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New Experiences • Mash Up

Night photo from the Mojave Desert by Jay Watson.

 

Gremlin By Day, Photographer By Night. © Jay Watson Photography

This photo is a self portrait light painting taken with the help of photographer Joe Reifer. We were photographing at a remote landscape in the California desert.

Man, do we know time! We know that it is with us everywhere we go. So why not enjoy every second of it. Why not put yourself into a completely unique situation that you have never been in before? What would come out of it? Recently I have had the chance to go to new places with photography, and I am not talking about locations. I am talking about that place in between your ears. Mindful places that we hardly get to visit during the daily (frontside) grind. The image above was shot at 4am in the middle of nowhere. A place and time I had never been before with a camera.

My mash-up of events from the past few weeks goes like this: Vans Skatepark, Flapjack, Eddie Fiola, So-Cal, Rodeo, Nor-Cal, trenchcoats, GT Bicycles, G-Boy, Chocodiles, Noise, 103 degree heat, Tinker, Oprah, Bulls, Pacheco Pass 5X in 6 days, Belly-boxes, Beef Jerky, Cigars, and Tecate.


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Jay Watson
San Francisco Bay Area based lifestyle and people photographer Jay Watson shoots editorial, apparel, automotive, corporate, and sports subjects for commercial clients. Published in over 70 magazines.

6 Responses to New Experiences • Mash Up

  1. I’ve always been a fan of night long exposure photography even though I’ve never found the time myself to do it. One day I’ll have to have a sleepless night with creativity. There always seems to be new grounds to explore in the medium of photography. Exciting!

  2. The low angle really gives the Gremlin some weight — and I dig how only the front corner is lit. How many takes was that to get the shadow looking so good? Your mash-up summary cracked me up, too.

  3. The bigger questions:

    (1) 4 AM? Good Lord Swanson…you should be sleeping.

    (2) That location? It’s definitely somewhere. Somewhere very scary 🙂 Hope there was a baseball bat in your other hand.

    Ahhh…beef jerky. A little slice of heaven.

  4. Joe. Thanks for the help on this shot. I think this was the last shot on the 4th attempt. I think I am gonna keep writing mash-ups. There are always so many odd random things going on during a normal week for me and even more during a shoot. Hard to resist but sometimes easy to overlook.

    John. No bat. I did have a carbon tripod that would work in a jam if needed.

    Randy. Check out Joe’s blog. He is offering a night workshop at the same location. Maybe he’ll cut you a deal if you offer him some jerky.

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