Jay Watson Photography

Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Evel Knievel served in the US army, worked at a copper mine, was a semi pro hockey player, started a successful hunting guide business, competed in ski jumping, pole vaulting, and rodeo events. For a brief period he was a profitable insurance salesman, but quit after not being promoted to Vice President after a few months with the company (which later became part of the multi billion dollar Aon Corporation). Mr. Knievel also owned a motorcycle dealership and offered $100 off to any customer who could beat him at arm wrestling.

All of these things occurred before Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel became the daredevil that we remember him for today. Say what you want about Evel, but what more could we be doing in our own lives? It is a new decade so where do you want to start?

CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images. Promotion for the shark tank jump in 1976.

For more images of Evel Knievel see Life’s gallery and captions here. You can follow Life Magazine on Twitter or on Facebook.

About the Life Magazine archive:

The cataloging of the Life Magazine archives by Google is a highlight of the last decade. This is the strongest collection of editorial magazine photography from American history. So far Google has cataloged every single page of each issue from 1936-1972, and can be viewed or printed for free through (you HAVE to click this link) Google Books online here. However I question how some of Life’s photographers may have lost the rights to their work that is now available for license through the partnership of Time Inc. and Getty images. I assume this was only possible due to poor contracts initially signed by the photographers in deals that now look similar to the blues musicians who lost the rights to their songs to recording studios.

Unfortunately, many photographers have not been properly credited by Time/Life. Google only hosts the archive, so we can’t blame them. If you blog, share, or post any images from the Life archive please use good karma.  Try to at least credit the photographer who shot the images whenever possible. It is the least we can do.

The November issue of Inked Magazine features a multi page piece I shot of Oakland tattoo artist Freddy Corbin (not without incident, see below) for the “Icons” section. This may not be the most timeliest piece of news but hey, it was a fairly busy month. An interview of Mr. Corbin is featured at Inked online here. He also makes an appearance in the season finale of Sons Of Anarchy which airs this week on FX. SOA is a decent soap opera filled with guns, snitches, politics, and thugs. Freddy is too nice for any of those parlor games so I look forward to seeing his cameo.

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Freddy Corbin, Oakland, CA • Inked Magazine. © Jay Watson Photography

Outtake: Freddy Corbin, Oakland, CA • Inked Magazine. © Jay Watson Photography

On a side note, Freddy “collects” tattoos from his friends who are not tattoo artists. Would you do that for friendship? Inked also listed me as a contributor in the November issue which is still on the shelves until December 15th.

Now on the newsstands is the October issue of Inked Magazine featuring a spread I shot of the San Francisco punk band Dead To Me.  Members Ian, Chicken, and Nathan are signed to Fat Wreck Chords and were 3 of the nicest chaps to photograph. They were awfully good sports about hiking around the wretched hobo-smelling sand dunes of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach. It was also windy and cold, but the guys just cracked jokes and were stoked to be in Inked. Me too. Big shout to my homie and long time SF music photographer Jeremy Harris on this one.

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Outtake portraits from left to right: Ian (drums), Chicken (vocals & bass), and Nathan (guitar & vocals).

My selection for the band’s group shot.

Inked Mag selection for the group shot.

Note about the shoot: San Francisco’s dunes are a unique gem for city residents, but you would never know this is a “protected” area. We ran into some diplomat sleeping in a nest stocked with cardboard, dirty socks, and an empty bottle of Mad Dog. What time is the dinner party Sir Henry?

versatile – ver·sa·tile, adjective
from Webster’s dictionary:

3: capable of turning forward or backward, reversible, capable of moving laterally and up and down

4: having many uses or applications

26 year old Kevin Pomplun, CEO of SkyGrid. © Jay Watson Photography

Last week I shot a corporate portrait for a New York financial magazine. These are the type of assignments some call “bread and butter” gigs. This is not the type of work I seek out, but something I have to be good at or else I would be turning down a large amount of work. Sometimes these are word of mouth assignments. If I do a good job, the art director will most likely spread the word. These deadlines are VERY tight and art directors need someone dependable.

This shoot was on Wed at 12 noon. Early edits were uploaded Thursday morning 10 am, selects were made by the art director 40 minutes later, and final images were transmitted on Thursday 2 pm (4:00 NY time). If you can work quickly and apply some creativity to these situations, you can find yourself to be “the go to guy” for a few different art directors

Is it stressful? Yes and No. Read the rest of this entry »

The IPA Awards show was held in October. This fall has been very busy, and I was not able to get the announcement out until now. A mini-press release is below. Images from the shoot are here.

Los Angeles, California. 10/15/07
The International Photography Awards (IPA) announced the winners of this year’s IPA Photographer of the Year awards.

Jay Watson Photography of San Francisco, CA was awarded an honorable mention in the People category for his portraits of Steve Sellers titled “What’s He Building There” for Garage Magazine issue 14.

About IPA
IPA is comprised of 18,000 members and affiliates from around the world. IPA’s mission is to salute the achievements of the world’s finest photographers, to discover new and emerging talent, and to promote the appreciation of photography. Since 2003 IPA has acknowledged photographers’ achievements from around the world in various categories.

IPA Contact:
www.photoawards.com.

A preview of images from a recent fashion shoot and current project based on young 1930’s travelers who rode the rails to escape the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. More to come. Much more.