ORIGNAL POST DATE: MARCH 2016

For the three of you who follow this blog you may be asking yourself "Man Travis you haven't posted in almost two months. What the hell is going on?" My response is simple.

I've been busy as shit, and I couldn't be happier.

But if you asked me the same question two months ago, I would have had a completely different answer, and probably not a very good one. The last month alone has gifted me with one of the biggest smiles I've had in quite some time, and it feels fucking good. But that's all besides the point of this entry. Lets get into it!

I've had a shitload of people ask me lately how I got into Photography and how I make a living out of it. I haven't really been able to give a consistent answer to those curious souls and most of the time I just answer with "I have no idea" and a laugh coupled with a shoulder shrug, but as I was driving home tonight I thought I'd give those who are curious about my journey the answer I couldn't give because I didn't have two hours and a few beers to pour it all out. 

I hope it doesn't take you two hours to read this, but it's definitely long. So grab yourself another glass of wine and a comfortable chair. Here is my journey in painstaking detail from roughly August 18th, 2009 to March 9, 2016. Enjoy.

CHAPTER ONE // CARL.

I'm not really sure where to start with something like this. So I'll start back to my first memories from my Freshman year at The Kansas City Art Institute, since that's where I was convinced that I wanted to become a Photographer. 

My earliest memories from my Foundation (freshman) year mainly consist of my very first (and favorite) professor, Carl Kurtz; and his up-front no bullshit attitude...and his questionable confidence in me and my abilities, especially considering the bulk of the time spent in this year was drawing. I'm fucking awful at drawing. Picture a 17 year old skateboarder who accidentally found out he wanted to go to art school but wasn't very good at art, and then place him in a private college for artists. Oh, and he also only got into said art school with a portfolio of 20 shitty photos and is very bad at anything else. Does that paint the picture well enough for you?

if not, here's a photo of me from Foundation Year. 

I have no idea what I was doing that Carl saw. Or what he saw. But he saw something, and he let me know it pretty early on. He would sit with me after studio and watch motorsport races, supercross races, skate videos, car videos, etc. If I had it on Carl would sit, watch, and talk with me while I struggled trying to throw something together for the assignment he previously gave the class. I think the reason that these times stand out to me so much is because while Carl was sitting with me watching me struggle we never spoke about the assignment, only what I was watching on my laptop while I was struggling. It turned out that Carl was pretty interested in the motorsports, and the motocross. We had a few things in common, and that was pretty awesome considering I was heavily outnumbered by talent every single day when I walked into that studio, which became overwhelmingly apparent when it became time to critique work. I felt so out of place in studio. I was surrounded with people who have been gifted with the ability to draw and think artistically. The only thing I was good at involved a skateboard. Needless to say...I struggled A LOT. But I also did every assignment regardless of how shitty I knew it was going to be. 

But there was one critique probably halfway through the semester where everything changed.

Carl had given the class an assignment to create the four stages of emotion using nothing but black paper, scissors, and some glue. Maybe it was the fact that this project didn't involve a piece of charcoal that got me more interested in this project, I'm not 100% sure. By this time in the year I had found that I worked best alone and usually a little later at night. So one night I locked myself in studio and got to work. 

The next morning I arrived to studio late (as usual) with a Monster energy in hand ready to sit through another grueling round of Critiques. But this day was different. As I was looking around at everyone else's work I noticed something that made me crawl out from underneath my hooded sweatshirt. There was no clear definition in people's work. What I mean by that is: My work didn't stick out like a sore thumb as the shittiest piece hanging on the wall. For the first time in Foundation year I didn't feel overwhelmed by the talent surrounding me. This was a good day. When the savage critiques came around to my piece I was quite nervous, and vulnerable without a hoodie to hide under. But to my surprise..when Carl asked the class to identify the emotions one of my peers had answered, and when Carl had asked me if she was right I answered with nothing but a head nodding yes.

I think Carl was just as surprised as I was as he fired a question at me that I was unable to answer: "Travis, Why do you think she was able to determine each emotion correctly?" 

After I stared blankly at him for a few seconds Carl explained to me why Hannah was able to decipher my emotions as they hung on the white walls. He said (quite loudly, and to the entire class)

"She was able to determine them because she took you seriously,and she took you seriously because you took YOURSELF seriously."

It's hard for me to describe the feeling that was rushing through my body as I came to one of the single most important life changing revelations in my life to date, but it was something like a mixture of adrenaline, excitement, fear, and comfort mixed with the feeling when you make an incredible discovery. Can you picture that feeling? It's pretty fucking great, and to this day I look back on this exact scenario when I'm faced with a challenge, or when I need a little pick me up. 

From that moment on, I DID start taking myself seriously, and sure enough...other people did too. I went on to create a couple of different things that I would say held their own in the sea of talent flooding that studio, and by the time I was finished with Carl's Foundation class I was ready to take on the slew of hell that The Kansas City Art Institute would throw at me.  

A bunch of other shit happened in my Foundation year also, but most of it is pretty irrelevant to my journey in becoming a photographer for a living, so we'll skip that. I did get shot 12 times in the bare chest/abdomen though for a performance art piece. Here's a photo.

That shit hurt a lot worse than it looks too.

I'm not sure he realizes it, but I owe a lot to Carl Kurtz and his aggressive confidence in me, and sadly I'll never be able to tell him how much I truly appreciate everything he did for me. I wish I had a photograph of him and I to show you, but it's on a hard drive sitting in a box somewhere in St. Louis. 

Around this time last year Carl lost a harsh battle with Cancer. He put up one hell of a fight as he was not one to give up easily.

Rest in peace Carl, and Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

CHAPTER 2 // PHOTO MAJOR

After Realizing that I couldn't draw, sculpt, paint, or do just about anything else that KCAI had to offer it was time to get what I had originally came for. I don't really remember much of Sophomore year, probably because all we were doing was darkroom nonsense. I can't think of any kind of epiphany's happening here, so we'll skip that.

Junior year of college was a pretty interesting one. I had already known how to make photographs, but I wasn't very good at explaining why I made them. I pretty much bullshitted my way through a lot of critiques (if i'm being honest) and pretended to take what people were saying seriously, but I honestly had no fucking clue what a lot of these people were talking about when it came to the conceptual side of things. I found that I really only cared more about the technical side of the photography such as how it was shot, processed, hung, etc. I honestly didn't give two shits about the story behind it. 

I eventually jumped on the conceptual train and learned how to speak through a photograph and speak about it, explain it, etc. and at the time I hated every second of it, but I am pretty thankful for being forced into thinking that way though because it does make my job quite a bit easier now as I'm talking to creative directors about what they want to say in representation of their products. 

*ADVICE: LEARN HOW TO SPEAK THROUGH PHOTOGRAPHS. 
*ADVICE: BECOME PROFICIENT IN DIGITAL SHOOTING AND RETOUCHING.
*ADVICE: USE PHOTOSHOP. IF YOU DON'T YOU'LL NEVER MAKE IT, I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SAY. 

Junior year of college is always one that I refer to as my brick wall. I'm not really sure how I got through. I only took a handful of photographs, came to class late almost every single day, missed a lot of classes/critiques, and didn't really invest hardly any time into myself as a photographer. The reason being is that I was too busy painting trains almost every single night until I was blue in the face. 

Junior year is also the year that I started my internship at the Commercial Photography studio where I would find myself learning a great deal of what I know now with some of the best people I've met in my entire life. I found it very easy to learn quickly from people who I was genuinely interested in and liked. I also found that I felt the best when I surrounded myself with people who were making careers out of things that they were passionate about. Just a couple of things to think about as you're making your way into the world. 

*ADVICE: FIND PEOPLE YOU IDENTIFY WITH AND LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN FROM THEM. 
*ADVICE: GET AN INTERNSHIP SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. 
*ADVICE: STAY IN SCHOOL. 

I know it sounds kind of weird, but I wasn't really sure that I wanted to become a photographer until my Senior year of College as I was getting my degree in Photography....Pretty crazy right?

I spent my final year of college refining my skills as much as possible, interning at the studio, and working on combining my love for graffiti with my love for photography. I developed a photographic series entitled BENEATH THE RESPIRATOR, which was my way of creating photographs at the same time as I was out painting or benching trains. It's tough to say how many photographs were in the entire series, but I spent somewhere around four or five months putting together my Senior Thesis show which showcased roughly 15 finished and framed images in a gallery setting. Here's a couple of examples:

Putting the show together was nothing short of an expensive nightmare. I won't go into too much detail about all of that, but one little fun fact about my Senior Show is that the Day before the opening 4 frames fell off the wall and broke. I had to scramble like a son of a bitch and do a few things I'm not too proud of to get everything fixed and put back together in time for the opening. Which could not have gone any better. About halfway through the show I had realized that I was witnessing the very moment where my two worlds had collided. This would be the second time I felt the euphoric feeling I described earlier when Carl Kurtz had opened my eyes to the world I was walking into.

It was fucking incredible. 

Completing my senior thesis was basically the end of my college career, there was some other shit that happened too, and then I graduated...nothing too exciting there.

CHAPTER 3 // THE REAL WORLD IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

It wasn't too shortly after graduation that I was able to find a full time job, and I'll never forget the phone call that lead up to it. It was something like a Tuesday morning at like 9AM and I was still drunk from the night before. My buddy calls and tells me that his company is hiring a photographer and that I should apply. Half asleep and half drunk I fell off of the couch and stumbled downstairs. I had a job to get!

Okay now the way this played out was pretty fast, don't blink because you might miss it.

I threw together an application packet and sent it out later that day.
I received a phone call the next day scheduling an interview. 
Two days later I was in St. Louis at an interview.
Two days later I got a phone call and was asked to accept the job.
Five days later I was living in St. Louis and had a job. 

The whole process took literally a week, and I had no idea what the fuck just happened. Now I know I said it all happened fast and blah blah blah, but in reality I was facing an incredibly difficult situation. The job I was accepting was in St. Louis and I lived in Kansas. Something I had left out in this whole equation is that my father was in the middle of battling Stage 4 cancer and accepting this job meant that I would be moving to a new city and not having the chance to be at home with him. I don't think I really need to go into detail about how hard that decision was to make, but after he had told me sternly to accept the job, I did...and I was packed up and living in St. Louis in no time as a full time photographer for an automotive LED manufacturing company. 

I accepted the job in September. I actually moved there on my birthday (fun fact) and 2 months later (almost to the exact day) I was on the way to work when my phone rang. Delivering the worst news I've ever received in my life. My father had taken his final breaths roughly an hour before the phone rang, which was around the exact time that I had woken up. I'd like to think that the jerking motion I made when I woke up was somehow correlated with my father leaving this place behind. 

I don't really remember the gap from November-April with any detail, but I do know that I returned to work about a week after losing my dad, and purposely didn't give myself time to mourn his departure, which I don't recommend because it did eventually catch up to me about a year later and I lost my fucking mind over it. 

However, once I woke up from my 6-month nap I realized that it was time to start taking photography seriously. I had gathered a bunch of random knowledge from school and my internship that I never really got to put to use. So I started doing a shitload of computer research on techniques, spent a ton of time practicing different things, and started shooting as much as possible. By June I had already seen a ridiculous improvement in quality of my work and by July I already had a whole new body of work to build a website with. For the next year I shot as much as I could and refined techniques over and over and over. It was in this time frame that I started taking shooting extra serious and was able to work with some pretty awesome companies through my job and travel to a bunch of places making cool shit. I was also starting to work pretty closely with a good friend of mine helping him with some video stuff, which has given me some pretty amazing opportunities as well.

CHAPTER 4 // FREELANCE.

If I have anything to teach, it's going to be in this chapter. 

It was pretty shortly after I returned from Formula Drift Atlanta that I took the leap into the freelance world. By this point I had been exposed to the racing side of media for a few months and was already hooked. I had been thinking about jumping into freelance for a few months before I actually did it. I went to a bunch of different studios in St. Louis to meet with different photographers and retouchers to feel out the market and see if there was enough assist work to hold me over while I try to find clients of my own. After realizing that there really is no "perfect" time to take the leap into the freelance world, and coming to the realization that nobody wants to hire someone who isn't available during the week it was time to take the leap myself. Before I knew it, I was officially freelance. 

I must say. Taking the leap is incredibly scary. But MY GOD IS IT WORTH IT (eventually) <Notice how I say eventually? That's because unless you actually know what you're getting yourself into becoming freelance is nothing short of a fucking nightmare. I say this with experience. 

I would have liked to think that I knew what I was getting myself into, but in reality...I had no fucking clue. And I was insanely unprepared. 

I stepped out with no jobs booked, no confirmed clients, no savings, 2 maxed out credit cards, not a lot of gear, and something like $100

I've been Freelance for roughly 10 months now, and although that really is not a long time...I do feel like I've gone through a couple of transitions and might be able to offer a little bit of advice to those thinking of making the bold leap into uncertainty. 

1. Save some money.
Don't do what I did. I think the best idea is to save up a couple months of rent and utilities just to be safe. When rent is due and you only have 40$ in your bank it gets a little scary, I promise. Make the sacrifices early on to save a little dough before you find yourself scraping by to make your bill payments. 

2. Find some Jobs/Clients BEFORE you take the leap.
Another thing I did not do. Having jobs booked and clients means that you wont have to sell your bike and some of your photo gear to pay rent when the time comes. Having bookings also eliminates the stress of waking up at 2pm with nothing to do and bills to pay. Don't get me wrong...the first week with nothing to do can be a nice vacation, but don't put yourself into a hole you can't get yourself out of, it's not fun. I promise. 

3. Make friends with other creatives.
This is something you should be doing even if you're not freelance. But establishing relationships with other creatives in your area means having access to possibly renting gear, assisting, retouching questions, etc. Also make friends with designers, stylists, hair/makeup artists, set builders, etc. You all need each other in this industry anyway, why not trade skills and get ahead together?  
Plus it's good to find a friend who can pass you their overflow jobs when you're running low, and vice versa. I always recommend making friends instead of competition for obvious reasons, but also find someone in your position who you can come up with, you don't have to be alone in this journey.

4. You can't make it on your own.
I don't give a shit who you are, or who you think you are...you can NOT make a living doing hardly anything on your own. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and if you don't understand..keep asking until you do. Take every networking opportunity as seriously as possible. You never know who you'll be needing a helping hand from.

5. Be Persistent AS SHIT. But know your limits. 
This title may be a little confusing, but it really is very important. One thing that a lot of people looking to assist/shoot are afraid of is "being annoying" and rightfully so. Nobody wants to buy healthcare from those vultures who keep calling so why would they want to buy photography from you is you keep calling? The secret is to pop up conveniently for whoever you're trying to reach. I usually shoot emails to studios asking if they need assistants/digital tech every month or so. Now that may seem like a lot, but if you're a busy studio you're not actively searching for assistants, they are coming to you. With that being said most photographers will appreciate a monthly check in because it lets them know that you are available to work, which is something you should be letting EVERYONE know when you're starting out. 

As for being "annoying" if you think you're being annoying, you're right where you need to be. It's important to stay relevant in this industry. So stay relevant and stay fresh, but don't over do it. I can;t tell you how to do that, you have to figure that our on your own. 

6. It gets better. 
I can't tell you how many times I questioned my current financial situation after leaving a job that paid comfortably, but I firmly believe that I am where I am now because I was able to fight through the extremely shitty times where eating, heat and air conditioning was a luxury. Almost every successful photographer I've spoken to has a story where they got their electricity cut off, missed rent payments, slept in their car, etc. and I have never heard a single one of them tell me that they regret it. I know I sure don't. 

Half of the battle of becoming self employed is possessing the willpower and perseverance to get through the tough times. They are inevitable, and are guaranteed to happen. If there's one thing I want people to take away from this entry it is to never give up. No matter how bad it is, no matter how many of your favorite items you have to sell, or how many nights you have to sleep in your car. If you are truly passionate about what you are doing you WILL make it work....and when it finally does it is one of the most rewarding feelings in the world. 

Waking up every day and knowing that you are making a living out of your passion is a feeling that is unexplainable. So I beg you..do not give up. It gets better. 

OKAY SO. What's happening now, Travis?

The last 10ish months can only be explained as nothing short of a beautiful disaster. I've maxed out numerous credit cards, gone a few days without eating, spent several sleepless nights meeting deadlines, met some amazing people, and had some of the most incredible moments of my life. I have a lot of people to thank for bringing me to where I am today, but I also like to think that I was lucky enough to be born into the right type of personality to make my dreams a reality. 

Since I've decided that I wanted to be a creative I've been lucky enough to be apart of some amazing productions for some very reputable companies and have found myself on locations shooting products, food, a SWAT team, professional athletes, high end luxury cars, race cars, motorsport races, celebrities, etc. I've also been exposed to some of the most reputable advertisement agencies in the game. None of it came easy, but it's been one hell of a journey.

I wouldn't change a single thing. 

There are way too many people to thank, but I would very much like to extend an extra special thanks to the people who have helped me along the way. Especially those who have put up with my ups and downs, and those who fought through the tears and dealt with the obnoxious laughter over the last 6-7 years. It's been one hell of a ride. 

thank you.

-travis.

I could write a very lengthy article about the pros/cons of clubhouse, provide a glossary of terms like “rooms” or “hallways” etc. But instead here’s some straight honest thoughts from someone who uses the app every day. 

I was introduced to Clubhouse back in January by a good mate of mine: Jason Domingues. At first I was quite apprehensive and thought to myself: “another social platform that was basically a conference call?? I hate talking on the phone! Why the hell would I waste my time on this app?” Jason took the time to explain everything to me on how it worked, how to fill out a bio, etc. But even after a comprehensive crash course I was still not even remotely hyped on this whole scenario…until I gave it a real chance. 

