OZ & LA Show Recap

I had two shows in the past few weeks, one in Australia and one in Los Angeles. You can view all the info regarding them here. I wasn’t planning on attending the Australia one but I ended up buying a ticket and taking a quick vacation there for about 11 days or so. I returned to the USA the 2nd, and had my Los Angeles show the 4th.

I have never done any kind of photo exhibit before in my life and didn’t quite know what to expect. I wasn’t really trying to make money, I mean it would be cool to sell a few prints, but I mostly just wanted to do them- to do them. I figured it would be a rad experience. I had fun, and tried my best to document my travels. Here goes!

My schedule for the trip

~~07/19 – San Diego, CA => Melbourne, VIC~~
07/20 – San Diego, CA => Melbourne, VIC
07/21 – San Diego, CA => Melbourne, VIC
07/22 – Melbourne, VIC
07/23 – Melbourne, VIC
07/24 – Melbourne, VIC
07/25 – Melbourne, VIC
07/26 – Melbourne, VIC
07/27 – Melbourne, VIC
07/28 – Melbourne, VIC
07/29 – Melbourne, VIC
07/30 – Melbourne, VIC => Sydney, NSW
07/31 – Sydney, NSW
08/01 – Sydney, NSW
08/02 – Sydney, NSW => San Diego, CA
08/04 – Los Angeles, CA

I went to the San Diego airport on the 19th. I ended up in the commuter terminal and was stuck in line behind three nuns. They barely spoke English, each had 3 bags to check, and there was only one line. I waited for about 20 minutes and then go to the desk. I was in the wrong terminal. I took a short bus to another terminal and arrived to hundreds of people just standing outside the airport. Apparently someone had burned something in a toaster and set off a fire alarm so the whole airport was shut down and had to be evacuated. Once I finally got into the airport I was told my first flight to LA was running late and I wasn’t going to make my flight to Australia.

Fuck. It sucked, I had to go home and chill for another day before traveling for a whole day.

So yea, jump forward a day of doing random stuff and I am at the airport again.

I had a few hours to kill at the LAX. I set up computer camp by the closest outlet.

My flight to Australia was 14 hours and some minutes. I sat next to an orthodox Jew and his wife. His wife had window, he had middle, and I was aisle. I don’t know why but I swear I always get the wildest people next to me. His wife was upwards of 300 pounds, and couldn’t even get her tray down to put her food on, she just put it on her stomach. She also didn’t fit in her seat, so her husband sorta half sat on my chair- he would leave the armrest up? Who does that? Haha. In addition the dude was reading the Torah for 13 out of the 14 hours of the flight. He has his overhead light on the whole time and it would reflect off the Torah and into my eyes. I basically did the whole plane ride with a blanket over my face. My dad is from Israel and I told him this story, he responded with “Maybe God was trying to tell you something” I told him unlike God I need more than just one day of sleep a week. Anyway, I finally got to Sydney. It was pouring rain. Good thing I wasn’t visiting there just yet.

I brought my 50mm 1.8 lens with me on purpose, cause I wanted to have a small lens I could walk around the city with. Welp, that never happened. I left my bag opened and when I took it off of the security conveyor belt it opened up and spilled everywhere. I guess I am lucky the plastic lens is the only thing that broke.

The flight to Melbourne was beautiful, I got to see a lot of the country.

I have never really done customs much before so me being ignorant me, I declared I had nuts and berries. I guess in the end it was a good thing, because they are VERY strict at Sydney’s customs. Because of this I had to strand in a long line with a bunch of people that had tons of boxes and suit cases. All I had were two granola bars. I didn’t even like the flavors I had left. When i got to customs they said I could keep them, but I threw them away anyway cause they tasted terrible.

Once I got the through everything a fellow photographer friend of mine picked me up from the airport. Tim Allen was a dude I only knew via Twitter. He was picking me up and letting me crash at his place in Melbourne. After he picked me up we went back to his place, and then caught a train into the city. We went directly to Lord Of The Fries, and man was it amazing. Such good vegan junk food. We went to my show right after, it was located in downtown Melbourne. There was a really nice cafe with bomb ass food up front, and a big open room with the images in back.

This is the room from left to right

Me and one of my favorite images. It was really cool to have my images printed/ framed for the first time. I wanted to touch them all over.

I went out that night with a few guys from the band Surrender. They moved in right next to Tim Allen so it worked out quite well. I don’t remember where we went exactly. But it went cocktail bar, rooftop bar, club and then Asian restaurant. In Australia the drinking age is 18, and bars don’t close at 2ish like they do here. Basically, everyone parties more, from a younger age. It was a wild night. Someone actually stole my coat that night. I came out of one of the clubs after everyone else and they said “where’s your coat”. I said “someone took it”. I walked over to them and this guy like 6 feet from me was wearing my coat. I said “hey, that’s my coat”, and pointed. I was well into my night so I sorta mumbled it and didn’t say it very loud. But it was loud enough for the dude to hear me. He literally started sprinting away. What the fuck? I am not going to chase some kid so I can have my coat back. Maybe if it had my passport in it, but I took everything out from it before taking it off. But yea, that was my first night! Everything is really frisking expensive in Australia by the way, like twice as much at the very least, and then our dollar is worth less as well. A night out killed my wallet.

