I am a Professional Portrait/Art Photographer, but I am also known to do Editorial, Fashion, Commercial and Advertising work.

My work is widely published here on Earth, as well as…well, that’s the only planet I am aware of, so far. There’s still time yet, though.

My ‘style’ is the visual amalgamation of over 15 years in Graphic Design, 25 years of composing & performing music, many years spent traveling around the planet, a lifetime of over-romanticizing things, insomnia, an inexplicable ability to hear what colours would sound like if they could sing (Synaesthesia, anyone?), an unfaltering fascination with humans, and an obsessive need to create.

It all adds up. Somehow.”

Interview by
Christy Trapp
Kansas Editor

How did you first get started in photography?

There has always been a camera of some kind in my life for as long as I can remember, although I did not buy my first professional camera until the end of 2004.

What kind of equipment do you use? Is there anything new you’re dying to get your hands on?

I am definitely not a gear-head. I keep things as simple and low-tech as possible. I have one camera (Canon 5D), and one lens (Canon 24-70L). I do not own any studio lighting, as I prefer to shoot in natural/available light. The only piece of gear I ever daydream about is a Canon 5D MK-II, and even that daydream is rare. I am quite content with what I have, now

What projects are you currently working on?

I am putting together 3 different books of my photography, and am currently in post-production for several instructional videos I’ve produced over the past few months.

What kind of things influenced your creative direction?

My entire life influences me, creatively. The music I listen to, the films I see, the loves in my life, the places I’ve lived, the friends I keep…the very things I surround myself with in my life. My life and my photography are very much one-and-the-same.

What do you feel is the overall tone to your work?

Someone once said of my photography, “It’s like you are in love with being in love”. I couldn’t have said it better, myself. My images are simply the externalization of what I feel in my heart. My work is quite personal.

Are you influenced by other photographers or artists in other mediums? If so, how do you think it shows in your work?

To be honest, I do not spend much time looking at the works of other visual artists. A real source of influence for me is music…the moods it paints, the colours it evokes, the narrative of well-written lyrics…that has more influence on me than any visual medium. In the realm of visual creativity, I prefer to keep my mind as uninfluenced by others, as much as possible.

Are you more interested in evoking an emotional or the intellectual response?

Emotional. Always. To me, photography is like painting…but with mood, instead of paint.

Do you have any advice to give new photographers?

I always implore people to stop placing so much importance on equipment. A good photograph is born in your mind. The camera only serves to externalize that vision. It would serve most photographers well to study some techniques for creative thinking. Your creativity is what separates you from the rest of the pack.

Do you have any other major goals besides your photography?

I am a professional Flamenco guitarist, and have been working on my 2nd CD project for over 5 years, now. I want to finish it, soon…although I suspect I will experience a kind of postpartum depression, once it is complete. The creative process with this CD had become a welcome part of my life, during these past several years. It often makes me wonder, “is it the journey, or the destination?”. I’m not certain how to answer that one, in this case. But I’m sure I’ll be happy once it is complete, regardless

Visit Jaime’s Website

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by Gianna, Age 3

Inspired This:

by Chris Collins
Curator
chris@nonsensesociety.com

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What is your inspiration and motivation to dance?

For me, dancing is like walking or eating, I cannot remember a time that dance was not in my life and so I don’t really need to be inspired to dance, I just am dance.

What was your experience becoming a Rockette like?

Well, it’s been 5 seasons now so there are a bunch of different stories. Mostly, it is the hardest job I have ever had. We work SOOOO hard. There is this huge pressure to be perfect. The directors are very intimating. I’ve made some of my best friends through the Rockettes, and nothing makes me happier. I won’t be joining them this year on the road because I have other things coming up but I love them!

What kind of attitude did you have about life and your career in order to make your dreams come true?

Relentless dedication for sure. hard work, I work harder than anyone else I know. The courage to go out and make your dreams come true is important too.

Do you think your success as a dancer has opened up opportunities for you in other fields? If so, can you tell us a bit about them?

As a dancer I have had a dream career, I’ve gotten to do so many amazing things. Of course, the life of a dancer can be very short so I have started transitioning into more choreography, and lately TV hosting. I really love acting goofy on camera. I’ve always had a mega-personality so it is rad new adventure!

I recently read on your blog that you’re writing a book. Can you tell us what it’s about and how it’s going?

Sure, the book is almost done. I have been writing the thank-you’s and finding photos to go inside. Jerry Mitchell (tony award winner) is writing the foreword and I am so thrilled. There are many rumors about the book out there, but no one really knows what to expect. I think the story is very universal. Love. Dance. Passion. Courage. Hard work. Disappointment.

Can you tell us the story behind your Fearless Heart motto?

I always tell my dancers when I am teaching master classes that they have to be fearless. They MUST just leave all that they have out on the floor + that the only person standing in their way, is them. Having a fearless heart is very important so I just started spreading that around!

