August 1st, 1990

On the night of my 11th birthday, I went to the grocery store with my brother. I begged him to buy me my first copy of Thrasher. It was the back to school issue. That's all it took, I was hooked. I stared at that magazine every night, scheming on ways to get a nice set-up. I saved up enough cash to throw down on a vision deck, and persuaded my parents to hook up the wheels and trucks.

A few years have passed since then, but I can honestly say skateboarding changed my life. It gave me something to identify with. I was a puny kid and not much of a "team player". None of that mattered in skateboarding. Through skateboarding I was introduced into a whole sub-culture that would have a profound effect on my life. 

It might be hard to remember when skate culture wasn't in the mainstream like it is now. It's pretty crazy that people are making literally billions of dollars off of this sport and culture. Nevertheless, I'm sure there is a puny 11-year-old kid out there pouring over his cherished thrasher magazine.

Here are some photos of my homie Chucky. I shot these on Veteran's day. Chucky rips.

Frayed edges and crooked eyes

I've been putting in long hours in the darkroom this past week; so I wasn't able to update the blog until today. Things are coming a long pretty well with getting the zine together. If things go as plan, the time spent in the darkroom this week will be good practice for the onslaught of prints I'll have to make.

Here's a print I made this week. It's one print made from 4 different negatives. I like the ransom-note-esque feel.

standard life and fidelity

It doesn't get much more blatant than that. Reminds me of "They Live". No wonder everyone is on anti-depressants or recovering from alcohol addiction.

stand developing with rodinal

I've been experimenting with stand developing. Generally rodinal does not react well with pushed film. I pushed some tri-x to 1600 and souped it in Rodinal 1:!00. Here are a few shots that I recently printed. The contrast is a bit sharp in my self portrait; however, I'm also using grade 3 fiber based unibrom paper. The contrast could more easily be adjusted with VC paper.

Having said that, I really like the way Julie's photograph turned out.

This is one of the things I love about traditional printing and developing - there is so much room for experimentation.