M.

M

April.

I entered a book in the Blurb $25,000 contest, you can vote for it (but you only get one vote), as they now have a people's choice. Part of me hopes it turns into a MySpace rally for one of the vagina, wedding, children, dog, photoshop nude collage or random bewildering books I just don't understand or can relate to in anyway at all, the other part of me thinks you should Vote for Me.

The book preview won't take you far, but you can see more here in a larger edit: April

Sadly it may make you register with Blurb, as everything is an ad for something else, but it's their contest, so their rules. 1750 books were entered online and I am sure a large quantity of were submitted privately offline. I considered this, but Blurb wanted 3 copies of your book you would never get back and could end up who knows where after judging. That cost each person that entered privately countless expenses, depending on your book, probably a few hundred dollars. In the end I couldn't justify being smug/insecure/scared/rich enough to hide. If I wasn't ready to be seen or insecure about my idea's or fear them stolen, I shouldn't of entered. It seems there is a stigma out there to entering this contest at all, but a shower of $25,000 in single dollar bills would wash that off pretty quick I imagine. If it turns out I cannot tell you how this feels, I hope one my friends that entered will let me know and since I cannot keep a secret, I will tell you.

Me, August 20, 2008.

#1RN - 6:18 AM

Simultaneous Sunday 1.

1:00:05 PM EST | Hamilton Heights | Harlem, New York, NY |USA
Latitude: 40.823898 Longitude: - 73.94615

Kevin Miyazaki invited me to be part of Simultaneous, 1 photograph by 11 photographers all making an image at the same moment in their respective time zones. Mine was 1 PM, Sunday August 17, 2008.

Simultaneous Sunday 2.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 3.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 4.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 5.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 6.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 7.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Simultaneous Sunday 8.

sunday, thinking about 1pm. 8/17/08

Bathroom stall.

Queens, NY.

in this building, more movies have been filmed then can be counted as well as the sopranos, sex and the city, fringe, ugly betty, gossip girl and 30 rock. i was there for 30 rock.

HaHa contract.

it shouldn't be this hard to make a picture for a magazine.

I miss you.

$42,000 of love. some still get love, others left me, all are missed.

26 years later.

stephen shore's north adams.

this is the only re-photograph i have ever really done. (at least of another persons picture). i had a friend that moved to north adams, MA so the first time i visited, we went to the street, she knew right where it was. it was more a passing thought then a goal, i should of tried a little harder, i didn't have the original on me, the right gear or even seen the image in years. it was from memory.

same spot 26 years later, it's from 1974, i was only a year old when he made it.

The Airplane at MoMA.

The Airplane at MoMA

Lady Antebellum.

Lady Antebellum has a song on the Olympic Album, i photographed them singing it in a recording studio in nashville.

i did a time lapse of this shoot as well, the room was so tiny, nothing is ever as it is suppose to be or as imagined, shooting all 3 of them in here was a challenge to say the least, certainly knowing people needed a double page spread.

the best part of this shoot is what you cannot really see happening, me photographing Lady A was filmed by the Country Music Channel. so while i am photographing them and doing the time lapse, there are also 2-3 video cameras filming the entire situation simultaneously as well, pretty wonderfully absurd if you ask me. i enjoyed it, other then the sound guy sticking his boom into my shots a few times and the on camera video light almost throwing off the whole second shot, thankfully, i was being a pro and noticed it. i should roll with a pro video crew on all my shoots.

me, as seen on the Country Music Channel:

TN.

i was only in TN some 2.5 days, but we fit a lot into those hours:

waffle house
250 clay targets at a premier facility
taught gray how to shoot clays (handle a gun for the first time, ever)
first round of ticks (the insects)
skee ball
air hockey
basketball
enough prize tickets for a toy water gun
go karts
(even a warning of removal from facility for excessive 'bumping')
mexican food
pulled over by police for driving downtown nashville without lights (gray)
*moments later, see same police officer in near shootout + high speed chase
hotel room with yet more insects (roach)
hotel room with yet more ticks
2nd waffle house
2nd mexican food
ticks in woods round 2
BP gas station sink showers to remove insects
NYC ER trip for insects

somewhere in all that, we managed to shoot:

Lady Antebellum & Billy Ray Cyrus for People Magazine as well.

an assignment as cool as those IS a vacation to me. i cannot think of a better reason to hit the road then assignments like these, even without the bells and whistles, i just love what i do.

*less then 3 minutes after the police officer let us go with a warning about our lights. (we thought they were on AUTO, oops). we saw the same police officer come screaming by us and stop short, less then 20 yards in front of us. there were at least 3 cop cars, the one we just 'met,' another in the center lane and one standing outside his car and next to a red taurus in a KFC drive thru lane. inside the KFC, i could see more officers standing around. then, without warning, i see the officer by the taurus in the drive thru start yelling and the man in the car leaning out the window a little as the car started rolling forward. the car was trying to flee and almost hit the officer, i saw the officer reach for his gun, try to get it out of the holster while also trying to not get hit or run over, before we knew it, the taurus was behind us, running from the police. if the officer had been able to get his gun out faster, i am sure we would of witnessed the shooting. we stopped just in time that the fleeing car flew by us and through a red light, then some 15 seconds later, all three police cars, including the one that had just pulled us over, chased after that taurus into the nashville night.... we went back to the hotel, our night was over.

