Travel Diary: Lucerne, Switzerland

From Zurich, I met up with my parents and headed down to the picturesque little city of Lucerne. Sitting on a the eponymous lake, Lucerne exudes that Swiss quaintness we all hear of. Old world charm in a nutshell. Medieval roads, towering old churches, you know, the works. Coupled with a trip down to a couple of Alpine towns, needless to say, charm was oozing. Epic mountain landscapes mixed with picture perfect little towns…what’s not to like? Specifically, Grindelwald is crazy beautiful. I bet snowboarding there would be ridiculous. Break out the apple wine and schnitzel, I’m here for it.

I shot all of these on the Fuji x100v with some of these with the telephoto lens adapter to get me to a 50mm equivalent. I’m posting a few more of these over on instagram as well, so go have a look and if you like what you see, feel free to give me a follow for more shenanigans like this.

Saigon Punk Chronicles : Overpower

Another chapter in the Chronicles. A blend of local staples and couple of bands from Indonesia, this show felt like a party. Something’s changed in the scene here over the last couple of years and it really does feel like a proper hardcore scene these days. Kids be wild and mosh like it was their job. As I’m in no position to be participating in that shenanigans, I chose to keep to snappin’ photos. The line up consisted of Saigon’s Under Pressure, Kinh, Elbowdrop, Empathize, Cut Lon, Denpasar’s Kenya and Fraud coming out of Surabaya. I didn’t catch everyone, you know school night and all.. but the bands I saw all brought the heat. Rather than going through every band, just click on their links and go give them a listen. Now for the visual proof.

Travel Diary: Basel, Switzerland

Home of Art Basel, Basel sits around an hour by train from Zurich, so I figured it would be a nice little jaunt to head over before meeting family back in Zurich in a few days. Not knowing a whole lot about Basel except for the association with Art Basel, the only thing I really expected is maybe seeing some cool art, so off I went and wandered the city for a few days. Decidedly laid back and chill, the vibe of the city mimicked the flow of the Rhine river through the city. Complete with essentially a party every afternoon on the river with scenes reminiscent of beach hangout days I’ve seen in the tropics, folks were sipping drinks, having a swim, playing tunes…living the good life. Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.

I had heard of a graffiti scene in Basel so after a quick google search, I walked across the city in search of a long stretch of wall near the train station. Tunes in the ears (Digable Planets, Tribe Called Quest, etc) and a bounce in my step, I caught myself dancing down the streets. I only realised I was doing this after catching smiles and laughs from passersby. It’s funny how contagious good energy is. Mundane strolls turn into moments of joy. I’m here for it. Graffiti pieces were scattered over the city, from commissioned to maybe not so commissioned. I’m a sucker for trains, so seeing the stretch of painted walls that stretched for kilometers between Zurich and Basel immediately conjured memories of that first time I saw Wild Style as a kid and fell in love with writing my name all over the place. I haven’t done that in a long time other than scrawling in the margins of my countless notebooks, but I’ll never not pause and check out handstyles, bombs, throw ups and full pieces on walls. Similarly, these days, I’ve grown a liking to finding little pools of light and watching what happens. Everything kind of slows down and the only thing that matters is what’s right in front of me. It’s not therapy per se, but damn is it a good exercise in being present. Chase the light and find out what happens.

For my fellow photographers, everything was shot on the Fuji x100v. I picked up the telephoto adapter back in Osaka, so I had the option between the default 35mm and throwing the little adapter and getting a 50mm frame. Super small, I could still travel light and fast.

From the Archives : Furnace Fest 2022

As the final chapter in the current incarnation of Furnace Fest is just a couple of weeks away, I’ve gone back and looked at many of the photos I took in 2022 and reminisced about seeing old friends, making new ones and how the DIY punk scene has shaped every facet of my life since the day someone gave me that first Minor Threat record. While its super cliche to say we’re out of step, I truly believe that merry band of misfits and sense of friendship I found in the scene has made my life infinitely better.