A quick/dirty way to explain the app: Clubhouse is a platform that has essentially taken a podcast and made it interactive. You can sit and listen to real conversation in real time or you can choose to participate. You can also bounce around between conversations until you find one you’re really into. This takes some getting used to but I believe in you :)

The best analogy I can come up with to getting the benefits out of clubhouse is learning how to drive. You have to go through some awkward steps and learn a new language to fully reap the rewards. BUT once you get passed all of the kinks and hurdles its a fantastic tool, just like a car.
 

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here’s a few peeks at the Clubhouse interface. It’s cute right? 

OKAY TRAVIS. COOL. BUT GIVE US SOME INFORMATION.

WE LIKE INFORMATION. 

HOW THE PLATFORM WORKS/ 

1. A moderator opens a room and people join.

2. Until people have been granted access to the stage- the moderator is the only one with the ability to speak to everyone.

3. Once people are on stage the conversation begins. Now people are talking, and people are listening. It’s that simple. THAT IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE APP.
   

THERE’S SOME BASIC ETIQUETTE YOU SHOULD FOLLOW/ 

1. If you have something to say raise your hand. Don’t be bummed if you’re not brought on stage- not everyone can be talking about everything.

2. When you’re first brought up to stage your mic is unmuted. Mute that bad boy immediately to avoid interrupting the conversation.

3. There’s no visual cue that you want to talk so don’t be a jerk- wait your turn, don’t talk over people, etc. The stage can very easily become a war zone if people don’t play by the rules of common courtesy.

4. Treat these conversations like you would an IRL conversation. Sometimes people go on for days and talk in circles. It’s annoying as hell. Give other people a chance to get some words in.

5. If you agree with someone and want them to know it- tap your mic on/off multiple times- this is called “clapping” its cute. 
   

THINGS CLUBHOUSE HAS TAUGHT ME/

1. Instagram is important. Since there’s no photos in Clubhouse- the first thing people do is go to your instagram to get a feel who you are and what you’re about. I’ve been fighting the importance of instagram for awhile now- and thanks to clubhouse I’m taking instagram a little more serious these days.

2. I actually miss talking to people. This open platform has filled a void of conversing with other creatives about all kinds of things since the beginning of the pandemic, and has actually warmed me up a little in terms of how I speak/interact with others. This app couldn’t have landed at a better time.

3. There is so much more to my industry than I thought. I’ve worked for loads of humans in the past, but I’ve never had access to 10 people in multiple cities/markets at the same time. My perspective on almost every aspect of the creative industry has changed drastically. I’m learning ALOT. It’s incredible.

4. We’re all just humans. People are actually VERY receptive to questions if you’re willing to ask. This is a really competitive profession but that doesn’t mean people aren’t willing to help you in order to elevate the industry as a whole.

5. Communication is important. I’ve been practicing all kinds of speaking techniques, learning how to steer conversation, refining my creative pitch, and overall improving the way I speak thanks to being on clubhouse nearly every day.
   
   

MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT CLUBHOUSE/

1. Real conversations with real people. (Once you get passed the egos/awkwardness) This app happens in real time, not in the past.

2. Rubbing (virtual) shoulders with people I look up to (and meeting loads of new amazing humans) asking them questions about almost anything, and getting real answers in real time.

3. Adding QUALITY humans to my network. Resulting in jobs, friendships, and expanding my horizons about the industry and other markets. This app is networking made easy, and has removed the awkwardness of initiating a conversation. It’s brilliant.

4. I’ve learned some highly applicable lessons through conversations with shooters, reps, producers, etc. There’s so much knowledge out there, and this platform makes it even easier to get the answer you want/need.

5. Your personal following doesn’t matter whatsoever. In order to really gain from clubhouse you need to follow as many people as you can. The algorithm shows you new rooms based on your interests, and the rooms that the people you follow are currently in. The more people you follow, the more variety you have access to. Simple as that.
   

SOME OF MY FAVORITE RECURRING ROOMS/CLUBS

1. Photographer2Photographer- This club was formed by Maarten de Boer as a place where likeminded humans can come together and have straight conversation. Sometimes it’s about work, sometimes it’s about where the best tacos in LA are. All I know is that the humans I’ve spent hours with in this club are some of the most talented shooters out there, and some of my favorite humans to converse with.

2. WTF is happening in photo with Shaughn Crawford and John DuBois- These dudes are dope and they have a guest every week and topics vary by guest. Most recently they had on Art Streiber, and Joe Pugliese. The conversations have been great!

3. Breaking into Commercial Photography with Mathieu Young and Annika Howe- These two basically just talk to anyone with questions for a couple of hours every week and provide valuable information to those who need it. I’ve learned a lot in this room.

4. Office hours with Amy V. Cooper- Amy is a legend and often will bring in a guest and opens up the floor for questions regarding whatever area of the industry they’re discussing at the time. A very valuable hour every week indeed.

THINGS ON CLUBHOUSE THAT I LOVE TO HATE ON/

1. This is ___ and I’m done speaking.

2. NFT’s (ugh)

3. Overly-Moderated rooms- real conversation doesn’t have a set structure so it’s awkward when this happens, but sometimes it’s needed.

4. There’s no headphone integration with unmuting/muting mic. Meaning in order to talk you have to open your phone and hit the mic icon to speak. Pretty annoying when you’re up on a ladder painting and someone asks you a question. Hopefully this changes.

5. Sometimes the app is clunky as hell. But it’s technically still in beta. If you can’t learn how to finesse around some kinks in 2021 there are much larger issues at hand. You might need some milk.
   
   

HERE’S THE BOTTOM LINE/ 

Clubhouse is really great. BUT like anything else: it is what you make it. If you don’t take the time to learn how to navigate the app, understand the etiquette, learn the lingo, or explore what’s out there- you’re gonna have a bad time. 

If you go into the space with expectations that you’re going to talk to high profile humans you’re doing it wrong. It is possible, but to really benefit you need to open your brain to some different types of conversation and get out there! WOO!

MY ADVICE TO YOU/
Grab an invite, sign up, make a bio, connect your instagram, and go talk to cool people about cool shit.

CHEERZ TO GREAT CONVERSATION AND GREAT HUMANS.

ALSO CHEERZ TO MY MOM BECAUSE SHE’S COOL AS HELL.

<3 TRAVIS 

this post was originally written in December 2015, and is one of 3 drafts that live in the blog queue. A lot has changed since then

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Currently I’m sitting on a plane somewhere above Indianapolis, and as I’m listening to some sort of strange noise coming from the phone of the gentleman sitting next to me I all of a sudden got the urge to sum up my trip to the greatest city on earth. 

                                          NEW YORK CITY.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been back to the city that never sleeps. My grandmother’s 90th birthday was the last occasion that drug me out to the city that makes you feel brand new, and this time the occasion was Thanksgiving. 

I hadn’t spent a holiday at my grandmothers house since 2002 (which was Christmas). That was a Christmas I’ll never forget, a couple of the things I remember the most about that trip are getting a Hummer H2 RC car that I was madly in love with and visiting the Toys ‘R’ Us in Times square that was so big it had a ferris wheel inside of it. The reason I bring up the Toys ‘R’ Us is because on this last trip back to the Big Apple I caught word that they are closing that store for good and my heart nearly fell into my stomach. How in the world could one of the largest toy stores in the country in one of the busiest cities in the nation close? It blows my mind but it also opens my eyes to the realization that the internet age is coming on a lot stronger than I had realized. Another factor that led to the realization of the internet age takeover was that in the 5 days I spent in my grandmothers house (which does not have wifi) I hadn’t gotten hardly ANY of my work done. 

                 My reasoning was that I had no internet connection. 

Which really doesn’t make sense if you think about it because I don’t really need the internet to work on photos. But what I DO need the internet for is streaming music, posting to social media, keeping up with e-mails, and all of the other unnecessary distractions that occur during my regular work hours. 

Anyway, none of that really has hardly anything to do with what I really wanted to write about, those are just some on the plane thoughts for you, haha! 

 

I love New York City so much. Which is a little strange because I can remember back in 2002 when I was being guided through the sea of humans in Manhattan by my mother who grew up there that I really didn’t like what was happening. I was also 12 years old…but let me tell you all of the things that 12 year old travis was thinking while drowning in a sea of humans in New York City.

-There’s way too many people here
-I don’t like this
-I can’t wait to play with this RC car
-Am I going to get pick pocketed?
-What did I do with that fireball YoYo that my dad got me? I haven’t seen it in months.

Today my thoughts have changed 100% As I walked through the city in 2015 my thoughts were something along the lines of:

-OMG I love that building.
-Oh dope! an old KAWS tag!
-Damn I wanna live here.
-That would be a dope spot for a photoshoot
-Which train do I need to take? theres 30 of them.
-Damn I wanna live here.

   DAMN I WANNA LIVE HERE!!

 

As I wandered through that wonderful place, I couldnt help but notice that no matter where I looked there was this overwhelming sense of motion. Whether it was from the busy New Yorkers speed walking across the intersection, or the slew of cabs dodging other cars to get someone who’s in a rush where they needed to be. Everything was always moving. Fast. And I fuckin’ loved it. 

As I stood still in the middle of a sidewalk flooded with busy people, tourists, bums, and garbage…I realized that I wanted to try and capture the motion of the city. From cars in traffic, to speeding through busy intersections, to the high amount of foot traffic, to the rumble of the subway. I fell in love with all of it. And I wanted to try and capture it. 

Most of these shots are from a point and shoot, but there was one day where I lugged the other camera around the city and did my best to capture as much motion as possible. I do wish that I would have taken quite a bit more photographs...but I think I was overwhelmed with the speed and excitement of the city that I really didn't want to take my eyes off of anything long enough to capture it with anything other than my eyes.  

I also made sure to get over to the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center Memorial. I've done a lot of research about the memorial fountains and knew almost to a tee what everything in the surrounding area looking like...but as soon as I rounded the corner and was standing in the middle of everything it all became real. I've been wanting to see this site for quite some time now, and I still can't figure out the right words to describe it. 

As I was standing at the base of where Tower 1 stood-I was replaying images from 2001 when I was watching the events unfold whole sitting in my 5th grade classroom. At one point it became clear to me that I was standing and walking around a site where people were jumping and falling hundreds of feet to their ends. I can't really find words to describe that experience either. 

UPDATED 9/11/2020: this post didn’t get finished because thinking about 9/11/01 put me into downward spiral at a very vulnerable time in my life. As I revisit this 5 years later it’s become extremely apparent to me that a lot of things were happening in 2015 that I was not equipped to handle properly.

2 years after the death of my father I had become an intensely toxic human being, projecting most of my discomforts onto anything/anyone in my path. This resulted in lashing out at my job and yelling at my boss and co-workers, a very dysfunctional relationship, treating my friends poorly, and burning more bridges than I was building.

I had become a version of myself that I absolutely hated, who I still hate, and who I’m embarrassed to have been. That version of me no longer exists thanks to a large amount of inner reflection and confrontation.

I did what needed to be done. I faced myself- I mean really faced myself. I was ugly, angry, and hurt. But it became more clear that all of that mess was just a shell protecting what I consider to be the actual me.

There’s something really special that happens when we confront our toxic selves. We reveal the deepest, most unimaginable character traits and fight them head on. It gets really ugly. It hurts a lot, and it often feels like the toxicity is stronger. I can confidently say that for the majority of my life the toxicity was stronger, and it felt like the only way to truly defeat it was to no longer be alive.

Evolution is a wonderful thing, but it isn’t always wonderful looking. The periods of me shedding toxicity were weird as fuck. The more I peeled the more I revealed. Each evolution brought on a new bundle of challenges. I became more and more unpredictable. At one point I had a few friends held hostage to a brilliant plan of how I was a literal living advertisement and had cracked the code on becoming a legend in the industry. It’s pretty strange to be on the receiving end of “I’m worried about you” especially when you’re so deep in these ideas that you’ve become the characters of your own projects. Like I said, evolution isn’t wonderful looking.

I could go more in depth about the evolution of me as a human, but I think its more important to note that today I’m in the best mental health of my entire life. I’m finally realizing who I actually am as a human. I recently had an opportunity to face my current self, for the first time in my life I really liked who I saw. I’m really happy to be here, and if I had chosen to believe what I considered to be the “only option” to defeat my former self; I wouldn’t be.

I’ve been extremely fascinated with death for awhile now, and am looking forward to it. But my belief system doesn’t tolerate taking my own life- instead it promotes the completion of my mission so I can be rewarded with death, but that’s a discussion for another time.

If you’re still reading (I hope you’re not because I’ve never told anyone this in my entire life) thanks. You were probably apart of the effort to keep me here. It worked.

Originally I came to the post because I wanted to pull the image of the freedom tower in New York City, but I’m really glad that I spent a few minutes re-living that era because it’s very important for me as a human to be able to track the progress of outgrowing my former selves.

Check on your people. Check on yourself. Stick around. I’m glad I did.

<3 travis

WHAT UP Y’ALL? IT’S BEEN AWHILE.

Over a year in fact since I’ve sat down and poured my heart into one of these. I wish I had a more concise way to explain my absence, but I don’t. This is going to be a long one. Grab a glass of wine, take a seat, and buckle your fucking seatbelt.

Last time we met I was jumping for joy over the fact that I had signed on with the good dudes over at 8183 Studio as a roster shooter, and we had just completed my first book shoot with an Infiniti. There was an overwhelming sense of excitement, pride, and potential as I felt like I had finally gotten the door open that I’ve been knocking at for quite some time.

Later on in the year the team got back together for a studio collaborative project that combined everything from product and lifestyle stills with a killer motion piece to flex our muscles on what a full campaign done in house would look like. This too brought a large amount of excitement, pride, etc. etc. This project would also be a tipping off point for me as I’m finally entering the early stages of learning how to take ideas out of my head and put them into the real world, something I’ve been struggling with for as long as I can remember.

There’s a pretty serious in depth breakdown of this project, if you’re interested in reading about the process, seeing the motion piece, and a shitload of BTS check it out HERE

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It was somewhere in the post production of this project that I had a strong urge to become fully aware of what everyone else was doing, and do the exact opposite. (this is where it starts to get deep, you might want to refill that wine before we dive into this next part)

I was making the drive from Kansas City to St. Louis to visit some friends for the weekend. I kept looking at the stale, boring, and repetitive billboards that I’ve seen well over 100 times plastered in the sky from city to city.

“REPENT”
“BIRTH IS LIFE”
THOUSANDS OF BOOTS”
“YOUR WIFE IS HOT”

Somewhere along i-70 on that 250 mile drive I realized how much I fucking hate advertisements,
which is a funny thing considering I’ve devoted my life to making them.

I started to think about our recent studio project and as I was reflecting on the day it occurred to me that instead of hanging images in the studio I should be hanging images in the city. I started breaking down the current trends in marketing and this all made PERFECT sense, AND tied in directly with my newly discovered ethos of thinking differently.

When thinking about all of the things that make marketing great in the digital era we think of things like websites, social media, email blasts, direct marketing, etc. Billboards are becoming a lesser desired end result for the work that really stands out in the field- and is commonly home to the watered down, minimal, and direct language used in order to be easily consumed and retained by the general public. Usually while traveling in a vehicle of some sort.

What’s crazier to me is the fact that the average joe scrolls through a web page or instagram at something like 60mph, making our average view time of 2.4 seconds on still imagery decrease rapidly. This shit is bananas. Images that are taking hours to compose and create are being absorbed at such a rapid pace that the creation process of certain assets is severely diluted to be in line with its final presentation.
Our markets are shifting to becoming more “good enough” markets instead of “best it can be” markets. This process is becoming more of a norm in avenues aside from just web/social media as we see the attention span of our average consumer dwindling day by day.

With large amounts of effort being focused towards the screens held by consumers, I decided to focus on the canvas that floats above the city- The language for the concept went something like this:

”instead of marketing to people looking down, let’s make them look up.”

I was really into the idea of treating a billboard/city background as an art gallery. So I went and found my favorite view of the skyline (which was also right above my favorite set of train tracks) which also happens to have a perfectly placed billboard that is almost directly at eye level. It was perfect. This particular billboard also had no lights- which is even more perfect because not only does my image have beautiful placement and limited duration of existence, it also has a very specific window of viewing. Making this something you either stumble upon throughout your workday, or something you have to specifically go look at.
There is also the large possibility that some people will never see it which is probably my favorite factor at stake here. With graffiti one of my favorite things was spending so much time on something simply for the act of doing- it was widely understood that everything I ever painted would potentially be covered up at some point. Much like a monk creating a sand mandala- we’re in it for the process. Not the end result. This level of intent is the type of shit I get insanely hyped on. ART IS FUCKING COOL GUYS.

OKAY TRAVIS COOL YOU PAID FOR A BILLBOARD, OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING THAT ALL THE TIME. WHAT ARE YOU GETTING AT HERE?

I’m glad you asked! I’m definitely not the first to think of billboards as the perfect canvas for my work, and being in advertising our work shows up on billboards across the country quite often. HOWEVER- I have yet to see other advertisement photographers in my market use a billboard as a canvas for their personal work. Mainly due to the fact that putting my image up in the city cost me upwards of $1,200 for 4 weeks, and I didn’t put my name on it so there was no way of tracking any kind of ROI. Most shooters with any amount of common sense would call me crazy for spending that amount of money on something so disposable, but in my opinion that was a low cost to swallow for the amount of possibilities it unlocked in my brain.

Interestingly enough, this idea of creating specific viewing experiences for my photographs is just a way for me to stick to my roots of graffiti. The planning and execution process hasn’t changed, I’m just spending more money by purchasing the real estate instead of taking it from someone else. In fact- I’ve learned more about advertising through graffiti than I have from making advertisements. Life’s weird man.