The next day I took the train back to my show and met up with a few different people. On the way to the show I tried to get a sandwich from some shop on the street and the guy denied me because my signatures didn’t match on my card and on my receipt. Never had that happen before! I basically tweeted when I was there each day and people would come hang out and talk and it was a good time. Bryan Sun came around that morning to hang. We hung out for a bit and I eventually got back to work on some e-mails. The sad reality of me going on vacation is that it is not really possible for me to 100% stop working all together. I spent the day at the cafe hanging, working, and as people tweeted me and stopped by I would meet up and hang out with them. Kane, one of the other photographers putting on the show stopped by that day. He was awesome, I was stoked to meet him as he was such a rad dude. He also brought one of his assistants- Nick, with him as well. Later that afternoon Dan Purnell, a fellow photographer who works for Atticus stopped by the cafe. He took me out shopping nearby in the city and I purchased a new coat. It was so cold in Australia, and I had to have a coat- someone stole mine! I went back to Bryan‘s that night and for dinner I met up with a friend of Sal’s. You may remember Sal from some of my other blog posts- he used to tour manager ADTR. Anyway, Sal is really good at only hanging out with really chill people, so when he suggests someone- I hang with them. Anyway I met up with Kirsty and we took a tram to a close-by restaurant called Gasometer. It was sooo good, I got some kind of vegan rib with other good stuff as sides. I also ran into Alex- Jona from Bring Me The Horizon’s brother. The world is such a small place! Anyway, food was bomb and after Bryan and his friend picked us up and we went to a local club called “NEXT”. NEXT wasn’t quite my cup of tea but it was a good experience none the less. After we were done there Bryan had to go home because he had somehow downed two bottles of wine before even meeting up with us. That crazy guy! Anyway I went to a place called the Carlton Club and my night ended sometime around 4:30am. I love Australia, and how their nights don’t end as early as ours.

The next morning I grabbed some breakfast with Ben Clement, it was a few train rides away. By this time I was becoming really good at taking the train. After we were done we took the tram into the city and walked to the cafe. We parted ways and I met up with Brian at the cafe.

Ben grabbed this image of my camera, thought it was cool!

Bryan took these shots of me in the cafe.

A few people from the area stopped by to talk as well. It’s really nice to talk to people that look up to me. I don’t mean that in a conceited way, I just know that if it was me meeting up with someone I looked up to, I would be stoked as hell. I would be even more stoked the person took the time to meet up with me.

After Bryan and I were done at the cafe we caught a tram to his place, and then walked to the train station.

This is what a tram looks like, they are for getting around within the city, faster than walking.

I got a pass everyday for 7 AUS, it let me ride the train and trams for an unlimited amount of time.

Bryan was being an awesome host and decided to show me a little bit of Aussi sport culture- he took me to a footy game.

Bryan waiting outside the station for his friend.

A footy game is somewhere in between football, rudy, and soccer. It’s fast, paces, rough, and fun as hell to watch.

Bryan and his friend walking to the train station from the game.

From the city I caught another train over to the Atticus office.

I met up with Dan and we went out to eat.

To the Gasometer! This place was so good, was totally down with going there again. This time I got the pot pie with different sides.

That night Dan let me crash at his place. His fiancé was the coolest ever, she made me my own room with a cup of water, toothpaste and a tooth brush. Best people ever, I love Australians.

The next morning I woke up to an empty house with directions on how to get to the city.

I walked and followed them the best I could but ended up having to ask. I didn’t realize there were certain places to wait for a tram so I just went into the street and tried to wave one down like a taxi. It just ignored me and sped by. Oops!

I eventually took two trams, and caught a train into the city. First stop, Lord Of The Fries. I had to get some junk food, I had cravings now

I waited on a bench for an hour or so until Kane picked me up in his car from downtown. I tagged along with him as he ran some errands to a few local places. We eventually ended up at his studio, which was awesome.

He had a bunch of mannequins, and had two extra arms. I had been meaning to get an arm for my lens bracelet product shots, but I never did. Kane gave me a spare arm, sickest.

This is Kane in his natural environment.

After he was done printing a few things we drove over to the Atticus shop to hang for a bit.

I met Dan at Bamboozle, Dan watched Insane Clown Posse at Bamboozle, and made a book bout it.

After we hung out at Atticus, Dan took the train home and I crashed at a friend’s place.

The next morning I met up with Ben Clement again. We went to a place called Las Vegan, it was awesome. We spent the day doing random things in the city, it was rad.

