August 12, 2008 My first film, Little Giants Volume One: Don Pendleton is finally out and available on DVD. Here's the poster that we sent out with the first orders:
Another poster. This one I dug out from a file of old work that kinda sorta never saw the light of day. A couple of years ago I was hired to produce a group of fake movie posters for a Coca Cola commercial which was supposed to be filmed in front of a theatre. The commercial itself never made it to TV, but the posters got made for the production. Here's one of my favorites:
Have you ever been to an Andrew WK speaking engagement/party? You pretty much have to next time you hear of one rolling through your town. I shot this photo of him prior to one of said speaking engagements/parties (note the amazing t-shirt):
I thought I already shared this, but I guess I didn't. Andy Jenkins holding one of his old BMX trophies. You should go out and try to get your hands on a copy of the Freestylin' magazine retrospective that Andy just put together with Mark Lewman and Spike Jonze:
My friend Masha Orlov is a stylist for celebrities and fashion magazines and stuff. She sent me this photo from an editorial that she styled for Tokion magazine recently. Right between "SIT ON HAPPY FACE" and "I LIVE THE WILD LIFE" is one of my Crownfarmer pins that she placed there. Thanks, Masha:
June 25, 2008 Over the past few months I've been putting together the G2 Art Show for Nike 6.0. The idea was to put these vinyl figurines into the hands of 6 up-and-coming artists that I selected and to challenge them to not only customize them with their artwork but to give them an entirely new function or purpose. If you're in Portland on July 9th at 8:30 please stop by Nemo Design and check out the show!
I shot Yann Martel, the author of Life Of Pi, for the latest issue of Nuvo. Here's one of the few portraits that they used:
2K is now carrying my "Love From" t-shirt series:
A few years back I shot about 20 different Los Angelites relaxing in their homes wearing their favorite sweaters. The project ended up being used as a feature in Anthem magazine but this photo of Scott Andrew Snyder (the founder of Arkitip) didn't end up getting used. They used a different angle that didn't show his bookshelves. I like this one better:
I swore off being in big group art shows a while back but recently 3 really good people who put together 3 really good shows in Vancouver all asked me to be in them... so I swore back on.
The dudes from Monster Children asked myself and a bunch of others to scan a spread from our current sketchbooks/visual diaries for a piece they put together on the subject.This appears in issue #18:
Greg Shewchuk took this photo of myself and Michael Coleman looking through some portfolios at Career Day 08. Greg organized the event in Chinatown LA and I was honored to be welcomed as a guest to meet with young folks seeking careers in the arts within skateboarding:
Sorry, another photo with me in it. This one was taken by Dave Ackels while I was shooting the Don Pendleton Little Giants documentary. We just finished the final edit last week and it should be available by July 15th! We'll be selling the DVD with accompanying 20 page booklet direct through Mumble if you have a hard time finding it:
May 13, 2008
"With the historic introduction of BMX as an Olympic sport, Nike celebrates and salutes four decades of BMX heritage and its intrinsic creative current. Nike has teamed up with BMX Hall of Famer, Bob Haro, recreating his iconic number plate as a canvas..." Over the past couple of months I've been working with Nike, curating this show for them along with Mark Lewman of Nemo Design. I'm SUPER stoked on the project and how it turned out. It's opening tonight in Beijing so stop by if you're on the continent... or just wait a couple of weeks until we post our feature about it on Mumble. Click below for the PDF with all the details:
A little while back Steven Vogel invited me to do a blog alongside a bunch of his other friends for his web site, Black Lodges. Steven used to be the editor of Streetwear Today magazine, he then went on to author the book StreetWear published by Thames and Hudson and has had heavy involvement in the Bread and Butter tradeshow that happens every few months in Europe. Suffice it to say his friend quiver is stacked with people involved in that industry, so you might assume that this new site would be one of those Hypebeast type of web machines, simply pumping up all the latest products that only you and 99 other cool dudes who stood in an overnight line will ever be able to own. But it's not. It's actually kinda the opposite. While many of the usual suspects are involved, Steven has instructed them to write about things that matter to them, things they're passionate about, things that might have a little bit of substance beyond consumer culture... So I chose to make mine all about fishing. It's called Trout Fishing In Canada and not only is it a journal of my many adventures on the water but it's also a tiny bit educational as I'm trying to drop some actual fishing knowledge, some of which I already know with the rest being backed up by a little bit of research. So it's not only a fun project for me, it's... well, okay, it's mostly just a fun project for me. Click below to be taken to the 'Lodge, then on my photo there to be taken to my journal entries:
Below is the last series that I'll be designing for Turf Skateboards, the company that I created the visual identity for and art directed over the past year and a half. After months of contemplation, last week I decided to resign from my position and forfeit the shares I held in the company due to... well... fundamental differences, basically. These boards recently came out in Japan, I'm not sure if they'll be available domestically:
In case you're wondering why the Little Giants Volume One: Don Pendleton DVD isn't out yet it's because the distributor, Studio 411, got bought by Video Action Sports. A slight hiccup as they adjust to the changes over there, our new release date is July 15th.