*side note- A representative from Sony Alpha Universe reached out to me earlier this year and we spent some time on the phone talking about a bunch of things (including graffiti) that turned into articles-
if you’re into reading about any of that stuff here’s some links:
https://alphauniverse.com/stories/the-pro-files--authenticity-and-instagram/
https://alphauniverse.com/stories/the-pro-files--take-an-old-school-approach-to-attracting-clients/

There were a lot of other very important things that happened in 2018 that allowed me to unlock a certain part of my brain that was much needed to think deeper, clearer, and more technically. One of them was a pretty serious burnout that knocked me on my ass pretty hard. If I’m being honest this left a pretty heavy scar and is the reason I’ve shifted directions almost entirely.

For those of you who know me- you knew that I was pursuing the niche of studio product and was super into highly technical shoot styles, heavy retouching, etc. After giving it a decent fight and a few years of dedication I’ve come to realize that I wasn’t built for that type of production, and after being so engulfed in composites, revisions, long shoot days, long retouch days, etc. for a representation of something to live on a white background I became insanely bored. Where’s the purpose? Where’s the story? AGHHH.

Don’t get me wrong- I find immense joy in studying a product, understanding the engineering, and making sure I can properly represent someone else’s hard work, but to do a disservice and put that shoe on a white background is almost heartbreaking to me. Someone designed those shoes to be worn, to be used, to be functional under hard conditions, to withstand the elements, to take a beating. THAT is what I want to show. By taking the technical understanding of a studio shooter and applying it to the real world use of a product in the environment it was intended for, I believe we can make some seriously powerful shit. It was this mindset that made my portion of the studio’s Bose project so successful, it was also this mindset that has attracted attention from brands such as Cadillac, Mini Cooper, and Garmin for example.

Since we’re kind of doing a bit of a recap here- earlier this year Garmin shipped me out to New Orleans to shoot the tail end of a global campaign. As you can imagine this sparked loads of excitement for me since this was a substantially larger milestone for me as a newer shooter. Not to mention this was one of the last check marks I needed to reach just about every goal I’ve ever set. We’ll get into that later.

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I’ve been doing my best over the last several months to put myself in front of the people I look up to. In doing so I’ve been able to get the answers I’ve desperately needed to make the majority of my decisions when it comes to what I’m doing and where I’m going. The best piece advice I have ever received was that anything worth doing, was worth overdoing. (thanks dad) So I’m overdoing the hell out of educating myself on everything from industry past and present, cameras, software, communication, etc. There’s so much to learn, and to be honest if I had any idea what it was going to take to do something like this I would have probably been scared off and pursued a stable career path that included shit like insurance, consistent paychecks, and casual Fridays.

I’m so fucking glad I didn’t take that route.

Another recent trip to St. Louis put me in front of some of the top people on my list of inspirational humans, and after speaking with the good dudes at Bruton Stroube (Brandon Voges and Jake Potts) ProEDU (Matt Seidel), and Portland based Retouchers- Sef McCullough/Earth Oliver I was able to express my current frustrations with a variety of things including the ad industry, ad agencies, industry demand, importance of concept, and boredom. Several amazing conversations were had, and these dudes educated the hell out of me. ALSO- I was genuinely shocked to hear that even the people at the top of the game think the majority of the work we get to do sometimes can be pretty boring.

This is where I figured out that I’ve been looking at everything the wrong way.

The problems I’ve been having aren’t with advertisements themselves, but with how I’ve allowed the process of creating them to influence my overall view of them.

….and the insane amount of pressure I’ve been putting on myself.

I’m still trying to fully figure a lot of shit out in this region of things.
Good progress has been made, and the thinking process has shifted…sort of.

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OKAY TRAVIS, SO YOU LEARNED SOME SHIT. GOOD JOB MAN.
HOW HAVE YOU PUT THAT KNOWLEDGE TO USE?

Well- due to 2019 turning into the busiest year to date I haven’t had a ton of time to dive into projects per say, but what I have been able to do is refine my definition of intent in my industry, and while it’s not 100% there just yet- I’m feeling really good about where I’m at and what I’m doing. Hopefully I have more on this one for you in the coming months.

If there’s anything that I want to be taken away from this novel, it’s that I’ve stumbled upon a clear understanding of what it takes to properly sustain in this specific industry, and that I have what it takes to make some great shit happen. For the last few years or so the bigger fish in the pond have been making me work really hard, it’s my dream that in the coming years I’ll be able to return the favor by making them work a little harder when it comes to making dope shit for dope companies.

HEY WHAT WAS THAT SHIT YOU WERE SAYING ABOUT REACHING EVERY GOAL YOU’VE EVER SET?

Damn, I was kind of hoping you forgot about this because it’s pretty difficult to translate into something that can be properly understood.

BUT I’ll try anyway.

Somewhere around 2014-2015 I made a small list of internal goals that I wanted to reach in the next 10+ years or so. I was almost dead certain it would take longer- but I was very wrong. The small list consisted of things like working on national/global advertisement campaigns, and having a functioning studio, all of which I’ve technically had accomplished since 2017. There have been slight variations to those goals over the years, but when I look back and remember thinking how out of reach a lot of that stuff was it’s messed with my brain quite a bit, and threw me into a little bit of an unexpected funk.

You’re probably thinking: “Just set some higher goals” which is very rational and fair of you, but my problem is that I don’t know how. Those are the biggest goals I’ve ever had. I suppose I could go into more specifics like “land a 100,000+ job” but thats putting me in a position of setting a dollar amount on fulfillment- something I have a very large issue with.

There are a lot of constant developments happening in this area right now, and my mind shifts pretty drastically almost every day. The good news is that there are enough practical problems that need solutions to keep my brain occupied for awhile, but every couple of weeks or so this creeps back and throws me for a pretty serious loop. Y’all ever deal with this shit? Let’s talk about it.

ANYWAY LETS MOVE ON TO SOME SHIT THAT IM VERY HYPED ABOUT.

There are loads of things to be excited about as I’m doing my best to mold and adapt to a large amount of variables. Project wise I’ve been trying to think deeper and with more intent. So far I have just a couple of things in the works enough to share with you. Keep in mind these are still flexible concepts and ideas and very much works in progress. The end results that come from these might look lightyears different- at least I hope they do.

THE TRANSACTION

Irish immigrants, whiskey, crooked cops.

The concept for this project actually started early last year after talking with a local distillery owner about a 1947 paddy wagon that they’ve turned into a mobile bar. I remember hearing that they were doing a full restore on this thing about 6 months earlier, and after seeing it in person I was hyped as shit about it. There were a few conversations kicked around with what exactly to do with that thing, and I can’t remember who said it but there was a suggestion to use it in a way to tell some kind of story.

I have no idea what was in the air that day but I went back to the studio and wrote out a full story about an Irish immigrant who was illegally housed in New York City by his sleaze-ball of a cousin who was in debt to some crooked cops, and somehow they struck a deal to trade barrels of this family Irish whiskey for the immigrants freedom. Our scene exists once the police arrive to the warehouse where the immigrant has not produced enough product to meet their demand.

Developing this project as if it were a movie opened a shitload of doors to ideas I would have never considered including in a stills shoot. I’ve included things like a script, character traits, backstories, a specific date/time, etc. All to give everyone involved more context to be able to play with when it comes time for capture. There are also several small details that I’ve included such as my family members’ names (we’re hella Irish) and my dad’s birthday/birthplace which is where this whole story takes place. *below are some pages of the treatment for context

Other details include the police officers being Irish- which is historically correct and ties everything back to the origin of the “Paddy Wagon” that they are driving. If you’re unfamiliar where the term Paddywagon came from- (This is a quick and dirty explanation that leaves out a shitload of details, look this up if you’re interested) Back in the day in Ireland people were crazy and would cause issues and need to be arrested in groups. They’d throw all of the “Paddy’s” or Patrick’s into the back of a truck and take them to jail. Fast forward to when the Irish settled in America and became a large number of the operating police force. Now the “Paddy’s” are driving the trucks to throw groups of people in jail, thus we get the name Paddywagon. Boom. History bitch.

ANYWAY. It’s my dream that by putting in this much attention to detail, hiring actors as talent, and going through the process of making this as period correct as we can- the moment we yell ACTION this story can come to life. I have a vision of everyone becoming so absorbed into this moment that we’ve briefly forgotten about the production and are able to exist inside the world of this project. I just got chills thinking about it. This is so damn cool.

We’ve explored a lot of various capture ideas- everything from a wet plate 8x10, to twin lens medium format, to using old shitty lenses, expired film etc. The reality is that we’ll probably shoot a bunch of shit on some kind of 8x10 or 4x5 film (hopefully) paired with some medium format digital backups. There will probably be all kinds of cameras on the table for this one to create a shitload of different looks. The possibilities are virtually endless and I’m hyped as shit about it.

THERE. ARE. NO. RULES.

Deliverables for this project would ideally include a lookbook, various character ID cards, and potentially other tangibles paired with a rebranded whiskey to reflect a product developed around a story. Rebrand assets would include bottle labeling, packaging, a smuggler’s language breakdown, and other brand elements. Final presentation would include a website case study on the digital end. Physical presentation be a wooden shipping crate with the lookbook and bottles of whiskey that are disguised under straw packaging protection. The crate would be nailed shut and something would be written on the outside such as “RED DISHES” which would translate to “WHISKEY” if you spoke the smugglers language. Making this a narrative driven product experience from start to finish. This shit is so cool to think about.

I have no idea when this project will come to life, but I’ve spoken to a lot of people about it and loads of changes have been made to the original treatment. Hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to nail down a final gameplay for this one and execute accordingly.

ANAGLYPH

3D glasses, twins, cool shit.

Earlier this year sometime I had an idea to try and shoot things in 3D. Again- not a new idea by any means, but another thing that I haven’t been seeing other people in my market put any effort towards.

I’ve gone in several different directions with this idea so far, and when trying to figure out how the hell I would shoot something like dirt bikes jumping sand dunes with 2 cameras attached to some kind of linear rig my head starts to hurt. Its definitely possible- it just seemed like something I might need to lean into in case I mess some shit up out of the gate.

SO. After messing around with only 1 camera and 3D glasses I started to combine images that can be separated by color channels. This is interesting as hell because in theory we can create 3 different versions out of 1 image. Confused? Don’t be- this shit is VERY simple.

For the example below- we shot 2 images. 1 of Carmen and one of Bones. By keeping the camera at the same height/distance we can very easily overlay the images and isolate the red/blue channels. The resulting image is pretty interesting looking and sort of looks like we’re just showing an interesting portrait of Carmen with a skeleton beneath her. BUT once we isolate the red channels by looking through the red glasses we see only bones. Isolate the blue channel and we only see Carmen. VERY simple but holy shit thats interesting! Try it for yourself if you’ve got some red/blue 3D glasses laying around! (it also works with red/blue color gels)

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After this initial round of testing I got to thinking how this could be put to better use. Right away using twins seemed like the best fit. Two things that are seen as the same, but live separate lives, have separate personalities. Twins are SO interesting. What better way to make a singular portrait of two people than by splitting them into channels? DUH.

We were lucky enough to snag Erin and Meredith for our first go around to see if this would actually work. Turns out it worked better than I could have imagined! We set up a very basic portrait background and got to work- when the overlay process was happening I noticed that their faces completed the RGB spectrum and created a full color image. THIS BLEW MY FUCKING MIND.

It makes perfect sense actually- since they’re twins they have identical faces. All of my previous tests have had two totally different objects so this result never occurred to me, and makes me love these images even more. To go even deeper now we have a full color representation of what the world sees as identical, and through our color channels we can reveal the characteristics that make Erin and Meredith each their own individual person. ALL WITHIN ONE IMAGE. GUYS ART IS SO DAMN COOL!!!!

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There are a lot of ways this project could go, for example: mother daughter, father son, brother sister, fraternal twins, etc. etc. Right now I’m doing my best to think of the different ways to experience this work. So far there are no for sure plans, but the idea of a large scale gallery show has been kicked around pretty heavily. I’m also exploring different ways to implement the red/blue overlay into the framing of the images to provide viewers the ability to control which parts of the image they want to reveal. These images don’t really properly exist without some type of viewer interaction. I love that shit.

Diving in further I’m looking at ways to present the work in a space that would give viewers the opportunity to experience both images as they move passed a specific viewing window. My current favorite idea is finding the perfect billboard along the KC Streetcar route and installing a red/blue split window film that would allow whoever is looking out the window to witness the image change on their commute. I’m very into the idea of the viewer stumbling upon how to view these works, again- this is just graffiti for me. There are no fucking rules, and I’m hyped as hell.

Typically it wouldn’t make sense to share project concepts/ideas until they were finished, but as I’ve stated in past blogs- These are aimed at my previous self. It’s important for me to track my progress with this kind of shit. It also could potentially show y’all why there hasn’t been a ton of recent work from me in the last year, and give you a little peek of what the inside of my head looks like. The process is my priority. The results are just a bonus as far as I’m concerned.

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For the sake of length- There are a shitload of other things I’m leaving out that are regularly happening that do contribute to the process of understanding why I’m doing all of this shit, but I’ll save those details for those of you who are brave enough to get stuck in a car with me on a road trip, or catch me in the middle of a deep thought in the studio.

If you’re still with me, thank you. I know this is a lot to read and comprehend.

I do want to tell about one more very important thing that happened to me just last week that changed my view of thinking yet again.

I hopped in the car with my buddy Erik and we started the 11 hour journey that would land us is Austin, Texas for the 19th round of the Formula One Grand Prix. This is especially exciting since this is the only race of the season that comes to the United States, and I had to miss last year due to a dear friend’s wedding.

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To put the importance of this specific race in perspective- Lewis Hamilton was just a few points away from claiming his 6th world championship. There were only a small handful of variables that would stand in his way, meaning that we were more than likely going to witness a championship celebration by Sunday afternoon. Mercedes had already claimed their constructors title the weekend prior, so the silver arrows were in good spirits.

We arrived to the race track Friday morning, and had no idea what to expect, but as we got closer to the front gate we heard the F1 power units roaring in the distance for the first time. This would be comparable to hearing the crack of a baseball bat for the first time if you were a baseball fan. Seeing a Formula One car for the first time is pretty fucking dope. They’re really small, kind of long, and really fast. We tried to soak it all in as best as we could while making ourselves familiar with the small city of a racetrack that we’d be basically living at for the next 3 days. Scoping out the best turns, places on the ground to sit, bathroom locations, and where the best food was.

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Saturday was a bit of a different story. We arrived a little later in the morning since we were mostly familiar with the area, but what we didn’t expect was double the amount of people to be there. Practice usually isn’t anything special in F1, but Qualifying on Saturday was definitely not something you wanted to miss. Especially when my dude Valtteri Bottas unleashes his fury and lands pole position. We also had a chance to witness classic formula cars rip around the track, it was wild to watch historic championship cars from the 70’s pushing their limits- I figured those things would be tucked away in museums or protected. The fact that they’re still in good operating condition and racing is fucking amazing to me. We spent the day wandering, soaking in the mass amount of shit happening all around the track, and shredding the go kart track. I was in fucking heaven.

As I was making general observations about this event- I couldn’t help but be insanely inspired by how smooth everything ran. There were so many bathrooms. Putting something like this must have been an absolute nightmare. I would very much like to see what an invoice looked like for things like bathrooms, vendor fees, race entry fees, etc. I constantly kept taking notes on how I can implement things like this into production- thinking of every single detail like making sure we have an air conditioned tent if we’re going to be outside during summer set, making sure we have enough plates and garbage bags, etc. There are so many elements to consider, I just need to figure out how to put myself in a mental position to use the portion of my brain thats frequently thinking of those little details. Just thinking about this right now gets me hyped!

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Sunday. Race Day.

Valtteri Bottas sits on pole while Lewis starts from P4 on the grid. He would have 56 laps to figure out how to score just a couple points to secure his world championship. I don’t even know when we arrived, or what led up to us getting into position. All I can remember now is the race start and not being able to see shit, but I didn’t care. I was surrounded by die hard race fans from all around the world. Everyone was so friendly. I’ve never been in such a densely populated area with such high energy. This was the greatest day of my life.

The race was kind of chaos, and the energy levels were all over the place. There was intensity, overtaking, strategy switching, and at one point Lewis Hamilton was able to snag P1 until he began to lose his tires and Valterri swooped back in to eventually finish the race in P1. Something we’ve all been patiently waiting for, leaving lewis to finish in P2 and securing his 6th world championship.

The best way I can describe how important this all is- Imagine you’re a major Chiefs football fan. Well- out of the one game they play per season in your country- they came and won the fucking Super Bowl.

Immediately following the fireworks and crossing of the finish line we picked up our belongings and ran down the hill as fast as we could.
It was time to storm the track. I can’t put what this was like into words- you’ll have to look at the images for this one and imagine the screams and cheers. It was pure fucking chaos and I have never felt better about anything in my entire life. There were several moments where I just stopped and looked around at the confetti, champagne sprays, flags waving, cheers, and insane amount of joy that I was surrounded by. I cried a lot during this. I’m crying right now just thinking about it. This shit is incredible.

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I couldn’t tell you how much time passed before I met back up with Erik and we made our way back to the car to start our journey back to Kansas City, and that is by far my favorite part of all of this.

If you want to get technical- this whole 5 day weekend was a vacation for me, and a way for me to get excited about something. That dream I was explaining earlier with forgetting where we were for a second and being engulfed in the moment- that shit happened to me here. It’s been a long time since I forgot where I was and existed in a different world, and that is a feeling I’m constantly chasing in just about everything that I do. Finding it feels like winning the lottery every time.

