I have a new location for my blog and I'd like you to make note of it

Blogger, you and I were reasonably happy. But I've decided to switch to Wordpress. Sorry.

Please make note, I'll be redirecting this thing soon.

happy passover

Anahita Avalos

Slammin, slammin interview in the rotating gallery on too much chocolate this week. I'm so happy with the quality of the interviews lately, and the fact that it's getting photographers all over the world talking about their work, their ideology, their influences, their environment. It's starting to resemble the concept I had in my mind when I started the site.

The two photos below are by this week's interviewee, Anahita Avalos, and I'm in love with them. Anahita wrote me and asked if it's ok if the person she interviews next week doesn't speak English, I said yes as long as it's translated. I'm excited. Not that I'm alluding to some Senior Frog's-like American sentiment that a non-English-speaker will automatically make for an exotic and thus great interview, I'm just jazzed to see where else this thing goes geographically.

aaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmaaaaaazzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnng

Florida, New Year's Day 2008. mmmm sun. That building does bow out to the left a bit in real life.

To do this week
- Pick up milk
- Switch over to wordpress once I find a cool theme.

Bigger.

Zombie - The Cranberries

Summertime= potato salad

most minor site updates everrrrr

But check it out if you're so inclined. I mostly changed the front page, 2 shots to 'pacific', and added a photo to my bio. I'm the dude on the right, not the chick on the left.

Summers are for this

Seriously, Whole Foods?

More hard drive browsing as I get some snowboard stuff ready... this is my first ever 8x10" large format shot, all artsy yehhhh

Josh Dirksen can turn a snowboard real good.

p.s. it seems blogger had reallllllly brought down their image quality when you click on fullsize shots, so I might be leaving for wordpress soon, which I've been planning on doing anyway. I just suck at the plugin stuff, and dont want a normal template.

Here's a nicer big version of this shot.

going through hard drives is always fun

Dad, Vermont, late 2008.

Acid Tounge

Beautiful song.

A girl I knew in college...

... now works at a photo agency, and is kicking ass there, still shooting, and approaching the photo industry with fresh eyes. Her name is Jacqueline. She's really great and friendly. Key.

She put up a little blog post about my Legendary Banked Slalom project. Check it out here.

mobile photos

Hope y'awl have been kind of enjoying the mobile photos, I've been busy doing things and don't really have much to say, just things to show from where I am at the moment. Hope it's aight. I was thinking about having a separate tumblr page like some people, but I'm trying to keep the number of pages you and I have to visit to a minimum. So this blog will contain everything.

Yours,
Jake

Sick but staying stylish.

Headin home

VT to NYC

The shoot is done, en route to NYC for some meetings, then DC, then
Philly, then home to Portland.

Qatar

Apparently this is how they roll in Qatar. Venetian canals in their mall.

Image courtesty of Tamara Abdul Hadi

Seashell lamp. Off to cross country ski now.

I just learned how to mobile-post photos I took with my iphone to this blog. Yay technology!

Flying to Vermont

This was my layover in Chi-town.

Kanye Chedda

Thanks, Adam Golfer.

Surf Central

Oregon coast, last weekend. You should probably live here.

Some fri-ends came to visit. Maybe some shots to come. Vermont on Friday. NYC later. DC later. Philly latest.

Anthony and the Johnsons

You need to watch this:

You help me help you to help me help others...

Hi readers,

As you may or may not know, I'm biking across country for a third time this summer. I don't do these rides alone, I ride with a non-profit group called Bike & Build, an organization that raises money for affordable housing providers, such as Habitat for Humanity.

The structure of these trips is as follows: each of the 30 or so riders on the trip raise $4,000 to participate in the ride, the proceeds of which are given out (in grant form) towards local affordable housing groups along the route. Once on the road, we also volunteer roughly once a week on build sites throughout the trip, assisting in building affordable homes for deserving families who could otherwise not afford adequate, safe, comfortable housing. Naturally, the trips involve a great deal of community interaction (many of my portraits began as conversations with locals I met along the way); all-in-all, the structure of the trip is amazingly multifaceted and constructive.

As you can imagine, it's been difficult to raise money this year, in between the recession and having asked some my donors twice before for support. Furthermore, the businesses I've approached all seem to be counting their pennies.

So, I'm writing to you, and you, and you, here, today, through the power of the Internet, to ask you to help me to help you and to help me help others. What? How, you ask?!? Well... have a look at my diagram:


- You help me: Please consider donating to my trip this upcoming summer.
- Me help you: If you make a tax-deductible contribution $75 or more, I will send you an 8x10" print of your choice- select any image off my website. If you donate $150 or more, I will send you an 11x14" print. If you donate $250 or more, I will send you 2 11x14" prints.
- You help me help others: Your donations directly enable me to go out this summer, help build beautiful, affordable houses for those in need over 16 days, connect with a spectrum of hundreds of Americans (whose stories I'll bring to you this summer via my blog) and catalyze positive change across the country (yes we can).

I kindly appreciate any donation; this is a great opportunity and a great cause. If you wish to (tax-deductible-y) contribute, please do so online by visiting this page. If you've donated enough for a print, shoot me an email with your order and your address.

Thanks so much for your consideration, and please pass this letter on to any friends/photo community blogs that might have interest in this cause.

Yours,
Jake

Harry Mitchell interview on Too Much Chocolate

I got to interview Harry Mitchell for the rotating gallery section of Too Much Chocolate. He's a well-spoken guy, an amazing photographer, and he's 19. You know what you should do? Go read it here.

These are Harry's images:

new tree

Fairgrounds- Portland, OR

Scott

Scott- Portland, OR 2008

Has it come to this

33rd Ave NE and Sandy- Portland, OR. January 2008. Click to view LARGE.

A reference to The Streets.

This actually happened, I didn't set it up. I was worried the guy would leave if he knew what I was doing, so I set up my camera with my back facing him, pre-metered, swung it around, quick focus, waited for no traffic, popped in the holder, and shot it.

For Cindy, forever ago

A good friend from high school. We shot this my senior year, I'd just bought my hasselblad. I got the shot I had in mind, but was never able to get it tonally right, because her skin was too pale for the darkness of the grass (probably a 4 stop difference, no joke). This was before I knew anything about scrims, flags, lights, diffusion, etc. Just me and the camera. Still is really, now that I think about it.

I was rummaging through my hard drive and found this shot, and now, thanks to the miracles of photoshop, it can be saved. Working with this photo brought me back to the joyful innocence of high school. My life consisted of hanging out with friends, laying on the grass, picnic lunches, AP English, and photography.

Milwaukie Teriyaki- Portland, OR

I'd say it was a good week.

Two killer interviews this week on my 'other' site, too much chocolate.

There's a pretty inspiring and fascinating interview between Joel Meyerowitz and one of the TMC members, John Saponara; there's also a great interview with another a guy whose work I love, a guy that shoots for Nike and Oakley at the age of 22, Cole Barash. Check it out, and post some damn comments too.

The Legendary Banked Slalom project is up

The Mt. Baker project is up, check it out here. I know reading is not very 'in' these days, but for the love of god, read the intro.

Nich Hance + Keith Davis Young= killin' it.

But they don't have websites! Click on their names to see more work.

Nich Hance


Keith Davis Young