tom sachs imagines mars

Posted on May 16, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the preview of the new Tom Sachs exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory on Tuesday night. I love his stuff. It reminds me of the kinda stuff that I would make when I was little and only had access to construction scraps, etc.. Only his stuff is way better. The exhibit is called “Space Program: Mars.” I think that the piece below was probably my favorite–

Among other heavy hitters, this guy was making the rounds that evening–

Watch this movie, if you haven’t already seen it.

shooting w/kate

Posted on May 3, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

Despite the pervasive rainy weather this week, Tuesday night actually ended up being amazing weather. As I mentioned earlier, I shot some stuff with a lady DJ friend of mine that evening. Most of the looks were inside, but we also had a location set planned. So, I was a bit nervous when I woke up Tuesday morning with sheets of rain pounding on the windows. But by the end of the day the sun was out and it was almost 70 degrees.

As soon as I deliver the images, I’ll post a proper set of my faves on shotbyjake.com/latest.

sats

Posted on April 28, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

I had a very productive evening Friday, and day Saturday. I met some very cool people. The only downside is that it is a bit on the cool side, weather-wise. I wasn’t really expecting that. So, I was wearing a light jacket for the Times Sq. event that I was shooting Friday night. I found myself literally shivering by the time that it wrapped. I have a bit of a thing lately for photographing birds in flight. I snapped the one above on Saturday morning from my bedroom window. The one below was in Times Square on Friday night.

Speaking of birds in flight, I finally figured out a time to go visit my sister in Alaska. I’ll be headed there for the whole week of the 4th of July. I’m very excited about it.

A bit sooner than that I will be traveling to Chicago to visit my Friends there one last time before they move to Atl. That little jaunt will actually be occurring this coming weekend. Also very excited about that one.

Sunday morning, I’ll be racing the “Run as One” 4m in CP. At the suggestion of a friend, I think that I’m going to make it a thing, now– to just start running from my house when I have a race in CP. I figure, why not? Especially since it was surprisingly invigorating last weekend, after I realized that I wasn’t going to miss the race. I’ll just plan on giving my self a little bit of an extra time cushion in the morning. That’s all.

this ‘n’ that

Posted on April 18, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

I wanted to post these moodyish shots from the weekend. Sunday evening I was able to just chill for a bit near the water to watch the helicopters come and go.

I also want to write a bit about running. A few weeks ago (seven, to be exact) I wrote about about how I was going to be in shape in six weeks. Wellahhhh, I’m not exactly there, but have made a lot of progress. Last weekend, I finished my first double digits run of the year, and felt great afterward. I followed up with 4 the next day and had no problem keeping the pace right around 7mm. I haven’t been as consistent as I would like to be. But I think that with the weather getting nicer, it will be a lot easier. So there is my positive little note to accompany these moody photos.

sans title

Posted on April 7, 2012October 23, 2020 by Jake

arnette ‘moolah’

Posted on March 31, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

Last week I worked with RC on another Arnette editorial. This model is the “moolah.” Here are a few of the images.

arnette ‘dibs’

Posted on March 14, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

One bonus of daylight savings is that there is some daylight left after the market close in the evening. Wednesday evening I worked with the peeps from RC on a shoot for a new model of Arnette glasses. We did the shoot at the newish skate part in Chelsea. It was the first time that I had been inside since it was built. I was so bummed that I didn’t have skate shoes with me. The park is super nice. The model/athlete is Pat [something]. His instagram is @_path. One more shot below–

retna mural on houston x bowery

Posted on March 7, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

Retna is the latest to grace the Bowery mural space with his artwork. He just wrapped up the piece Tuesday night. I made it over there right after sunset, as the lights were coming on. A few additional looks below. Before Retna was Faile, then JR, etc., etc…

nyfw is all upons

Posted on February 6, 2012October 10, 2013 by Jake

I’m kind of freaking out that Fashion Week is already here again. It is going to be a little bit different for me this week, than it has been in the past. I can’t just duck out of the day job for the duration and shoot everything that I feel like. Nope. In fact, I will probably only be covering a handful of shows. I’m excited, just the same. I’m most looking forward to Band of Outsiders on Saturday.