There’s something really special that happens when you lose yourself in something, I can’t explain it to you but if you know what I’m talking about- you understand what I’m saying. If you don’t- I highly encourage you to find something that you’re absolutely in love with, and allow yourself to be totally immersed in it. This is the shit I live for.

22 hours of driving.
3 states.
3 days of Formula One.
2 cases of food poisoning.
1 sunburned forehead.
2 bruised shoulders.
1 new mercedes hat.
2 honky tonks.

We survived what I would consider one of the best weekends of my life.

---

If you’re still here- you’ve survived one of the most difficult and detailed insights I’ve ever given to what the inside of my head looks like. While I left a large amount of shit out, hopefully you were able to take something away from this. I know I sure did.

thanks, it means a lot.

-travis

HOLY SHIT, WHERE DID THE FIRST QUARTER GO?! I FEEL LIKE I JUST DID ONE OF THESE.

If you recall the last time I poured my heart out into one of these things 2018 was going to be the the year of the portfolio. It definitely still is...but on a higher level than I could have anticipated.

BEFORE I TELL YOU ABOUT THAT LET'S VERY VAGUELY
RECAP THE LAST FEW MONTHS. 

JANUARY was filled to the brim with retouching while trying to find a place to live, stressing, stressing for stressing, being sick as hell for close to 2 weeks, and a failed portfolio shoot. 
FEBRUARY was booked solid with retouching, retouching, and more retouching, early mornings, late nights, and the realization that everything will be just fine (THANKS SHELB) 
MARCH is when things finally started kicking into gear. Loads of planning, and accidentally starting a podcast with one of my favorite humans of all time: Travis Young. 
APRIL really got the ball rolling with portfolio work, more podcasting, and more and more planning.

OH YA MY BROTHER ALSO GOT MARRIED. CONGRATS DANNY AND KRISTEN I LOVE YOU GUYS SO DAMN MUCH <3

OKAY NOW THAT WE'VE COVERED ALL THAT JAZZ, LET'S GET TO THE NEW STUFF.

Sometime in February during a pretty dope conversation with the good dudes over at 8183 Studio we came to an agreement to officially put my name on the shooting roster. (Something I've wanted since I started my internship in 2012) Once I cleaned up the drink I spit out all over myself and sat down after jumping with excitement we began to plan and figure where I would be the best fit in terms of work and potential. 

Once we found that glass slipper it was time to get to work on developing a body of work for showing. A few weeks ago we completed our first of several portfolio shoots, and needless to say I am HYPED. AS. SHIT.  I can't wait to see how the rest of the year pans out. (WE DID IT MA!)

REAL QUICK. I'm trying to look cool and act like I'm not on cloud 12 right now with this, but thinking about how badly I wanted to be on the shooting end of this studio since 2012 has me over the fvcking moon. I also cried, duh. 

*By no means whatsoever am I trying to say I've "made it" or any of that nonsense, but I think it's really important to note considering the amount of times I've asked myself if all of the bullshit would ever be worth it. The answer is/has been/will always be yes. 

also, don't forget this. no matter what. 

IT.
GETS.
BETTER. 

---

FOR THE FIRST SHOOT WE WENT THE AUTOMOTIVE ROUTE. BECAUSE WHY NOT, RIGHT? HERE'S HOW WE DID IT.

STEP 1: SECURE A VEHICLE.

Thankfully 8183 has a pre-existing relationship with Infiniti of Kansas City and Maggie was able to convince them to let us have a car for our shenanigans. CHECK!

STEP 2: SECURE A LOCATION/DATE/CREW/TALENT.

When it came time to scout for locations I spent a few days driving around the city somewhere around 2-3AM looking for anything/everything that caught my eye. I did this for 3-4 nights before I stumbled over to one of my favorite forgotten pieces of the crossroads arts district. 

The metal overhang paired with the brick road made this a no brainer in my opinion. After showing the team and throwing a few scenerios around, we landed a concept, had a plan, shoot date, etc. IT WAS GO TIME.
 

QUICK TANGENT
HUGE shoutout to the 8183 Studio crew Ryan, Maggie, and Lydia for putting all of the work into making this happen, and a special heartfelt shoutout to my dude Seth for dealing with the aftermath in some of these files :) 

Thankfully we were able to talk some really dope dudes into coming and helping us out on this one. Major shoutout to Cory Vetter for providing his grip truck and gaffing to make this happen, and another huge shoutout to my dude Tom Barnhart for coming through with assisting, and putting up with me on a regular basis <3
 

ANYWAYS- Since a goal of mine is to eventually shoot more manufacture advertisement, we skipped the high end race cars and grabbed a crossover SUV. With a little bit of research we were able to figure who the vehicle is marketed to, and grabbed talent to fit the bill. Shoutout to the lovely Amaris Kirby for being SO dope and coming through last minute for us! 

Once we secured permits, location, car, talent, crew, etc. It was game time. Oh yeah we also started at like 6AM. I hate mornings so much. BUT IT WAS WELL WORTH IT :) 
 

STEP 3: MAKE IT HAPPEN.
 

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FANCY SHIT BREAKDOWN.
1X PHASE ONE 645DF+ / IQ160 | SCHNEIDER 85MM
1X CANON 5D MKIII | SIGMA 50MM ART
1X MACBOOK PRO
1X MAGLINER JUNIOR + 4' FLOPPY
6X PAUL C BUFF EINSTEIN + CTO
2X GENERATORS
1X 12X12 OVERHEAD BOUNCE
VARIOUS WHITE/BLK BOUNCE CARDS

CAPTURE ONE PRO
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

Our first shot took longer than expected largely because we were battling a sunrise causing us to shoot 2 different looks. I don't think I need to explain why Seth's head almost exploded when opening a file with 34 images, but thankfully we were able to narrow it down and come out with pretty much the exact mood/style that I had in my head.

THAT NEVER HAPPENS. 

By the time we were ready for our second shot we had full sunlight, and our wet pavement had totally dried which would call for a bit of a different look, but thankfully we were able to improvise and make it work! 

Watching these images come to life was pretty damn cool for sure, and gets me even more hyped for some of the next shoots we've been lining up.

Here's a quick glimpse into what something like 2 days and 15GB looks like.

For the last hour or so I grabbed Amaris and messed around with a few different lifestyle looks. This is always my favorite part of any shoot, and will definitely be something I push to make time for in the future. I'm hyped.

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BTS WAS DIFFICULT, BUT I TRIED TO GRAB A LITTLE SOMETHIN' SOMETHIN' 

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 OF COURSE WE HAD TO GET THE GROUP <3

CHEERZ TO PATIENCE, DOPE PEOPLE, PODCASTS, MY BROTHER, AND BEING HYPED.

ALSO HAMM'S

-TRAVIS

2017 IS FINALLY OVER.
AND I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER.

I won't bore you with all of the nonsense that made 2017 one of my least favorite years, but I will bore you one particular re-occurring lesson  learned year after year, and project after project. The lesson which has helped me get rolling on my upcoming year of nothing but book work. 

CØNCEPT IS KEY. 

If you would have told me in 2011 that the mind numbing classroom lectures about conceptual thinking would actually be teaching me one of the key components to my future career I would've slapped you with a leather glove and bid you good day. BUT if there's one thing that has REALLY stuck with me over the last couple years shooting, failing, assisting, etc. it's that great concepts almost always produce great work. 

OKAY TRAVIS COOL BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS A CONCEPT IN RELATION TO PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK? 

That's a good question, and I'm sure depending on who you ask you might get a few different answers, my answer goes a little something like this:

Concepts give an image [or images] purpose. 

That might seem vague (and it is) but at the end of the day a concept will almost always answer the question "why?" 

I had a hell of a time learning this the hard way as I barely weaseled my way through art school, and it took me until my Senior year to grasp the idea of creating a body of work from a single idea. This is because for the previous years I had heard other students talk about their work with such thorough explanations and passion that I was insanely intimidated. As far as I knew- my mind didn't work that way, or so I thought. Up until this point I had felt very forced to go and create images and give full explanations on why I made them and what they meant to me. However-  I had no idea what I was making, or why.  

THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

In my head, explaining the concept of an image was ONLY those crazy deeper meanings such as the use of blues in your subjects wardrobe relating back to the color of your grandmother's robe, or the subtle hint of the "expired" sign read through the glass of the parking meter foreshadowing the life of the elderly man wasting away on the nearby bench. I didn't understand that "concept" was just a fancy word used to describe the purpose of your image. If I had to deliver some sort of constructive criticism to art programs today it would be a relevant explanation on the importance of concepts in creative work. Don't get me wrong- from what I can remember of my schooling this was a VERY important aspect of the curriculum, and was highly spoken about, but just not in the ways that someone like me (a shithead) could thoroughly understand. Now, I understand that most, if not all of that has to do with my awful learning abilities and the fact that I wasn't a fully developed human who truly believed in what I was doing, but thats a story for another time. 

ACTUALLY, NO IT'S NOT.

If I'm being totally truthful with you, I didn't understand what it took to make things that ACTUALLY meant something to me until I lost my dad and started putting things of his/for him on my arm [almost two years after graduating art school]  The thought of representing someone so important to me put on serious pressure to make sure the pieces I chose were done right and clearly thought out. Which is why I'm not even half done with that arm a little over three years later. 

THE REASON I'M TELLING YOU THIS: 

I want you to understand that this doesn't happen overnight. It's taken me four years after graduating college to fully understand and implement concept, not to mention just understand who I actually am as a human and what it is that I genuinely want to do with my life. I'm hoping that through all of my babbling you might find something to relate to and bring into your own journey, whatever that may be. 

I'll also throw in that I've heard several shooters, producers, art directors, designers, etc. mention that at a certain point with technical ability the best images come from a good concept, so there's that. 

SOAPBOX: At this point I'm hoping that you're understanding the importance of genuinely caring about the work you create. If you don't, why should anyone else?

---

 

BY THE WAY:

I'm absolutely not any kind of expert on this topic, or any other topics really- I'm just hoping that the kids who are like I was in school/life stumble upon these posts so they can save themselves a few years of miserable failure and frustration by using them as an inspirational resource to get a head start on reaching the goals they have for themselves. 

These posts are aimed at my past self. 
answering the 8,646 times I asked myself if it's all worth it.

yes, travis.
don't you ever fucking stop. 

---

 

OKAY. ENOUGH OF THAT-
ON TO THE RECENT WORK / LEARNINGS.

As previously mentioned: 2018 is the year of the portfolio, and if all goes according to plan will produce my absolute best work to date. Along with making strong work comes a laundry list of things such as slowing down, focusing on composition, set aesthetic, styling, etc. which I already know is going to kick my ass, but I am so damn excited to get things movin' and groovin' 

Last week I jumped the gun with a quick little set in studio to get my mind back in work mode after the holiday break. I came across a few glasses that my dad bought somewhere around 40 years ago that had an olde english "C" on the front of them, I knew I wanted to use them and the sentimental value they hold was that little extra umph I had been looking to add to this set. My original idea for this quick little jammer was just a glass of whiskey on a found wood set, but quickly turned into a makers workshop who has stopped the repair of a timer to enjoy a nice neat pour o'whiskley. He works hard, he deserves it. 

GEAR USED |

1X CANON 5DMKIII
2X PAUL C. BUFF EINSTEIN (MODEL LAMPS)
1X 12' ROPE LIGHT
1X 10 DEGREE GRID
1X 40 DEGREE GRID
1X SPEEDOTRON 202VF (MODEL LAMP)
CAPTURE ONE PRO
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 

I ran to the antique store and started looking for things that stood out. I can't necessarily recommend this technique for getting props because not only did it take forever, everything in the 3 story warehouse stood out. My first trip resulted in a couple of old tools, a doorknob, and a metal flag holder. I wasn't in love with what I had so I slept on it and returned to the store in the morning to come across a perfect old glass bottle, as well as the timer. I WAS READY. As I prepared myself for this shoot, I remembered the most genius advice my mom had given me a few days prior. A piece of advice that she heard during her time in the TV biz back in the day.     

"JUST KISS IT." 

[I'd remember this if I were you]

KEEP
IT
SIMPLE
STUPID

With these brilliant words in the back of my head I sought out to do just that. I decided to keep everything nice and worn, and not overthink things like dirt and fingerprints. We're looking into a makers workshop after-all, and judging by the pieces on the table this easily could have been 75-100 years ago. Before dishwashers were automated, and timers were fixed with new batteries. 

To add a little extra somethin' somethin' I took a piece of the plastic wrap that held the rope lighting together and taped it over a part of the lens. Right away I fell in love with the voyeuristic "looking through" almost "tilt-shifty" feel it created. The wrinkles in the plastic also caught light nicely and made for interesting foreground bokeh, a look I've been trying to nail for quite some time now. 

I did my best to not force anything about these images and just kind of shot what I saw as I walked around the set. Since composition is something I want to improve greatly on I tried putting the camera in different places such as the maker's eye level, elbow level, wrist level, etc. and trying to really just put the camera in places that camera's don't typically hangout in. I'm excited to push this idea further as the year progresses- check back in around May or so to see how I'm doing with that, haha!

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This time around I wanted to focus more on the actual set itself rather than the final images. I've never really composed a full "scene" if you will for my personal work, and by doing so it created the concept for the shoot. I'm pretty interested in this idea of make first think later- that might be another thing you check back with around May or so, haha! 

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With all of that being said this shoot was a great first step [of many] to building what I'm hoping to call my absolute best work. There should be plenty of lessons learned this year, stay tuned people! I can't even begin to tell you how hyped I am about this shit. 

CHEERZ TO MY MOM BECAUSE I WOULDN'T HAVE CONSIDERED LIFE AS A CREATIVE WITHOUT HER PUSH.

THANKS MA, LOVE YOU.

<3 TRAVIS

IT'S BEEN 4 MONTHS TRAVIS, WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?

Well concerned reader I'm glad you asked. I'm not really sure how to summarize the last 4 months other than saying they were an absolute F@%$^^* roller coaster with a lot of negatives, but more positives than I ever could have imagined. 

Remember that awful break up I told you about in June? Turns out it was a lot worse than I thought and f@#^ed me up pretty good. But just like clockwork It led to the creation of my best work, and my best self to date. 
 

ALRIGHT Y'ALL- LETS JUMP IN MY TIME MACHINE AND REVISIT THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LAST 4 MONTHS. 
 

AUGUST // 

The good dudes over at Sandlot Goods shipped me out to Sunny California to make some images for their lifestyle look book, While the trip was an absolute disaster we felt pretty good about the images, I got to get on a plane, and I'm hyped to be making work! 

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Jake and I finally released our long anticipaed Ferarri project and I am INSANELY hyped at how everything came out. Working alongside Jake for those few months was wonderful. That guy is a straight up wizard. 

Go peep the rest of this project over on the behance page HERE. 

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SEPTEMBER // 

I got another year older, went to Colorado with Pauly V to shoot a wedding and actually had my first real experience with mountains (that I can remember) that shit was life changing. 

OCTOBER // 

October was full of busywork such as Headshots, Events, Retouching, and the beginning of adding product work to my personal book. It's somewhere around here that I started to notice myself getting out of the shitty funk.

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NOVEMBER // 

November has been one of the best months in a long time. It also marks the 4 year anniversary of losing my dad. 

I've been trying really hard to keep it together between his birthday in August, and the Anniversary of his passing in November. In doing so I've come to that weird crossroads where I'm not feeling so much heavy sorrow and sadness. Instead I'm feeling waves of inspiration, comfort, and acceptance. Where tears are turning into smiles, regret is turning into inspiration, and the emptiness is becoming accepted. I'm not really sure how to properly communicate this, and I'd hate for anyone to misunderstand what I'm saying here- but the best way I can describe this situation is that

         I literally woke up one day and everything felt like it was going to be okay.
                                                                                              ...and it will be okay.

With that said- I've stepped back from social presence both digitally and physically, and really tried to figure out who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going. I won't bore you with the findings of my constant question asking to myself- but I'll tell you the most important thing I realized, and thats to just:

BE HERE.

I've spent a large amount of time recently being disconnected from just about everyone and everything with the small exception of my job, which has me constantly looking way into the future and all over the past, and in doing so I keep forgetting whats happening right in front of me. So if there's one piece of advice I could give anyone at this point in time it would be to slow down and BE wherever you are. Get the f@#% out of your own way. Look around, appreciate shit, learn shit, remember shit. The saying goes something like this:

"THERE'S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT." 

I can't tell you what that phrase has done for me, or what it could have done for me. But I can tell you that it is VERY important. Put that one in your back pocket, and make your transition.

 

OKAY. NOW THAT WE'RE ALL CAUGHT UP- LET'S MOVE ON TO SOME NEW WORK. 

A few weeks ago I received a message from Katie about doing a shoot together. Right away I was hyped and we started throwing ideas all over the place. We eventually landed on some sort of automotive lifestyle with a higher end feel similar to a lot of the work coming from the likes of Cadillac, Mercedes, Porsche, etc. 

We knew Katie was going to be female talent, so we scoured a local talent agency to find the right male to compliment Katie's look. I want to say we found John almost right away due to his near perfect look for for the aesthetic we wanted. 

I knew right away that I wanted to do a proper production shoot with a reserved location, legit talent, a decent vehicle, and a good crew, but grew a little discouraged when 2 of the locations I REALLY wanted fell through, and so did the vehicle I was hoping for. 

My plan C quickly became plan A and actually ended up being near perfect. I hopped in my car and drove over to a location and asked if we could shoot there. Right away I was greeted with a hard no, but after a phone call with the business owner we had a pretty great location secured. 

