i like to tell stories

I miss you.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:28:00 +0000

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

26 years later.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:23:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:14:00 +0000

The Airplane at MoMA

Lady Antebellum.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:34:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:33:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:28:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:42:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:13:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:51:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:07:00 +0000

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.

Wake.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:06:00 +0000

pennsylvania

A.G.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:05:00 +0000

that's AG, we dated for a few months in 05. after we parted, she got married, pretty quickly if memory serves. (see).

well tonight i heard an email come in, i didn't check right away like always. then i heard my buzzer, i ignored it as thursday and friday nights on 9th ave, my buzzer rings a lot and it has nothing to do with me.

but when i read the email, 'are you home??' and thought of the buzzer, i picked up my phone, called, and before she even picked up the phone, my buzzer was ringing again, she was at my door. i hadn't seen her in 2.5 years.

she had been having dinner across the street with a friend and checked to see if i still lived here, i do. so they came in and i told stories while they looked the walls. then for the first time ever, AG happily let me take her picture. she couldn't stop laughing so i didn't even really look through the camera or at the images as they came up, the goal became make her laugh as hard as possible, i stopped when her eyes were red and full of tears, but got a few of those too of course.

at one point as i lowered the camera, my hand hit the dial over to bulb, so for one frame, i got this one, 5 stops overexposed. somehow, tonight as i write, this is my favorite.

i make this mistake often.

Billy Ray Cyrus.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:29:00 +0000

hard to tell in the video above, but that first little bump and yahoo you hear in the video is me trying to catch air in the rented SUV while we followed billy ray cyrus on his dirt bike around his 500 acres as he showed us locations in the middle of his private ranch. not the smartest move i realize, but given the moment, it seemed appropriate.

it was a great 72h in Tennessee, minus the insects, heat and short trip to the ER for the insect bites back in NYC. this was the second of two different TN shoots, both full of small, wonderful adventures. more on the other once sharable.

it was a perfect shoot. too many spots to choose from for the time allotted, a great and seemingly eager subject who has probably been photographed more then anyone can count, a subject that knows the drill more then i probably do, a good groomer, a good crew on hand that all had happy vibes and one photographer all too excited to be photographing billy ray with his dirt bike and in a thicket, deep in the heart of Tennessee.

he graciously jumped back into the last shot so i could get my snap with him, he went to put his arm around me and the moment it made contact he pulled it back, 'man, you're soaked!' seeing how it was about 95 degrees in the shade, soaked with sweat was for certain, just glad i didn't pass out, that would of sent the wrong kind of star struck impression.

i want a shoot like this at least once a week.

Romain B.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:17:00 +0000

i have two friends who have been married twice.

R.B. | 7/25/08 | #1RN

11 minutes, 32 seconds.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:16:00 +0000

11 minutes, 32 seconds - 2 sets, 2 different shots. one less then excited to be photographed subject. i asked for a different expression, even said weird things to try and throw him off for a change of expression, nothing. i did at one point get him to look off camera towards the light, so there's that, but i got a simple "no" to all the other ideas i threw out...

at one point, he asked if he could get a passport image from me, where's the slot to put his quarter. i think it was a joke, but he was a hard read, so i have no idea if it was just an awkward stranger moment, awkward getting my picture taken moment or if he was making fun of me.

i stepped into the room we were to shoot in 41m and 45s before my 11m 32s with our man started.

Apologies.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:58:00 +0000

1/3/06 - 3:09 AM, the last time i saw you before we moved on.

sometimes i wish we could speak again so i could apologize for everything. other times i wish we could speak again so you can apologize for everything. either way, i wish we could speak again. i wish we weren't so far away from each other, in every sense of the word away. you're in that state and i am in this one, somehow, that makes whatever this is easier.

as different as our lives are now, i never envisioned a day we wouldn't know each other anymore.

5/16/06 - 1:23 PM, the first time i saw you after we moved on.

Stories, Now Touchable.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:02:00 +0000

own some stories. small details and hiccups with myself and the printer more or less worked out, the ones left are eventually getting solved. so here it is, issue one now available. the plan is quarterly or 4 randomly timed issues a year. the printer is still in beta, but has been helpful in addressing my concerns and honestly reacted well to all my thoughts and attention to detail. i am a stickler or pain in the ass, so i was impressed with the good effort the printers have put forth. other issues of stories and all together different projects already under way. i believe good things lie ahead. i love technology sometimes.

buy ONE

i wanted to do this for me. i started this site after the journals here or here slowed down and i stopped printing like i used to. all the journals i did were more letters in that they were given away upon completion, so these stories and this new ability to print them is now kinda the same as the journals, just very different. it also just feels really good to make something you can touch and share it with others that enjoy the types of things that i do.