March 29, 2008 I'm proud to present trailer 1 of 2 for Little Giants Volume One: Don Pendleton, releasing on DVD in about a month:
You know SBC Skateboard magazine? Well, it's first issue was, coincidentally, the first print magazine that I ever had words and photos published in. One of the features I put together for SBC Issue 1 contained a couple of quick interviews with Rick McCrank and Rob "Sluggo" Boyce on parenting, as they had both just become fathers. Well, that was a decade ago, so in line with SBC's ten year anniversary issue I was assigned the task of interviewing Rick and Rob again on the same topic. Click below to view/read the feature as a PDF:
Keeping on the subject of Canadians, Canadian magazines and Canadian journalism in general, here are a couple of photos that I shot of the dude whom I consider to be the best thing to happen to Canadian television since Hockey Night in Canada launched in 1952. His name is George Stroumboulopoulos and I shot him for the latest issue of Nuvo magazine:
I noticed that iDN is selling a book containing images of the work from their traveling art show, A Nice Set, that I had work in. After a few requests I've come to the conclusion that having your name on the cover of a book and in 30 point type on a poster promoting it (not to mention having work featured inside it's pages) DOES NOT entitle you to a free copy of it. A long time ago I learned that, in most cases, after you've submitted your work to a group art show you might as well forget about ever hearing from the curator again, never mind getting paid for your work, getting it back if it doesn't sell or simply being sent the catalog from the show, but I kinda thought this one would be different because of iDN's reputation for being, well, just awesome. Oh well, maybe somebody'll buy me this book for Christmas:
On a less bitter note, I'm stoked to be working on a little series of somethings for these guys. Coming soon:
February 20, 2008 I've had a whirlwind couple of months filming for the first Little Giants documentary. Ohio, Portland, SF, Seattle and Vancouver with about 20 unneccesary stopovers at random airports in cities across the United States. We're finishing off the interviews in Southern California over the next week and then start the editing crunch so we can release it for April. I had the opportunity to hang out with/crash on the couches of these two dudes (below) while visiting their respected cities. Mike Leon in Portland and Matt Irving in San Francisco. This photo was taken 4 years ago in SF at a breakfast meeting for a top secret project that never got off the ground.
In amongst my travels for the film, last week I paid a visit to Portland for a second time in as many weeks, courtesy of Nike SB. If you scroll down to one of the first posts I made last year you'll find a thing on a Weartest Weekend where SB brings the skate media to Portland, gives them a pair of a new shoe they're about to release and then lets them loose on their private skatepark for a day so they can take 'em for a spin. This year they introduced us to the Tre A.D., an incarnation of the old Zoom Tre that incorporates some new technology, my favorite being the Nike Free-esque sole. More on the Tre A.D. on Mumble soon...
