1.23.2009

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...

1.19.2009

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.

1.18.2009

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.

1.13.2009

Wanted...

I've been so wrapped up with the motorcycle shoot I'm developing (obsessively looking for the right bike) that I have completely neglected my marketing and even updating my site...
So, I'll keep this short and sweet.

1.11.2009

Art in the age of mechanical reproduction

I went to Photo LA today. Kind of a ritual for me to go every year. I do it mainly to see what the art world is up to, and also to see prints! Images are so accessible nowadays, but we usually only see them on a screen. The whole idea of the work to have a presence and unique existence at a place, has been lost for the most part. The mode of our sense perception, since Walter Benjamin wrote his essay on art, has changed dramatically.

So, the litmus test has been: which print would I grab and run and take the risk of becoming the headline in the morning edition "Photographer steals worthless reproduction. Blames vicodin for the incident"

I did see some work I enjoyed. Mainly prints by Lillian Bassman.

This is a shot of Megan for the Surface Avantguardian competition a couple of years ago.

1.10.2009

Headband mania

I guess it's time for me to write again...
I got a few emails today and it seems that the new year is off to a good start. In one of the earlier posts I mentioned shooting a test for a t-shirt co. (well, they're not really a t-shirt co., so what). I shot the test and sent them a proposal, which got accepted today. Another email informed me that one of the images I shot for a shoe campaign will be made into a billboard...the next thought that popped into my mind was: I hope the retouching I did will hold up. The last email, worth mentioning, was from Apparel News that the new issue is out. Got the cover and some 13 page layout in it.

Jackson said today: "Who is shooting all these goddamn headbands?"

These photos where taken from my apt. in NY, back in the late 90's. It is the lowest point in Manhattan (actually I don't know if that's true) and every time it rained really hard, the sewer would back up and flood the intersection. The nasty bits would just float around. I don't think I ever ate at one of the restaurants on our street...


1.09.2009

The Factory

I never set any new year resolutions, but after combing thru some of my old negatives, I may just have one for this year.
In the late 90's, I used to shoot for a magazine called Simplicity. The photos below are from the launch party, which was at Andy Warhol's old Factory in Union Square. In those days I always carried a Minox with me, usually loaded with 3200 iso film. It came in handy that evening. From where I was standing, I could see into the bathroom across the light shaft...so I snapped some shots whenever I saw people in there.
I'm dusting off that old Minox and sticking it in my pocket...

1.08.2009

How about some ether?

...suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: "Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?"

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

1.07.2009

Snaps

This is David with Elvis shades, leather chaps, a cigarette, a gun and a cowboy hat...
I used these props quite a bit...seemed to help loosen up the models for the camera.

1.06.2009

Revenge Is...

So tomorrow I'll be shooting a test for a company that makes T-shirts, amongst other things, that are partially made out of recycled plastic bottles. They sent me a couple of shirts and said go at it...complete creative freedom. That's great, right?
Not sure how or what I'm going to do tomorrow.

Some more portraits of friends in NY.


1.05.2009

Delirious New York

My new nightly ritual of posting on this blog has allowed me to re-discover some of my early portraits. We used to have friends and neighbors over at our loft in Brooklyn and the evenings would usually end up with some sort of photoshoot. The RZ was always ready with b&w polaroid film.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. circa 1999


1.04.2009

Burly

Unlike "Burly" (Austrian colloquialism for boy), I'm not a proud owner of a bike today...
Looked at an old Honda Elsinore for my upcoming shoot last night, but it sold today.

Vienna, circa 1935

1.02.2009

On Any Sunday

Arguably the best motorcycle film ever made...watched it again this morning. I've also been looking at some images of McQueen riding the ISDT in 1964 in a book called
40 Summers Ago
. I'm planning a moto shoot in the coming month, so all this imagery is serving as inspiration. The pic below is of my dad on some sort of merry-go-round contraption.

Photo album

A page from my grandmothers album...

1.01.2009

Random scans

A few years ago, while visiting my parents in Vienna, I decided to grab all the old negs and prints from my grandmother, grandfather and father and become the keeper of these little gems.  I'm finally getting around to scanning and archiving them.  Most of the photos I will post here are from my grandmother...with her favorite model, my dad.