Old Friend, Old Foto

A pic of our friend Aaron from way back when. We lived in an early twentieth century servants' quarter behind a mansion in Santa Barbara. It had weathered old wood, and avocado trees grew their limbs up to our kitchen windows. The two of us separately inhabited the top floor, our doors only a few feet apart. We'd wake each other up in the morning with weird noises, discussing the surf, and drinking coffee. The warm afternoons brought barbecue and cold beer. There was artwork in the hallways. Creaking on windy nights. An old motorcycle.

It was sad the day Aaron left. A drug dealer had moved in below us, and the vibe had all but vanished from the little world we had back there. We packed up and moved soon thereafter to another old house that creaked, but this time no avocados. Indeed, it was never the same.

When in the UK

Check out this J Dunlop ad.

More shiny, little boxes to come soon...

and maybe someday a new site... ?

It's out there...

The new stuff, that is. Here's a little somethin somethin that is in print right now...

Back in the fog...

We've been working hard lately, I swear. Things have been focused on the long term... lots of busy work. Which has been difficult to stay focused on, especially with all the great weather we've been blessed with the past 2+ weeks. Calm offshore breezes. Great fuckin' surf. For a little while there, we thought we were never going to see the fog again. But guess what. It's back. And it's really frickin' cold.

Maybe it's a good thing. We're tying up the loose ends. Finishing up the book. New site coming soon. Even a new blog...

For now, Chappie. A rescue dog who found a sucker... back from a warm time.

Lee.

The result of a 10 day fast. . .

Part one.

What gives.

Alright. It's not like anyone reads this blog. I mean, it is a shamefully conspicuous tool for shameless self promotion. And sure, maybe there's nothing wrong with that... but maybe there is. We will, in time, when we actually have something that we feel is relevant to say, post things on our blog. But not this blog. It'll be a new blog. A totally new experience that will tickle your creative collar bone. Maybe. Just maybe it'll be something worth while. We'll call it Version 2.0. Until then you all (whoever the three people are that read this thing... Mom, is that you?) can bask in the filth that we call our blog. And yes, it feels dirty to be this shameless. But we have no shame, so please enjoy whatever you come across in here... without shame.

A little break.

Michael and I spend about 99.99% of our time working. The other day we needed a break and drove around looking for things to shoot. We ended up at one of our favorite spots here in SF.... Here is one of the shots we got out of our little excursion.

PSwha?

I used to love Photoshop. I could sit and do it without flinching for hours on end and STARE, drooling all over my keyboard. You know how it is. You start to tilt your head to one side or the other, simultaneously moving closer to the giant, oversized screen before you. Burning eyes. Ocular migraines. It's a big pool of weird glowing fun.

News flash. I hate Photoshop. WE hate Photoshop. We're on a one way track to Photoshop burnout-dom. That's right. At least today... at least today.

As if there weren't enough conflict in the battle for artistic equilibrium already, you have to take into consideration the moral standpoint, too. "Well, they're fat. Do I push their jowl line in to here? or to hhhhhhhere..."

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

"... and liiiike, do you think you could take out this winkle in my face. In my jacket. In my dress. Do you do lives as well?"

::sigh:: Despite all this, I still love it... sometimes. Just not today.

Something...

... new.

... Part 2

Of the Jim Dunlop series.

Apparently it's out there pokin' around . . .

and yeah, we still know what you're thinkin'.

"wtf, product?"

Inspiration

So, once again cleaning out the old Lacie and I found another one of my favorite shots. For some reason, my favorite shots always seem to be on film and square. I think maybe I am telling myself something there. Michael will agree with me on that square format is his favorite as well. I find it funny that we hardly ever shoot our Hassi's (we each have our own because in this case we cannot share). So, added to the top of my million things to do list is: shoot more film in my Hasselblad... starting tomorrow.

Down with...

Webhero. They are at the absolute bottom of the list. It seems impossible for them to forward on a web link, and even more so to successfully keep one's email account intact. I guess that's why so many people go with that Mountain somethin'ernother company... I bet this garbage doesn't happen with them.

