I'm a joker, I'm a smoker

As a part of the series I shot on the Maryland horse racing industry I shot Mike. Mike was a better. NOT a gambler as he told me. He was playing odds, and playing odds is not gambling. 

   You couldn't have come up with a better character for the shot though. He wore a leather jacket that had a big rip in it and a leather hat that he wore turned back with a tear on the left side. His daily intake of tobacco included both dip and cigs. He walked around with a curled up notebook that he jotted down notes on the bets he made. 

   Mike was studying to be a nurse, but he also did standup (although I don't remember him saying a thing that made me laugh), he was working on some screenplays and he seemed to have a couple other odd jobs that were getting him by. He fit right in with the crowd at the Laurel track that included the young, the old, the working class, the business class, the retired and the tired. If you ever want to see a strange slice of life hit up a horse track on a weekday. 

   Throughout the entire shoot Mike talked. He talked about the industry going down the drain. He talked about his standup. He talked. He explained odds and betting to me, although I admit I left with only a hazy understanding of how it goes down. He almost had me convinced that it was more skill than luck as he showed how he studies up on who the jockeys and breeders are. He tracks how different horses do on different surfaces and distances. I was nearly convinced...then he placed a bet who would come in first, second and third in three consecutive races. No way that is anything but luck! 

   We shot these images in the huge grandstand area that sits empty nearly all the time. Partly because of how small the crowds are and partly because what crowds are there mainly watch from inside on TVs. These shots were some of the few moments that I caught Mike not talking. The horizontal one remains one of my favorite shots. I grabbed the betting slips out of the trash. Turns out there are people called stoopers who's whole thing is looking through trash cans trying to find winning slips that people have accidentally thrown out. 

Mario Pino

One of the most interesting jobs I have got to do since moving to Baltimore was shooting portraits of people involved in the Maryland horse racing industry. In recent years the industry has struggled and then the owner of Pimlico, the crown jewel or Maryland racing filed for chapter 11. 

I shot a breeder, trainer, assistant trainer, gambler, activist and a jockey. These are some photos of the jockey Mario Pino. Mario came in second in the Kentucky Derby in 2007 riding Hard Spun. Turns out he's pretty legendary in the area as a jokey. Amazingly too he turns 50 next year! 

My knowledge of horse racing before this was nonexistent so it was so interesting to get such an intimate and wide ranging peak into the sport of kings. And you quickly see why it is the sport of kings and why it probably struggles now financially. I was told it can cost in the area of 40 grand a year to train a horse. So of course if you have 10 or more horses that adds up fast! 

Mario turned out to be very nice. We took these shots a little before and after his races. The original idea was to have a horse in the shot but amazingly this turned out to be nearly impossible. Due to track edict and the fact that race horses apparently basically will not stand still for much time we ended up shooting these instead which I thought came out wonderfully. 

Army of Me

Got the chance to shoot portraits with Vince from Army of Me. Eventually the photos we shot turned into the album cover and art for his latest acoustic ep Make Yourself Naked. Which is a very good album. I even bought a copy myself...which is saying something. But, when one of his songs is a response to a Bob Dylan song I couldn't help myself. It's a great raw album, very much stripped down from the normal electric work Vince normally does with the band. 

For this shoot Vince and I wandered around Fells Point in Baltimore on a Sunday morning. As usual I made sure I got my personal concert out of it. In this case it was even better because there was a bunch of random people around thinking we were crazy. At one point we were shooting in a tunnel and Vince was singing me Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 and he forget the words. Two women were out walking and coming through the tunnel and one picked up where he forgot the words and started singing and she was actually REALLY good! I love when stuff like that happens. 

We hit up a diner for some breakfast and headed over to North Ave section of Baltimore and shot in this really cool alley that has been set up so people can do graffiti art. Finished up the last of my personal concert and then went and helped Vince's brother move. All in a day's work of shooting. 

Be sure to check out Army of Me's music either at there website by clicking here or going to iTunes. 

Seasick Steve

My cousin introduced me to Seasick Steve and I must state the obvious...he's pretty sick. He plays a 3 string guitar in a lot of his stuff. Why wasn't this an option in fourth grade beginners band? I wouldn't have wasted nearly a decade dedicating myself to being bad at playing the french horn that's for sure!

I didn't take this picture, but I think Seasick Steve is going on my list of people I want to photograph.

Check him out here on YouTube

Eddie Adams Workshop

This was a photo booth type thing done by Howard Schatz at the Eddie Adam Workshop. I of course am not in it, I was out being offered oral sex by my subject. No joke. Despite not being in this, I actually really like this piece. Hmmm, somehow that sounded crazy conceded. I actually like many people hate 90% of the pictures taken of me, so I probably like this MORE because I am not in it.

Howard does some really amazing underwater stuff. Makes me want an underwater camera bad! The work is very elegant with more than a dose of trippyness to it. If trippyness isn't a word I now deem it one. He also is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair. He usually shoots an actor and gives them a few different things to act out. Here's an example:

Left:You're an eight-year-old boy whose friend convinced you to shoplift the latestGrand Theft Auto.Now you're sitting in the security office at the mall, waiting for your father to arrive.

Center: You've just excused yourself from the table at a dinner party where you've been placed between the two most boring people on the planet, and you're in the bathroom, wondering how you'll survive two more hours.

Right: You're the idealistic young teacher of an out-of-control fourth-grade class, exploding after 20 minutes of complete chaos.

Anyway, yet another awesome product of going to Eddie Adams Workshop, go check it out Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls! 

Victoria Vox

Baltimore uke specialist Victoria Vox and I got together to do portraits. The original plan was to have her out hawking here "Uke Can't Touch This" undies in the street. Of course it started raining as soon as we were supposed to start. So we headed to a parking garage to creep out all the people who had parked there.

I got a personal concert and Victoria willingly got into the trunk of her car...pretty much an ideal shoot!

Check out her music at www.victoriavox.com it's some pretty great stuff. She does a mouth trumpet that is to die for. I'm trying to convince her to do Ring of Fire with the uke and mouth trumpet!