Was there a pivotal turning point in your career? Do you think it affected you as a person?

I think it was when I booked my first big American jobs dancing for the Nets + NBA. That sort of rolled into everything else. It made be believe that my dreams were not in vain. The Dance world is very competitive, not unlike music and photography.

Was it ever discouraging? What kept you going despite this?

It is discouraging everyday! I just cried this morning! So tough, it is just all these one in a million chances. Very stressful. For me, I have never been afraid of failure…it keeps me motivated – to prove everyone wrong about me.

Do you have any other advice for anyone who’s chasing after their dream careers?

Just do it. Just get up and go. Now. Don’t make excuses for yourself, and never ever ever give up. ever. promise?

Keltie’s Empire

• Website
• Blog
• Clothing Line

Interview by Nonsense Society’s Kansas Editor, Christy Trapp

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1. Mary Robinson (Atlanta, USA)

2. R. Wade Wilshusen (Austin, USA)

Second Hand
Birds spit strings in six flavors
Smoke, time, tinges of brown on finger edges.
The cobweb foam ebbing after a first pint-sip, just plain spit, a mist sharpening now, just now.
Just now, dripping at half-speed house bpm: water.
Rivulets converging, tributary spilling, a bucket carried with lazy knees knocking.
The television is off; hear it not making noise. Three fans roaring, whispering, churning, telling inside jokes.
Just now, a descending squirrel rasped leaves:
An excuse to yell about baseball.
A splitter is the hardest pitch to hit.
Fastball arm action, deceptive motion, control the direction by applying pressure to different seams.
Try a sixty five mile-per-hour (an hour: excruciating, searing, ticking seconds gashing wind strokes, rapidly deteriorating stomach lining,
windsocks torn, angrily portending storms, staring, waiting, tearing skin and pressing fingernails into palms, ripping by, the seconds,
tenths of seconds sprinting odometer circles [and hour can be either good or bad and as you age, time becomes proportionately less significant. To a one-hour-old infant, an hour is 100% of your life.
When your'e thirty, an hour's two sitcoms and a six-pack] just to leave a mark)
pitch starting off well above the strike zone and dropping, just now.

3. Mahima Bhatia (Delhi, India)

4. Amy Rosenberg (NYC, USA)

“Funky Goddess Woman” (collaboration with Sherri Rosen)

5. Sherri Rosen (NYC, USA)

“Funky Goddess Woman” (collaboration with Amy Rosenberg)
-
Funky Goddess Woman has a fierceness that cuts through the bullshit of excuses. She’s been around. She’s seen and heard it all.
She sees people around her that allow fear of failure to stop them from preceding ahead.
They want a guarantee that whatever idea, problem, creation they are working on will work, but
she knows there are no guarantees on anything.

Funky Goddess Woman says “don’t allow yourself to continuously be sidetracked, while all the time knowing what your problem is, and ultimately allowing fear of failure and fear of success to get in your way.”

She prods, she pushes, doesn’t hold back, and aims for the truth.  She keeps
Injecting the medicine of truth into their heart until they wakeup and realize it’s no big deal to move ahead, actually it’s much easier and simpler than holding yourself back.  Holding yourself back takes a great amount of energy and is a burden.

Funky Goddess Woman says “own your truth! Own what you are good at and don’t hold back!”

6. Francois Cachet (Johannesburg, South Africa)

7. Bethany Grace (Prague, Czech Republic)

“To shoot or not to shoot. That is the question.”

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I am currently accepting all article submissions from freelancers out there. Search the Internet. SCROUNGE the world for art that inspires you. What kicks you in the gut? If I agree with you, I will put it on the site. If I agree with you many times, I will make you an official Nonsense Society editor.

Let me ask you a question

How would you like to be put in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands within 24 hours? Or would you prefer to continue surfing the web all night? This is your life. Do something with it. Inspire someone.

Start Immediately

the following is a template of a compilation containing a banner , a short introduction, and 5 photos (I would use more than 5 photos).The items in BOLD are what you should provide. Since I don’t know what you guys can come up with, I won’t put any boundaries on you. Please be as creative/unique as possible. Want some inspiration? Here’s one I did.

Submit to chris@nonsensesociety.com

Before starting, please read this article on how to steal any photo (legally) then…

Please Submit Using This Template

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

SHORT INTRO TO YOUR FEATURE

YOUR NAME
WHAT YOU DO
YOUR WEBSITE

<p style=”text-align: center;”><!–more–></p>

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

<p><a href=”SOURCE-URL“><img src=”URL-OF-IMAGE” /></a></p>

Over-Achiever?

This template is geared toward a compilation post. Feel free to get creative with things like:

• Articles
• Tutorials
• Interviews
• Artist Showcases
• ??????

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Before

After

wow

Learn How To Do It

email gordonmcbryde@gmail.com for pricing & info. You won’t regret it.

More From His Portfolio

click it!

