Home of New York director and photographer, Daniel Finley dannyjive.com

Happy 2012! I hope you all had a great New Year. We’ve been busy refreshing the portfolio and shooting some new projects. I’ve refocused my photography into a more focused style which will roll out over the next few months. I’m excited to show you one of the first images for this new style. Check it out:

I had a great opportunity this past December to shoot the incredibly talented producer, Dave Sentongo. This was shot in Chicago’s northwest corner of the loop in the middle of a freezing cold night. It was so cold that my hands were shaking as I pushed the shutter button.

More images of the revamped style/portfolio are coming soon. Check out the Photography page to see the redesigned galleries and the images that made the cut.

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you’re having a great December. Things are busy here at Dannyjive HQ. We’re wrapping presents and doing photo shoots in Chicago. I can’t wait to show a few.

Until then, here’s a really cool thing that happened a few weeks back. I was invited to have my “Runner” short script read with the Asian American Film Lab. It was a workshop and I got a chance to hear feedback on the piece. It was a great help as I make revisions and prepare to shoot it. Here are some pictures from the event.

Special thanks goes out to the readers: Jennifer Betit Yen, Young Jeohn, and Louis So. Also a big props to Young for pulling double duty for reading and doing the photography. Check out more of his work here.

Check it out. Nick Weinstock put together this quick behind the scenes of the 95 Airs music video we just released. You can also get a peek of the dialog scene we cut out of the final video.

Whew! The past six months have been busy with music videos, video shoots, and video editing that I’m really excited to get back to some photography work. Here’s our latest fashion shoot:

Photography: Dan Finley (dannyjive.com)
Model: Veronica Gutierrez
Fashion: Miguel Becerril
Hair: Karla Mendez-Meraz
Make-Up: Gosia Gorniak
Production Manager: Daniel Gutierrez
Video documentary: Mishelle Oun
Location: Dream Theatre Company (dreamtheatrecompany.com)

Unfortunately, I think this will be the last of my fashion work for a while. Even though I love shooting it, I’m going to put a stronger focus on portraits, especially music and environmental portraits. Expect to see a reorganization of the photo portfolio and a ton more portraits in early 2012!

YouTube Version

Here it is! The new music video for Brooklyn based hip hop artist, MoneyRaye. We had to shoot this video in five hours including a dialogue scene. We just made the cut off point right before they were going to kick us out of the space, lol. It was an intense experience, but we did it and had a great time shooting it. Enjoy!

Produced, Directed, Camera, Edit, FX by: Dannyjive
Grip: Nick Weinstock
Makeup: Kimberly Caudle
PA: Alison Ho
Model: Monique Leahey

How long has it been since you’ve seen a horror music video? They’re pretty rare so I am thrilled to show you the new project that Dannyjive has been working on for the past few months.

I present to you the new music video for Obisoulstar’s track off of the SoulRocknRoll album, “High Society.” It was an incredible collaboration and a lot of fun to make. I hope you enjoy it.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Here’s a sneak preview of the new Obisoulstar music video! Official release will be on Halloween.

As we get closer to the day I’ll release more photos from the video, so keep an eye out.

I can’t believe it has been a month since my last post and with the recent New York earthquake and hurricane, you might be wondering about me. I’m still here. I’ve just been crazy busy with projects. Fortunately, were getting close to showing you some.

On Halloween, we’ll be releasing a creepy and fun music video we did for musician Obi Soulstar. I also have another great music video for artist Money Raye that we will release in about two months.

Somewhere in-between there I’ll reveal a new fashion photo shoot we did on an intricate and twisted doll house set. Tons of lush visuals coming your way!

On top of all that, my short script Runner, has been selected by the Asian American Film Labs for their Unfinished Works workshop. I’m excited to hear the script actually read out loud in front of an audience and to get some reactions. I’m hoping to shoot this short sometime next year in the Spring.

That’s just a little update of what is to come. I can’t wait to show it all to you!

Look what came in the mail today. I received a hardcover copy of my photo that placed in the Photographer’s Forum Best of College Photography contest. It kind of cool to see the image big and in print.

This is an image of Obi Soulstar that appeared on his album “Soul Rock’n Roll.”

In other news I’m still hard at work on the new Obi Soulstar music video. I’m putting the final color corrections and visual effects on the piece and it should be out in a few weeks. I’ll release a sneak peak of the video in a few days.

Also, on Saturday I shot the new music video for Brooklyn hip hop artist Money Ray. We shot a track off his new album “Profit from Pain” and had five hours to shoot it in, which was crazy, but we did it and had lots of fun. Stills and maybe even a behind the scenes video from that shoot coming soon!

Check out the new print portfolio! I’m taking a cue from the great people at the Wonderful Machine blog for this idea. They have a ton of great videos of portfolios and a special thanks goes out to them for posting them. Those videos were instrumental in helping me put my own portfolio together. You wouldn’t believe how you can obsess and worry about putting your first book together.

It’s great to see all this work in a final, printed format. It really makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Time has flown by so fast since I started doing photography that I was shocked by how many pieces I had.

I still have one more shoot to publish. It was my final Chicago photo shoot and I’m really excited about it. Right now I’m busy working on the final cut of the new Obi Soulstar video and working on a new music video to be shot in Brooklyn. Images to come soon!