As a side note, my 7D had it’s first error on Saturday night. It was the dreaded “err 30.” It is an error that happens when the shutter gets stuck open. After doing a lot of reading on Canon forums, I gave the camera a solid smack, then took the battery out, and reinstalled it. It appears to be working like normal again. Phew! I feel like it is pretty amazing that I have gone this long without having any errors. The shutter has well over 50k actuations, and I haven’t had it serviced a single time. I think that I may have to drop her off for a tune-up, once FW is out of the way.

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happy december

Posted on December 1, 2011November 30, 2011 by Jake

Since lately I haven’t really shot anything worth crap, I have to post other people’s images. The above snap belongs to none other than the infamous Tommy Ton, of Jak & Jil (among other things). The dude is hands down my favorite street style photographer. Unlike most of the street dudes in NYC, I have only ever seen Tommy once in real life. Not like it is a competition, but I think that Tommy’s flavor kills Schuman. Plus, Tommy isn’t a pompous, self-absorbed douche. Not sure how this post became about street style photographers, but looks like we are going to be stuck with that for at least a few more sentences. I would have to say that my other favorite street style dude is William Yan. Besides being a friend of mine, I am a fan of William for the street wear flavor that he brings. Not only does William shoot crazy good street style, he is constantly involved in some new collaboration project with boss street wear fashion houses. I have loads of respect for him. All of these guys, of course, take a back seat the the OG Bill Cunningham. I’m sure that they would all agree with that statement (except for maybe Schuman, who probably thinks that he is much better than Bill).

Ok, so the image above is part of Tommy’s set from Paris FW. The reasons that I love it, are: A- the way it is cropped; B- the camel jacket; and, C- because of the cigarette. Have you ever noticed that there are certain places in the world where the two most prevalent objects in public view are sexy early 30s/late 20s humans and cigarettes? You know where I’m talking about–the West Village, Rio, etc.. Anyway, I have been a bit obsessed with shooting hot people smoking, for the past several months. I also have a pinterest album of such images that I have come across. Yes, I just admitted that I have one of those P-word accounts. Add some winter clothes into the cut and I can barely contain myself. The funny part is that I can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke. I hold my breath when I get stuck walking behind someone who has a lit butt. I didn’t say it made any sense.

Speaking of butt, my brother comes to town tomorrow morning. Last time he was here was during armory week. We spent the whole time hanging out and shooting art installations. I’m not sure what we will do this time around. No doubt something good will come up.

hola, wednesday. stoked to see you.

Posted on November 16, 2011November 15, 2011 by Jake

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I’m going to say that it feels like it has already been kind of a long week. I had a bit of a reprieve last night as I attended an event at the BLK Denim Store in SoHo, NYC. The space is absolutely dope (above). Not to brag about my lineage, but if it is Scandinavian, you know it’s good. I wound up with a new pair of jeans. I rarely wear jeans, so I have never been able to justify buying a new pair. All of the jeans that I owned before last night are spill over from the late 90’s/early 2000’s. They don’t really fly for going to social events. Anyway, I love my new BLKs. Here are a few more shots that I liked from last night.

photohunt- my nasty kitchen sink

Posted on November 9, 2011May 13, 2020 by Jake

In a lot of first world areas, people have in house appliances called dish washers. In NYC (which can be pretty 3rd world at times), dishwashers and disposals are the exception, not the norm. It’s because of antiquated and ailing infrastructure. Until not too many years ago, NYC sewers could not support such newfangled devices. Anyway, here is a shot of my dishwasher. There are 5 differences… go!

more marathon hooplah

Posted on November 8, 2011November 8, 2011 by Jake

I just wanted to share two more things that I came across, yesterday as I was flipping through all of the marathon related media coverage. The first item, is this video from MTA Bridge and Tunnel crew. It is a time lapse of the start of the race, on the Verazzano Bridge. This year they added some new camera angles.

The next items came from Laughing Squid. It is a story about an illustrator Christoph Niemann, who illustrated at various points along the race course as he was running, then tweeted his drawings/paintings. I seriously love this kind of stuff.

The caption of this one is “Bottom of the Willis Ave. Bridge”

This one is “To of the Willis Ave. Bridge” Hahahaha

And here is crossing the finish line.

Check out the full photo story, starting at @abstractsunday, which became locked up and eventually moved to @abstractsunday1.

