Good evening, Hive! I missed an entire week and after my previous post, I was really hoping to making nightly blog posts a part of my routine. It didn’t work out that way. As soon as I landed in Philadelphia, I had to start thinking about the upcoming week of shooting ahead of me. It’s a sort of unannounced project I was working on with @joshbalz. He owns an oddities parlor called The Strange & Unusual in Kingston, PA and for three days, I would be shooting the inventory in the store, and some of his personal collection. Body parts, wet specimen animals, occult paraphernalia, etc.
Seeing @joshbalz was great. He’s become one of my closest friends over the years. He’s been interested in cryptocurrency and NFT’s since I discovered Hive in 2016. We’ve always talked about collaborating on something together. Life gets in the way, and as a serial entrepreneur, he has a lot of commitments. After the success of Dark Pinup, though, we finally found the urgency to talk. I’m so happy with everything that we shot. Mentally and creatively exhausted, but meaningful art usually comes at a price. I’m reviewing over 3000 photos now as I write this.
The rest of the trip, I tried to spend with @guthrie and @bonni. This is my second time to the east coast in the last four months. Not bad for a pandemic, I suppose. The work trips are demanding, and I always feel like a dick when I spend my time locked in a guest bedroom sitting in front of the computer around the clock. We did find time to go out to eat. @bonni and I found a little place in Wilkes-Barre that served the best vegan food I’ve ever had. The rest of the week was spent hanging on the couch, playing video games and watching the Simpsons.
Lastly, my brother @customnature and I made our way to our grandmother’s. For me, it was the first time in years. We brought @guthrie along as well. He visited his great grandma when he was about four. She’s in her 90’s now, so I’m glad we all had the opportunity to see her and get some photos together. For now, I have to try and wind down. I missed my flight because of a crash on the turnpike and we’re going to have to catch a 6:00a.m. departure. I’m going to try and get some sleep because that 3:30a.m. alarm is going to be brutal.