Saturday, December 1, 2007 I found out today that professional skateboarder and businessman Matt Field is no longer with I-Path, the skateboard shoe company that he co-founded in the 90's and recently sold to Timberland. Strange because a) he was like the face of I-Path and b) why wasn't it written into the deal that he'd be perpetually employed by them? Either way, it's none of my business and is as good of a reason as any for me to show you this unpublished photo that I shot of Matt at the old I-Path headquarters in San Francisco a couple years back.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 waoh, a new-ish online gallery out of Germany, is selling a couple of my photo prints. Coincidentally, both of the photos have made an appearance on this blog some time in the past few months. Have a look, and be sure to click on the little British flag for the english version...
I got a package in the mail yesterday. More details in a couple months...
Friday, October 19, 2007 The release date for the first Little Giants DVD has been pushed back a few months so we thought it would be appropriate to put out a limited edition (of 50) countdown clock of sorts in the meantime. Furni is a small company out of Montreal that produces fancy handcrafted housewares...
Also, there's now a mini site that has info and a list of all 32 photographers who have donated work for the Heavy Metal in Baghdad photo show fundraiser that I mentioned in the previous post. The show opens October 26th at the Emporium in Montreal. Montreal heavy today. Weird.
Friday, September 28th, 2007 VBS.tv is putting together a fundraiser photo show for "the only heavy metal band from Baghdad" who are currently in Syria and are likely going to get deported back to Iraq soon. That's not good. So Vice, some artists and, perhaps most importantly, some generous patrons of the arts will be pitching in to help raise money to get them somewhere that's not quite so wartorn. Jason Lee's quote, "No war for heavy metal!", has never been more appropriate. Details about the fundraiser in a few days, for now you can learn about the band here.
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 I'm showing some photos in a slideshow before a screening at Swerve Festival in LA this weekend. If you're in the area you should definitely stop by.
SWERVE LOGO DESIGNED BY TODD ST JOHN
Saturday, September 1, 2007 I'm producing and directing a new documentary DVD series:
And here's the latest Mumble postcard:
My friends daughter drew this picture of me a few days ago. I'd say it's a pretty fair likeness:
Thursday, August 16, 2007 I finished a little site for Turf that's going to be updated every couple few days.
Mumble has been going forward at a steady pace over the past few months. One recent feature I'm personally quite proud of is the Excellent Gallery.
I think I might have sent the photo below off to a magazine or something; there must be a reason why it's in this folder of images that I have on my hard drive but I can't quite remember who got me to send it to them or where it was heading. If I was trying to make a living as a freelance photographer I'd pretty much be screwed; I don't think I've ever collected money for a photo of mine that's appeared in a magazine.
Digital Randoms #7:
Saturday, May 26, 2007 I haven't mentioned my new online magazine here yet, have I? It's called Mumble Magazine and it's rolling right along. Have a look by clicking the image below.
Here's the mini catalog for the first round of Turf Skateboards. The logo boards and the light blue York board are available at FTC and a few other shops right now. The others are coming soon.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was invited by Giant Robot to do a photo essay called My Perfect Day not long ago. It appeared in issue #47 and I think it's still on newsstands. It was cool because my perfect day ended up being more about the people that I spent it with than what I actually did with it.
Digital Randoms #6:
Saturday, March 24, 2007 Some work that I did with Jeremyville out of Australia, along with an interview, has shown up in his second book entitled Jeremyville Sessions. Click below to learn more about the project.
My good friend Matt Irving and I were recently interviewed in / collaborated on the cover for a Canadian trade show publication entitled the Know?Mag.
If you plan on going to a Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell tour show be on the lookout for this t-shirt that I worked on. It's the official shirt for the tour, like merch style. It's an interpretation of their old Mob Rules album cover.
The first couple of Turf Skateboards will be available next week, released in a small batch to FTC and a couple of other key shops in the United States. This is the first time I've shown these to anybody so hopefully you're stoked that you're one of the handful of people who read this blog.
I was invited by Giant Robot Magazine to shoot a Perfect Day piece for their next issue. This photo of my beautiful wife, Katie, giving me the binocular eyes at the All India Buffet here in Vancouver, will be appearing in it.
The Crownfarmer Fall 2007 catalog is booking right now. I shot 20 pages of lifestyle photos of Greg Papove and Tyler Reid for it. Here are the front and back covers.