After some diligent email sending and a knight in shining armor we had our vehicle secured and we were ready to rock! The location and vehicle were both secured just a few days before the shoot. To say I was getting a little anxious is an understatement. 

OKAY. HERE'S A FULL BREAKDOWN OF EVERYTHING WE USED TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN. 

1X CANON 5DMKIII
1X SIGMA 50MM F/1.4 ART
1X ROCK N ROLLER MULTICART
1X MACBOOK PRO + TETHERTOOLS DIGISHADE + VAGABOND MINI
1X 15' TETHERTOOLS TETHER CABLE
1X BOUNCE FILL (GOLD/SILVER/WHITE)
3X PAUL C BUFF EINSTEIN
1X 32" SOFTLIGHTER
1X GENERATOR
2X WRINKLED COLOR GELS (BLUE/YELLOW)

AND HERE'S A FULL BREAKDOWN OF EVERYONE THAT MADE IT HAPPEN.

PHOTOGRAPHER: TRAVIS CARROLL
DIGITAL TECH: TRAVIS YOUNG
1ST ASSIST: TOM BARNHARDT
2ND ASSIST / VEHICLE MANAGER: ANDREW FAILS
HAIR/MAKEUP: MICHELE TAYLOR (MICHELE TAYLOR STYLE) 
FEMALE TALENT: KATIE MESERKO (HOFFMAN INTERNATIONAL)
MALE TALENT: JOHN MCGREW (HOFFMAN INTERNATIONAL)

I'm pretty excited about how everything played out because this is the first time I've actually been able to make a real production for my own work- from the pre-production packet to location permit, talent, props, to the craft service tables, steamer, hanging wardrobe, etc. 

LOOK MA I'M DOING IT!  WOOOOOO!

It was SO cool to see how many people were on board and willing to put full effort in to something for my portfolio. I'm so damn grateful and hyped. You guys really are da bomb!

As far as art direction I only really had 1 image in mind- and when we had all of the pieces in place I wasn't in love with it. So we hopped around and tried a bunch of different things until we ran out of time. Thankfully almost every scenario we shot ended up looking awesome and everyone was in high spirits- I'm super hyped with the images we got, and even more hyped about continuing to increase production value as we move forward into 2018. 

HUGE THANKS TO Katie, John, Michele, Travis, Tom, Andrew, KC Container, and Aristocrat Motors for the hard work, location, and vehicle! WOOOO!

OK HERE ARE THE IMAGES! TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

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HERE'S A FEW MORE FROM THE SET (MOST OF THESE ARE NON RETOUCHED WITH THE EXCEPTION OF COLOR CORRECTION. 

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----

TO BE REAL-  

2017 has been a tough one. Between losing all of my photo gear to theft in March, the awful breakup in June, the loss of my grandmother in September, and leaving my childhood home behind at the end of December- there's been a large amount of loss. HOWEVER with almost every loss has come more gain than I could have ever imagined, and for that I am eternally grateful. 

I hope it doesn't take you losing the amount of things that I have to find out where you stand amongst your family and peers, but I can tell you that through my losses I've been ridiculously humbled by the immense amount of support that surrounds me.

It's a shame it took heavy loss for ME to realize what an incredible place I'm in. Maybe if I had opened my eyes a little earlier I could have been aware and done some things differently. This brings me to my earlier statements, and some redundant advice for you.

GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY. 

THERE'S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT. 

BE HERE. 

<3 travis

 

 

A few weeks ago I was scrolling through the disaster that my Facebook newsfeed is and came across a post that literally put my heart in my stomach. 

There are several reasons why reading this post resonated with me. The first few reasons are because Chip is genuinely one of the funniest dudes I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I've been following the build of his Royal Enfield Contitental GT since the day he got it. I've also had the pleasure of photographing this babe before a little over a year ago when it was white, and had only been in Chip's ownership for a few months or so. This babe was also undergoing a little bit of a transformation when it was stolen which included a new dent free gas tank as well as some pretty new paint. The worst part of the transformation story is that Chip had gone and picked up the newly painted pieces but had no bike to put them on...how sad is that?? 

The next reason I was so hit by this was because Chip had something he was so fucking passionate about, and worked very hard for taken from him. I recently was hit by the same hammer and right away I knew EXACTLY how he felt that morning when he saw his bike missing. 

THAT SHIT STRAIGHT UP SUCKS. 

NOW- The way this all played out is pretty incredible if you ask me, and is a pretty strong lesson in the power of Social Media. Pay close attention here people. Learn something, I know I did! 

Chip shared his post into the group STOLEN KC on Facebook which has been recognized in the past for linking several people with their stolen objects and has an insane amount of members who are VERY interested in solving crime at any given hour of the day, it's pretty dope. 

Within a few hours his phone was ringing with details about his bike being spotted in the back of a stolen truck not too far away. The hunt was on like Donkey Kong and Chip was not messing around.

HOW INCREDIBLE IS THAT?! 

The updates kept coming and coming and I was sitting on the edge of my seat hoping to God there would be a recovery post, and soon enough THERE WAS!!!!!

I contacted Chip RIGHT away and demanded he bring that newly recovered babe to the studio for a shoot. He obviously obliged and before we both knew it we were hauling that thing into an elevator up to the 4th floor where it would live for the next couple of weeks after the recovery...which basically means for those couple of weeks I had Chip's newly recovered and freshly painted bike longer than he did, haha! 

On the last day of shooting, the news team stopped by to do a bit on Chip's pretty incredible story. Obviously we all sat around the TV and anxiously waited for it to come on while eating pizza....and of COURSE the internet goofed  when it came on forcing us to crowd around Erica's phone while we witnessed Chip smiling like a kid on Christmas. It was perfect.

FULL NEWS STORY AND VIDEO CAN BE FOUND HERE. <-- GO CHECK THIS OUT.

---

OKAY OKAY ON TO THE SHOOT! 

Having the bike in the studio was awesome. I've wanted to shoot something bigger in a studio setting for awhile now and with the help of the good peeps over at 8183 Studio I was able to grab a big ol' softbox to properly light this babe. 

The in studio lighting and setup was kept as simple as possible using only 1 overhead source and bounce fill, we got a little crazier with the location stuff, but for good measure here's a full breakdown of everything used!

1X CANON 5D MKIII
1X SIGMA 50MM F/1.4 ART
1X 6X4' CHIMERA LARGE SOFTBOX
1X CHIMERA DUAL HEAD MOUNT SPEEDRING
2X SPEEDOTRON 202VF HEADS
1X SPEEDOTRON 2403CX POWER PACK
2X PAUL C BUFF EINSTEIN HEADS
1X WESTCOTT ICE LIGHT V2
1X 12X60" SOFTBOX
1X 4' SEAMLESS ROLL (WHITE)
BLACK / WHITE FOAM CORE
CAPTURE ONE PRO 10
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC 2017

I knew I wanted to make good images of this bike, but I wasn't really sure what that meant. So I naturally called Travis Young in on the deal and my life was instantly better, DUH.

Before we made the trek upstairs Travis rattled off a few frames with his Leica, and I absolutely love them. I'm pretty hyped that we were able to put a set together on both ends of the spectrum for this one, I hope we get to do more like this in the future!

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Naturally, Travis also shot a ton of awesome BTS frames for us as well, and of course they're dope as hell per usual. 

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There's really not much to the studio images in terms of complexity, in fact they're extremely simple. We shot with one overhead light against grey, cut them out and made a clean grey background, and thats about it! 

The most challenging part of this series was deciding how to retouch the motorbike, but since we were kind of shooting it as a trophy for Chip winning at cops and robbers the general consensus was to keep it true to its real form. Which was pretty as ever thanks to some new paint, but had a bruise or two from the kidnapping. 

FUN FACT: Gasoline spilled over that metal case cover giving it sort of a patina look. Chip was pretty hyped on it, I am too since it adds some pretty nice character to this bright colored babe. 

 

Since moving into this new studio I haven't been able to fully take advantage of the dope ass building I'm in. So we drug Chip's bike around a little bit and grabbed a few environmental shots. Again- nothing too crazy here...just some nerds playing around until something finally worked!

Needless to say I'm hyped at how these look and I'm even happier that Chip got his bike back. Cheers Chip- you da man. 

CHEERZ TO CHIP, ERICA, TRAVIS, AND TOM FOR BEING DOPE WHILE WE SHOT THIS- YALL ARE TITE!

STAY TUNED PEOPLE, MORE COOL SHIT IS ON THE WAY. 

-TRAVIS

 

"34 miles out."    

"Almost to leahood"

"This car is rowdy."

---

These are the messages I received from my buddy Nick a couple of weeks ago. Of course I knew he was talking about the monster of a Camaro the Diode team picked up just a few months ago. 

I was already hyped as shit. I've known about this thing for a few weeks, and knew it had undergone a fresh wrap, had some HRE's (obviously) paired with a test version of the Magnaflow hi-flo catback system and some kinda crazy science that looks like a Garmin on the dash that tells the ~4,000lb rolling hunk of American steel to go fast as hell. The reason I know this is because Nick and I hopped in that babe and teleported to Mexico where I was kicked in the face with surprise by this thing. If you look at numbers its not crazy impressive, but being engulfed in that thing listening to Daft Punk and watching the color changing LED's across the dash as we very confidently conquered corners at some significant speed rates with minimal body roll was impressive. I don't know what kind of corn they're feeding the boys over at Chevy, but it must be some good shit to be going into the bodies of the absolute genius' who led the design team of this rowdy machine. 

When it came time to shoot this babe it all happened REALLY quick. Nick was at a show all day, and gave me a call somewhere around 8pm saying he was on the way to the studio. I freaked a little because I wasn't there and just did what I always do in this situation...called Travis Young, DUH. Who basically agreed to come out before he even knew where he was going. 

Travis is by far my favorite person to be around a camera with. Not to mention he takes some of the best BTS images I've ever seen, which is why whenever he's around and a shoot turns into a blog post you'll see more of his images than anything. Dude's got some serious talent packed in that long haired head o'his.

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OK OK ON TO THE SHOOT! 

Right as I got back to the studio and climbed all 65 stairs to heaven the boys showed up (OF COURSE) Leaving almost no time to shove the cheeseburger I just bought in my mouth. So after I took about 500 more steps I made them watch me eat that beautiful sandwich before we loaded up and headed out! 

I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT TRAVIS WAS SHOOTING BTS STUFF ON THIS ROLL OF TUNGSTEN BALANCED CINEFILM IN HIS DOPE LEICA. The colors from this thing are incredible and heavily influenced the color pallet and light flares of the final images in this set. 

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LOCATION was easy for this shoot since the studio is in the historic building part of town. I've been a little skeptic of shooting here since we moved in mainly due to the mass amount of senior portraits, weddings, engagements, and other nonsense I trip over on the walk to my front door, but I knew no matter what we did would look wildly different from anything I'd ever seen shot here before. Not because I think I'm good or anything like that, but because we had no plan. No reference images, No suggestions, No vision. Forcing me to go with the flow and just let shit happen.

JUST.  LET.  SHIT.  HAPPEN.

There was about 10 minutes where I tried hard to try when we were looking for the "perfect location" and it got boring quick so we just turned around and headed back to my old benching spot under the 12th St. bridge, a spot that I've seen cars shot at no less than 10-15 different times (one of which won an ADDY Award last year). Oh well! I like this spot and theres train tracks, it doesn't get much better than that!

Since there was no plan we literally just pulled the car in and got right to work. I didn't want to overthink this whole thing so I just started with the first thing I saw that looked nice which happened to be the driver rear 3/4. From there I just kind of walked around and waited for the light to hit the very carefully sculpted body lines of the Camaro. Lucky for me there wasn't much time inbetween shutter clicks, it just kinda happened. There was no specific technique used in this set. Everything from lighting to composition to retouching was influenced by something encountered on the day of, which ended up working out  awesome. 

GEAR USED | ESSENTIALS. 

SOFTWARE |
CAPTURE ONE PRO
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP 

HARDWARE |
1x CANON 5DMKIII
1x SIGMA 50mm ART
1x CALUMET Tripod
1x PAUL C. BUFF EINSTEIN
1x PAUL C. BUFF VAGABOND MINI 

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I recently went back and looked at a bunch of my favorite work, and I realized that every image I picked as a favorite had a common trait: it was dark. I don't really have an explanation as to why I favor dark and moody, but it's been my favorite aesthetic for the last few years (4 to be exact) and it just really does it for me. (I'm lying I have a very in depth and detailed explanation, I just won't bore you with it right now, maybe another time....but probably not)

I've also been REALLY into dynamic motion in stills for the last few years, and am still trying to figure out how to do that properly. We got pretty lucky with a couple of nice dynamic elements during this set, including a couple of cars, trains, and something like 10-15 random bike riders. The spirit of Bob Ross must have been creeping around with that many happy accidents on deck. 

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ANYWAYS- While you're looking these over see if you can spot the influences and pull things together, I worked pretty hard on these and had an absolute blast seeing them come into their final form. The whole set was one giant question mark and I just kinda did whatever popped in my head without paying much attention to wether it really belonged there or not. I just kept becoming pleasantly surprised and running with it until I ran out of ideas. Having the ability to do things like this on a Friday night until 2AM is why I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my job, and truly believe that I have the best f****** job in the world. 

The process of working as a creative content producer/retoucher to me feels something like that feeling when you find a new song that you just absolutely love, and keep loving. And when it's over you play it again, and again, and again. I hope this makes sense to some of you, even if you have nothing to do with the creative industry...I genuinely hope that you've found that one thing that makes you as f****** hyped as taking pictures makes me. 

IF YOU'RE NOT IN A POSITION WHERE YOU GET TO SMILE LIKE AN IDIOT EVERYDAY, MAKE A F****** CHANGE.

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I wasn't planning on dropping any deep bombs in this post. But since these images are some of my favorites to date it only makes sense to bring a little attention to the reoccurring element thats been essential in the creation of all of my best work to date. It seems that every time there's a really shitty event or series of events it puts me into a funk that leads to some dope photographs. And since 2017 has been one of the most annoying years to date filled with being robbed, moving out of my childhood home, being robbed again, frozen bank accounts, and the worst breakup of my life I can only assume that there's loads more dope content on the way!
                                           (spoiler alert: there is, a bunch of it.)

CHEERZ TO ALL KINDS OF GREAT SHIT, AND MY MOM BECAUSE SHE'S EXTRA GREAT. 

-TRAVIS

Last Monday I woke up on time FOR ONCE. 

This Monday was unlike any other (minus the fact that I woke up on time, I never do that) I threw myself together, stumbled up the stairs and greeted my mom's dog Carl. After an empty conversation with him about the mail man and cheeseburgers I got in my car and headed to the studio for a day of retouching. Aside from the few curveballs that comes along with every Monday (slow drivers, having to stop and get an energy drink, hitting 12 red lights, etc) There was one curveball in particular that I've been afraid of significantly for the last several years. 

I pulled into the studio, parked against the building, waited a few minutes behind the dumpster to scare Seth, and walked in looking forward to a day of retouching, headshots, and an ASMP meeting. I was pretty hyped for the busy day that was ahead and got to work right away.

About an hour later I packed up my shit and was off to my meeting. Only when I walked to my car the awful vision I'd pictured so many times became a reality. 

My rear window was missing.

I've played this exact scenario no less than 100 times in my head and when it became my reality I honestly had no idea what to do. You know when you hear people talk about the moments in life when everything stands still and they go numb, or feel their heart hit their stomach? I didn't experience anything like that, What I experienced I can't exactly properly explain to you. 

I walked up to my windowless car and held my breath as I looked through into the rear hatch. The night before I had a shoot that went a little longer than normal, and of course I packed everything I owned because one is none right? and of course I didn't unpack- why would I do that? I had a shoot the next day, and the day after. It's all good! I've left gear in my car a thousand times! what a f****** idiot.

Everything I had from camera bodies, lenses, speed lights, stands, super clamps, auto rig, etc. was missing, and as I stared blankly at the glass covered interior I whispered to myself:

"oh, f***."

After frantically walking at hyper speed, talking way too fast, scratching the hell out of my head, and trying to make sense of the whole situation I took what was left behind out and grabbed a ride to my meeting. The whole way there I tried to play out the whole scenario of "who could have done this?" "there's no way they could even see in there, my windows are so dark" "f***" "F***" F***" blah blah blah.

Now- If you know me you're probably picturing my reaction a little different. Maybe some "WHAT THE F***?!?!?!" lots of yelling, lots of F***'s thrown around, maybe a few things thrown around, and probably trying to blame this all on someone. I'm not too sure why I didn't get mad at the situation, but I can't really ever remember feeling any kind of rage or anger. The only thing I can say I've felt is a whole ton of confusion and my eyes water. But more so than anything what I felt (and am still feeling) is fright. When I thought about the fact that I didn't have insurance on my gear I felt the most vulnerable I've felt in a very long time. I've spent the last few years piecing together what I considered to be a very efficient and comfortable little arsenal capable of handling just about any project that would be thrown at me, and the worst part about this whole thing is that I just bought a ton of that shit. ugh.

But I'm not making this post to go on and on about my feelings or any of that, you already know I'm bummed as hell. I don't need to go on and on about that.

So with all of that being said-

Here's some helpful tips on how you can protect your things so you don't end up like me, and some tips on what to do if you're dumb enough (like me) to let this happen to you. 

STEP 1 // DON'T LEAVE SHIT IN YOUR CAR.
 

At the end of the day-  I wouldn't be writing this post if I had taken the extra 10 minutes to unload my car the night of the shoot.

"But I'm tired."

Are you tired enough to almost have a heart attack, replace a window and thousands of dollars of equipment? Not to mention make countless phone calls, dig up records, cry, and possibly miss out on work for a few weeks? F*** NO YOU'RE NOT. Grow up, unload your gear. 

