forever.

Maybe I'll go buy a lottery ticket.

I love New York!