Here comes the sun!

It's getting warm again. Actually it was outright hot today. I met up with a fellow photographer and friend recently and asked her to bring her wedding dress. We shot some photos around the area in which I am currently living. You can find more of her work at: http://cherishedportraits.com/

Anyway, she was an absolute blast to work with and a beautiful woman to shoot. Shooting people with such radiant natural beauty makes my job as easy as it can get.

The day ended with a wonderful sunset that we got to witness while crossing back over the river on the ironically named Sunshine bridge.

once upon a time...

There was a time, not so long ago, that Louisiana had a plentiful number of sugar mills producing huge amounts of sugar for both domestic as well as the worlds economies. This industry has spent the last few decades gradually declining into a land of broken buildings. The metal siding singing and crashing in the wind as it hangs off the buildings, barely holding on. What once was a powerful industry has been reduced to a few major distributors. There is little left of the smaller mills but wretched skeletons that smell of the raw materials broken down inside not so long ago. The fragility of such a major industry inspired me to begin producing a series of images juxtaposing the human figure against the skeletal backdrops that these buildings provide. I wasn't looking to produce sexy nudes. I was looking to show the human subject as another fragile element in the image. What we see everyday, and believe to be unbreakable, has another side that is rarely shown. Whether a human, or a massive multi-billion dollar industry, it is all inter connected and fragile. The slightest shift can send either the industry, or an individual into a state of neglect or weakness maybe even abandonment. I'm not really sure where I was or am going with this series, or even if it makes any sense to anyone other than myself. But as I walk through these monstrous buildings and think about the incredible noise once made by hulking machinery, heat put off by massive boilers, and man power put into these places I cant help but feel for their current state as sad relics of a once powerful entity. They are being torn down and taken apart. Each mill will eventually be disassembled, one piece at a time, and sent to a foreign country to churn out sugar somewhere else. Funny thing is, a good amount of this sugar will end up back in the United States. It's possible I will enjoy a few spoonfuls in my coffee someday. So before they are gone, I will explore and play among the towering steel and catwalks high above ground below. It's like a forgotten playground and one that I am happy to bring to life again, before it's gone for good.

Barely Rotten...

Here's a 9 minute video detailing the third Barely Rotten Photoshoot. I've been shooting Zombies recently.. a lot of them... We've shot at a sugar mill across the river from Baton Rouge, a haunted house in New Orleans, a residential house in New Orleans, Bourbon street as well as in front of the St. Louis cathedral in Jackson Square. These photo shoots will contribute to the Barely Rotten Girls Book and Calenders, a set of promotional concepts produced by for Mass Casualty Comics and an upcoming comic book series.

I've also included a teaser from the shoots below the video.

winter riding..

Been a while since my last post.. Since then I invested in another bike.. I bought a 1975 BMW R90 /6.. It's a beautiful bike in wonderful condition. It needs a small bit work here and there, which I will get to as it gets warmer, but none the less it runs well and has little problem starting up even on the coldest of days..

Speaking of cold days.. Over the past month, on a hand full of days, it has reached the 35 degree or lower point.. As I commute to work every day on bike, this has tested my ability to handle cold temperatures.. The conclusion? Yes it's cold.. but honestly, all I really need is to invest in some warmer socks.. and heated gloves and I have no problem spending time in the cold.. The key is layers.. lots of layers.. and complete isolation from wind..

I've been working with a local photographer for the past few months.. editting his work and assisting on shoots.. all in all it's a good time and a fun job.

Meanwhile, I've also been exploring (on warmer days) with my girlfriend Jen.. Checking out cool new locations and working heavily on a series of texture shots.. Sometime soon I'll post a bunch of new work..

so that's all for now.. will include a few photos of the bikes..

M.

The making of.. a photoshoot.

Sarula, Ethnick and I spent a day in Boston harbor a few weeks ago. We were shooting some photos of sarula rock'n a cute little latex sailor outfit and what better place than a boat?

So we headed to the harbor and Ethnick had a camera.. Here are the results!

Sarula.06.08 II by ~prophetsound on deviantART

Sarula.06.08 I by ~prophetsound on deviantART

1000miles..

I've returned to the southern state of Louisiana.. I opted to skip out on spending a bunch of time checking out various cities around the eastern US in lieu of heading straight back to Gonzales. My girlfriend's property took a beating during hurricane Gustav and there was much work to be done.. New fence needs building, roof needs patching and fixing, water control drain system needs to be insalled.. among other things..

So I left Andover, MA at around 7am on thursday september 18th.

Day 1: I drove 603 miles and landed in Staunton, Virginia. I chose this location as I wanted to hit the mountains south of roanoke in the morning, and not at night..

I pulled off and found the Beverley Baptist Church sitting nicely off the road, up a very steep hill and driveway, and out of view of passer-bys... So I drove up the driveway and found a parking lot behind the church building. I got off my bike and sat in the lot for around 10 minutes waiting to see if anyone would come out and ask what I might be doing.. As I was sitting there I noticed 2 deer (a mom and a little one) standing close by, in a cemetary that was next to the parking lot, eating gras.. Even though I was on the phone, they somehow did not realize I was there.. I stood up and they quicly noticed. The mom wasn't happy.. the kid kept walking towards me. This got me worried that the mom dear would get scared and attempt to defent her kid so I fired up my bike to get the little one to go away, it ran... After a few minutes and nobody bothering to check up on my arrival I pulled out a tent, set up shop, took everything off the bike and put it in the tent and called it a night. Slept around 7 hours.. slept very well.. incredibly comfy.. nice night.. woke up at 5:45 and began day 2.....

