I have saved this newspaper clipping from the LA Times for 10 years, and cut it out from a story when I was getting the paper delivered daily when I first moved to California. Think I would have kept it at all if it only existed online? Wish I had a chance to photograph Nuvolari. Sounded like an interesting guy.
LA Times Newspaper clipping circa 1999, photo: Jay Watson
Tazio Nuvolari was born on November 16, 1892. He had 46 major road victories. Prior to auto racing, Nuvolari won the 35o cc motorcyle European Grand Prix in 1925, and was a Nations Grand Prix winner 4 times. Nuvolari was left partially paralyzed from a stroke in 1952. Ironically he died in bed a year later from a second stroke at the age 60 on August 11, 1953.
Above are two pieces I will be showing at Surfindian in San Diego on June 26th for the Mattson Family Art Benefit. News of the art show just got picked up by Transworld Business and Surfline. Should be a great crowd. Over 50 available pieces have been donated by dozens of artists for the auction.
With only 5 hours sleep, Jamie and I drove from San Francisco to San Diego in 10 hours on Tuesday. The hardest stretch was the first hour leaving home. Sleepy! The rest was almost easy. We stopped in Pismo Beach for coffee jammed with espresso shots, and picked up some art from Theo Hetherington at his Huntington Beach studio near midnight. We flew past all of So Cal’s beach towns as if we owed them money. I could have driven our car all the all the way to Mexico. The Beats were looking down on us and they were proud.
On Wed, we met up with surfboard shaper-artist-project manager-family man Clayfin at his home in Carlsbad and picked up one of his gems for the show. Then down to Pacific Beach to drop off all the art with Chris at Surfindian. SF could use a guy like Chris and a place like Surfindian. Gallery first then boutique-surf-paraphernalia second (videos, mags, books, and yes cool T shirts). Today we pick up more loot for the show and then hang it!
My wife has a new board ready at Moonlight Glassing, but we’re too busy to pick it up. Or surf it!
The surf/art communities have banded together to help the parents of the Mattson 2, a stylish mod duo formed by twin brothers Jonathan (drums) and Jared Mattson (guitar). The Mattson 2 keep a relentless schedule playing and recording their own music while also supporting various surf realted events, movies, art shows, and shops across the world. Their father Jan has been diagnosed with colon cancer, and their mother Arlene had surgery in February to remove a brain tumor. With both parents being self employed, a silent auction art benefit has been formed to help cover some of Jan and Arlene’s medical expenses.
For the past few months my wife Jamie has helped to organize art for the show. She has received work from both coasts and abroad. Our home is now stacked with some amazing pieces that we will be driving to San Diego next week to hang with Chris Rule of Surfindian. Road trip! Looking forward to June 26th. Hope to see some of you there.
Finally! Mobile users, if you are viewing this post using one of those thin Apple products that connects to the internet, enables users to type letters with their thumbs, and allows you to hold this invention to your face to speak with or hear others with similar devices, click here to view a small mobile version of my portfolio. Notice how it redirects you to an iphone version of the site? Desktop users can preview the mobile version by clicking here.
iPhone tip: To take a screen capture from your iphone, press the home key and the sleep/wake key at the same time. The screen will quickly flash and the image will be saved in the “camera roll” album found in Photos. Works on both the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Why Have A Mobile Version Of Your Website?
Dozens of companies are targeting artists and photographers with website templates that are viewable on iPhones. It is a big marketing selling point. I was never worried about this. Who would ever choose to look at a photographer’s site on a 3″ screen? However, who would have predicted websites would slowly replace printed portfolios (cough newspapers)? Who keeps a printed address book anymore? Names, phone numbers, and urls are stored electronically in our pants. Who knows why and when someone will be looking at your work.
Another reason for a mobile site…. Twitter. Your website is HIGHLY visible in the upper right corner of your Twitter account. Since this network was designed with mobile users in mind, many are using their cell phones to stay updated. If your site is flash based, they won’t see your work. Even if Apple and Adobe open up the iPhone for Flash (any day now guys!), will your site still be palatable for the 3″ screen?
Strategy
Call it an experiment, but I built the mobile version of my site as the Twitter equivalent of a full portfolio. It is narrowed down to only 14 images. Both the About and Contact page jump right to the point. Of course this is not how I prefer people to see my work! But I will let them decide for themselves. If they choose to visit on a cell phone, why not give them something to see?