Super Scary House

That we shot... this place was haunted for sure. Some old man lived there for a long time, all alone.

Huh?

Wo wo whoa?

Yeah, bet you weren't expecting that either. But it's true, when there is something small and shiny that needs some love, we love to love... Keep an eye out for El Grande... he's floatin' around out there, too. . .

... oh yes, and don't forget some creative direction from Graham Shaw...

Who the hell is...

keeney + law?

answer: we are.

new name. new rep (Rhoni Epstein). new work...

stay tuned.

LA Holgie Shots

I love my Holga. It is the easiest and least worried about camera you could ever own. I throw it in my purse with a variety of 120 film like provia or velvia 50 (depending on how I feel), fp4 and portra nc and off I go. You can shoot it without even looking through the viewfinder and there is a high chance you'll get a cool image. At least in my own personal experience.

I was down in LA a month or so ago with a friend of mine when I took these. We were walking in a industrial neighborhood going to a sample sale and we saw smoke emanating from this building and whaddaya know.... my Holga is in my bag. So I snapped a couple and I was confident that I had a least one that I would like and to my surprise I liked all three. So here they are.... Can you guess what film I used? Michael? Wanye? I am pretty sure they are the only two who actually read this blog...

Back. .kcaB

Ah yes, home sweet home. Did everyone miss their dose of "Narcissistic Blog About Absolutely Nothing" while we were gone? ::eyes rolling in a condescending manner:: I can see you doing that, by the way...

In any event, our super sweet journey was super sweet. Saw some monkeys, did ssssssstuff, snapped a pic or two. Standard sweet stuff. Sweeeeeet. Sssstuff.

Bummer is, we came home, and my monitor started flickering like an old neon light in an adult bookstore. I took her down to Apple and kissed her goodbye for 7-10 working days, and now here I stay with my little laptop, without new pictures, without sweet songs in my itunes, with only internet. Like I fucking want internet.

It's time to grapple with Apple.

Like you were all really awaiting the next installment of NBAN anyway (you can call it BAN for short... I mean, hey, express yourself). Well, it'll be here. In the meantime we are trying to get stuff together on Jasmine's computer for our At Edge webpage. Who woulda thought... us, At Edge (click on narcissistic link to a place where we do not yet exist, At Edge).

Somebody give me a life.

Please.

Antes de que nos vayamos. . .

One more pic from the Ranch a few weeks back. . .

Clearly our scanner is a piece 'o crap, but this ain't for the quality, folks...

... and lastly... There's been a lot of talk about what a blog should be used for, especially over at APE (Is it shameless narcissistic self promotion or actually a useful tool to help spread the word about everything under the sun?). When we sat in on an APA panel with Rob Haggart (and Zana Woods, among others), he was very insistent that a blog be used seriously and not as a light hearted toy.. that you can't just put any piece 'o crap up on the internet-- your post must have substance and mean something because "the whole world is going to see it." While I see where Rob is coming from, we sure as hell don't have any meaning to our posts other than to share work among friends. We don't sit around hoping that somebody sees Jasmine's latest Holga shot and wants to offer us the next big campaign. We do this to make fun of ourselves... and why not, our friends, too. C'mon! We couldn't possibly take ourselves that seriously. . . you should know that by now.

Here's Governor. This time upright...

The Ranch part Deux

Was back up at the Ranch again last weekend for another boys adventure. This time I left the digitron at home and rocked the Hassy instead. We chased multi thousand acre fires on ATV's, poked things with sticks, and played HORSE by throwing rocks at natural landmarks. It was a weekend where we could be whoever we wanted, and pretend that the outside world was non existent.

Here's Bret, day one. Straight scan. Oak tree shirt with oak tree background. Warm afternoon light.

Otra

Here's another shot from my trip awhile back to the Patagonia. I'm not super crazy about the composition... the tangenting bothers me, but the boat was so small, the only way to get the angle would have been from the other boat, which was filled with people, and they weren't going to let me on, and you get the point... phew! Regardless, here it is... proof I was "working."

