"what are you doing in my driveway?"

Mailers

Not much to report... Been working on a marketing package and need to put my final list together for the direct mailer.
Here is a postcard from my great grandfathers business.

Song of the Sausage Creature

"The motorcycle business was the last straw. It had to be the work of my enemies or people who wanted to hurt me. It was the vilest kind of bait, and they knew I would go for it. Of course. You want to cripple the bastard? Send him a 160mph cafe-racer. And include some license plates, so he'll think it's a street bike."
-HST-

Analog Delay

This has been on my mind for some time now, so I figured maybe I should write about it...
I'm always trying to keep my work as creative as possible. I guess that's a normal impulse...or is it? I see lots of work being copied all the time. This ranges form blatant copies to mimicking a style. How do we keep it fresh? Everything has been done. I guess all I can do is keep people guessing "what's he going to do next?". At least I hope people are asking themselves that...
There is so much imagery out there that is so accessible, that it is really hard to resist looking all the time. Once you start looking, how do you keep it from influencing you? Well, it takes effort. In some way I believe that I have to re-learn how I see. How I frame, when to press the shutter...etc. Setting certain limits can help. Shooting different cameras with different lenses can help to some degree as well. Changing the medium is also a part of that.

Here is a photo collage I worked on yesterday. The idea of working with a collage format is appealing to me. For one, it brings me back to my early photo work, way before the fashion thing. It's also a medium that allows me to see differently and it allows me to construct the image in a different way. There isn't the instant gratification of digital or the 60 second delayed gratification of the polaroid. It's a very deliberate way of working which allows me to experiment.

Best shot ever...

So I shot with Teela from Photogenics today. The shoot was a little out of the ordinary today. Somehow I ended up with all sorts of constraints. Call time was at noon. Giovanni, the hair stylist, had to leave by 3:30pm. Vanessa, the wardrobe stylist, wouldn't be there until 1:30pm (she actually managed to get there by noon), and Teela managed to be over an hour late...I kept busy by riding the motorcycle around the block while waiting...HA!
To make things more interesting, I decided to use only the 4x5 camera and shoot my last 20 sheets of color polaroids. So we had to get it all with 20 or less shots, kind of a nice exercise in economy of shots when in this digital age you can just keep shooting until the odds are that you have a good shot.
...oh, and I only had one lens.
Here is the very first shot I took...Jackson thought it may be the best shot I've ever taken...

Score!

Today was a good day. Drove out to Bakersfield to check out the 1970 RT-1 360 and it was all I could hope for...well almost. It needs a little bit of work, but it runs and is in great shape. It even fit in the back of the SUV! So now I'm stalking ebay for the parts that I need to complete it and then off to the DMV. I guess it's sort of a birthday present for myself...turning 41 tomorrow...actually today! hhhmmm...is this my midlife crisis?

I need to convince Jackson and Carlos to get bikes now as well...
Are you guys reading this? Get some damn bikes already!

Shooting Teela from Photogenics on thursday...I guess I should think about that. Should also think about my shoot next week. Still need a location for that. That shoot is with Patricia De Leon, for Mexican Vogue and a cover for LA Health magazine.

Here is another landscape shot.

Artificial light

Tomorrow I'll be shooting a portrait of some designers in the morning. Should be pretty quick an painless. The afternoon is reserved for a trip to Bakersfield to check out a bike. I'm hoping this will be the one. It's a 1970 Yamaha Rt-1 360. The pics the seller sent look good, but you never know. Just today I looked at a bike that looked great in pics, but was a piece of junk once I saw it in person.

Here is a pic of my GI Joe on the dinning table at the loft in Brooklyn.
I shot this with the Sinar 4x5, it's a paper negative.