I got breakfast with Kirsty the next day at this place.

I went sightseeing with Kirsty that day. We went to place called ACDC Lane, lots of graffiti, some stuff by Banksy, it was sick.

We also went up in this huge tower called Eureka tower. She didn’t fancy heights too much, I thought it was a sick view!

You can see the stadium I went to the other day in this shot (on left).

They had one part that was open to the outside air.

After some site seeing we headed over to some of two of Kirsty’s friend’s place. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we kicked it on their porch for a bit.

This is Alex, he had two kittens, one loved to climb the screen.

People love coffee in Australia. Especially Tony (other dude friend).

We went to a place called Trippy Taco, it was a vegan Mexican place. Not like the Mexican here in San Diego, but still really good, just a different kind of Mexican, I thought it was better than Pokez.

After getting food I went back to Kirsty’s place to take a picture with her roommate’s Horned Dragon.

I love lizards, so this pretty much made my life.

Oh yea! Kate dates Chris from Closure in Moscow, so it was awesome seeing him again, such a creature.

I was good and went to bed early so that when I arrived in Sydney I wasn’t exhausted. I woke up at 4:00ish I caught a cab that night to the airport, Kirsty was nice enough to come with me. It was cool, she could come with me all the way to the waiting area for my flight. That barely ever happens in the States. I didn’t even have to take my belt off when we went through security! I arrived in Sydney around 8:00 or so and a local photographer, Ben Chadbond, picked me up. I had never met Ben before, like pretty much every other person on this trip. But he was awesome. First stop? Get some food!

He was actually happy, believe it or not.

After we were done eating he took me to the Aquarium and dropped me off. I had a few people from the area who really wanted to meet me and I didn’t have a show there or anything- I was just visiting. They asked how we could meet up and I didn’t know what to do. One of them suggested the Aquarium and I thought that sounded sick, so we did it! Set a time, place and anyone who wanted to come- could come.

The Aquarium was awesome, we got to go underneath the fish.

This isn’t my shot, but you can see how close we were.

I’m the silhouette on the left.

We walked around, got food, went to the market, and they took a bunch of Fuji Instax pictures of me and had me sign them. A few of these are their photos, thanks guys!

This guy loved birds.

The rest of my stay in Sydney was touristy and full of hang outs. I’ll pare you some words and just give you some visuals.

Got stranded one night, this is me waiting at the train station, I eventually found a hotel.

These signs helped so much. All the traffic there is backwards, so I kept looking the wrong way. I almost got hit when I was in Melbourne

Mmmm breakfast

Mmm lunch

With Ben, he’s hood.

We went to the area around the opera house.

and the opera house

I’m a tourist!

I’m still a tourist!

Mmm dinner

With Ben and his girlfriend. We went to an acoustic show after this, and then we saw Harry Potter in 3D (well just me and Ben went to the movie)

I did this random hotel thing on wotif.com and ended up with a pretty nice hotel. I slept in both beds cause the one closest to the camera is where I was at first, but then I realized the internet wasn’t through an ethernet cable that could only be reached by being in the other bed, so I had to switch. Rough life.

Breakfast! In Australia they have Savory Pies, I have never had one before. I am sure we have them in the States, like chicken pot pies- but they are sooo good over there.

Went to the Zoo with Ben.

Koala!

All Koalas look like old stoney men.

Wuddap I got a kangaroo under my hand.

“This is my kingdom” – not a real quote

Photo by Ben

This baby hopped out of its mothers pouch and scratched its stomach, it was so cute

Chillin’

We are tourists!

He was so soft.

He didn’t like Ben much

Hello

Ben took me to this abandoned area, it was sick.

We had to jump a few fences to get there

I am a ninja

That afternoon we had some afternoon beers, I don’t do this much in the States as I get drunk after two beers or so.

That night Ben dropped me off at this beach by a friend’s house I was suppose to crash at. I tried to take a picture of my gear on the beach but it just looks like crap.

I sat there for about 45 minutes listening to Bon Iver’s new album, so good.

I eventually met up with the friend, I had actually never met her before but we had a mutual friend – Patrick Tracy, and he told me she was a chiller, so we hung out, got food, and I crashed on her couch. She was doing some wild school project that involved cutting up animals. I snapped some photos of them for her. Sorta creepy.

The next morning I went to the beach to hang out for an hour before hopping on a cab and going to the airport.

Anyway I flew home and the flights weren’t as bad as the way out- we had good movies! I was so stoked. One of them was Thor, man was that a terrible movie, so glad I didn’t see it in theaters. Landed in LA, connected to San Diego. Home for one night, and then off to LA the next afternoon.

My brother, mom, and I stayed at our Cousin’s house in Huntington Beach for the night, then the next morning we headed to LA. We hit up one of my favorite vegan places in LA, it’s called Flore Cafe. So good.