ADAM COURTNEY : THE BLOG

The Holiday Season

Once again time gets away from me but it’s been a busy season full of all sorts of creative, crazy and bizarre endeavors. Most recently I photographed the folks at Big Hassle and along with the inestimable Steven Trachtenbroit designed the holiday card. It’s our fourth year and they just keep getting better! This one was an 8.5 x 11 postcard. Take a look and let me know what you think.

And just in case you weren’t on their holiday card list, here are a few of the past cards we did.

Posted 1 year ago

music publicist, big hassle, holiday card, concert poster. 60's concert poster, ken weinstein, ken merlis, jim walsh, chris vinyard, steven trachtenbroit, 50's concert poster, blogger,

It’s been a while, but I’ve been busy…

It’s come to my attention that I have been neglectful of my poor blog and I aim to fix that right here and now. First up I’ve been playing with the folks at Gawker quite a bit lately and the image to the left here was taken at one of their fabulous Gawker Artists parties at the soho office. Photographer Mark Mann photographed their whole staff and a few of us very lucky guests with his vintage graflex.

In a similar vein, Liz Dimmit, esteemed Gawker Artist curator asked me to be a G.A. myself andto send them the box project images. So I done it and you can now check out my Gawker Artist profile here.

In other Gawker news, I have been asked by that self same curator extraordinaire, Liz Dimmit, to create a Box Project installation for Truck Yeah on October 2nd. Hit the kickstarter page here and help us get this moving!

This particular box project is a come one, come all, family friendly photobooth installed in the back of a 10’ moving truck. Check out the Box Project images so far and then come out on October 2nd at the corner of Broome and Ludlow in NYC to get your picture taken in the first ever Truck Box! For more info just email me or check out http://truckyeah.org.

Posted 1 year ago

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My first Bonnaroo.

Monday night I got back from my first foray into the deep and dirty world of multi-day music festivals. Somehow despite a travel-lustful youth and an enjoyment of most musical types I never did manage to get to a camp-out-take-no-shower-bake-my-ass-in-the-hot-hot-sun full on rock festival. Not for lack of offers in fact but something always seemed to come up.

When I was 17 some friends offered me a ticket and a ride to a Grateful Dead show in Las Vegas. I declined because I was about to leave for Israel for in a couple of weeks and I decided I needed to save the money. And besides, I can always catch the next Dead show right?

As it turns out, not so much. Jerry Garcia died that summer in rehab. I remember the day perfectly. I was on a rocky beach shore with 900 other teenagers and a handful of staff competing in a Macabia , an Israeli sports and team spirit competition. As I recall we did quite well. But the rumor began to spread about mid-day and but sundown people had called home to confirm and it was true. Jerry died of a heart attack in rehab. At that point I’d say a little over half the kids on that beach with me were deadheads of some kind. Some of them had started following the dead as toddlers with their hippie parents. Others got into it as teenagers along with tie-dyed t-shirts and bongs, the way today’s 14 year olds wear disney channel promise rings and read Justin Beeber’s autobiography. It was what you did. And so I never did get to see a Dead show. But I had the t-shirt. And a bong. A few other opportunities cropped up over the years, a burning man invite, beach rock fetsivals, but somehow it just never happened. Something always came up.

But not this time! Ah, no my friends. Not this time I tell you. This time I was invited by close friends, and enticed by the offer of VIP status.

Not for us, the cow pasture campsite with no shade and the mile walk to the entrance.

Not for us, the hours of waiting in the sun while our bags were searched to get into the concert grounds.

Not for us, the paying of 11 dollars for a beer.

Not for us, the city of gen-pop port-o-lets whose stench towered in the afternoon heat.

Nay, not even for us the going of four days without a shower!

I tell you now for those of you considering it, VIP rock festival is the only way to go. Sam and Bryn, an old roommate and his wife who just moved down to Nashville picked us up at the airport and drove out to the camp grounds (vip of course) on Thursday morning. They took care of the supply run weeks in advance so we had a cooler full of quality beer (cans only) frozen salmon filets, chicken, meat skewers, eggs, beans, veggies and more. Also a couple of poorly labeled plastic water bottles filled with Vodka and Silver tequila. These were the source of more than a few amusing mix-ups over the weekend including the most horrible cup of coffee ever made.

I tell you now, these photographs are lies. None of us smile this much first thing in the morning.