In more CF news, we've launched Team Crownfarmer, "An Eclectic mix of creatives, athletes, educators and geniuses". I shot all of the photos with the red checkmarks on them.
Digital Randoms #5:
Friday, December 22, 2006 I guest art directed the latest issue of 411 Video Magazine (volume 14 issue 4) along with the 32 page booklet/zine that comes with it and I'm super happy (dare I even say proud?) with the way it turned out. Have a look at the trailer here:
Speedy made it onto the cover and the actual DVD! I think he's gunning for Hamtaro's spot as the world's most famous hamster, but he's got a long way to go as he's likely just slightly infamous at this point:
Digital Randoms #4:
Speaking of planchette-less Ouija boards, here's a Koston that you might recognize. See that little, black, upside-down heart-shaped thing by the number 2? That's the planchette and it was supposed to be a sticker that came shrink wrapped with the deck. You know, like an actual Ouija board, you were supposed to be able to use it to have a good ol' fashioned seance with your friends and a wandering soul... or just stick it somewhere. It appeared with the board in the catalog but when it came time for production either the powers that be decided that it wasn't worth spending an extra 15 cents per unit, or the production dude flaked and forgot to order them. Never found out for sure which it was but either way the board came sans planchette, not a functioning Ouija board at all. Oh well:
Merry Christmas and shit.
Friday, December 15, 2006 Here's a photo of Brandon Biebel and Paul Rodriguez. I've been waiting more than 3 years for a reason to scan it...
Last Friday Nike SB brought myself and a handful of folks from some magazines to Portland for a wear test weekend of Paul's new shoe that's coming out this spring. They showed us around the campus (did you know that they have a par 4 golf hole where you have to whack the ball over a building to get onto the green?), introduced us to the designer of the P-Rod II (who let us in on the inspirations and the technical aspects of the shoe), took us through next season's kicks and the stories behind them, gave us a Nike iD session where we all got to design our own shits and on top of it all they gave us each a pair of Paul's unreleased shoes to skate. In a private session. At their private skatepark... whiiiich I accidentally slept through. Super good of them, I felt like a schmuck for missing out on the one session but I at least got to shred at the Department of Skateboarding with everybody the night before. Then I got shithammered. Anyway, back to the above shot of Biebel and Paul. They had just finished playing a round of 1 on 1 on the ghetto hoop behind Girl Skateboards' warehouse. Not sure who won but Brandon did more than one of his patented 360 degree slam dunks to "WHUUUUT!!!?? UH-HUH!!! HAHA!". Now onto today's digital photos - Digital Randoms #3 - all shot in Portland during my Nike weekend. SB dude Kevin Imamura and Paul field some questions from the press dudes regarding Paul's upcoming shoe:
SB team manager Hunter Muraira has a good sense of humor so I don't think he'll mind if I say that he's looking a bit like a young Mic-E Reyes in this mugshot. Can't put my finger on it but it could be the black hoody:
This is Wieger Van Wageningen. He lives in LA right now and even though he likes to do the fancy gang sign hand trick thing I don't think he likes living there as much as he likes doing inward heelflips. I imagine he spends a lot of time in Portland:
I'm not sure what other stuff I'm allowed to post (no Hypebeast-esque photos of shoes that you can't buy for another 4 months, sorry) so here's the iPod that room service at the Hotel De Luxe delivered the night that I got shithammered. You could choose from classical iPods, pop iPods, folk iPods, rock iPods, or whatever other genre iPods your heart desired that plugged into the stereo in your room. We were partying. We chose hip hop.