"But I have a shoot the next day too."

Understandable. Just don't leave anything of high value in your car. I'm not telling you to unload everything, just the things that can't be replaced right away such as Cameras, Lenses, Hard Drives, Memory Cards, etc. But just know that anything you leave in your car is subject to theft. If you must leave it- cover it. Black/White foam core can be useful for this, as well as blankets, etc. Keep your gear out of plain sight. Put your seats up, etc. The less that is visible the better. 

But seriously, unload your gear. There's no excuse for negligence, especially if your livelihood is on the line.
 

STEP 2 // GET F****** INSURANCE.

I really hope I'm the only one who didn't have insurance on their gear. If you don't have it. Get it. I promise you it's well worth the few hundred dollars per year to protect your shit in an instance like theft. Chances are someone you know has a great rep- call them. Like right  now. With the vast availability of plans starting at like $8.00/month there is literally no excuse not to have it. 

STEP 3 // KEEP INVENTORY OF YOUR GEAR 

Let's face it, the thought of taking a picture of every single item you have and writing down serial numbers is annoying enough to give anyone a headache. But when the time comes and you have to scour through boxes hoping you have a warranty card or serial number somewhere in that closet of yours you'll be so thankful you took the 5 minutes when you were unboxing to take inventory of your gear. 

Most insurance policies will require this, So you'll have to do it whether you want to or not. Just keep a strong record of this. Back it up to a hard drive and google drive. If you lose this you might make a massive headache for yourself later. 

There's several online resources for tracking serial numbers of stolen items such as Lenstag.com and Camerafinder.com Putting all of this information in your police report is also very useful. Even if you don't get your gear recovered- it will make it harder for the son of a bitch who ran off with it to sell off. 

Aside from insurance and theft recovery this is just generally good practice. Keeping track of your assets and values can come in handy when unloading old gear, determining the value of your business, or even taking a loan. If you don't do this- start. 

STEP 4 // ADD YOUR GEAR TO YOUR HOMEOWNERS / RENTERS INSURANCE

The most common piece of advice I received in the last week was "Check with your homeowners/renters insurance, they'll cover it."

Yeah, they will cover it. But only if they know you have it. After calling my homeowners agent I was told that even if everything was stolen from my home it wouldn't be covered because it wasn't listed on the rider for the policy. The same goes for Jewelry, collectibles, etc. Insurance is a great thing, but only when its used properly. 

Along the same topic-
If you have coverage for your gear, and a rider on your home owners policy you might want to give them a call and see what exactly is covered, and what isn't. You may have gotten a policy 10 years ago that only covers $25,000 of gear but now you have $50,000 of gear. Stay on top of this, look over your policies and make sure you're actually covered. It may seem over the top- but you'll be thankful you double checked when you walk up to an empty car. 

STEP 5 // BE GOOD TO YOUR HOMIES AND THEY'LL BE GOOD TO YOU.

I would have been genuinely F***ED without the help of a few insanely generous people. 2 days after my break in I had a shoot and would have had to cancel without a few homies loaning me their gear. The best part about this situation is that I didn't even have to pick up the phone. People flooded my inbox with offers to loan just about everything under the sun. Sitting in my glass covered interior reading those messages was one of the best experiences I've had in such a long time I nearly cried my eyes out! (okay I definitely cried my eyes out) It feels incredible to know that people are willing to stick their necks out and loan their personal gear to help out this negligent 20 something who just lost everything. Instances like this are the reason I literally can not be upset. I'm so so grateful and happy with the strength of the community I'm surrounded by. 

If you ever want to know your importance in a community- go through a major loss. You'll be genuinely surprised at how many people are willing to help. I'm still jazzed out of my mind. Thank you all so so much from the bottom of my heart.

OKAY- SO YOU LOST ALL OF YOUR GEAR, PEOPLE HELPED YOU OUT A TON, SO...WHAT'S NEXT TRAVIS?
 

I'm glad you asked. Well- within about a week of the break in I've been lucky enough to replace just about every single piece of gear I've lost, had some incredible conversations with some really dope ass people, met some super awesome people, and learned my place in my community. There are a few really neat projects on the horizon and within the next month or two I'll be moving into my first studio. I can't even express how fucking excited I am for the rest of 2017. I knew this year was gonna be full of obstacles [and it already has] but I'm ready as hell to get things rolling and start producing some work that will hopefully be considered serious. 

The last 2 weeks have been some of the toughest and most rewarding lessons I've learned in a long time, but I can't wait to make the rest of 2017 my bitch. 

Before I jump off my apple box- I'd once again like to thank everyone who's messaged, called, loaned/offered gear, sold me gear, and sent their love and support. I've known for a long time that I wouldn't get anywhere in this life by myself but this experience has validated that point to the fullest. Thank you guys SO much. you have no idea how much the support means. I can only hope that I'll be able to give back to the community as much as some of you have. 

oh yeah...and F*** thieves. 

<3 

-travis

 

A couple of months ago my buddy Bugra posted on the social medias that he got an Audi R8 and right away I knew that I had to shoot that beautiful bitch. We made a date, and set out to make it happen.

BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT BUGRA.

BUGRA /turkish/ /n./ (boo-rah) 
1. A baby camel
2. One of the hardest working people I've ever met. 
3. This dude is smart as hell.

I don't really remember when I met Bugra, but I do know that it was probably at Sinbad's over some hookah. At the time he had a near perfect STI which was either Alpine or Aspen white, I don't really remember but it was dope- and one of few. I knew right away I was going to like this dude. Pair that with his incredible track record of previously owned vehicles which include multiple E36 M3's one of which was supercharged, A couple of E46 M3's, an amazing Audi S4, a few dope Subaru's and several others. It's no shock that we're friends.

One of my favorite things about Bugra is his insane work ethic. I haven't really met anyone who literally works around the clock from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep. Almost every time I've hung-out with Bugra there's been car buying, phone calls, emails, etc. Even during our shoot he was on the phone a few times making things happen. How he manages to keep his head on straight I'll never understand. Hats off to you Bugra, you're the man. 

 ANYWAYS // ON TO THE SHOOT.

When Bugra and I originally planned this shoot he wanted the Kauffman Center as a location and I knew I wanted to make a production. I sent a few emails and made several unanswered phone calls to try and secure a permit for the Kauffman Center grounds. This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. When I finally got a response after 2-3 weeks of trying I was informed that because what we were doing would be for a local dealership we were unable to secure the location because of an existing partnership with another local dealer. I really shot myself in the foot by giving too much information from the get go, so keep that kind of shit in mind when you're trying to secure locations people! 

 LESS IS DEFINITELY MORE! (I think, I've never been able to successfully secure a location permit. UGH)

This set actually took place over 2 separate shoot days. The first day we met up it was clear skies and sunny. Which typically wouldn't be ideal for the type of stuff I normally shoot. Controlling light is pretty difficult when you don't have strong enough lighting to overpower the sun. We made do with what we had, chose a couple of locations very last minute, and of course...ended the session with a hookah while we looked over the images. We only had a small handful of decent images and honestly probably could have called it good but I wasn't 100% satisfied with our selects, so I forced Bugra to clear off a Sunday afternoon so I could try a few different things. 

This set is a pretty strong milestone for me. Most of my past work has been 1-2 exposures pushed to hell in post to make something decent. For this set I wanted to try using a scrim panel (diffusion fabric) to control the reflections of the car to emulate something shot in a studio and brought into an environment, which would result in something like 8-10 separate exposures composited together to give the final look. 

Most manufacture imagery you see today has the same look because a lot of the cars are actually shot in a studio and placed into different environments, others that are shot on location have a concept, full crew, location permits, etc etc. Being that I don't have a studio or proper gear to make those types of images we had to improvise and work on the fly. 

THANKFULLY Tim- one of the dudes who came to help had a bed sheet in his car that would sub in as our scrim and with the help from him, Bugra, Travis, and Devin holding the sheet in a bunch of different positions we were able to catch the reflections just right. At the time I thought I had a pretty good idea of which exposures to grab to put together a clean reflective car, but as we went on I realized there were several things I could have and should have done better SUCH AS CHARGED MY BATTERY PACK! When we got the car into the first shoot position it was dead...meaning I couldn't use strobes. Good thing we didn't get them out and set them up before we realized the pack was dead! OH WAIT YES WE DID UGH! Thankfully there was enough daylight to make it work. Later on I pulled out my speedlight that lasted just long enough to light the curvature of the R8 for the 2nd and 3rd look before it also died, damn.

*protip: charge your batteries before a shoot.
*protip: one is none, always have an alternate option.

Here's a full breakdown of everything used to make this set.

- 1x Canon 5Diii
- 1x Tripod
- 1x Circular Polarizer
- 1x Yongnuo 600 EX RT Speedlight
- 2x Pocket Wizard Plus ii
- 1x Neewer Remote Shutter
- 2x Bedsheet (white/black) 
- 4x Human scrim holders < LOL
- 1x Alien Bee B800
- 1x 16' suction rig coupled with magic arm

I recently had an awesome conversation with Ryan- the mastermind behind 8183 Studio and my mentor. He gave me a few insanely helpful pointers in regards to shooting larger reflective objects paired with architecture. I've known that it's essential to shoot most images in pieces, but it made way more sense hearing it from the dude I'm constantly looking up to. With Ryan's words on repeat in the back of my mind we set out to make the best images we could with what we had. 

I've never really lit a car with strobes before and this was a particualrly challenging subject because of the unique body lines carved in the R8. There were several moments of silence studying the way that big hipped babe took light and lots of trial and error to get everything to cooperate.

IF IM BEING HONEST THOSE MOMENTS OF SILENCE WERE ACTUALLY ME REALIZING I HAD NO  IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING. LOLOLOLOL.

I suppose a little research prior to shooting this car would have been helpful, but given that this was a more relaxed shoot there was time allowance to try a few different techniques before we got what we needed. Which I'm extremely thankful for. 

By the time we made it to our second to last location [a building that I pass almost every day that I had been wanting to shoot in front of for awhile] it was fully dark. We were all a little surprised that within the almost 2 hours we spent there we weren't interrupted or kicked out, unless you count the delusional man trying to get inside for medical attention after being discharged from the emergency room across the street.

The best thing about this location aside from the pretty architecture was the outdoor power outlet giving access to use the bees. This was the most beneficial location of the day because I was really able to control almost every aspect of lighting with the help of the 4 human scrim holders and the strobe. Tim actually had a black sheet as well which came in to play perfectly as negative reflection fill. IF YOU CANT TELL TIM WAS THE REAL MVP OF THE SHOOT- THANKS TIM YOU'RE THE BOMB. There was plenty of trial and error here as well and several more "coulda, shoulda, woulda's." But by the time we were getting close to finishing it was apparent that I had beaten a few dead horses and with the sound of hangry stomachs growling around me it was time to break for dinner, haha! 

After I fed the Gargoyles I talked 3/4 to hitting one more location for some rig shots.

"They'll go quickly" I assured them knowing damn well I was full of shit...They knew it too. 

I'm hyped they stuck it out because rig shots are some of my favorites. For those of you who don't know how these shots work a pole is attached to a pair of suction mounts directly to the car. The camera hangs off and with a shitload of trial and error and some smooth driving coupled with a long exposure a dynamic moving still image is created. The car and the camera never move (in theory) which creates a sharp car, and motion blurred wheels and background.

ITS NOT ROCKET APPLIANCES, JUST GOOD OL' FASHION GEEK STUFF AND SOME OTHER GENERIC PHOTOGRAPHY TERMS. 

I can't really remember what time we finally wrapped, but it was definitely too late for those who stuck around with real jobs! I'm SUPER hyped and very grateful for Bugra, Devin, Tim and Travis who gave up their Sunday to help me keep my life together and create a decent set! I'm probably not an easy person to be around with this type of stuff and they've been great sports putting up with the long hours and my random outbursts. THANKS GUYS LOVE YA A LOT. 

I'm especially hyped that Travis brought his camera along and got some pretty awesome BTS shots. This dude makes me question my life on the regular especially when I like his BTS shots more than the images I've nearly jumped in front of a bus over! He's also an incredible shooter himself and offers great perspectives when my head is spinning and I'm about to throw my camera against the wall. Not to mention he's one of the people who got me into automotive shooting in first place. I'm so hyped we crossed paths. 

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This is my first set really trying to take not only automotive shooting, but shooting in general to the next step. I'm insanely hyped for all of the progress and opportunities I've been given in 2016, and I can't WAIT to see whats in store for 2017. 

CHEERZ Y'ALL. LOVE YA! 

- t r a v i s

 

A few weeks ago I brought up the idea of shooting a couple of people with a nice car to my sister, and before I could even finish describing my shoot ideas to her she exclaims:

"I KNOW SOMEONE!! HER AND HER FIANCÉ ARE AMAZING LOOKING AND THEY HAVE A DOPE PORSCHE!" 

Well clearly I didn't need to hear anymore before grabbing Ashley's contact info off of my sister and shooting her an e-mail explaining what it was that I wanted to do. I've been wanting to shoot a more luxury lifestyle set for awhile now, but finding all of the right pieces and making it work has been such a pain in the ass that I've given up probably 4-5 times on making it happen.

Once I got Ashley and Trevor on board I figured I'd do whatever I could to make this shoot as legit as possible, so the first thing I sought out to do was get a location permit which was something I've never done before. This would be the first of a couple of disasters that would normally have scared me away from something like this, BUT NOT THIS TIME SUCKA.

DISASTER 1 // OBTAINING A LOCATION PERMIT

I don't know how many of you have actually done this, and I'm sure it's really a lot easier than I'm about to make it seem, but dear God this was a pain in the ass.

STRIKE 1 // TOWN CENTER PLAZA // LEAWOOD KANSAS.
I went to the Town Center Plaza website and filled out all of the necessary paperwork to get in contact with someone about obtaining a permit, which seemed quite easy on the website. A few days went by and I never heard anything, then a few days became a week, 2 weeks, etc. I finally called repeatedly until I FINALLY got someone on the phone. I expressed what I want to do and tried to be as detailed as I could to avoid any kind of confusion. After about 5-6 minutes of explaining and talking the voice on the other end of the phone simply said "no" and that was that. I never got any kind of explanation as to why I was unable to shoot there, I just got a big fat "no."

                        WELL SHIT.

STRIKE 2 // COUNTRY CLUB PLAZA // KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
Although this is where we ended up shooting, obtaining a permit through the plaza was one of the most confusing things I've ever done in my life. I dug through a series of clickthrough links to find several e-mails of people who I thought I should reach out to for this sort of thing, and blasted all of them at once with my long but detailed explanation of what I wanted. I think I sent something like 4-5 people e-mails and only 1 person replied...It was their vacation auto-response. Damn it.

At this point I just started calling people until someone answered. Once I got ahold of the head of grounds keeping, they told me I had to talk to the head of security. Once I contacted head of security they told me I had to talk to grounds keeping. WHAT?!
It was clear at this point that hardly anyone has any fucking idea whats going on over there, and it was also around this time I just said Fuck it.

DISASTER 2 // I DONT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IM DOING.

We decided that we would just show up and do as much as we could until we got kicked out. I knew it was going to be a good shoot with the two people I had tagging along to help out. Travis Young- one of the dudes who got me into automotive photography in the first place, and one of my favorite shooters, and Tim Lair- an up and coming shooter who I wouldn't be surprised if I lose a few jobs to in the future.
I've never really had any helping hands on any shoots in the past and it made ALL the difference having people who are capable of understanding what I'm trying to accomplish and helping out every step of the way. Thanks fellas, you guys rock. 

I'd be lying if I said I had an idea of what I wanted when we started shooting. I had several reference images in my head, and I knew I wanted to try and do some obscure style shots...but when it came to talent positioning and composition I had no idea what I wanted. We just started shooting and I barely gave Ashley and Trevor any direction...they just started interacting with each other and it ended up working pretty well. Of course it was REALLY nice having Travis and Tim there to ask for help when I got confused....which happened a lot. 

OKAY ENOUGH DISASTERS. ON TO THE IMAGES!

OKAY! Once we got going it was pretty hard to stop. I've never done anything like this before, and we didn't have a whole lot of time. I didn't want to stop for anything if we didn't have to. 

I knew I wanted to try and mess with some warm/cool opposing colors in these images. I had a professor talk about this type of style when I was in college and I've been wanting to try it out for awhile now. Shooting through glass with some sunlight made this pretty easy to do. We were also able to fake a little sun with some strobes-which worked out pretty well. Especially the part where Travis walked in the middle of the street carrying the light to create a hard shadow for one of the shots...that shit was awesome. 

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At this point everything was going pretty smooth, and we still hadn't caught any grief from public security. We kept shooting and trying a few different things until the sun went down, which was about the time we ditched the strobes and went to the ice light. We caught a couple of pretty decent shots in front of the new apple store, and were able to get a pretty decent look. By this point I was already so hyped on what we had gotten that as soon as Ashley said "That doesn't even look like Kansas City" I felt like a kid in a candy store-because for as long as I've been shooting seriously I've wanted to create images that had no definitive location. 

Right as we were firing off our final shot (literally) it started to rain, and I couldn't even try to be mad about it. The timing was too perfect, and I was already hyped as fuck. 

Travis also brought his camera along and shot some awesome BTS, this dude kills it. 

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As I was going through and processing these, I noticed that I really didn't shoot the car at all. Which I'm not upset about in the least bit. There was one composition where I was shooting the car as a profile, and when I opened the shutter a car drove through...but I really liked the image that came out of it, so I kept it! Of course we did get a couple of panning shots, but thats literally about it! With this set I'm really trying to break the void of my everyday shooting...which is almost exclusively automotive. Broadening my book will [I hope] make me a more competitive asset to the many other sides of the photography game....but this is only the beginning, and I have a shitload of work to do. 

