Job Chronicles: Moped Gang

I forget who told me about the moped shop, but in 2009 I spent more than a few afternoons down there. I was working on a project about a moped gang called the Orphans for Wired.com. It was a gang in the lightest sense of the word, but lots of readers didn’t get that. There was a lot of hate spewed in the comments section when the story published. Which was a shame because all the folks I photographed are such good people and still friends of mine to this day. Sadly, the moped shop doesn’t exist anymore and most of them are too busy to ride. So it goes.

Job Chronicles: 2010

Something happened to my photography in the middle of 2009. It went from being mostly personal projects to professional assignment work. I got paid and I got published; and it was a dream come true, especially in the current state of photojournalism. Since then, 90% of the time I pick up the camera is for work. Although I miss having time for my personal projects, I still try and bring my own distinct vision to each assignment. And those assignments have piled up. I decided to make this “Job Chronicles” section to share all the decent outtakes from those shoots. These are pictures mostly from Wall Street Journal assignments from the first half of 2010.

California Clean Cut

It started with a party next the pool at a sprawling Neutra house in Beverly Hills overlooking downtown Los Angeles. As day turned into night we ended up in a ’65 Buick convertible on the way to Palm Springs, finally arriving at the Elrod House, an icon of mid-century modern architecture that was featured in “Diamonds Are Forever.” The key players were musician Nick Waterhouse, actor Miles Fisher, and entrepreneur Garrett Colton. The project was a lookbook for K-Swiss. One of my favorite things about this job is finding myself in situations I would have never expected. This shoot was 48 hours of just that.