backtage with beyonce

vibe.com

august 2010

these are a few of my favorite things...

if you know me at all, you are aware of my penchant for old men. not in a creepy, geriatric fetishistic way, but an affinity for old men that is most likely based on my amazing grandpa benevento. that being said, i love me some religious imagery. not sure where this came from. i suppose whether or not your parents indoctrinate you with the word of his holiness, if you have irish and italian blood pumping through your veins, you're bound to love some gilded frames and a little madonna and child is necessary to home furnishings. for me its a little more like guadalupe, but we won't get into my ethnic confusion today.

this shot was taken a couple of weeks back on 182nd between audubon and st. nick at a street fair. this means, not only does this image have an old man with pants just slightly too high and cinched to his aging waistline, rep'ing jesus cristo, but its also my hood, and as with any street fair, an excellent opportunity to acquire cheap doorknockers bound to turn your ears green and get caught up and in the way with every east coast cheek kiss throughout the day.

in other words, heaven...



august 2010

point nausea

uptowncollective.com

august 2010

my paramour

many of you have heard about my 82 year old boyfriend, charlie. for those of you who have not, he and i were set up last winter, and have been seeing one another regularly ever since. i know what you're thinking...how did briana get so lucky, and where do i find my very own may-december dating website? well, no need to be jealous. charlie is a friend that i met through a program called friendly visting that my friend laura hahn turned me on to. i am telling you, as an aging 29 year old woman, i am never more beautiful or interesting than through the eyes of an octogenarian. its fantastic. anyway, this week charlie and i had our date at the local starbucks, where i have picked up a man or two in my time and, despite the fact that we were asked not to take photos on private property, i felt our love had to be documented in the only way that matters to me. a photograph. luckily, charlie is a rebel too...





august 2010

f'ed ex...

for anyone lucky enough to receive a package, or a letter of such import that the standard mail just wont cut it, you know well the beauty of services such as ups and fed-ex. the real beauty of these services is that if you are not home during THEIR hours of operations, which tend to be the hours of everyone else's operation as well, you are told that your precious belongings will be held securely for you for 36 hours or so, at their headquarters. interestingly enough, their headquarters tend to be in industrial areas where used condoms, rabid dogs, and spare syringes are abundant.

i was blessed with the gift of visiting said establishment located in the exotic location of the south bronx just this week. now, finding my proverbial pot of gold, or pay check as the case may be, was worth the journey. but that is what this was, a journey, taking me nearly 2 hours to get an 8 by 11 envelope.

in the spirit of keeping my "travel log" i documented my sojourn to no man's land as a single, solitary white girl traversing the world, one ghetto as a time.

um, did i mention i also ran into a dude i used to date before boarding the 6 train toward manhattan? seriously, in a city of 8 million people, how is this not at all rare, but a fairly standard occurrence for me?

anyway, here was my trip:








august 2010

happy birthday magic johnson...

it looks like i have a new gig, as neighborhood photographer. yesterday was ivan's (as well as my sister's) birthday, and what better way to celebrate than an impromptu photo shoot.



































august 2010

party girls

i recently shot a book cover for two fabulous women and, although this is not the cover, it is a shot of the party planners from jersey who's company, Party Blu Prints, has one of my shots featured on their site.

august 2010