[west egg.] a jazz-age adventure.

modern day [daisy.] 

double breasted delight.

[grab ass.]

[reflection of daisy.]

[orly shani.] is the #NBCfashionstar

The camera loves [orly shani.] star of #NBCfashionstar

She’s a tremendous talent. Sold out f’ing Saks 5th ave before you had your coffee today.

Stay tuned to @tucandwes @orlyshani and yours truly @tapwatr for a million brilliant pieces of dreams flying into orbit.
You’ll want to be a part of it. Cause [you are beautiful.]

[nsync.]

[licked.]

the unbearable lightness of love.

Chevy Runs Deep.

I’m not sure the good people at Chevrolet,  @GMnortheast  and drivingthenortheast.com had any idea what they were doing when they lent me a 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (sexy black) and asked that I go out and grab a coupla foliage shots of Pittsburgh and ‘surrounding countryside’.

9 days and some 1,700 miles  of ‘surrounding countryside’  later I returned home with over 6,000 images and a re-fueled love affair for both Pennsylvania and Chevrolet.

Here’s nothin’

First two days. Close to the cuff.  Rainy and grey.  That’s what Pittsburgh does.

Drove mom to radiation appt. Wanted to paint Tahoe PINK! Mom said no.   F Cancer!

Raccoon State Park.   Pumpkin patches.  Yawn.  I was the mid week crowd.  Drove to state line. More parts of same rain.  Grabbed this from Raccoon. It’s how it really looked. Kinda

allow me to re introduce myself.

(Actually got this one while I was on the phone with fellow #chevypostcards shooter and  mentor @musmanno.   His #chevypostcards are the cat’s ass.  Dig em here: @musmanno’s #chevypostcards)

From da burgh went up n ‘at.  Or north.  Stop at McConnell’s Mill.  Flashback to bad field trips.  Same covered bridge.

Full on yard sale. Saved the camera.  Broken leg?  Still considering.  Slippery Rock. Dummy.  800 shots I didn’t use.  Liked this one of the bridge.  Almost got squashed again.   Some yahoo driving a non chevy.  Caught no fish. Leg bled all over stuff. (not pictured).

throwback.

Back to truck. Licking wounds.  73 degrees.  Heated seats and DVD player and navigation and sat radio —> All On!     What?    Headed up more.  N’at.  To  rt80.  Made a right.  Forgot about Kane,  St Mary’s Straub Kinzua and all other planned destinations.  Truck.  Too.  Comfy.  Seats.  Too.  Waaaarm.

Somewhere on 80. Find truck’s one weakness.  Has governor.  Lives at 99mph.  Google ‘remove governor’.  No tools.  Governor wins.

Stop Elk county.   Once lived in Montana.  On elk preserve. (really)  Did not think I’d be impressed.  Nor see  elk.  In PA.  So near a Sheetz and a bar serving Iron City.  Wrong.  On both counts. There are elk in Elk county. Everywhere.  And cool octogenarians. Outnumbering the elk.     Go there.   Do not hop a hundred fences and do a thousand illegal things to get a shot like this:

goodnite elk.

Be the other guy.   Pictured.  Next to the friggin elk.  Who walked.  Up the path.   That was clearly marked:  ”Get.  Award.  Winning.  Elk.  Pictures.  Right.  Up.  This.  Perfectly.  Serene.  And.  Legal.  Path.”   Walk up the path.  Dance with elk.  Win awards.

Back to truck.  Dark.  No signal on  iPhone.  Heated seats.   So who cares.  About anything.  On board nav in the Super Tahoe saved me.  To Lock Haven.  McDonalds.  Large #1 with  Dr. Pepper (not pictured) Amazing.  No room at the inn.  Drove on.  Road must be beautiful during day.   It was night. Tough for foliage pictures.    Nav lady growing frustrated.  Driver tired.   Tahoe steadfast.  Remains composed through many wrong turns. Washed truck 1:35 am.  Because.

Highly dangerous and scary night road ends at Bob’s in Dushore. Dog drives final leg.  Home for a few days.  Bob’s is good. So is Bob.  Many leaves.  And ‘countryside’.

Sunrises all week.   Photographer, hunter.  A million shots. (none with bow…Bambi lives blah blah blah)    Liked this one at the time.  Not so much now:

“

goodnight. goodmorning.

And this one.   A cub thought she’d try and join me in tree stand.  I made room.  She changed her mind.  Ran off.  Took my heart with her.

guest list.

Back in truck.  Night.   Fiance.  Bus station.  Don’t like night + bus station + fiancé.  Arrived early.  Washed Chevy.  Again. Because.   Remembered fiancé. Arrived late.  Bought more Krispy Kremes (not for fiancé). Returned to HILL.

Woke.  Adventured with fiancé.  (Above the belt.)  Got these (repeat):

zen tree hill.

goodlife.

lady of the lake. otherwise known as fiancé.

future frames.

chevy runs deep.

