Mid-May freewrite and camera curiosities!

How’s it going, Hive? A rainy night here in Minneapolis but I love these evenings in my room where a storm just moves through like a soundtrack outside the window. It’s Friday. I had a busy day with clients, meetings and Jum’ah at the mosque. @guthrie had another night of performances at school playing three characters in the play. I picked him up at 9:30p.m. and he confidently told me how good he did. That makes me so happy because he moved to this public school two years ago in the middle of the trimester. For a long time, he struggled to make friends so seeing him flourish in his talents is what parenting is all about. I ended the night by making a cream of asparagus soup and now I’m winding down in bed before getting up tomorrow to document a protest for the Palestine Nakba commemoration.

I didn’t have a plan for tonight other than to share some of the recent creative endeavors I’ve been pursuing and the places I’ve been. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I don’t shoot pinup anymore. That doesn’t mean I won’t be editing and sharing work I’ve already shot. I just don’t want to be known as a pinup photographer at this chapter of my life and I certainly don’t want to be making money at it. That decision has led me into a variety of new genres of work, most of which surprisingly is food photography. For the last year and a half I’ve been shooting for many of the restaurants and cafes around the Twin Cities and it’s been a big change. Events, engagements and nikkah are second priority. It’s been a period of growth and creative exploration in my photography.

I hate feeling like I’m stagnating. It just isn’t in my DNA. I love feeling challenged and not knowing exactly how to approach a problem. I recently did a portrait shoot with a revert brother named Jae Deen in a studio space and for anyone that follows my photography, this is so far outside of my comfort zone! It took me some time to find my footing but I’m actually thrilled with how these clean, polished portraits came out even though they’re a different world from the last 25 years of my career as a dark pinup photographer. Even more recently, my friend Christine and I started working on a video project using one of those disposable camera 3D printed lenses that mount onto your mirrorless camera. More of this footage coming soon but this little moment of peaked interest at @caffetto is adorable.

I did a shoot recently with a muslimah here in Minneapolis named Dosa. We became friends because she has really broke the mold with her style and fashion sense while still adhering to Islam and her beliefs. Before I took Shahada, everything was, “…don’t worry, brother. Just focus on your relationship with Allah.”, and immediately after, the haram police came out of the woodwork telling me I need to take out my labret piercing and get my tattoos removed. Dosa does these amazing, cool goth looks while incorporating manga styles even thought she’s still a hijabi and very devout muslim. We did this shoot for fun at my friend Josh’s bookstore, Other Skies and it came out really cool. I just wish I had more time to go through them all.

The next few months, I’ll be taking on some big projects with New Arab American Theater, two more restaurants here in the Columbia Heights and Blaine areas and still working on a massive documentary that tells the story the Palestine movement here in Minnesota. I’ve been able to get lost in 3D sculpting occasionally as well. AI is already able to generate 3D meshes 10x’s better than I could ever do but like I always say to @roadscape when we talk; it’s about getting lost in something just for the sake of it. This is just fun. I used to work in Nomad sculpt on the iPad Pro but about 8 months ago they released ZBrush for the iPad and it is amazing! They locked me in for $10/mo. That’s how I’ve been spending my time. Thanks for reading!