Merry Christmas!

My friend, Sydney, used to talk about how much she loved our Christmas tree.... the colorful lights and assorted decorations on an indoor, 6 foot tall bush simply fascinated this Jewish girl. She talked about wanting one, but she said it wouldn't be as good as ours. Having seen thousands of Christmas trees in my life, I wasn't entirely positive how to judge a Christmas tree... but somehow, Sydney knew ours was perfect... well, ALMOST perfect. Finally, a few years ago, she decided it was time to perfect our tree. When she came jumping in my front door one day, box in hand, I knew she was up to something. "I made this for you!" she exclaimed, glowingly, to my family. We opened the box, only to find the same Sydney face staring at us in paper form, Santa hat on, saying "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" and dangling from a string. It was a Christmas ornament, made by our favorite little Jewish girl for our tree. My mom burst out laughing and said "Oh, Syd, you GOTTA hang this up!" And she did- front and center, robbing the giant, colorful tree of any attention it may have gotten that Christmas season. The Sydney scale of judging trees had now declared the Petry Christmas tree perfection. It became a tradition for our Sydney to come over and hang it up in the perfect spot for the world to see. Every year, as our family and friends came over, they'd walk into the living room and marvel at the beauty/hilarity that was Sydney's tree decoration. It grew a fan base over the years... and so did Sydney. In true Sydney form, she found a way to bring happiness and smiles to (in some cases) people she did not even know on a holiday she didn't celebrate...

We hung up her ornament for her this year. It's always been the best one up there.

I love you, Cobrah.... thanks for making my life that much better.

Merry Christmas, my favorite Jew!!!!! <3333

Sydney Lynn Gross

5/2/90 - 7/24/09

Busy, busy, busy....

doing a lot of this with Cait....

wrap, bake, wrap, shop, wrap, clean, bake, shop, eat, bake, etc. etc. etc.

wish me luck!

The boys are back in town...

Cash Cash hometown show at School of Rock was last nite! They ruled, as usual.....

"The Sugarplum Fairy herself could have made no grander gesture"

Its Nutcracker season and I still can't seem to figure out the plot... and I like that. This year, instead of simply watching it, I photographed professional dancer, Nicole Graniero as the Sugarplum Fairy...

We came to dance

The Gaslight Anthem is one of my favorite bands ever and I got to photograph their hometown show on Friday night. Over 2000 people piled into the sold out Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, NJ to see the New Brunswick band... and they totally ROCKED. They opened with one of my favorite songs, "Old White Lincoln" so my multitasking skills were put to the test while I photographed, danced, and sang all at the same time.

Here are a few pictures that are ALSO featured on nj.com !

more photos in the same place as usual...

SETLIST

Old White Lincoln

Wooderson

Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

High Lonesome

We Came to Dance

Film Noir

I'da Called You Woody, Joe

Great Expectations

Miles Davis & The Cool

Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts

Meet Me by the River's Edge

Here's Looking At You, Kid

The '59 Sound

ENCORE

Casanova, Baby!

1930

Bring it On (new song)

The Navesink Banks

Refugee (Tom Petty cover)

Say I Won't (Recognize)

We're Getting A Divorce, You Keep the Diner

The Backseat

Oh and I don't know if you've heard about it yet... but I will SO be attending this....

Be my date?

Stories from the kids table

Last nite, I went to a bar with a bunch of great people to see Frank Graniero ( Mov Mou / Stay Awake ) play an acoustic set. Lindsay, Chloe, Allison, and I were all under 21, which resulted in rubber ducky stamps on our hands... as if we didn't feel young enough. I snuck a naked juice in and was freaking out the whole time that I was going to get kicked out... all while Allison was keeping us updated on Jersey Shore via everyone's tweets. Frank played an AWESOME set including a great cover of "Crossed Out Name" by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. It was worth having to catch the 2am repeat of Jersey Shore....

Chloe and Allison love Frank...

naked juice anxiety by Allison...

the weirdest faces/dudes ever....

You got eyes...

I went on a field trip with the photo majors to see the Robert Frank show at the MET along with a few other galleries around the city. Words can't describe how amazing the show/day was....

There's a party in Poughkeepsie...

On Saturday nite, in the sweatiest room I've ever been in, the boys in Cash Cash played a show with Breathe Carolina in Poughkeepsie, NY. They changed up their set list a lot and even added a light show since the last time I saw them (in July) and have clearly gained quite a few more fans. I wasn't even looking at the stage when I knew they entered the stage of The Loft, based on the high pitched shrieks coming from the sold out crowd (consisting of mostly teenage girls). They opened with "Radio" and from their first song to the end, the room was just a giant dance party. Towards the end of the set, they did a cover of "Fire Burning" by Sean Kingston when JP went in and danced with all of his fans in the crowd. It was totally awesome seeing everyone rock out so hard and sing along with every word. I took some photos but I was stuck on one side of the stage for most of the set.

Makhlouf brothers....

Can someone tell me when Alex got so jacked??

This crowd seriously couldn't get enough....

for more, go here

I can't stop listening to Okkervil River, "The Stand Ins"

On certain Sundays in November...

when the weather bothers me, I empty drawers of other summers where my shadows used to be"

I am SO behind in updating this. So much has gone down, I don't even know where to begin. I photographed Say Anything and the nicest dudes on the planet, Moneen about 2 weeks ago. I never really listened to Moneen before but they were ridiculously awesome. Say Anything totally killed it... and played "A Walk Through Hell". amazing! I have a million pictures i haven't even looked at from this show but here is a small portion of the few that are edited...

Moneen

Say Anything

Hopefully I'll post again very soon... I'm about to start editing pictures of my favorite boys on the planet, Cash Cash.