I am a 29-year old Los Angeles native, self-taught freelance photographer, musician and songwriter.

Before picking up my first digital camera, taking it out to the desert and falling in love, my previous artistic endeavors focused mainly around theater arts as an actor, technician and stage manager. These experiences naturally brought about an interest in film and video as well, which led me to team up with longtime friends to write, direct, edit and perform in our own strange brand of short films we called MaDa.

California's deserts have always been among my greatest inspirations as a photographer. All the desert photos on this site represent numerous trips over several years to a variety of desert locales, including the Salton Sea, Death Valley and the extensive Mojave National Preserve. One day in the summer of 2004, I took my brand new first digital camera (a Sony DSC-W1 Cybershot) out for an adventure through the outskirts, junk heaps and dilapidated, forgotten structures of the general Lancaster/Palmdale/Middle of Nowhere area, and was instantly hooked. The photo on the left is one I took that day. Six years and many thousands of photos later, it's still one of my favorites.

A seed was planted in the desert, but it wasn't until the winter of 2006 that I got a hold of a Nikon digital SLR and a whole new world opened. The D70s has been my camera ever since, for every job, live concert and adventure.

I have become more and more interested recently in infrared photography, and experimenting with it every good chance I get.

Music has been one of the more recent endeavors of my life, yet it feels like there's so much to say about it. The adventure began with The Pirates Charles, a sea-shanty inspired pirate rock band that my friend Captain Diggity and I started back in February of 2007. In the year or so that I spent with the band, we wrote a staggering number of songs, played a lot of incredibly fun shows, got treated like rock stars at Renaissance Faires, and even got to perform in New Orleans for an annual international pirate convention. Yes, that exists.

Eventually, it became time for myself and the band to continue evolving in our separate ways. For about the next year and a half or so, I worked with many different musicians on a slew of projects and side projects while forming ideas, songs and visions. For expediency's sake, I shall list them all here.

Young Animals / Last Round Down / The Peculiar Pretzelmen / The Coughs     The Bird Circus Orchestra / Spring Queen / Flip Cassidy and David Gale

In April 2009, evolving out of a series of recordings I had done up in the Bay Area the previous summer, The Junkyard Gospel began to exist, with a furious blend of guitar, accordion, mandolin, violin, upright bass and trombone. The band has existed in many different forms, and incorporated a revolving door of guest appearances that's made every performance something unique in its own right.

Some of our most notable and favorite experiences performing have been at Junkstock in Golden Gate Park this past summer, Joe Holliday's "Modern Nomads" art exhibit, numerous appearances at the downtown LA Art Walk, Mammoth Erection Fest (it's not what you think it is) in Slab City and the numerous fundraisers, art shows and outdoor events put on by The Gypsy Camp.

photos by Jeff Martin

(above) photo by Jeff Martin

(below) photo by Hallah Karaman

The Gypsy Camp is a project I helped start back in October of 2009. It began as a DIY guerilla-style art and music experience at El Escorpion Park in West Hills, CA. Within a few short months, and three of these events at the El Escorpion location, it had grown into an audience, nay a community, of over a hundred people gathered within this oak tree that practically forms its own room. Unfortunately, as beautiful of an experience as we were creating, it resulted in numerous parking complaints from 'the neighbors' and we had to find a new place, and in turn deal with permits and all that jazz.

With the added resource needed to pull it all off, we rose to the occasion and so did the supportive community around us - we managed to cover the costs of the fourth and fifth outdoor Gypsy Camp events with some rather successful fundraising art and music shows at our home venue in Canoga Park, The Guitar Merchant. We also helped raise money to transport a 13-foot tall woolly mammoth sculpture made from blown tires and car parts out to the Sculpture Garden at East Jesus in Slab City, CA.

Currently, The Gypsy Camp is being run by my dear friend and collaborator Stephanie Antonio, who I continue to work with on various aspects of its existence. At present, it is my dominant focus to take my music to the next level and share it with more people out there in the world. 

all material on this site copyright 2010 by flip cassidy