I really can't wait to look back at this set and say "What the fuck was I thinking?" and knowing that I will do that one day makes me SO fucking hyped to continue learning and growing. Having your favorite hobby as a job is one of the coolest fucking things ever. I'll never be able to stress that enough. 

HUGE thanks to Ashley and Trevor for being so awesome and putting up with a whole lot of disorganization, and another HUUUGE thanks to Travis and Tim for being awesome dudes and making things go smooth. 

CHEERZ TO ASHLEY, TREVOR, TIM, AND TRAVIS, NO PERMITS, SAYING FUCK IT, AND LEARNING.

-TRAVIS // 

 

For the last 4-5 months or so I've been staring the chocolate devil square in the eyes, and I haven't really been shooting as much as I would like, which you already knew if you read my last post.

*Oh and also, I shot this the day before I shot that 1000RR..so for consistency's sake I probably should have posted this first but I was just way too hyped on that bike set...so...

A few weeks ago I made an impulse buy on some strobes and when they finally arrived I wanted to get out and give them a test whirl. The only issue I had was my strong impatience, lack of anything cool to shoot at my fingertips, and the fact that it was 5pm on a Friyay. 

Well, shit.

So I did what I always do and threw out a Facebook status asking who wants to shoot. I've had some pretty good luck with Facebook blasting, that shit always makes me laugh. 

Anyways, an old friend replied and said he had a brand spankin' new Lexus IS300 F Sport that he wanted to get some shots of. Thankfully it was still bone stock because I have been wanting to shoot a stock vehicle for awhile to see if I have what it takes to shoot more manufacture style shots.

We met up at a garage down the street from my house and I thought I had a whole bunch of pretty neat ideas and felt pretty good going into the whole thing. For some reason as soon as I got there, got everything set and it was time to shoot I drew a total blank.

I literally had nø fucking idea what I wanted tø dø ør høw I wanted tø dø it.

I tried to force myself to remember and compose the car the way I had originally planned and after 30-45 minutes of spitting out half sentences, walking around, looking at a bunch of shit, and forgetting where I am...I said fuck it and started shooting whatever popped into my head first. We spent probably an hour or two moving around and shooting whatever until a bunch of people showed up to check out the storm that was rolling in. I guess I forgot to mention that the sky was absolutely incredible and probably is one of the reasons that the shots from that garage looked half as good as they do, haha!

After we got overcrowded with a bunch of people who have never seen a storm before we ran downstairs and tried to do a few panning rolling shots. I've been super into these lately, especially the shots that only get the headlights/front wheel in focus and everything else is motion blurred. I'm not really sure what I like about these type of shots so much but they've been at the top my mood board lately and I can't stop staring at them like they're Anna Kendrick. Well, maybe not Anna Kendrick because she can't be compared to anything but maybe like Britney Spears when I was like 12. 

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Anyways, after we tried a few panning shots we grabbed something to eat and were unpleasantly greeted with hurricane Katrina as we were eating. We still had another location to hit before I wanted to call it and since we live in Kansas all we had to do was wait 13 minutes for Katrina to quit crying. 

We drove to the next location and tried out a couple of rig shots. It's been awhile since I've mounted the rig on anything and I was a little hesitant to mount on Pierce's brand new car but we did it anyways, and I'm glad we did because I'm pretty happy with the way those shots turned out. Doing these reminded me how much I love rig shots, but how much I fucking hate removing the pole. I almost lost my shit a couple of times on these images because of the little random issues I was running in to. But all in all I'm definitely hyped with the way they look!

Another thing that working on this set re-sparked in me is my love for working on images overnight. It's been awhile since I stayed up until almost 4AM working on stuff and I forgot that the best part of my brain is activated somewhere in-between that time; because that seems to be when I make the best decisions with a lot of these images, it's also proven to be the time that I make some of the worst decisions as well....which is why I try pretty hard to refrain from sharing things after midnight, haha! 

ANYWAYS. All in all this set was great because it got me out of my mom's basement and away from chocolate hell and got me pretty hyped to start creating again, which is always dope.

CHEERZ TØ ØLD FRIENDS, NØ PLANS, MIDWEST WEATHER, AND ANNA KENDRICK

-TRAVIS

I just realized it's been four months since my last post.
holy shit! where did the time go?
 

With that being said the last four months have been nothing short of jam packed. Between retouching chocolate until my stomach hurts, moving back into my mom's house, a few weddings, and a new tattoo I can't quite put my finger on a day in the last 4 months where I didn't have something going on...

 ...and I fucking løve it.
 

I won't bore you with the details of exactly what I've been up to, but I'll tell you what I haven't really been doing: shooting. (at least things I want to anyways)

So last weekend I set out to do a  couple of shoots to clear myself from the funk I had fallen into. I called my buddy Bugra to see if he had anything exotic or luxurious laying around to play with. Aside from a pretty Porshe he had his BMW S1000RR that he had been wanting to shoot for awhile now. We met up a little later in the afternoon at one of my favorite garages downtown and started messing around. It didn't take long before I figured out what I wanted to do and we just kind of went with it. 

While shooting a few weeks ago for Cadillac, I found a newish style of shooting that I'm sort of falling in love with. I don't really know how to describe it, and I haven't quite figured it out...but it's dope. With this set I found myself shooting pretty warm, dark, and not really worrying a whole lot about the retouching. I tried to get everything as far as I could go in camera, which for me is something fairly new since I  usually shoot 1 longer exposure and work the hell out of it. 

There were a couple of shots that I did do quite a bit of post work on, but the majority of this set is pretty straightforward. Let's dive in and see what we've got. 

GEAR USED // 
1x Canon 5D MKii
1x Canon 17-40 f/4L
1x Canon 50mm f/1.4
2x Paul C. Buff Alien Bees
1x Westcott Icelight

SOFTWARE // 
Adobe Lightroom CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

I [think I] wanted to create some sort of storyline with a character interacting with the motorbike, while still partially maintaining an aesthetic that could possibly be used for advertisement. I've been trying to study and comprehend automotive lifestyle lately, and I can't really wrap my head around whats actually going on in a lot of those image sets. They're pretty vague but very suggestive at the same time. I have no idea why a good looking guy in a suit with great hair walking to a Cadillac parked at the top of the most generic parking structure I've ever seen makes me want that car, but it fucking does. 

So I set out to try and make something similar without the focus on trying to sell a motorbike, just a focus on the dynamic between man and machine.

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PART I // THE CØNFRØNTATION

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PART II // EN MØTIØN

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PART III // LIFESTYLE

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PART IV // ENVIRØNMENT

All in all I'm pretty satisfied with the set. I know there's plenty of things that I could have done better, which is what excites me the most for the next go around. It feels good to take a step out of my normal comfort zone and experiment with different styles of shooting techniques utilizing different types of critical thinking and altered perspectives. The rest of the year holds a few various opportunities to execute new ideas and I can't wait to see what happens. To say I'm hyped as fuck is an understatement.

As always criticism is welcomed and encouraged! 

CHEERZ TO NEW TECHNIQUES, DISCOMFORT, FAST MOTORBIKES, AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES.

-TRAVIS

HAPPY 2016 Y'ALL!!

After spending the last three weeks doing christmas stuff, seeing my favorite DJ live, twiddling my thumbs, having no computer, binge watching New Girl, freezing my ass off, taking a couple of trips back and fourth from the homeland, and driving some random drunk people around until 4AM. It's finally grind time for this fella. 

AND I COULDN'T BE HAPPIER.

OKAY SO! Last week I got together with the homies over at Diode Dynamics to capture some images of a brand spankin' new Nissan Maxima that they have torn apart and installed some new LED science in the headlights of this beauty.

For those of you who are not familiar with Diode Dynamics, they're an LED manufacturing powerhouse located right here in good ol' St. Loser. FUN FACT: They're actually the reason I moved here in the first place too. The team consists of a bunch of scientists and automotive nerds who produce some pretty killer shit! One of the best things about the place is that they sit in a room and come up with these pretty wild ideas out of nowhere and through the miracle of science and a ton of smart people make them into a reality. Oh and they also design and manufacture everything in house with a bunch of big science machines. This stuff doesn't come in on a boat people. This time around they took the factory headlights from the Maxima and made the OEM DRL into a switchback LED. 

Switchback LED [switch-bak] n. A functioning LED (light emitting diode) that operates as a DRL (daytime running light) as well as a functioning amber blinker. During regular operation the LED is pure white (5000K) once the turn signal is initiated the LED will switch to a DOT approved blinking amber. Once the turn signal is disengaged the LED will switch back to the pure white DRL for regular operation.

The dudes over at Diode have designed and produced a replacement board to provide this function that is not too intrusive and utilizes the factory operation specs to make it a seamless installation while adding a unique OEM+ look to the vehicle. Pretty dope right? I think so too! They've also got a board that will make the DRL's RGB capable for all you out there who like to drive down the road with some red, blue, pink, or whatever color you desire on the front of yo' whip.

IF YOU'RE INTO HIGH QUALITY LED LIGHTING DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND CHECK OUT THE HOMIES AT DIODE OVER AT DIODEDYNAMICS.COM GETCHU SOME GOOD SHIT FROM SOME GOOD PEEPS.

I got to diode somewhere around 10AM and got right to work. Parked the Maxima in the studio area and busted out the Ice light [if you don't know what an ice light is-look it up. It's a baller ass tool and is awesome for shooting cars on a budget] I did a couple of the standard studio shots that Diode likes then packed up the gear and headed to our first location.

This is one of the first shoots I've done where I actually scouted for some locations and had a plan before shooting. Most of my 2015 shoots (like 90%) were all unplanned and for the most part thrown together. It felt really good going into something where I had a vision of how the end result was going to come out. I felt like a kid in a candy store...but with a camera.

I was fucking HYPED.

Since we didn't have any permits for any of these locations I packed super light. Nothing but my camera case and a tripod. The weather conditions couldn't have been better (aside from the freezing cold) The sky was partly cloudy and there wasn't too much wind. PUUUURRFECT.

Location 1 was somewhere in-between a college campus and a hospital (I think) So there was quite a bit of foot traffic, which actually ended up working in our favor because I've really wanted to try incorporating some human motion in my images lately to give more of a Lifestyle feel. We parked the Maxima (illegally of course) and got right to work, fired off a few frames and got everything basically first try. I'm not really used to getting the shot so quickly..so we spent another hour or so trying out a couple of different things, and since we were featuring a product that worked as a turn signal I wanted to get some panning shots of the car taking a turn with the blinker on. After a few trial and error shots, a lecture from some very religious protestors, and holding up a few cars we got what we needed! I handed out a couple of high fives, said sorry to a few peeps, and we were off to our next location! 

IT'S PRETTY AWESOME WHEN YOU ACTUALLY GET THE SHIT YOU NEED AND FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT. 

Location 2 was just a nice looking garage door that was actually open when I scouted. We got pretty lucky that it was closed because it was the perfect minimal clean background for a nice front shot to showcase the lights in both functions. We had to be in the middle of the street for this one so we did have to wait a couple of minutes before it died down long enough to fire the shots we needed. Again we nailed the shots in no time and wrapped in a rough total of 10 minutes. Everything was going super smooth, and I was too hyped to give a shit about my ringing phone and notifications that I missed a couple of credit card payments.
          
                                          AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT KIND OF NEGATIVITY ON A DAY LIKE THAT!

I have no idea why I shot that second shot in portrait orientation. I think we wanted to leave some negative space for copy in case the image was to be used with copy to advertise those killer LEDs!

Location 3 was one that I was pretty uncertain of since it was in the parking lot of what seemed to be a pretty busy operation. We did have to wait for a few cars, golf carts, and commuter busses, but I'm glad we did! I loved this spot! and I wasn't about to let it get away from me. I really wanted to try and shoot in a location that had newer architecture and a neutral color scheme since we were shooting a white car.

SEE GUYS I PLANNED ALL OF THIS AND I'M STILL HYPED ABOUT HOW WELL IT WORKED OUT!

I had a lot of fun working on these and providing 2 different but similar looks for this location. Again utilizing a little bit of negative space in the portrait oriented image for copy and such. 

Location 4 is where one of my favorite images from this set was shot. I know as soon as I saw the dark grey building that had good depth that it would be perfect for a more eerie and darker image. The timing was perfect since the sun was going down and we had some really nice soft even lighting and very minimal color cast from any nasty yellow incandescent street lighting. AGAIN we got the shots fairly quickly and super painless. I can't stress enough how hyped I was that everything was going so well.  How many times do you think I'll use the word 'HYPED' in this post? A shitload. Thats how many.

This particular image was one that I knew EXACTLY what I was going to do in post, which adds to my excitement that we were able to get it so smoothly. I knew that I wanted this image to be a little darker to give the fog LEDs a chance to show a little bit of their brightness output. Once I got the background darkened and made the car pop a little bit I added a little smokey steam to give it a little more drama. Once I got the smokey goodness in the image I went back and did some subtle adjusting to give the effect that the light was actually hitting the smoke to make it appear a little more realistic. I think it turned out pretty neat! But I'll let you be the judge! 

Location 5 was our final location of the day. I can't even believe we were working fast enough to cram 5 locations into a day of shooting. This never happens. This location was on top of a parking garage downtown. Diode wanted a shot with the car and a few city buildings in the background. This proved to be a little more difficult and I actually didn't scout this location, but after driving around for a few minutes we found our hero garage and headed straight up- until we were rudely interrupted by some traffic cones that were blocking us from getting there. After realizing that the top was only blocked off due to the lack of occupants in the garage we swiftly moved those rude bastards and headed right to the top. Typically the roof of this particular garage is flooded with nasty yellow streetlights that are just the worst. Luckily they were turned off and it was dark enough to bust out the ice light and paint away! We probably spent about 15-20 minutes shooting and right as we snagged our final frame those hellacious lights turned on. The timing couldn't have been more perfect! I do wish we would have been able to grab a couple of more compositions but by this time we had overly satisfied our list of shots and were already over on time. So we packed everything up, reviewed our captures for the day, high fived, and headed back to Diode. 

On the way out as we were going down the tightly constructed spiral to get to the exit of the garage, I decided to hop out and see if I could grab a couple of motion shots incorporating that loopty loop. These probably won't get used for anything but it did give me a few ideas for some future shoots in this location! I like the way they turned out, but I know for sure they could be a lot better. I can't wait to get back to that spot and make proper use of it! WOO!!

I couldn't be happier with the way the day went. Being that this was my first shoot of 2016 I really wanted to set the bar for myself. I tried a couple of new post techniques that I'm pretty pleased with so far, and can't fucking wait to see how they evolve throughout the year. 

REGARDING THE TITLE OF THIS POST: I've been shooting on the same 5Dmkii and outdated lenses since I started my professional career. The older technology definitely has its handicaps especially shooting with available light in darker locations, and has a shitload of noise when doing longer exposures. But working through these challenges has strengthened my post production skillz and honestly I don't see an upgrade coming any time soon (my wallet doesn't either) The reason I'm telling you all of this is because I know that a lot of people are concerned with having the newer and better technology and spend ridiculous amounts of money to do so. 

My advice is this: Pay more attention to how YOU shoot/process and don't force yourself into an upgrade until its absolutely necessary. Learn every in and out of your camera, be resourceful, and rent if you absolutely need to, but don't let your lack of gear stop you from creating to the best of YOUR ability. My main reason for not upgrading to a better camera system or better lighting gear is simple. PLENTY of people have created images that completely SHIT on my best images with the SAME or LESS than what I have. So until I reach the level that I know my gear is capable of I'm sticking with it. Unless I win this billion dollar lottery. Then I'm buying ALL OF THE SHIT.

CHEERZ TO SHIT GOING AS PLANNED, OLD GEAR, AND A GREAT FUCKING YEAR AHEAD! 

-TRAVIS

I know this post is a few weeks late. But apparently posting coverage late is trending right now, haha!

I had never been to an Import Alliance event, and when I got the call about hitching a ride from my buddy to the wonderful state of Kentucky I had no choice but to say yes. So I rolled over to Jakes house sometime in the afternoon to get ready to head out, but it appeared that Jake was nowhere near ready to go due to a broken axle in his car. 

                      This should have been my first sign not to go.

I think they spent somewhere like 2-3 hours trying to figure out how to get that axle out, and another hour or so getting the new one back in. By the time we were all packed up and ready to leave St. Louis it was somewhere like 9 o’clock…and after we devoured some cheeseburgers and actually hit the highway it might have been closer to 10…

After a very dark 5 or 6 hour trek we finally made it into Bowling Green and there was almost nobody out. The place was a ghost town! 
…except for the police officer that pulled us over as we were trying to find our hotel.

It was roughly this moment that I had a slight thought of “maybe we shouldn’t have come out here.”

After sitting with a colorful light show behind us for a few minutes Jake got let off with a warning and we were eager to get into the hotel and catch some sleep before we had to be out at the track in just a few hours to get into the show at a decent time.

I want to say we were in the hotel room for about 45 minutes until we FINALLY fell asleep….and then we were woken up by the HOTEL FUCKING FIRE ALARM AT 3 AM UGH.

It was somewhere around THIS moment that I was definitely thinking “we probably shouldn’t have come here.”

A few hours later we woke up and threw ourselves together, caught some breakfast and hit the racetrack.

I had only been to this racetrack once before for LS fest (which was a pretty awesome event) so I really had no idea what to expect when we were pulling in, but there were a shitload of people waiting in line so that put a good thought into my head that this might be a pretty good event.