NY Marathon 2011

Posted on November 7, 2011April 24, 2018 by Jake

Oh man, I love this race. There has been so much going on in my personal life lately that I never really had a chance to get excited about the race this year. In fact, I even considered sitting it out, especially after the crazy weather the previous weekend. Thanks to some good friends’ motivational pep talks, I showed up yesterday morning with my running sneaks on. I’m so glad that I did.

I rode down to the SI ferry with my same friends that I ran Chicago with. There was some drama with the car service. But that was really the only setback of the morning. By the time we arrived in Staten Island and boarded the buses for Verazzano Bridge, the sun was already coming over the horizon, and I could tell the weather was going to be phenomenal.

My friend Becca agreed to run with me. Which was very gracious of her, considering that She tends to totally crush the NY Marathon. She PR-ed in it a few years ago with a faster time than I have had at any marathon, which is super impressive for such a difficult course. Anyway, it was so great to have her there, to chat with her in the staging area, because it gets so boring waiting and waiting for gun time.

It is always so exciting when you finally get up onto the bridge and can see the start line. Bloomberg gives his little good luck speech, and the cannon goes off. There is suddenly a sea of bouncing heads that begins pouring onto the bridge toward Brooklyn. It is the most amazing sight, ever. On my way across the Verazzano, there was a Coast Guard Black Hawk on my left side, along with a TV news helicopter. On my right hand side was an NYPD helicopter. They would fly right up next to the bridge. Coast Guard was waving through the open side door. I waved back, of course. Hehe.

Becca and I kept a nice comfortable pace just under 8 minute miles through all of Brooklyn and Queens. We even tackled the Queensboro Bridge with a pretty good pace (mostly thanks to Becca). Once we made it into Manhattan and started to charge up 1st Avenue, I began to struggle. Thankfully, Becca was really good about not letting me slow down much (even though I really wanted to). By mile 17, I was really wishing that I had brought some energy gels with me. Thankfully at mile 18 they were handing them out. But, by the 20k mark, I was really losing steam and thankfully Becca didn’t let me slow her down anymore. I watch her fade into the crowd of runners in front of me. Around mile 20 the energy gel started to kick in, and I was feeling a little bit spry again.

As I was coming off of the bridge into the Bronx, without warning, my left hamstring cramped up really hard. Like, so hard, I was worried that my race might be over. I hobbled over to the sidewalk (without tripping anyone, thk gdnss), and stretched it out for a few minutes. It ended up costing me. That mile was a 12 minute mile, hahaha. From then on, I knew that I wasn’t going to get any sort of amazing time, so I just settled in at a 10 minute mile and enjoyed the home stretch. It was almost existential. I stopped looking at the pace clocks, and my watch, and just enjoyed the crowd. I crossed the finish line at the same time as Jack Waitz, husband of the late Grete Waitz.

Thank you so much to everyone who provided encouragement to me about this race. Also thanks to everyone who tracked me, and came out to cheer. It was pretty awesome. Can’t wait to do it again next year. Here is a link to my Garmin stats.

KATSU and some other good stuff in SoHo

Posted on October 5, 2011October 5, 2011 by Jake

The other morning I was on my way to shoot some stuff at the Jack Spade showroom on Greene. I couldn’t help by notice that KATSU had been busy in the neighborhood. These sidewalk stencils were everywhere, including at the top of the steps exiting the R train on Prince and B-way. Last I heard from the dude, he was going big at MOCA. Anyway, I’m liking the stencil campaign. It was early enough in the morning that the streets (and sidewalks) were still relatively empty, so I was able to get a few shots. I also noticed a few stickers of the variety below.

and a detail–

Along the way, I also saw this mickey mouse stencil on an express mail label. I dig it.

Ode to the A train

Posted on September 21, 2011September 30, 2011 by Jake

As great as public transportation is, the MTA is seriously messed up. Sometimes the glaring deficiencies are maddening. Other times, their efforts to restore service, or prevent interruptions are something that the Army corps of engineers would be proud of. One example of this was on Monday. A broken water main on the UWS caused the ABC and D tunnels to become totally full of water in certain sections. The MTA spent all night pumping it out and replacing signals and switches ruined by the flooding. Even though afternoon commute that day was hellish, having those lines out of service, the MTA had everything back in working order in time for the morning commute. Way to go, guys. In honor of their hard work, I would like to debut a little poem that I wrote about the A train. Hahahaha.