Goucho Verdadero

Hace tiempo que escribimos, pero bueno...

aqui esta una foto que saque mientras un viaje al sur de Chile... a la tierra preciosa de la Patagonia. Es de un goucho verdadero, un hombre que realmente vive de la tierra, usandola como herramienta para sobrevivir...

The patagonia is so special, in fact, that I would go as far as saying it is the final frontier, the last plot of land to be touched by the paws of man. That is only because one could not live in Antarctica, of course...

Right now they are trying to scar this frontier with power lines and dams, carrying power to all the people in all the cities, just like you and me.

Que disfruteis...

I was going through one of my hard drives with a lot of old work in it and I came across these photos from the best class at Brooks.... Zone with Chris Broughton. I tried posting some digital photos from that trip that weren't showing up. Now that I think about it... it really doesn't make sense to post images shot with my 5D representing a black and white fine art film trip. Retarded, I know.

Grainy Days Sunshine

I used to get physically nauseated by the debate that goes on between the film and digital freaks. It's an overplayed series of diatribes that I had heard enough of. Something like this...

"Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. No, conditioner is better. I go on and leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool?" Yes. Really, fool.

and SURE, I'll effing admit it. We shoot digital for all our jobs. Despite learning with film, jus' like in tha good 'ol days, we use the digitron because it's fast. It pleases the clients. It washes my car for me and takes out the trash! Alright. It definitely does not do either of these things. But it does save us shitloads of time.

I always told myself I'd never enter the cringe-inducing film vs. digital debate arena. Why? Because, "It's liiike, totally played out, man." I bet you are vomiting just from reading this crap already ("Great, this asshole again? Quit biting other peoples rants and discuss something original"). Well feel free ta take a step down from the grumpy train little fella, 'cause this is our personal little epiphany, and you're along for the ride. Now get in the little car and hold on, because I'm about to announce the said unoriginal, boring, epiphany in 3... 2... 1....

Digital really doesn't stand up to film. There. I said it. In fact, digital b-l-o-w-s. I don't give two shits if you're shooting a Hasselblad 89,000 megapixel HD3 with training wheels and histograms. It tethers and the client loves it and you rock, man! In the end your shadows are never going to look like those that you'd find on a roll of Portra, or VC or UC or whateverC. C me. I'll tell ya. The truth is, photo sleuth, film rocks, and you know it.

Look at a couple'a people who shoot and love film... special attention to the... you guessed it. shadows. ... for example:

Michelle Laurita
Irving Penn
Patrick Hoelck
Seliger

just to name a few... Did you notice? Yeah, their shadows rock. They are rich and deep and superdopaliciousyouwishyouhadthemocious. So there.

It's funny. I was talking the other day with a buddy we went to school with (who also assisted Seliger). I remember when he got his first digital, a 20D, he was so quick to push film to the side. Digital, it seemed, could save the world. I laughed out loud yesterday when he ended his description of a shoot with "...and screw my Canon! I'm over crappy digital cameras. Next time I'm shooting film."

Me too. And we will.

drew.

some oldies...

New work...

New cover out for SCENE mag...

Check it.

Bay Bridge

The Bay Bridge on a slightly foggy day last month.

Square squared

Trees No. 2

Square

Trees.

Cerro Castillo

a 3 frame pano from my trip to the Patagonia a short while back... still not sure if it's where I want it to be post-wise.... the jpg is really heavy looking too. definitely not how the psd looks.

first time I've done a real panoramic like this tho... kinda fun . . . .

Haj

This portrait is of one of my favorite people in the whole world. Haj. Not his real name. Thanks to a cat he once had and a friend named Yosuke... it's what he goes by today. He is a naturally talented photographer, an awesome graphic designer and he normally doesn't like to have his photo taken. Since I have proven myself to him that I am a qualified photographer, he aloud me to take this. He looks intimidating, but do not let that fool you.... he is THE biggest goof ball I know. He is going to be one of my brides-maids at our wedding and asked if he could wear a dress. No joke.

Down the street from our house...

A cloud.

Have had this one sitting around for awhile... a sky I'd like to employ somewhere else later on in our work. For now I like it like this though...

...the way it really looked. Dark and hand painted.

Hello?

