Saturday 10.24.09

Today was a 9 hour day of seminars. There were a few quick 15 minute breaks between, but honestly, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the day. (Well, after the adderall kicked in.) First up was a very informative 3 hour book publishing seminar, which was the primary reason that I came to this show. Then we had the honor of listening to keynote speaker James Nachtwey in such a moving presentation that I literally cried. (Good thing it was dark in there) He has been documenting war, famine and other crimes against humanity for many years. Listening to him today and give commentary on so many of his compelling shots was an unforgettable experience for me. It was truly an honor. Please take the time to click on these links and look at his images. It made me feel shallow, small and insignificant. At that moment I felt like there was no other purpose in life except photojournalism. I felt like any photograph that I had taken or might take in the future was dumb and futile in comparison to what he showed us. Photojournalists like James Nachtwey give a voice to people who have no voices. He has recently been in the news for his documentation of drug resistant tuberculosis in very poor countries, when oftentimes patients are inflicted with TB and HIV. He was one of three recipients of the TED award in 2007 where he was allowed one wish… He wished that tuberculosis was given the medical attention and funding that it deserved. This is something that is preventable, treatable and curable and needs to be addressed. His wish is finally being acknowledged.

After his lecture I sat in on a podcasting and social media seminar. Shockingly, there were very few people in this room. If you don’t think that social media is a valid way to increase your business, I don’t know what to tell you… you are seriously missing the boat. So there I was tweeting away and the instructor totally called me out for being on my phone and using Twitter. Then of course, I had to tweet about the fact that I got busted for tweeting. One of my followers said “Laura, if you are tweeting from a social media seminar you do not need to be at a social media seminar.” It was pretty funny, actually. I did learn a lot about the importance of podcasting and video content for a blog J

The last lecture of the weekend was about internet strategies and guerilla marketing. I didn’t get that much information that I didn’t already know from working at Naughty America for so many years. The adult industry is typically one step ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to technology and I do know a thing or two about getting traffic to your site, so I listened to the instructors tell a room full of photographers (who probably still use film) about how to buy a domain name and where to host it. HA! In all seriousness, I did walk away with a couple of good ideas…

I went back to my room and searched some more domain names and scooped up a bunch of Twitter names and then Hot Liz picked me up in a cab and we headed to Gramercy Park Hotel for a drink. I want to point out that Liz travels with road sodas and she is not under the age of 21.

That place is really really sexy… and there are some delicious drinks on their menu. I had the watermelon mint martini and a drink called Garden of Eden made of gin, ginger root and something else which escapes me now. Liz had the most amazing cinnamon mojito… I wanted to have sex with it.

We went to a gimmicky restaurant called Ninja NY

Imagine if Bruce Lee owned Benihana.

The food was average… but it was also close to closing time, so they were in a hurry to get us out of there. I am pretty sure they served me a plate of nigiri that had been prepared an hour beforehand. Oh well. Lesson learned. It was my idea and they both loved it, but I am never going back.

I want to close with this: In your day to day dealings with people… remember to always treat people as you want to be treated. I know you have all heard this before from your mother and I know that we all know that this is the right thing to do… but actually do it. Sometimes your actions might hurt someone’s feelings… just think carefully. It’s never a good idea to burn a bridge because of a simple act of discourteousness.

Thursday 10.22.09

I arrived in NYC at the butt crack of dawn to attend a photography convention called Photo Plus Expo. It’s a massive amount of dorky middle aged dudes, but also a lot of the movers and shakers in the world of photography. I have enrolled in several seminars about branding, marketing, social media and publishing. I have thousands of images and I really just don’t know what to do with them so I am trying to wrap my head around the possibilities and options for me. I have been shooting stills for so long and have never really specialized in one field, so this is inspiring for me to figure out who I am as an artist. I have been around the planet and back (6 out of 7 continents! Australia is #7 in 4 months woohoo!) and I have tons of cool pictures to share with everyone….. Plus, I get to come to NYC again and hang out while the weather is still nice!

Last night I met up with Nikki Benz for a bottle of champagne and lemon drop shots (good ones… that is always a plus) at the W in Times Square. It’s entertaining for me to be out with a porn star and have random dudes recognize her…..but then it is even more fun when they try to be cool about the fact that they are porn connoisseurs and that they have just recognized a porn star. After having a martini with some cute young Wall Street interns, we went downtown and met up with a new friend of hers named Chris Santos….who happens to own a restaurant in the Lower East Side.

