“Shower time”

I made this picture this past summer while we spent the majority of our time driving up and down the coast visiting as many of the beach cities as we could.  I’ll confess that while we live in Santa Monica and we go north up to Malibu quite often, we almost never tended to go south.  There’s all this traffic, it’s always pretty crowded and honestly Tower 26 here in town is pretty damn incredible beach-wise.  So this summer we decided to get out there and see a bit more of the surrounding areas on the south-side of town.  

So yes, there was a ton of traffic and yes the beaches were pretty much crowded as all hell but it was fun.  It was great exploring and shooting other locations.  Cool trying out different local food-spots, especially ice cream joints for the kids.  We got a chance to see the American-open for Surfing one weekend.  Other weekends it was frozen bananas, or small beach towns pretty much hidden from all view.  

I made this picture at Huntington Beach if I remember right.  There was this family that was just about to leave and we were waiting for one of our kids to change out of their bathing suit so we could head home.  I really liked how low I was compared to where they were standing–we were waiting in line for the bathrooms which are a flight of steps down from the sand and showers.  They were simple silhouettes and almost graphical.  I underexposed a stop and clicked.  

Leica M7 with the 35mm cron on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed a stop.   

“At the end of the day”

On the same day as the Hamburglar, Anna Maria and I continued on with the dogs to the skate park and shot some pictures until sunset.  There’s always a mixed bag of talents at the park… from beginners to people that can tear up the pool like they were born to do it.  The guy in the picture was absolutely the latter.  I waited to find a shot that was more dynamic than “this skater did a trick” and eventually I figured out what I wanted.  I moved over toward the deep pool and knelt down by the barrier.  The sun began to sink in the sky and as it did this guy moved over to the big pool to get a couple more runs in before the sun went all the way down.   

On his first run he slid around the edge right where I was waiting.  When he came all the way around so he was backlit by the sun I hit the trigger.  I knew I had something with that hair and that hand but when I saw the neg I was pretty damn happy.

Shot on the same Mamiya 6MF with the 50mm on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 800.

“In transit”

Sunday’s are days for shooting and riding the metro with Elliot.  Most of my Union series has been taken with Elliot and a camera bag in tow and since we often take many of the same routes, I get to remake a lot of the same pictures over and over.  There’s a bit of comfort in trying to perfect something—revisiting it and tweaking it till it feels right.  This particular shot though, as much as I love it, is no longer one of those images.  I am officially done with the Pershing Square station entrance and exit.  I’ve made and remade it so many times there’s nothing that can be made better.  So this is it.  The last one.  I swear to god.

Which is something I can say about many of the images that I’ve made in the past.  I need to move on to new subjects and ideas and failures and successes.  Part of the reason for redoing the site and adding this blog is to satisfy that need.  It’s time to try and fail at new locations, subjects and techniques.  If the work suffers ok as long as it doesn’t feel routine—as long as I can continue to push things forward.

I am in transit.  Shot on a Mamiya 6MF at 50mm on Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed a stop.