I'm sure you all haven't missed us much during our absence from the blog. We've been slammed the last 2+ weeks, working long hours, and sleeping very little. The plus, however is we will have some new work running round this joint pretty soon. . . or at least San Francisco. Stay tuned...

...

Goodbye SPAMbot f!@#$%. I have been ridden of you. Now my code machine will block you from harming me. I win.

Bread and Butter

Rat Buell Part II

Here's another shot of Chad, aka Rat, aka Splinta the Rat... check out his movies and his music http://www.folkloremovie.com

"Whhhhhaaaaaaaaat?"

Hacked?!

Got a post from someone saying that our site had a bug in it... then you'd go the site that they claimed was an antispyware site, which was fishy to begin with, and it got even fishier. We have macs anyhow, but the site was still odd. I should have known something was up when we had a comment on our blog. This would indicate that someone was actually reading it, and we both know that isn't happening.

Chad.

While I was MIA in South America, Jasmine's friend Chad came up to hang out for the weekend. He was in LA (from Hawaii) doing some work, and decided to catch a weekend up north. As always, Jazz busted out the camera and they started goofing around. Here's one of the shots from that weekend. It, or another one from the same shoot will be in an upcoming Surfing Magazine interview. Be sure to check it out...

Final Impression

I'm on my final day here in Chile, ready to head home and sleep in my own bed, beat a nasty case of food poisoning, and not live out of my suitcase for a bit.

While I was here working, I was talking to a fishing guide about the lasting impressions that most clients get while on their fishing trip. He said that despite the fact that the vast majority of his clients catch big fish, and a lot of 'em, they always seem to remember the final day. Now, in certain cases, the last day might not be the best, as the guides like to push their clients into more challenging waters in hopes of improvement (sometimes the fishing just plain sucks tho)... fishing up to their highest potential, shall we say. It is this last day that they take home with them, and lock away in their memory banks, only to forget their prior, more successful days. It's interesting how we tend to all do that in various situations. That no matter what happens at the begining of a journey, we all tend to remember the end the most. Why that is, I sure as hell don't know. But I can tell you this: When I go home, I want to remember anything about feeling the way I do right now. Yuck.

Here I am in the Patagonia, working outside of the box and without Jasmine : ( ... a rare occurance!

Stuck.

In Dallas. The cause was a leak in San Francisco, which appearently keeps planes from taking off punctually. People watching. Music. Airport. 10 o'clock shadow. Waiting. It's still leaking in San Francisco, and now it's sprouted one here as well.

One more...

I leave tomorrow for a trip down to Chile. It's going to be a part work/part fun trip... tromping through the mountains in search of great pictures and big fish. Normally I would be looking forward to something like this months in advance, but this time there have been so many distractions prior to my departure, I've hardly had time to think about what lies ahead. Jasmine won't be on this trip, which invariably means it won't be quite as fun, but none the less, the excitement is beginning to set in. I snapped this shot on a different fishing trip I was on... Milt is a happy guy. So am I. Enjoy.

-Michael

The Ranch

A couple weekends back now, a bunch of old friends got together at a little place we like to call The Ranch. What went on there for two days and two nights nobody knows. In the end there was only the Pinzgauer, half a bottle of cheap booze, and Governor. This is the only proof that it ever happened.

On another note... not sure what happened with the pictures below, but we'll try and get those back up. As well... Coming Soon: Travels in Chile. Stay tuned.

Silver

An Old Friend

What is it about film that is so great? There are many who still swear by it, throwing digital to the side in the face of technology. It is inspiring... and I think it goes deeper than just the tonalities being richer. It is the unknown, the anticipation that progressively builds through the process, culminating to the final point when you're pulling your film from the fix, or walking through the photo lab door. FIlm is snapping the shutter and not being able to consult your LCD screen. Film doesn't have a histogram. Polaroids? Ha. There's a little thing called time clawing at your back door. More than likely that one precious moment when everything in the world stops for you is fast approaching. Your hands are fumbling the roll of film as you load it half botched in your film back and quickly wind to the first frame. You're dropping f-bombs. The world is coming to an end. You pull the trigger...