So that's it for today. Big thanks to Kevin, Hunter and all of Nike SB for the awesome weekend.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006 Here's Tyler Reid taking a photo of me taking a photo of him. He's shooting on the original T4 and I on the lousy re-release one that I broke:
I don't have the photo that Tyler shot of me but here's one that he shot of his wife Masha Orlov and I at the pool at my place in LA:
They stayed with me for a couple of weeks while Tyler and I edited his 4 part video project, My Famous People, that was filmed in Los Angeles, New York and Canada, and that Crownfarmer produced:
My Famous People 1 (Canada) After living through their rainiest month in recorded history, Rick McCrank and Michelle Pezel of Antisocial in Vancouver decided enough was enough and built an awesome little 4 1/2' high by 24' wide mini ramp inside their store. Here's some detail of the crazy wood that it's covered in and Mavie the ramp builder dude standing on the deck watching one of the first people ever shred on it. Digital randoms #2:
Angela Boatwright took this one of her dad wearing the t-shirt that Michael Leon designed for Crownfarmer back in 2003. Urban Outfitters recently decided to fuck us over by blatantly ripping it off. Angela now shoots the catalogs for Urban so it's entirely possible that she also shot a photo of some trife model wearing the poor man's version of this shirt. Shit, how's that for irony?:
This might be the only photo ever taken of the two wooden OGs that I designed for Girl Skateboards. The photo is crappy. Ryan Allan bought the one on the left and I'm not sure who bought the one on the right:
I showed this photo at a Fecal Face benefit group show in SF. It didn't sell and I ended up giving it to somebody... so this is the best scan I have of it. Sorry. It's called After The Fiesta:
I commissioned my friend Jeremy Fish to do an illustration of my best friend Frankie for my wife for her birthday this year. He did an amazing job:
Did you ever see Tim Dowling's skate video LISTEN that didn't have any music in it, just the raw sounds of skateboarding? That shit was awesome. I don't remember Robbie Mckinley having a part in it but I guess he did. Yeah, Robbie. Which leads me into...
More skateboarding...
I was invited to be a part of the Sketchel project that Jeremyville does down in Australia. It's pretty cool, they get a grip of artists to design one-off bags. Here's mine:
See, the thing is... After much deliberation I recently sold my Mamiya 645 Pro TL and replaced it with a Nikon digital SLR. I'm still shooting on the trusty old film cameras that I have been for the past few years but I decided that for more commercial work it makes sense to eliminate the pain of paying a lab to take a week to scan one photo. That being said, I've also been shooting digital randoms which I'll be posting here.
Here's a photo that I just showed in a Vice Magazine death-themed art show that travelled to a couple of different funeral homes (seriously) up in Canada. If you've flipped through my book then you've already seen it, if not it's brand new:
The first of many digital randoms to come. It's Lady Sovereign, innit:
Ever been contacted by the photo editor of a foreign magazine (that you're not familiar with) requesting that you immediately fill 6 pages with photos because somebody else flaked at the last minute? Ever dropped what you were doing in order to come up with 6 (pro bono) pages and then when you contacted the photo editor to ask where to send them to they kindly thanked you for all your hard work but then told you that they had decided to fill the pages with something else? That kinda shit is rad. If you're the photo editor of a magazine please contact me if you'd like me to drop everything in order to put together some pages for you, for free, that you're not going to use. I'm good at it. Similarly, if you run a magazine and you want to send me out on multiple photo assignments, not run any of my photos from said assignments, and then not pay me what you had originally agreed to pay me before you even sent me out on those asignments in the first place, please, by all means, contact me about how we can work together. All bitterness aside now, here's a photo that I shot in Paris. It's been published in the first volume of Berlin's Untitled and it just showed up in the current issue of Sherbert:
A few months ago a friend taught me how to print black and white photos in his dark room. The only problem was that I didn't have much to print because I'd been shooting exclusively on color film for, like, a long time. So I loaded two different cameras with Ilford and gathered some imagery over a couple of months. Then I got bored and went back to color. This photo was taken (before I got bored) on my Contax T3 (which I recently dropped and accidentally destroyed):
Going through my archives here I just realized that I have about a zillion more photos to show you, dating back from just yesterday to a few years ago. This last one for today is Ty Evans with a plastic fork and some face scabs in 2003:
Here's a t-shirt design that I did for Lakai around the same time that I shot that photo of Ty with his fork and scabs. Kinda old. Sorry. Gorilla grip it and rip it:
The Reese Forbes Skate Mental board that I designed is in stores now. Hopefully all of them aren't printed off center like the one pictured here:
That's it for today. |