I have actually now written several of these. I thought that it would be hilarious to start writing poems while either waiting for, or riding the train late at night. This particular poem was one of the first. I thought that in light of recent events, it was appropriate to publish it this week.

On the platform, probably staring at the texturized yellow line. Maybe sane, maybe paralyzed. On my retinas flash the reflection of incandescent light on the tracks. It’s that ghetto incandescent light of a city that hasn’t been updated in much too, too long. The tracks have been worn smooth, shinier than mirrors. Two parallel mirrors in the sooty rat pen. Optics strain, pupils dial down. There is a disgustingly un-royal, royal blue circle with the English equivalent of Alpha marking the center. On my way home, at last. At last what? I don’t know. Nothing significant, because I’ll do it again tomorrow and again. I’m bad at poems.

So there you have it. Happy Wednesday.

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happy fashion week (cont’d)

Posted on September 13, 2011April 24, 2018 by Jake

The image above is currently one of my favorites shots from this iteration of NYFW. It was back stage at a Native Son show. Normally all of the back stage stuff that you get is the same. It is generally a bunch of candid images of people getting hair and makeup done, PR people yelling at other PR people in their headsets, etc.. My favorite overheard back stage conversation so far was “OMG, Yuri got arrested! We need to do a model count right now!”

Anyway, the reason that I like the image above so much, is because this particular show was off site at Pier 59 in Chelsea. The windows from the hair/makeup area of back stage opened onto the roof. So a bunch of the more Rat Pack-like models ducked out to have a quick butt. Another shot of the smoke break, below-

..and one from the actual presentation–

Next, let’s talk about Betsey Johnson.

I really like the animation going on with these curls.

Finally, I was dying over this adorable little family sitting on the front row.

Moving along to J. Crew. It is amazing the way that their look can be so sterile, but still beautiful. Favorite two looks from the presentation–

I’m hoping to have more images from these sets up on my photo blog by this weekend.

Oh yeah, wait. One more. I really liked this one from Billy Reid.

I wish that it wouldn’t have been so dark in there. I had to have the ISO jammed all of the way at like 1200 or something. So, this image isn’t very sharp. But I still really like the moodiness.

10 Years Later

Posted on September 12, 2011March 25, 2014 by Jake

We capped off our Sunday night in Brooklyn gazing across the water at the memorial light show. There were some low clouds, but it was still a pretty spectacular sight. We love our city.

Quik pro, day 1

Posted on September 4, 2011March 28, 2021 by Jake

I almost didn’t even go out to the comp today, since it was so overcast when I finished my run in the morning. The sun came out soon afterwards, and I got an email from one of my photog friends who said that the conditions were ok. By the time that I arrived in LB, the weather was great, but it was almost high tide, and the waves were kind of crap. I hung out in the press pavilion the whole time and almost didn’t bother getting the camera out. But then I decided that I should probably get a couple of atmosphere shots, at least.

I’m headed out there early tomorrow, hopefully the conditions will be a bit better, since low tide is at like 8 AM or something. I have had worse Labor Day weekends. At least I was able to work on my tan a little bit. Part of me secretly wishes that I could just skip out on fashion week altogether and just shoot surfing all week.

Hawk Vert Jam

Posted on September 3, 2011September 3, 2011 by Jake

Well… this is kind of awkward. I was supposed to be spending the weekend in Southern California. But, as they often do these days, my plans changed at the last minute. Friday was the official kickoff of New York City’s first ever major surf competition. Since Quiksilver is sponsoring it, Tony Hawk put on a vert demo as the inaugural event. The ramp was set up at the end of Pier 59 on the Hudson (14th St.). It was pretty amazing to be able to shoot these guys skating. Like every other kid who grew up skating in the 80’s I was always a massive fan of Tony Hawk. One of the other old school guys at the demo was Kevin Staab. His pro model was the first “real” skateboard that I ever bought. Anyway, that top image of Tony is one of my fav’s of the day. Here are a few more.

Sandro Diaz–

Elliot Sloan–

Sandro Diaz going huge with FDNY watching from the river–

Here is the sequence of Tony’s front side mellon from the top of the post–

Sunday and Monday, I’m hoping to be shooting surfing at Longbeach. Have a great weekend.