I have cool friends.

a friend of mine in detroit was on an assignment at a cancer treatment center when he turned around and saw this:

thankfully he was paying attention to the small details, like the pictures in the magazine the guy is reading, and then was kind enough to share it with me... thanks romain. (those are my images of carlin in TIME). i hope magazines stick around, if only to help the time go by in doctors offices, i know they help me, i hope they helped the man in the image above escape too, if only for a moment.

i have only seen people reading an article with my images once before really. it was on a train, i looked over a persons shoulder and saw my image. the best part of this other story is that i never saw the magazine before or since, so it was the only time i even saw my assignment in that particular magazine.

Take my picture.

i had no idea who he was. he ran up and said with great enthusiasm, "take my picture!" and proceeded to do this, "take it... now!" so i did. he didn't even ask to see it, he just ran off.

NYS Championships 1.

Day 1.

mid-county rod and gun club, my 26th club. i had only been here once before, 2 years ago, it rained that day too. i wasn't mentally ready, hadn't practiced enough or even shot a tournament in 4 months, but i just had to go, it was the new york state championship.

it's about a mile course, maybe a little more. i was walking it. i started at station #4. i shot a 0, i hadn't had a zero station in over a year. it wasn't even a hard station, couple quartering targets, nothing special, yet i just shot it all wrong. not a good way to start. i could hear thunder in the distance, then the rain started and then the lighting. the next few stations went just as poorly. i couldn't get my brain around it, i shot the warm up perfect, not a miss, and the warm up wasn't easy, yet now that it mattered, i couldn't hit a thing. when we got to station #9, the furthest away from the start, the entire shoot was postponed due to lightning. great, i had to walk all the way back to the clubhouse, sit there for almost 2h, then walk all the way back to station #9, again, to start the tournament, again.

i had dropped 18 targets in the first 5 stations, abysmal. damn. when it started again, i would only drop 16 targets in 12 stands, twice as many stands, for less targets dropped, thank goodness for that storm.

and so it went, rain, lightning, fogged glasses, lost nose piece = crooked glasses, dark glasses in the shaded dark woods, too much hiking, too much to carry, too much humidity, too much waiting between stands, yet none of that mattered, i just didn't shoot well, if only my brain didn't get in my way, i would shoot respectably. it isn't a public club, but if it was, i would love to shoot here more often...

NYS Championships 2.

Day 2.

i didn't hit the sat night party, so when i arrived for day 2, i saw i won $50 in a raffle and turned it right back over to shoot the 5 stand, i should of kept it. i shot a 25/50 only hitting half the damn targets, everything felt right, i just hit nothing. it's the worst feeling when this happens, when it all feels right yet nothing breaks, i never know how to correct or what i was doing wrong. i shrugged it off pretty well and chalked it up to a warm up. i shoot best after 100 rounds or so and went to the warm up area, shot another 16 and felt ready if not eager to start day 2.

i saw that the scores posted from earlier flights were far lower today when i arrived, this means the targets were harder, much harder, but i kept my spirits up and had really no expectations after the meltdown that was day one. i just went stand by stand and tried to keep my brain in it and stay aggressive on every single target. i thought i was alright, even with 2 stations an abysmal 1 of 6, i thought i was higher then day one. i wasn't, my day two score somehow was even lower.

126 of 200 targets.

NYS Championships 3.

Clay in the Air.

it's hard to see, but that spec in the sky in the center-top is a clay in flight. it had just left a lift platform about 45ft in the air and was quartering some 20-30mph away from the shooting stand in a hurry. hit it or try to and another was launched from the opposite side in a rainbow arc, also about 30-40 yards away from the stand. hit them both, 3 times, if you want a 6 of 6.

video below not from the above stand, but stand #3, both Sat and Sun, as well as Sun stand #15. Stand #15 made everyone i saw shoot it turn around and walk away mad at themselves, when i walked away from my OX OO OO for a 1 of 6, it took a lot of effort to not throw my gun down and quit forever. a left to right diving crosser screaming across the tops of the brush and a crossing dropper from the right to left on report, both about 50 yards away.

a target is 110mm wide, or 4 & 1/4 inches by one inch tall. the targets below are only 90mm.

after 4 months off from competing, trying to get a medal at states wasn't a wise move, but i am glad i went, if only to hear the brit on my squad day two behind me yell at station two:

"good shooting jonathan" upon me hitting my first pair.
"bad shooting jonathan" upon me missing my next pair.
"good shooting jonathan" upon me hitting my final pair.

i wish i had gotten that on video. it helps when everyone on your squad is better then you and enjoys it. the first guy i follow in the video i got to shoot behind on day one, he was third, overall in the main event.