Sunday.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:37:00 +0000

3:26:36 - 3:31:52 - 3:32:30 - 3:33:14 - 3:34:16 - 4:22:41 PM

Saturday.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:32:00 +0000

11:13:24 PM

11:22:44 PM

A Service Flag.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:29:00 +0000

nashville. the delayed flight made me wonder. i went up to the window while on the phone and looked down, just looking around as i do and saw this parked almost out of sight.

being in NYC i never see many if any service personnel unless it's a special occasion. i mostly just see personnel in airports. usually in texas or florida, where i fly most, both heavy with military bases. it always really upsets me. i wanted to join the military from childhood up through high school till a knee injury kept me out. so even before the war, i was always filled with a sense of jealousy and respect for those that did what i cannot. it always upset me for reasons that aren't as obvious as the ones today.

it took telling this story to someone else one day to point out the scene in little miss sunshine and ask me if my feelings where similar to the boys frustrating reaction to a suddenly unattainable dream. i had seen the movie, and didn't even put it together on my own. i was the same age as the character in the film, wanted to be a pilot, it was all i wanted to do and while i didn't not talk, it wasn't a far off mark of some of my behavior back then.

so much reality of it all is lost in the city or maybe i just don't see and feel the loss as easily as i do when i go somewhere else. the service member walking across the terminal, the service sticker on a car in traffic, a decorated luggage car half hidden by the gate. i've seen the images of how commercial flights transport remains. so sometimes, when flying and lost in my head, i wonder if there are any on my flight.

i'll never know, but sometimes i feel the sense of loss anyway as if there were. i don't even know anyone who has died or served, but while watching their faces on the news, thinking of them on a flight or thinking of it all later alone in a hotel room, it's just overwhelming.

ER.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:12:00 +0000

i hadn't been to an ER (for myself) in 8 years. oddly enough, that was on a shoot too, however it was from a broken foot on a water slide outside chicago, accomplished after the actual shoot was over and before the next one.

this one sorta happened on the actual shoot, a first. working for a magazine in the woods of tennessee, i got covered in what i thought was just ticks, none of which ever seemed to borrow in or needed fancy removal.

yet 24h after getting back, turns out i was covered in at least 40 of these, (yes, i counted). no idea what it was that got me, but they hurt, they itch and made things happen in my body that scared me enough at one point to seek professional advice.

i still think it was a great trip, better even because of this, somehow.

as a side note, if you work in the billing cubical of an ER and are the last person a patient sees, what are you doing wearing a bad bling watch and a $ ring? class act my friend, you are the cherry on top of the american health care system...

Tennesee Clay Target Complex.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 05:08:00 +0000

9 or 10 skeet/trap fields and 2 clay courses = a happy place. took GH shooting for the first time, he was there to help me make pictures for a magazine and i dragged him to a shotgun facility, in the july heat and TN woods, classy. first time he ever touched a firearm more or less shot a shotgun, he seemed to enjoy it, he hit a lot of them, so i hope it all ended as a good thing, only he really knows.

my 25th club picture and another simple yet beautifully designed shell box.

PULL.

the little guy there with all the legs i found on my shirt back in the hotel room an hour or two later. my 60 hours in TN would become or otherwise awaken me to a entirely new level of insects love jonathan experience.

LGA to BNA.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:56:00 +0000

i got to go to nashville. i flew there a few months ago on jet blue, it was so easy and pleasurable. it seems they no longer fly there, so i had to go AA the only direct option i found, what a joke. the price, the treatment, things should get better as the years ago by, but it seems everything is declining. i was treated poorly, overcharged for my checked gear ($380 each way) and the simple trip home on a sunny day was delayed so many hours, that i got home at 330am the day of a 530am call time back in ny. finally my inablity to sleep became an asset as i got the shot done, done pretty well.

the pics are from the trip to BNA. i knew i would only sleep on the plane if i pulled an all night wake for an 830am flight. i don't remember sleeping much, but the pictures from across the aisle i got snapped of me prove that i did. thanks GH.

2 stories that aren't mine.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:22:00 +0000

tonight i got a call from someone i haven't heard from a lot lately. they called because they had to share with someone that would appreciate that they had just seen a man walking a goat in their neighborhood on a leash just like it was a dog. i did appreciate it, i wish i had been there.

less then an hour later, the same person called, while walking their actual dog in the park, the dog had found something fumbling around in a bush a little too long. turns out the dog had found a handgun, at first, they thought it was a toy, but after not getting too close and calling 911, yup, within 3 minutes of the phone call, a policeman arrived and confirmed it, the dog had found a handgun. i appreciate this call too, i wish i had been there.

the most surprising part of both these manhattan stories to me is the dog, this dog cannot sniff out it's own toys in a 300 square foot apartment, how did it smell or otherwise stumble upon a handgun?

K.F.

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Saunders) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:45:00 +0000