Erinn and I just returned from a brief-but-great couple of days at Joshua Tree National Park. We arrived Wednesday night expecting to have trouble finding an available campsite, considering Memorial Day weekend was just around the corner, but were happily surprised to find the place practically deserted. On the advice of friend and national parks guru Ian Shive, we decided to camp at Jumbo Rocks campground, a beautiful site in the middle of a huge field of giant boulders, which we later learned were made of monzogranite that, in the form of magma, had forced its way up beneath the darker upper crust composed of gneiss (nice) rock. Erosion eventually carried away the gneiss, revealing the coarse, sand-colored boulders below that now make up large sections of the northern part of the park and, like a playground in the middle of a large sandbox, provide a welcome relief to an otherwise barren landscape. After picking the ideal spot and setting up our tent we made a fire and got down to the business of grilling hot dogs, but not before taking half an hour to marvel at the density of stars above and taking a few photos. In the interest of full disclosure, the image of Erinn beneath the stars is a composite of 3 separate exposures taken from the same spot, which was the only way I was going to be able to bring out those stars and get a good exposure on her without using a flash. For more photos and text click the link below
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I had a fun time continuing my experimentation with the Hasselblad the other day during a shoot with Long Beach-area band RX Bandits. The shoot was for Sargent House Records, who needed band photos for press kits being used to promote the bands upcoming album “Mandala.” The idea for this came from doing a little background research on the band and coming across a clip of guitarist Steve Choi describing their music as being a soundtrack to a movie playing in their head. I was thinking about doing a composite image using a bunch of sequential 35mm negatives to play with the cinematic concept, but not having a scanner and being on a limited budget I opted to continue playing around with my recent shoot-through-the-antique-camera kick to see if I could come up with something comparable. It doesn’t quite convey the concept that got the ball rolling, but it kind of evolved into its own thing that I thought worked pretty well. The band members were a bunch of cool, chill guys, making for a relaxed, fun shoot. Band members are, left to right, Matthew Embree, Steve Choi, Christopher Tsagakis and Joseph Troy.
Here are a couple recent shots from around town to perhaps classify under “Americana.” The Weinermobile has been dwarfing the house behind it on Windward Ave for the past few days. The ice cream freezer was discarded behind a nearby liquor store and was gone the next day. Nothing too exciting, but I thought they were quirky enough to post.
I’ve been doing a bit of shooting through an old WWI-era Hasselblad that I have. The camera was a gift from my Uncle Mike several years ago. It’s a beautiful old black box with shiny silver hardware, but the shutter has never worked and I’d be surprised if it’s fixable. Still, I’ve enjoyed having it out on a bookshelf over the years. On a whim during a recent photo shoot with the band Lovers Electric I decided to shoot through the viewfinder. This was something I’d experimented with before using a couple of other old cameras I have, but never with this one for some reason. I liked the results with the band shoot (scroll down and you can find that post from month or two ago), so I’ve since been playing around with it a bit more. While making Erinn sit for some test portraits for an upcoming band shoot I discovered that I could take out the plate of glass with the cross-hairs and get a much clearer picture. So I decided to take it out on the boardwalk to see what I could come up with.
I normally don’t go for gimmicks, but I’m enjoying it for now. And it’s nice to put the older camera back to work. It’s got such a great lens on it, it’s a shame to have it sitting idle on a bookshelf. I especially like using it out along the boardwalk. Venice has been photographed so much that it will be nice to come up with something a little different. I also threw in a shot of some lovely sunflowers we have sitting in our living room. Enjoy!
Considering the location, the only actual sign of summer from these three photos is the police patroling the boardwalk on their customized Segways. The weekend crowds are growing noticibly more dense and with that apparently comes an increased police presence. I guess they get a better view from up there, but considering the number of people roaming about I’d think they’d be better off chasing someone down on foot.