Rickett’s Glen State Park.  Got this not so great shot.  Experimenting with ND filters and the waterproofing of my old boots:

coffee is for closers.

Don’t like tour groups. Or tours.  Or people. Or groups of tours of people   Park had all.   Hurried to leave.    Constanza style evac.   Man on trail.  Large. (Man. Not trail.)   Impressed with the speed of evac or its path. (mid river).   Man asked questions.  I waded for bad picture of  only stick not being held by a tourist in a group on a tour (not pictured).  Flipped business card.  Thought none of it.  Evacuated.  Days later.  Woke to email.  Man was nice.  Wrote cool story. Yours truly appears…highly under researched (sarcasm):

Meet Ryan Connolly everyone, he’s the real deal!

Ryan is Pro Photographer that obviously works hard  ”capturing his  photographic images!”  (That’s him in the next photo)

He’s a photographic rock Star! Ryan Connolly tr-apes right into the stream and sets up his tripod. On an assignment for General Motors, Rickets Glen State Park – Northeast Pennsylvania

I was taking my journey down the falls and Ryan was on his way up when we ran into each other.  Actually, we didn’t  run into each other but rather, he walked right in the water, just before we were about to pass each other. No hesitation at all, he just scurried carefully across the stream wearing what appeared to be, regular shoes or maybe sneakers. Ryan will have to let us know his choice of footwear as I cannot confirm any of this as fact.

I do know that his pants were dry when he plopped in the water so he gets extra points for jumping right in,  and when he finally opened his tripod and set his gear up in the water;  then went right to focusing his camera, I knew he was a photo man that was “getting the shot!” no matter what it took.  This guys a Big Daddy rock star of a photographer.

Rest of story is here (thanks Big Daddy!):  Top Photographers Always Get Their Shots

More shooting.  Fiance and Chevy have hard time containing ‘Rock Star’ Photographer.   Head expands to fill even third row seating.  Dog still loves me. Got this one as she opened the sunroof to make room:

more scenes from a nap.

Back to truck. To fiance.  To bus station.  To rt80 to 95 to 220 to 79 to 60 to 555 to 78 (not necessarily in that order) to Pittsburgh.

Played more in said ‘country side’.

Made fun of Mom. (she’s bald)

Hunted. Fished.  Washed Chevy. Daydreamed about Chevy. Hugged Chevy.  Slept in the third row.  Watched Dvd’s on the flip down.   Wrote a poem to the nav lady.  Hit the west end overlook for this ditty:

most live-able

Got this one at the venerable University of Pittsburgh (9 football time national champion):

go pitt.

Ate some home cooking.  Washed the truck one last time. Handed over the keys to the mean man who came to take her back from me. (he was actually quite nice.  but he took my truck.  mean man.)   Got in my own Chevy.  A 1996 Cavalier. Cried.  Twice. Kissed mom goodbye (F Cancer!!!!)  Drove off into the finest state in the union.

Thanks to Fiance.  Mom.  Dad.  Dog Coop who was along for the ride the whole time and may or may not have driven some.   @TheBlondMamba  @the_lovely_b  Bob On The Hill.   The good people  @Nikon @Sigma @borrowlenses  The bus driver for delivering Fiance (who is better known as @drunkenstache (fiancé not driver)  Krispy Kreme for still existing in Scranton. The city of Pittsburgh for being most live able and more. @starbucks for keeping me alive and with personality  @musmanno  and the other photographers involved on this adventure for being way better than me.  Big Daddy for being Big Daddy and most of all Natalie  @GMnortheast and General Motors and Chevrolet and drivingthenortheast.com.

Chevy Runs Deep.  Pennsylvania Runs Deep.

One last #chevypostcard

rest of the gallery here: www.tapwatr.com   and here :

#chevypostcards

#chevypostcards

@tapwatr

www.tapwatr.com

[capturing your beautiful life.]

weddings…kids…chevys.  I’ll shoot it.

@tapwatr and the lost birthday weekend.

Came across a bunch of stills from a trip to the mountains from earlier this summer.  It was my birthday and this big female black bear seemed to follow me all day.   Nothing like a trip to the hills and a rather large black bear shadowing you to clear the head and shake off the dirt and cobwebs of city life.  Click the picture for more!

one stab. the birthday bear.

losing my religion.

It’s official.  Hip Priest is in edit.  From that snowy winter night many months ago when I put my part of the story into writing up to this sweltering shoot week where Gregg D worked his magic,  it’s been a wild ride.

Wanted to share a gallery of stills from some of the shoot days.  I’m in the process of working with a publisher to put a book together of all Priest stuff.  Feel like it’s an interesting enough topic and I was able to snag some very cool shots that will make for a rad look book.  Going to make some large format prints of these as well.  Think they will make good on the wall.  Lemme know what you think.

Click on the shot below to get to the gallery ‘o goodness.