VIP ME
Now how, you ask, did a man get so lucky as to acquire VIP status at so prestigious an event as Bonnaroo X? That my friends all comes down to friendships. My best friend in fact. Carrie’s (above right) husband Steven is a publicist with Big Hassle and they do all the publicity for Bonnaroo. At an event like this it means that Steven (and his cohorts, who are an awesome bunch of people) are charged with making sure that the press is happy, the talent is happy, photographers get their pictures, which makes them happy (except for the ones who don’t get and then Steven gets to brow beat them until they smile anyway), basically making sure that everyone is happy happy.

I had the privilege of sitting around in the small air-conditioned office in the press area and all I can say is… Moses was a pussy. If the Big Hassle team had been on it, the Israelites would have been across that desert and living pretty in Jericho in a month flat. Faster if no one found anything in the desert that they could make into moonshine. Thumbs up boys and girls. Next I’ve got an old ladies worth of cats for you to heard.

The crowd was just about as entertaining as the music and I took lots of pictures of both. Live events and documentary style isn’t really my thing, give me 20 minutes in the studio and day, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed myself, running around with my super special photographers pass. So here’s an edit of the results:

And now ladies and gentleman, THE DECEMBERISTS…

My morning Jacket was next in the lineup and they put on one hell of a show. Truly a rock star band.

Oh yeah. That’s him.

Posted 1 year ago

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Newly retouched portrait

Jennifer Onvie.

Posted 1 year ago

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Dancer’s Feet Project

This an ongoing project I started years ago after watching a friend who was a modern dancer unwrap her feet after a full day of rehearsal. Crushed, blackened and floor burned, they were amazing. A dancer’s body is their brush, palette and canvas all in one. Their feet bear the brunt of the exertion their art requires and become art objects themselves.

I should be clear here. This isn’t a fetish thing. I have no particular love for feet. At least not in any capacity that extends beyond being the instruments of an art form that I truly enjoy and have absolutely no facility for whatsoever.

These are the most recent images I’ve made, courtesy of the fabulous people at Sleep No More (and friends). I’m still looking for more dancers to photograph so if you’d like to get involved please feel free to get in touch!

adam (at) adamcourtney (dot) net

And since I do love polaroids, back when they went out of business I bought a dozen packs which I have been hording for just the proper occasion. Here was a solid occasion.

Posted 2 years ago

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Lily and Wade have a baby… Redux.

The family portrait…

Posted 2 years ago

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Ryan and Lia

These two are the most amazing couple. Ryan and Lia are Heavy Birds, a music duo with Ryan on guitar and vocals and Lia on the cello. Their music is a dreamy a haunting melody woven around guitar distortion and Ryan’s voice. It plays out the more serious side of these two otherwise funny and warm people.

I first met them through a writer friend who slings liquor at Superfine and collects a harem of men like Cleopatra (played by Elizabeth Taylor maysherestinpeace). They’re sweet and sexy and so much in love you can taste it in the air when their together. We started late on a Tuesday. I asked them to brig their favorite clothes for lounging and for going out and then pointed them in the general direction of my props and costumes. We drank a couple of bottles of red wine and I photographed them being in their own little world. For someone is, apparently, terminally single, they are everything I aspire to in a relationship. They inspire each other and create together and after five years they still have trouble keeping their hands off each other. It’s truly awesome to be around.

So they played dress up and I made chicken soup form scratch and baked fresh bread and we drank more and ate and talked about music and all in all it was a fabulous evening. So thanks again my lovelies and here’s the first retouch.

Posted 2 years ago

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A self portrait

It’s been a busy couple of week since I got back from TRIBEFEST in Vegas. The Wings installation was great and i’m still getting the pics and video ready, so in the meantime here’s another example of aversion therapy.

Being a photographer I hate actually being in front of the camera myself, so I’ve been subjecting myself to the blinding pop of the strobe as… I don’t know. Call it solidarity with my models. Either way, I think this one actually came out pretty well.

Variation 1

Variation 2

Variation 3

Too come hither?

Posted 2 years ago

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Tom

I just got back from Tribefest in Las Vegas and while I’m putting together the rest of the images and video from the #WingsProject here are a couple of new portraits I shot a few weeks back with Tom O’connor. Days like this are just awesome. A Sunday afternoon playing dress up, some tequila and beer, a gas mask. What more could you ask for?