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Main Attrakionz

I recently photographed Oakland based rappers Main Attrakionz for this week’s cover. When I showed up for the shoot, the guys weren’t there yet, but I was greeted another guy who assured me they were on their way. The stranger introduced himself as Shady Blaze and he seemed so surprised that I hadn’t heard of him before that I started thinking maybe I should have, so I looked him up on Bandcamp after the shoot. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to new music, but I liked his stuff enough that I’ll post a link to it here as well. Favorite tracks from MAz and Shady Blaze after the pictures….


New World – Main Attrakionz

Grab Bag

Oh man, I’ve been shooting a ton of stuff lately so I’m just gonna get it all out in one post. Here are a bunch of my recent photos from stories about:

Shark Fins

A tiger shark at the California Academy of Sciences.

I took these pictures for a story about the political fight over “shark finning” back in March. A law banning the sale and importation of shark fins in California passed the state assembly in May and if it gets through the state senate shark fins will be illegal in California starting in 2013.

There are reasonable sounding arguments on both sides of this issue, but all the experts are saying we need to stop killing so many sharks or it’s going to really mess up our oceans. I think most people would be willing to give up their favorite soup (no matter how culturally significant or delicious it is)  if that soup was causing an environmental catastrophe, right? You can sign an online petition here if you support the ban.

 

“Call Me Back” Preview



I made this little preview trailer for a short film project that I wrote and directed. There’s still a lot more work that has to be done before it’s completely finished, but I can at least share the first minute and sixteen seconds with the internet. Enjoy!


Warning: contains some mildly NSFW language.

The power of glove / Might as well jump

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Here are two more from the “Karate Parking” shoot. I hadn’t really planned these shots as a series, but they do kinda seem to go together.

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Redemption

Martin Bourque of the Berkeley Ecology Center.

I shot the cover story for this week’s East Bay Express. The article is about the rising cost of the curbside recycling program in Berkeley, as well as the “poachers” who raid the bins and take the cans to recycling centers and redeem them for cash.

I had always thought that the curbside recycling programs paid for themselves by selling the recyclable materials. But it turns out that they’re not free, and never have been. We pay for the recycling pickup along with the garbage bill, but the bill isn’t itemized, so nobody knows how much it costs.

To some extent, I can sympathize with residents who don’t want to pay more for curbside recycling when the bins are just getting raided by scavengers. But I have a lot more sympathy for the guy who has to go out and collect cans and bottles in order to feed his family.

I can’t help thinking how great it would be if there were some way to turn this situation into a real jobs program. If we could actually employ people to walk around with carts and collect the bins instead of driving around in big diesel powered trucks, that would be a much greener way of collecting the trash and recyclables, right?

Anyway, I took a lot of photos for this assignment. Here are some of my favorite shots and some outtakes that didn’t make it into the article:

Fisherman

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This is the first in a series of images that I’m creating for a new portfolio.

The idea for this one came to me when I took a different photo of this same tunnel a while ago. The long exposure made the headlights of the cars stretch out into streams and it reminded me of a river.

The river idea made me think of all the commercial/lifestyle/stock photos I’ve seen of fishermen standing next to streams and rivers. Most of those types of commercial photos are composites; they shoot the landscape, and then they shoot the model in the studio, and then they put the whole thing together in Photoshop. So it’s kind of poking fun at those images by putting the fisherman into a completely absurd environment instead of a mountain stream at sunset.

This is a lot different than anything else I’ve done. I usually tend toward more “straight” photography, and I actually had to get some help with the post production on this because I’m not much of a Photoshop wiz.

The images in the new series are all loosely joined in the sense that they all include some sort of visual joke. Some of them (like this one) reference commercial photography clichés, others are just funny on their own, but I hope to keep the style consistent throughout. Stay tuned for more.

Big thanks to Jamie for helping me with the post-production on this shot, and also to Richard Orlando, fly-fisherman (and model)  extraordinaire.

Unique Cleaners

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I happened to drive by this fire at the local dry cleaning place on my way home last night. I happened to have my camera with me too, so I snapped a few photos. Apparently nobody was hurt, but the cause remains unknown.

In other news, my camera bag still smells like a chimney.

Halfway House

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Don in 60 Seconds

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I took these pictures of the Berkeley Opera’s Don Giovanni for lighting designer Lucas Krech a few weeks ago. This show is over now, but their next one, The Tender Land, starts in April. Watch the slide-show for an ultra-condensed version of this modern take on the epic tale of seduction, betrayal, iPhones, and pilates.

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