loss through overexposure
Leader Bike Warehouse shoot for Fixé from Matt Lingo on Vimeo
Some clips from a recent shoot I did at Leader Bikes new warehouse for an upcoming interview in Fixé Magazine, featuring Leader’s team rider Emi Brown.
p.s. Sorry, can’t get the player to embed. Click the link though to view the video.
Last year my friend Alex was struck by a driver while riding his bike through downtown San Diego. The driver ran a stop sign, hitting the front tire of his bike and sending him 20 feet through the air and under a parked car. His bike was sent up about ten feet in the air, before crashing back down and bending. After the driver fled from the scene attempting to escape, Alex picked himself up off the ground to find his bike bent and unusable.
His frame was made in the United States by Cuevas, a man who hand makes bicycle frames. Hand built frames by well respected builders take time, meaning most frame builders only put out 20-30 a year so it would not be easy for Alex to find another Cuevas track frame.
Velo Cult bike shop, where Alex works, specializes in vintage and hard to find bicycle frames so it was a matter of time before they got their hands on another Cuevas track frame. After eyeing it for a few months as it hung from the ceiling, Alex purchased it. His old Cuevas still hangs from the ceiling in a corner of the shop, bent and twisted like a pretzel.
“Since then I have devoted everything I have to my art, this gift, this thing that is the reason I am alive. Shit, I was supposed to die that night.” -Will Steacy discussing the night he was gagged, tied, and held captive in the basement at a shoe store he was working at while a man pressed a gun to his forehead.
Melvin Sokolsky, a well known fashion photographer who has been actively working in the industry for the past 40 years, recently participated in Canon’s “Explorer’s of Light” tour. I attended the workshop which was one part technical, one part lecture. During the portion of the day in which he had set aside for lighting, he began by speaking about the equipment he uses. Wielding a Canon 1Ds Mark III, canon’s current flagship camera body, he asked us when was the last time we could recall looking at a painting and wondering just what sort of canvas it was painted on. The crowd sat silent. Clearly agitated, he asked another question to press the point “when was the last time you wondered what kind of paint Monet might have painted with?” Again, nobody responded. ”How about how many hairs were on Vincent Van Gogh’s brush?” Only silence for the third time. ”Then why do you care about what camera I use?”
behind the scenes video from a shoot a week ago in Long Beach
My friend Tony recently got back from recording in LA with his band “Pierce the Veil”, so while we were hanging out today I snapped a few pictures of him and his bike. My nikon D3 can be switched over to shoot in dimensions the same as 4×5 film, so for some of the shots I tried to do a faux large fomat feel:
Fixe, a French fixed gear magazine, was kind enough to send me a couple copies of their recent issue with the cover using a picture I shot of my friend Ric, as well as featuring an eight page spread of portfolio images of mine and an advertisement I shot for Leader Bikes. I’m really happy how the images look in print.
I’ve been on the road the past couple of days shooting band promo work as well as images for bike shops, so I’ll post a couple in a later entry as I finish them.
Back before I began going to school for photography, I had been shooting for a few years and thought I had a decent grasp on what photography was about. I was self taught, learning off of strobist and looking at sites like deviant art and flickr. There was lots of taking pictures of “pretty” things like sunsets, taking pictures of “interesting” things like buildings and architecture, and lots of pictures of my friends that were very boring. This is what photography was for me, simply pictures that were easy and enjoyable to look at. Eventually though I figured it wouldn’t hurt to take some classes so I enrolled at a local college.
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Matt Lingo