• • • • • update: From Apple’s WWDC 6/08/09: “iPhone makes up of 65% of all mobile web usage.”
Dear Juice Magazine,
I finally decided to subscribe to your mag for 3 reasons. #1) It rules, #2) I can never find it in stores, and #3) I wanted to support the mag instead of belly aching about the publishing industry. Web mags will come and go, but a good mag can be put on the shelf and viewed again later. Since so many crappy magazines have gone out of business recently, I decided to subscribe to a few that are worthy of staying around in print. Hopefully others will do the same.
Keep up the good work and thanks for the swag!
- Watson
PS. Hope your screen printer guy is doing better. Nice to see he has his priorities straight.
Here is a quick pull from a recent shoot of model Rania Long at an Oakland apartment (I’ll credit the rest of the crew in a future post). I try to shoot models with a clothing inspired approach and push more towards portraiture. It is a verbal hang-up for me to avoid using the word “fashion.” This term gets slapped around whenever a model or piece of clothing is in front of the camera. As a fashion piece this fails because the dress is not styled properly, but who cares? As a portrait, it just feels much stronger. Semantics! More later.
This week marked the final deadline to submit images to PDN’s Faces. Above are the images I entered after finally getting around to building the master files from a series of self portraits I shot for my site last summer. They were submitted individually but seem to work well as a diptych. Recently I figured out a cool way to build custom diptychs in Adobe Lightroom. It is just a simple trick that involves creating a custom document size in LR’s Print module. This makes experimenting with image parings more intuitive, and eliminates the need to use PhotoShop for such a simple task. Should I demo this in a tutorial? Let me know and I’ll consider sharing the how-to in a future post.
Note: I made dozens of calls to lumber yards searching for a few sheets of wood paneling last summer. They just don’t supply this good stuff anymore. Eventually I scored at a salvage yard that resells material from tear downs and demolitions. Oh yeah, Devo likes carrots and bully sticks.
If you’re in LA the next 2 weeks, I’ll be jealous!
April 2nd - 19th. NOIR CITY invades Hollywood. The historic Egyptian Theatre will host the festival’s 24 films, 22 of which are unavailable on DVD. The American Cinematheque co-presents with the Film Noir Foundation. The FNF’s own Alan K. Rode and Eddie Muller will present films along with a few surprise guests. For more upcoming events at the Egyptian Theatre subscribe to the AC’s blog here.
Playing Sunday April 12th 7:30 PM WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS(1956) Dir. Fritz Lang
“The streets and alleys keep getting darker, the tough guys tougher and the femmes more fatale. So to prepare you for dealing with the nocturnal netherworld out there (and hold you over till you can glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel), we’ll be screening more grand forays into the heart of darkness.” - Egyptian Theatre
Playing Sunday April 12th BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT(1956) Dir. Fritz Lang
Why would a man frame himself… for murder? April 12th is a Fritz Lang double feature night, and Beyond A Reasonable Doubt is one of the most bizarre and original noir films ever made. Dana Andrews plays a willing sucker who takes on the challenge to frame himself for murder. Although innocent, he deserves what turns into a nightmare for being such a perfectly skilled criminal. The underrated bombshell Barbara Nichols (Sweet Smell Of Success), adds a charming highlight to this knucklehead plot. This just in…Peter Hayms directed the remake starring Michael Douglas and is due May 1st 2009.
Thanks to Cab for reporting on this commercial shoot at my favorite skatepark. Bob Burnquist is the featured skater here at Lake Cunningham in San Jose, CA. The park was closed for 4 days during filming and balloons were stored inside the Skull Bowl (super fast lovelyness). Ty Evans directed this piece for Nestle’s Aero which are (chocolate air-filled bars) sold mainly in Ireland, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
This is not only a creative piece of advertising, but a nice little taste of freedom. Looks like fun for both the skater and the director. Full report from Cab here, who always has something positive to share and leads one of the most inspired lives of anyone I know. Add him to your RSS feed.
LA Times Newspaper clipping circa 1999, photo: Jay Watson
iPhone tip: To take a screen capture from your iphone, press the home key and the sleep/wake key at the same time. The screen will quickly flash and the image will be saved in the “camera roll” album found in Photos. Works on both the iPhone and iPod Touch.
The hat makes me look like I am 16 but I dig it. © Jay Watson Photography.
Portrait of model Rania Long. © Jay Watson Photography
Diptych, self-portrait with Devo. © Jay Watson Photography 