Once we found a spot in the cool kids section we were able to get out and check out the scenery. There were quite a bit of people that showed up, a bunch of vendors lined up, some drag racing, drifting, etc. To me it seems like any typical event that I’ve been to…with a lot more bagged cars and wide bodies. We walked the whole thing a few times, hungout by the drift action, caught a couple of ride alongs, ate some food cart food and hung out. It was a pretty good time! It was definitely good running into a few familiar faces as well! 

All in all it was a pretty good event! Even though we hit a few rough patches getting there, I’d say it was sort of worth it…?

That is…until the ride home.

I don’t really know what time we decided to leave, but it was sometime after the homie Dave tried to give Jake’s car a quick alignment by eye in the parking lot. I want to say we were maybe 45 minutes or an hour into driving when Jake started to notice some weird vibrating in his wheel. YUP. You fucking guessed it. Blew ANOTHER FUCKING AXLE. But this time we had no backup axle or anywhere to try and get one. So we pulled into Sonic, ate some 12$ cheeseburgers and started calling everyone we knew to try and get home. 

Luckily Dave made the phone call that would save our lives. The homie Ben was out at the event doing some drifting and brought a truck and trailer that we were able to get jakes car loaded onto. His drift machine is also licensed and insured so he was able to drive it all the way back to the Lou. THANK GOD. 

                                

     BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

It wouldn’t make much sense given our luck the last few days that this was a clean solution to our problem. I don’t really know how long we were driving before the excursion decided to take a shit on us, but it definitely happened smack dab in the middle of nowhere in the pitch dark. 
 

 

It was DEFINITELY at this point in time that I was thinking (very loudly) WE DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT HAVE FUCKING CAME HERE UGH I HATE KENTUCKY AND EVERYTHING.

 

After an hour or two (or three? I have no idea) A bunch of pretty awesome night photos shot by dave, a donut in the middle of the highway, and a bag of doritos later WE WERE BACK ON THE ROAD. I have no idea what time we eventually made it back to Ben’s house

^THOSE LAST 4 SHOTS ARE FROM DAVE, HE'S GOT SOME PRETTY DOPE SHIT. YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT HIS STUFF.
https://www.facebook.com/dukenewportphotography/
www.dukenewport.com

IF YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS THE END OF THE WORST NIGHT EVER YOU’RE WRONG.

        “But Travis wait…why didn’t you guys just tow the car back to Jake’s? Doesn’t that make more sense?”

Well I’m glad you asked! and YES that does make more sense, but you see…the truck we were using to pull Jake’s car took a shit on us once before…AND it’s a ford. Taking that risk would only be a recipe for disaster!  So at 1:30 or 2 or whatever time it was Jake called a tow truck and about an hour later they showed up. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the driver of this Tow Truck from hell, but I’m pretty sure he had just escaped prison on some kind of murder charge and was definitely on some sort of hallucinogen the whole trip back. Not to mention he smoked a whole pack of cigarettes in the hour or so it took us to get to Jakes.

WE FINALLY GOT BACK TO JAKES HOUSE AND GOT HIS CAR OFF THE TRUCK. THANK JESUS WE MADE IT. 

Oh, then I had to drive an hour back to my house. I got home at like 5am. 

Needless to say, the trip was nothing short of a fucking disaster. But in-between all of the broken ass cars, waiting, and freezing cold we did manage to make a few new friends, share a shitload of laughs, eat some doritos, and take a few dope photos. 
 

10/10 would do again.

CHEERZ TO BAD LUCK, GOOD FRIENDS, LONG DRIVES, DORITOS, AND WIDEBODY FENDERS.

 

-TRAVIS

A couple of weeks ago my buddy Jake gave me a call and said he wanted to do some seasonal festivities that involved some leaves, a backroad, and his now red STI. So naturally we met up for some lunch in our ugg boots and knitted scarves, sipped some pumpkin spice then set out to find the right spot to get the best shots. 

I've shot Jake's car a few times now, and each time its been a different color. When I first met Jake the car was silver, 5 minutes later it was black, I woke up one morning and it was white, a couple of days later it was pinkish red, and now its fully red. I'm sure I missed a color or two in there but I can't keep up with that thing at the rate it changes colors, its crazy. Nonetheless the red looks pretty damn good and is probably my favorite color he's ever had it. 

Jake knew of a couple of hidden back roads that ended up being perfect. We rolled out, figured out a plan (kind of) and went for it. We knew we wanted to try to get some shots with leaves in the shot, and since they weren't exactly falling off the trees we had to improvise. I grabbed handfuls of leaves and set them in the back of my car to throw in front of the camera as we were rolling. Surprisingly enough it ended up working pretty well!

                    Except for the fact that my car is now covered in bits and pieces of leaf debris.

After about 5-6 go arounds and a few pauses because I was being attacked by some incredibly annoying bees we were set on rolling shots. We wanted to get a couple of still shots as well while we could, so we found an old barn and got to work. We had no idea who's barn this was, but there was nobody around so we took our chances and stayed as long as we could, which ended up being plenty of time to get a couple of different shots totally uninterrupted!

With these shots I wanted to try a little something different. I'm not sure if it was the backroads and seemingly rundown area that we were in, but I wanted to give these images a little bit of a darker mood. I muted the color pallet a little bit on the backgrounds, and added a little bit of smoke and fog to some of the images, giving it a different look than anything I've put out before.

I'm still not really sure where it is that we stumbled upon, but we found a little area that had a couple of old gas pumps, a couple of older buildings and a shitload of awesome old signs. Lucky for us the gate was open so we pulled Jake's car in again with hopes to shoot uninterrupted like at the old barn but almost as soon as we got the car in place the owner of the property came through. To our luck he was in a pretty good mood and allowed us to stay and shoot as long as we wanted. Typically this fella doesn't allow people to hangout on his land for shit, and he's got a hawkeye view of the place since its all rigged up with cameras (none of which we could see)  I'm not sure what made him let us stay and hangout for awhile but I'm definitely thankful that he did. After talking to the fella for a few minutes we found out that he owns 900 acres around the area, and has a crew of people to keep it maintained. He bought the land a million years ago and restored all of the buildings immaculately, but doesn't let anyone use them for event spaces, parties, etc. There are easily 3-4 different places that we saw that could be used for wedding receptions. If you ask me the dude is crazy to make this place so nice but not use it.....but at the same time I agree with him 100% When I asked him why he doesn't rent any space out he replied: 

                              "I don't like people fucking with my shit"

                                                                                                                     ....amen to that brotha, that explains the cameras all over the place too. 

All in all we had a blast driving around and exploring some new places. I'm definitely pleased with the way this set turned out since I've been trying a few new things. I'm really looking forward to continuing to learn and grow to see what kind of new things I can try next! WOO!

                                    cheerz to no plans, back roads, color changing cars, and dope shit!  
                                                                              -Travis.     

It's been quite some time since I've been able to sit down and write a blog, Which I guess is actually a good thing because I've been up to my face in work for the last couple of months!

A couple of weeks ago I finally got together with my buddy Omar who made the courageous decision to drop a 2JZ engine into his Scion FR-S. Needless to say...the build took quite a bit of time and I've been on him for several months to get it finished so we could get some good shots of it. The car has been done for awhile now, and Omar actually just moved to Spokane, but a couple of days before he took off we got together and did a little shoot with his beauty of a beast. 

         Omar was the first person I saw that put a 2JZ into an FR-S.

...with the exception of Ryan Tuerck, who drives a 2JZ powered FR-S for his competition car in Formula Drift, but does that really count?

I don't really know shit about this engine, but what I do know is that this particular build sounds like a fucking airplane when it's idling, and sounds like a full on racecar when it rips through the streets with its ~600whp, banging through gears while roasting tires before it even goes anywhere. Oh yeah and another thing. The FR-S weighs roughly 2800lbs from the factory.

600whp in a 2800lb car is pretty fucking ridiculous.  

I can definitely appreciate attention to detail especially in a quality car build. Omar has definitely done quite a few changes to this FR-S to make it his own. From the BRZ front bumper and headlight combo to the TRD front aero fins, the hilarious Jay-Z stickers under the hood, color matched valve cover, bash bar, brakes, and camber plates, some Volk ZE40 wheels with a nice bronzed finish, and aerocatch hood pins...I definitely like the way this car turned out. 

I can also appreciate the fact that this car never really lost its original form. There's no crazy aero kit, wing, or a crazy amount of carbon fiber. Although I do love a nice aero build...this 2J powered FR-S is very well disguised behind some tasteful additions, but don't let that fool you,

                                   .... this thing is a fucking monster. 

We set up a couple of shots and went to work. All in all I think we only spent about an hour shooting while discussing our favorite parts of the  FR-S platform and build structure. I've never really been able to hangout with Omar one on one, and it was definitely nice to spend a little time bullshitting about random things and hanging out. Omar and this pretty little lady are now located out in Washington, and I heard there's some big plans for it in the future. I'm hyped as shit to see how Omar proceeds with the build and can't wait to see it again one day!

Cheers Omar! 

                 A couple of days after I shot Omar's beast of a Scion...

I went over to Gateway motorsports park where MDU was holding their final event of the season. Don't get me wrong...I love MDU and the guys that put it on, but because I didn't bring the right lens to shoot drifting I had to come up with another way to make a productive day at the racetrack. I met up with my buddy David who has a pretty dope BNR32 Skyline and we started messing around with shooting some portraits of drivers on a little section of unused track. 

After we shot a few drivers we decided to put this section of the track to work. We spent a little time shooting some rolling shots of David's Skyline, and eventually grabbed another BNR32 for some nice twin skyline rolling shots. If you're unfamiliar with the Nissan Skyline...up until this year it was a bitch and a half to get one stateside [thanks to some bullshit rule requiring 25 years in-between the build of the vehicle and importing to the states] I still don't really know the rule..and honestly I don't really care....All I care about is the fact that these dudes did the work to get these Japanese All Stars into the states and fulfilled some of their car enthusiast dreams.

                                       ....That alone is pretty fucking awesome to me. 

After messing around with the twin Skylines, another buddy of mine came over with this S15 Silvia, another car that is a pain in the ass to bring stateside thanks to that stupid 25 year law. The cool thing about this S15 is that its real....its also still illegal in the states. I'm not sure how Mike managed to get this thing to St. Louis...but I don't really want to ask any rash questions about it either. It's here, and thats all that matters. 

                 If I'm being  h o n e s t  with you...

Having these cars in front of me doesn't really do a lot for me. Sure, I love a Skyline, Silvia, and 2J powered FR-S as much as the next guy...But what really does it for me is the owners and their passion for these vehicles. David, Mike, and Omar are a few friends who had a passion for specific motorcars that were a bit out of their reach....until they figured out how to get them in their hands and make their dreams a reality. The fact that they put in the work, made the sacrifices and got what they wanted is my favorite part of their stories.

I still haven't had the chance to sit down with these dudes and really talk about what it is that each of these cars does for them, but I'm not really sure if I need to. All three of these guys are pretty humble when it comes to the gross amount of attention they get for owning these unicorns, and it might take a little digging to get their full stories...but with a little persistence I might be able to get them to share a little something :) but that might have to be after they each finish the builds on these beauties. 

Shooting these cars has probably been one of the more pivotable moments for me as a photographer, the reason I say that is because to date these are some of my favorite images that I've shot. I've been trying my best to really push myself as a photographer and take advantage of certain opportunities, and with this set I believe I have accomplished a part of that. I've been trying to push myself harder and harder to create images that are reaching a higher standard and finding new ways to bring a vision to life. I'm really looking forward to what the next few months have in store and I'm definitely looking forward to collaborating with more and more minds to come up with some incredible shit.

     STAY TUNED Y'ALL! MUCH MORE THINGS COMING!

CHEERZ!
-travis

Last week Subject Media Group sent out to do some video work for Apex Motorsport, which is this totally badass company that gives the average joe the opportunity to learn how to drive supercars the way they were meant to be driven. During the whole experience the customer will spend time in a class learning all about driving on a track, the do's and dont's, and so on. After sitting through a class they make you drive the track on a simulator which is pretty damn accurate. They scan the racetrack and get EVERY little detail including skid marks, brunt grass, and so on. You are also simulating driving the actual car that you will be driving on the track.

                                        Technology is awesome.

I must say...this was probably one of the most awesome experiences I've had on a video set in my life. We rigged up a suction and pole mount to the front of my car that would hold the Red Epic sitting on the DJI Ronin. From this we were able to run a First Person View monitor so Darren could see everything that was being shot AND control the camera with a remote to pan and follow cars as we chased them. I wish I had a picture or something to show you how this worked....you just gotta trust me when I say it was fuckin' AWESOME.

I've never driven a chase car before, and it was a little tough to figure out entry points of turns and where the car needed to be to get the perfect shot. We had no chance to test this on the actual track before we were shooting the hero shots, so we had to learn real quick like. After a couple of laps we pretty much had it down and got some awesome shots. I don't have anything to show form that yet, but hopefully soon there will be a release on those! The best part of the chase cam sequences was hearing Darren's reactions when we were in the middle of the good shots. "OHHH YEAH" "THIS IS IT" "MY NAME TYRONE." hahahaha this was definitely one of my favorite shoots I've been on to date. 

Since we were shooting around the schedule of the actual event we were pressed for time on what we were able to actually shoot, and only had a few chances where we were able to shoot specifically for the video, this is always a bit of a struggle but trust me when I say that through the lack of shoot time...these shots are going to be awesome.

There was a small amount of downtime from shooting video when one of the photographers arranged for some track time to shoot stills. Lucky for me I was able to tag along and jump in the back of the car with him to get a few shots. Shooting car to car has always been something I've struggled with, and after we took something like 2 laps we were cut from shooting stills. I'm pretty happy with the couple of on track driving shots I got for sure. I used a wide angle to try and catch as much of the car and track as possible. I wish we had more time for this but for the time we had I think these turned out pretty well, especially since I had almost no time to setup for exposure, shutter speed, etc. I was actually freaking out on the inside and just trying a shitload of different f-stop and shutter speed combinations, haha! Gotta love those freak out moments!

There was one pretty badass moment in the day. We needed some audio of a GT3 going balls to the wall around the track so Bernie brought his beauty and was willing to give us some sexy sounds. We mounted the mic and I jumped in the front seat for one of the most fun experiences of my life. Bernie is a monster in this thing and he also holds the Gateway Motorplex track record of 53 seconds. 53 SECONDS!!!!!! THATS FAST AS SHIT. After probably 6-7 laps we brought it back in and it probably took a solid 15 minutes for the smile to fade from my face. 

I've had some of the most fun experiences of my life within my job.      
                                    
                                                                    ...and I couldn't be happier.

 

After we had gotten the majority of our video shots and were basically wrapping for the day...I grabbed the Radical and staged a little set for a Virtual Rig shot. I've never actually done one of these before but I had an idea of what needed to be done. We shot the car and got a few exposures and then pushed the car out of the frame to get a blank plate for the background and got the correct exposures. Then in post I pulled everything up, processed the car and background separately and then put them together and had to figure out how the hell I was going to make this look real...after a couple of hours trying to get it handled and a youtube video later I got a couple of things that I'm content with, but they're not perfect. I'm definitely looking forward to messing around with this type of shot in the future to see how refined I can get it! WOO!

Since I wasn't a hired photographer out on the track I wasn't able to really stage anything to make certain types of images, Hopefully we'll be able to get some more time to shoot some killer media! Also! If you're feeling a little froggy and want to take a Porsche GT3 on the track and drive it like you stole it, check out Apex Motorsport and see how you can get hooked up!

CHEERZ TO FAST CARS, AWESOME DUDES, AND ALL THAT SHIT!

-travis//

 

A couple of nights ago I met up with Doug who drove all the way from St. Genevieve to shoot. Needless to say I was hyped as shit for this shoot especially because this is not only the first shoot since I jumped into the freelance game, but I also got my camera back from Canon who had it for a week prior. All around a great day for Travis, haha!

Me and my buddy Steve rolled into the garage after grabbing a few taquitos from QT and found Doug patiently waiting with his pretty 350Z. Once we unloaded and devoured our taquitos it was time to work! Time was a little crunched on this shoot so we had to act fast, not leaving a whole lot of time to talk with Doug about himself and his pretty Z.

From what I did manage to talk to Doug about it seemed like he was your average hard ass working twenty-something with a huge passion for cars. My favorite thing about this pairing is that Doug lives pretty far south of St. Louis in a town where most people drive lifted pickups, and probably tractor trailers around town. Then there's Dougy Fresh with his insanely clean Z. The paint on this beauty had a super crisp sparkle and was immaculate. There was a lot of personality on this Z, almost every corner of the car was squeaky clean and had a little tasteful addition. From the facelifted front bumper and headlights, to the carbon hood with an open vent revealing the polished intake manifold, to the sparkly painted front lip, and out to the blue metallic wheels. Even the interior of this Z was perfect with more subtle additions such as an alcantera Driven steering wheel coupled with NRG quick release, and an alcantera shift boot and sparco shift knob. 

Shooting this car was nothing short of a breeze, especially because of the cleanliness. It looked good from every angle we were able to shoot it from, and the color combination was definitely pretty fun to work with. I'm starting to appreciate clean white cars mainly because they are SO easy to shoot, and definitely easy to manage in post processing. 

Even though we were pressed for time, we did manage to grab a few different angles, and put together a decent little quick-set for Doug. I'm looking forward to working further on these individual shoots and cranking out some feature worthy images! There's only a few in this set, but I'm pretty pleased with the way they came out! Enjoy!

Huge thanks to Steve Petersen for coming out and helping with this shoot!

CHEERZ TO CLEAN CARZ AND DOPE PEOPLE!

-TRAVIS