ScareFest

I made my first publicity appearance this last weekend at ScareFest in Lexington Kentucky.  Everybody enjoyed seeing my work, and I had a great time watching faces as people reacted to my photographs.  A few timid ghost hunters ran away from my booth with their eyes covered, but this didn’t hurt my feelings at all.  In my opinion, it was just a good review. 

I got to meet real Horror celebrities at the event, which completely brought out the geek in me.  The first person I met was the great Harry Manfredini, the man who composed the original score for FRIDAY THE 13th.  You know that “Chuh, chuh, chuh…Kihl, kihl, kihl” sound in FRIDAY THE 13th? Harry designed that.  In the documentary on the Slasher genre, GOING TO PIECES, you can see Harry describing the origin of that amazing sound element. He enunciated the first letters of “Mom” and “Kill” into an echoplex machine. That sound is the voice of Jason driving his mother to kill. Brilliant, right? The music in the film only appears when the killer is present.  This audio technique is the suspense trigger, and a large part of why the film was so frightening to audiences.

Harry loved my work and sent over his friend Victor Miller to check it out. Victor Miller, Yale graduate and winner of three Emmys, wrote the original script for FRIDAY THE 13th.  Victor Miller invented Jason Voorhees. An elegant gentleman with perfectly coifed hair and sleeve tattoos, he has to be the coolest man I have ever met.  Harry and Victor liked my work so much that they started sending people over from Celebrity Row.  In a swell of appreciation, I gave them both prints of my work.  On top of that, Victor also bought a copy of BALLOONS, making him my first customer.  

I brought with me my amigo Kevin Sisemore.  Kevin is my closest friend and advisor, a brilliant photographer, and my ad-hoc manager. He shoots documentary photography in the same social realist vein as Joel Sternfeld and Stephen Shore.  He spent many years working in New York City, and was most recently published in the art book A Field Guide To The North American Family.  You can check out his work on his blog Sight Under Construction.

Kevin and I mingled with other vendors and quickly became friends with The Strychnine Sisters.  Their jewelry was the big hit of the show. Everybody tumbled into their web of charm.  To see samples of their ultra-hip jewelry visit their MySpace page.  All weekend long I had a hopeless crush on Strychnine Jen – she of the flaming orange hair.  We met Betsy Palmer together, the actress that plays Mrs. Voorhees in the original FRIDAY THE 13th.  Betsy Palmer is hands down the sweetest woman I have ever met in my life.  She kissed us both on the cheek when she said goodbye.  I’ve already decided that I want her to marry me and Strychnine Jen at our wedding.

After hours, The Strychnine Sisters were the center of the party.  Due to the magnetic pull of their personalities, we got to hang out with Tony Todd, best known for playing the title role in CANDYMAN, Tony Muran, the original Michael Meyers, and Michael Berryman, famous for playing Pluto in the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES.  My Horror friends will look upon me with incredulous disbelief and ravenous envy when I tell them I had drinks with Candy Man, Michael Meyers, and Pluto. Because of The Strychnine Sisters, I also got to ride over to the midnight screening of FRIDAY THE 13th in Tom Savini’s van.  Now admittedly, Tom Savini had no idea who I was, but all the same, I looked like a rock star getting out of his van.

For the record, Tom Savini is one of my absolute heroes.  Listening to him speak, he reminded me of Nick Vedros, the original photographer I studied under.  Both have alpha-male personalities.  Tom Savini is so brilliant that he is beyond reproach.  In my opinion, his work on DAY OF THE DEAD still serves as the standard by which all other gore effects are measured. 

This is my portrait with the amazing Tony Todd.  Best known for playing the role of Candy Man, Tony is one of the very few Horror icons famous for his own face.  Tony Todd is a fantastic actor.  He is so tall, that I was able to nestle into the crook of his armpit for this photo.

I just want to thank everyone that came by to flinch, gasp, and giggle at my work.  I had a great time and look forward to heading out into public again.