Day 2: Woke up a little before the sun got up for the day. Packed my tent and bags back onto the bike. Rode down to the nearest petrol station for some gasoline for my bike, air for my tires, coffee for my well being, and ate a breakfast bar.. As a side note, I was pump'n air and ran into a family that was moving south, they had a uhaul towing a honda and an suv towing a boat. Due to my need to stop every 100 miles for re-fuel, I ended up passing the family around 6 times during the course of the day.. I can only imagine what was going through their minds as I'd speed past them, wave, and dissapear ahead of them, only to reappear, passing them again around 2 hours later..

So I hit the road, road through the mountains south of Roanoke, on through Tennesse which, for the record, is my absolute LEAST favorite state to ride through. I hate the way people drive there.. I really don't know why it's so much different from the rest of the country, even the states directly north and south of TN. But it IS.. and it sucks.. I had a problem with it heading north, and found the same issues riding south.

The only way I can describe the issue is that every drives 65. no faster... and all lanes are taken up by people refusing to use a passing lane to pass and a slow lane to go slower.. it's all 65.. and that's that.. but in addition.. there are these drivers who drive 65 agresivley!?!?!? what the hell is that.. it's like they fight to drive 65 cutting each other off, including me on a bike, just to get to be the first in the line going 65.. it's a joke.. I seriously couldn't believe it.. I tried to humor myself with the absurdity of it.. but after a while I just wanted out. Total relief to find myself entering Georgia, for all of 10 minutes before entering alabama.. oh, and wherever in this country Bulls Glen is I found myself with a broken exhaust gasket (maybe?) which made my bike make this incredibly loud exhaust noises and the pipe continued to rattle obnoxiously for the rest of my trip.

Everything was smooth sailing until the fatigue started to set in a little past Birmingham, Alabama.. I was getting tired of riding with barely a break (fill ups only sort of count).. But I wanted to make it home and I really wanted to achieve the 1000 mile mark for one day of riding.

I was approaching Meridian, Mississippi when the rain hit.. This was right around the time it began to get dark. As I was already tired and ready to be at my destination I was hardly in the mood for night riding in rain. I was prepared for it, as I had a new rain suit that I had picked up prior to this trip, however it was late, I had been riding for over 12 hours at this point and was hoping the last few hours would be a breeze. I spent around an hour and a half riding through short bursts of rain storms.. This, in addition to dark highways with no lights made for a bit of a challenge. I opted to slow down a bit and follow behind a truck that had quite a bit of reflective tape along the back of it. This allowed me to clearly see the bends and curves in the roadway through the fog that had developed. So I rode behind the truck between two stations. Filled up in Hattiesburg and proceeded south.

The last two gas stops consisted of Pearl River, Mississippi. A quick refuel and then on to the border!! I entered Louisianna and was immediatley overcome by a refreshing boost of energy. I was so relieved to be back in the state I had spent the last 15 hours trying to get to.

I entered New Orleans on I-10 heading southbound. I came over a hill and was immediately greated by a sea of lights coming from New Orleans. My initial enthusiasm at getting home was quickly replaced by a feeling of total unease. Apparenly the highways have yet to be fixed since katrina's flooding. The problem is less about potholes.. The water created a strange situation in which the highway has become wavy and bumpy, in series.. so it's like riding over these continuous mini waves.. Which with my bike weighted down the way it was, left me holding on tight and hoping that which each passing wave, and period of weighlessness, my bike would return to the road with full traction and stability before hitting the next. Mind you, at this point, I was at 16 hours and wanted to be home. I was pushing 90 for the past 2 hours and lightly touching 95 straight into the heart of New Orleans. In retrospect I have no idea how I didn't get pulled over anywhere after Tennessee. I maintained speeds that were consistantly 20 miles per hour over the speed limit in an attempt to cover miles and just get there already. I was not driving recklessly. Anyone that knows me personally knows that I won't drive above my comfort threshold, so the speeds were not dangerous. I just can't believe I didn't get tagged by a single speed trap. I had to have passed at least 15 or more police cars either having pulled somebody over, or waiting on the side of the road for the next catch. Lucky for me, I was not the one.

I filled up for the last time on Veterans Boulevard on the western side of New Orleans and notified Jen I was within 40 minutes of home. The excitement in her voice brought an urgency as well as a profound sense of accomplishment. I was nothing more than a handful of miles away.

I passed the familiar exits in between New Orleans and Gonzales, Louisiana and lightning speed, passing the few cars that were on the road and pushing on. As I approached the Gonzales/Burnside exit I relaxed a bit on my throttle. I had made it. This would be the last highway ramp of the ride. From here on it was 4 miles of local access roads before turning onto the street that Jens house is on. She prepared her driveway by pulling the car out and openning the back gate that leads to the carport in her back yard. I pulled into her driveway, passed the gate, rode into the car port, got off my bike and looked to my back right to see her sillouette walking towards me, beautifully back lit by the lights of her porch.

What a sight.

17 hours.. 1044 miles.. Day two was a success. I arrived home safely and all went well.

That's all for now. If I think of anything else worth noting.. (I realize this is a super condensed version of events) I will try to update it at a later time.

Until the next ride.. speed safe!

.m

9 days....

9 days until Jen comes to visit! That makes me happy.

Was riding this evening and my hands froze.. forgot it gets cold at night in the northeast..

Shot some nifty stuff the other day. Paint by Paul Roustan.. Models are Shandra Stark and Isobel Wren.