Nike Cross Nationals 2008

At the urging of a local art buyer, and to seek out some portfolio material, I grabbed my gear and headed over to Portland Meadows last Saturday to make some images of the 2008 Nike Cross National. Teams and individuals from across the USA, plus a team from Kenya, competed in this cross country running event. My goal was to come up with a few portraits and some action shots, from not your normal angles. Hope you like what you see. I think this was the first time they have had decent weather for this event. I actually was hoping for more mud and less sun. But I am sure the competitors loved the fact that there was sun in Oregon in December. That is a rare occurrence.

Cheech & Chong , and my brother Jim

Growing up as the youngest brother had both its disadvantages, and advantages. My older brother Jim never beat me up. I think the fact that we are so far apart in age had an influence on that, or perhaps my dad had an influence on that one. One of the coolest things about my older brother Jim when I was growing up was that he was in the rock and roll business right of of high school. He took a job years ago that made me one of the more cooler kids in school. He was Cheech & Chong's road manager. Everyone wanted a free copy of "Big Bambu" from me just for the over sized rolling paper that came with the album. So roll the clock forward to 2008. Cheech & Chong decided to start touring together again this year so they tapped my big brother Jim to be their road manager again. So off down to Eugene on Thursday night with my wife Susan in tow to see the show at the Hult Center. We had a blast being backstage and getting third row seats. So here are some pics of my big brother Jim, and some shots from the show.

There's No Business Like Shoe Business

A few moths ago I had the opportunity to work on a stop-motion video featuring the history Nike's legendary Cortez Shoe with Nike designer Eric Duvauchelle. The thirty-seven second clip was posted to the Nike.com web site. We were working in a building where the Nike archive is located. It was very amazing to be in a room full of Nike history. We shot almost 1,000 images to put this thing together. The best momnet of the shoot was when Eric discovered the large Cortez shoe costume and decided to put himself in it for the video. And of course I had to take a stab at walking in his shoes.

Here is the link
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/sportswear/en_US/view_post?country=US&lang_locale=en_US&blog=en_US&post=en_US/2008/08/07/nike-cortez-archive

Here are some pictures from behind the scenes:

Eric pondering his next move.

The stars of the video. A few vintage Nike Cortez shoes.
















Eric in the Nike Cortez shoe costume.
















What I will be wearing next Halloween.

She Walks

Not that I want to make my blog a visual record of my daughter's milestones, but heck, she is one great subject to photograph. So at the ripe young age of seventeen months, my daughter Leah is now officially bipedal. She had a great time strutting her stuff at the Portland airport while waiting for our flight last week to California to visit relatives. We now must maintain a vigilant watch over Leah as she can move very fast in any direction. It is incredible how fast little kids can move. Or, is it that I am so dang slow as I age, or mellow as I like to say.

Behind the Scenes

So I bought this funky Polaroid camera at my neighbors garage sale last spring along with ten packs of outdated film. I decided that it would be fun to take it to a three-day shoot this week to capture some shots of the crew and whatever I thought was cool. So here you have the results. Makeup, lights, and one really tough traffic flagger.

Meeting The Neighbors

Most of you all remember what it is like to move to a new home. You hope the neighbors will come over and introduce themselves, and perhaps bring you something to help ease the transition to your new digs. You know, beer, wine, pizza, or a Welcome Wagon basket. This is how I have felt about being a freelancer here in Portland my first few years. A few years back I knew I was one the new kids on this block. At first I only knew of, but never met, only a few of my neighbors, but now since working for two of the more prominent magazines here in Portland (see a previous post), I have witnessed the great works from my own backyard of this great and talented photographic community here in Portland. Not only that, but I have finally met a few of them. Not only are these people extremely talented, they are also awesome people. I don't know why, but I had this picture in my mind that the competition would be secretive, and reclusive. Jokes on me. Willing to share information, tricks of the trade, and even buy you a beer, the community is just plain awesome. I love this community. So I want to call out a few people and thank them for making me feel so welcomed to the freelance photography community here in Portland. Here are links to their web sites so you can see their wonderful and inspiring work. Take a walk in the hood.

Lincoln Barbour
Stuart Mullenberg
Steve Scardina
Rafael Astorga
Bruce Wolf
Mark Gamba
Jim Lommasson
Brian Lee
Sol Neelman

Chalking Up the Vote

If we could all vote like this, I think we would all live in a better world. I would have loved to have seen the results in Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004, if they all had to vote with chalk. Blue chalk for the Democrats, and red chalk for the Republicans.