Chris Santos Interview (ironic that I know the woman who interviewed him for this piece… Laren Spirer! More on her later! This is about to become 6 degrees of separation in so many ways) It’s a rare occasion for me to enjoy dinner with the Executive Chef and owner of a place so I was super excited to eat my face off in his establishment. Stanton Social is a tapas style place with a lot of eclectic dishes from all over the world and Chris treated us to well over a dozen of them. I am by no means a food writer, or an expert of any kind in food reviews: I am merely here to tell you what I shoveled into my mouth.

I started with the pink grapefruit and mint martini which was to die for. It’s a strange combination that you would think tastes like ass considering what it’s like when you brush your teeth and then drink orange juice right afterwards. We then had a bacon, lobster, truffle marscapone on flatbread, tuna sashimi over avocado (I had to skip the jalapeno topper… I am the biggest wimp when it comes to spice), miso glazed Chilean sea bass, sweet and sour chicken cashew spring rolls, wild mushroom risotto cakes with parmesan and wild mushroom risotto flakes. OK breathe…. Then we had apple brie quesadillas with smoked bacon, duck confit empanadas, chicken arepas, sweet potato and butternut squash ravioli, orecchiette with rabbit sausage with fire roasted peppers and wild mushrooms, foie gras over vanilla risotto cake with a crispy apple between them, beef wellington. Breathe…I then ordered a cucumber vanilla martini (awesome, but not as awesome as the grapefruit one) and we proceeded to make ourselves sick with dessert. Donuts (waaaay better than Dunkin Donuts, I can’t believe I just said that out loud) with 3 different dipping sauces (chocolate, raspberry and caramel),

peanut butter mousse with concord grape sorbet,

and red velvet Twinkies.

Let me elaborate on the desserts and then I will give you my top 3 choices of the tapas. The peanut butter mousse was delicious, but the grape sorbet was too tart for me. The creamy smoothness of the peanut butter clashed with the texture and flavor of the sorbet.Chris and I discussed this last night and he basically said, “I am sorry you feel that way.” LOL! Anyways, I know he might read this and I want to apologize for offending him, if I did. Like I said, I am just stating my opinion and by no means is this blog going to have any impact whatsoever on the success of his restaurant. I think about 22 people are going to read this and only 2 of them live in Manhattan. As far as the red velvet Twinkie goes… I was a little nervous because one time when I was 6 years old I ate the entire family pack of Twinkies and got really really sick. To this day I cannot even smell one without gagging. So, being that red velvet cupcakes are one of my absolute favorite things to eat, I was a little scurred. Luckily, it tasted nothing like a Twinkie, and was properly stuffed with cream cheese frosting. At that point, I was ready to vomit and I kept eating the fucking thing.

My favorite things were (in no particular order) the bacon/lobster/truffle flatbread,
the beef wellington

and the orrecchiette with rabbit sausage. (no pic sorry, I couldn’t keep up with the dishes as fast as they were coming!) I can’t wait to go back and eat the other 878 things on his menu! I am sure that I have not named the dishes as they were on the menu, I am merely describing the items in them. After all, when you are dining with the owner, what is the point of looking at the menu at all?

After dinner we were whisked away in a scary black SUV instead of a taxi (of course because only commoners use taxis) to a club called ‘who cares’ where we proceeded to drink more champagne. I spent most of my time there with Chris’s wife making fun of badly dressed, homely “models” that needed to eat some sandwiches. A handsome man named Marc showed up to take us to another club called ‘I hate hip hop’ and I have to say I was a little upset because I had just fixated on these two skanks from New Jersey dancing away with their hideous hair and outfits. Trust me, I am no Versace, but I do own a mirror and I have glanced over the pages of a fashion magazine in the last decade. The night ended at 5 am and I was dragging ass today at the convention. My first seminar was stupid so I walked out and cruised the show floor looking for cool stuff. It is far less nerdy than I thought and there are far less nerds than those that trickle over into the AVN show from CES every year. If you don’t know what either of those are, google them and let your imagination figure out the rest. I did get to hold and caress the Canon 7D Mark II with the get-up that I need to balance the thing over my shoulder. More on that in a week or so…