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The Award

The winners of this contest will be published in the first Nonsense Thoughts book ever! It will be available worldwide this fall!

• Your name and url will be included in the book with your artwork.

The Timeframe

This contest will last until the end of September 2010.

Who Wins?

All submissions will be published on the website. They will be judged by the Nonsense Society community, editors, and myself. Get your friends to vote after they are posted here!

What are the rules?

The world is your burrito.

• Submit your own Nonsense Thoughts
• Submit something inspired by my Nonsense Thoughts

It’s up to you how you’d like to get noticed… This could be a drawing, a short story, a photograph, a poem. Submit as many pieces as you’d like.

How do I submit?

Send all submissions to chris@nonsensesociety.com

What are Nonsense Thoughts

Pure. Unfiltered. Uncensored. Expression.

I carry this notepad around with me all the time and when something comes into my head (or heart) I put it down on paper. Some are funny. Some are painful. The idea is that you completely open up YOU. YOURSELF. Who are you? what are you feeling/thinking? Show it here. Please.

Some Examples

Store (new)

p>

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Interview by:
Tessa Abrahams
LA/NYC Editor

How do you feel about the concept of fame and how it could change your personal life?

Fame is such a strange concept and it’s something that is almost unavoidable when you get to a certain point in music. Ideally, I would love to have my music be the thing that becomes famous instead of me becoming famous. I want to be able go places and live life and write songs and not be under the eye of a camera. Thankfully, that’s the way my life is at the moment.

What emotion inspires your writing most often? Why?

I guess the emotion that inspires me most is not a specific “happy” or “sad” but a kind of “press at your heart” emotion….which can mean a burdensome weight, or a light joyful feeling, sorrow, anger, regret or hope. When I’m starting to write a song, I know it’s a song I’m gonna want to keep if I get that “press on the heart” feeling. It needs to move me first if it’s ever going to reach anybody else.

Has your music career altered your personal relationships? If so, how?

I’m on a very different path than most of my friends. My friends are in college studying for exams and writing essays and I’m making albums. Sometimes its hard to keep in touch when everybody is in different places all over the world. I wish I was better at it. But I always believe that with your best friends, even if you’ve been apart for many days, or months, or years, when you reunite it feels like it always did.

What was the most crucial factor that lead to you to deciding to leave college in pursuit of music? What was the hardest thing to leave behind?

During the first semester of college I was doing a lot of songwriting and recording. There was a lot happening around the movie that I had written 2 songs for “The Women”. At the same time, I had 10 page essays and reading to do and it didn’t feel like I could fully devote myself to music while at school–when music was in fact what I truly wanted to be doing. I think the hardest thing to leave behind was that feeling of being a kid. Because as much as you’d like to think of yourself as a sophisticated adult when you are at college, you are still a ways away from living in the “real world” and having a career.

Aside from music, is there anything else you are hoping to accomplish in the future that perhaps you had to put aside for the time being?

I don’t know if its an accomplishment per say, but I really want a dog. A cute one. It’s hard to adopt an animal when there’s always the possibility that you might be on the road for a while…..but that’s why I’m going to train my dog to play the tambourine and sing backup and then I can take him on the road with me.

Are there any opportunities or experiences that you were able to take advantage of because of your music? Why was this significant?

I’ve gotten to collaborate with so many artists that I admire. I’ve recently recorded with Landon Pigg and Aqualung and John Doe…all incredible musicians. I am also a huge fan of the show “So You Think You Can Dance” and I’ve always dreamed of working with the choreographer Sonya Tayeh. So I came up with this crazy scheme that I was gonna do a music video for “Graveyard” and write to her and ask her to choreograph it. And she said yes! The video is not out yet, but I’m really excited for people to see it!

What would you say is most unique to your personal style as a musician? Why?

Well, I guess this isn’t quite my style…yet….but I’ve been thinking of getting bright red streaks in my hair. Never too late for some good-old-fashioned teenage rebellion, eh?

What are you hoping to achieve as a musician and how does this motivate you?

I want to continue to grow as an artist and songwriter. I hope that my most recent album will always be my favorite. And hopefully, more and more people will know my music.

Is there any moment that stands out in your mind as the most pivotal turning point in your music career? How did you change as a person?

A pivotal moment was performing “Darling I Do” (the song I wrote with Landon Pigg for Shrek 4) on Jay Leno. That’s was definitely a surreal moment going home and watching myself play music on the TV. But you celebrate it, and the next day comes and it’s really no different. I’m still moving forward, trying to make music and have it be heard, I’m just one step closer.

Lucy on Jay Leno

Gravity – Music Video

Links

• MySpace
• Facebook
• iTunes

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Don’t pretend to be strong.

More Nonsense Thoughts?
About Chris Collins
Get a T-Shirt!
Get a print!

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Happy Halloween, Jerk.

More Nonsense Thoughts?
About Chris Collins
Get a T-Shirt!
Get a print!

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