So have a scroll through some of my favourite frames of the weekend and get ready for the final chapter. I’m super bummed I won’t be able to make the flight this year, but I’ll be there in spirit.

Travel Diary: Zurich, Switzerland

I booked a flight to Zurich to meet up with family and did absolutely zero research on really anything. I pretty much outlined the last meet up with the family and this time they had taken care of most of the planning, so I figured I’d let the places just kind reveal themselves to me. My first time to Switzerland, I had only the stereotypes and I was sure there was more to it than visions of cowbells, Alpine chalets and expensive watches. That said, I didn’t expect to find some grittiness in the cities. I should have known there will always be areas where the misfits, the strange, and fringes go. Leave it to me to stumble into these areas without realising it. I basically chose my hotel based on its decent proximity to the train station and it ended up right on the edge of the red light district. Needless to say, it’s a bit of a departure from the quaintness of the old part of the city. Aimlessly wandering, I popped into Old Love Tattoo shop to check it out and ended up hanging out with a few of those guys on the street just watching the endless stream of amusement on Langstrasse. Side note, go check out Bug Nasty aka Marlon Muralles’ work. He’s actually in LA right now for you folks back in the States. Go tell him I said whats up. Anyways, even though it was filled with all kinds of sketchiness, I never felt unsafe. The American in me experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance in that places like this in the States necessitate your head being on a swivel for sketchballs and people trying to jack you. This didn’t feel like that. It’s this juxtaposition that I love seeing anywhere I travel to…The swirling mixture of modernity and tradition, clean and grit, new and old. It’s where all the interesting stuff lives.

For the photographers, I shot all of these on my trusty Fuji X100V. I took along the tele conversion lens to give me a 50mm equivalent, so I guess I cheated the system a bit on the whole fixed lens camera game. This little set up is so light and easy to run and gun with it makes me wonder how I ever traveled with the bigger, heavier set up. Yeah, the files may be better on the other camera and I may have been able to shoot some things that the smaller setup’s limitations prevented, but, you know, who cares. I’m not trying to be a pack mule and lug around a ton of gear and end up looking like Quasimoto hunched over shuffling around. Maybe I’m lazy….maybe I have it figured out. Maybe neither, but here we are, and I’m not mad at the images, so I’m going to keep it going this way. After all, if “F8 and be there” is good enough for Arthur Fellig aka Weegee (if your’e not familiar, it’s time you get acquainted) then its good enough for me.

Travel Diary: Hoi An

This past week, I headed up to Quang Nam to meet up with some photographer homies for a motorbike trip up into the mountains and up the Ho Chi Minh Road for a few days. I expected epic photo ops and to come back with a memory card filled with bangers. Mother nature had other ideas and it was overcast and drizzled off and on the entire time so my camera stayed in my bag more often than not. So, instead of focusing on photography, the same weather that made for pretty forgettable photos was absolutely perfect for riding. That said, when we got back to Hoi An, I was itching to find some light to make some photos. While the light wasn’t the best that afternoon, I headed out on a sunset tour with Etienne. If you’re not familiar with Pics of Asia, it’s time to get acquainted. I’m a little biased in that Etienne is a long time friend, but his tours are incredible. Everywhere from Hoi An to Bangladesh, Pics of Asia runs photography tours based on ethical travel photography and breaking bread with locals. Shameless plug, I’m co-leading a workshop in Sri Lanka this January and we may have one spot left. hint hint.. It’s going to be incredible.

So, off we went into the fields and into the villages on the outskirts of Hoi An. First stop was a little spot making My Quang noodles. My Quang is one of my favourite Vietnamese noodle dishes and is a speciality of Quang Nam. Thus the name. We then headed out into the neighbouring fields as the workers finished up their day and were heading home as the sun quickly dipped towards the horizon. It wasn’t exactly one of those show stopping golden hours, but there was nice drama in the skies and sometimes, thats enough. The drama in those skies turned out to be an absolute downpour around 7pm, so when I met a friend of mine for dinner in the Old Town, it was largely empty after the rain stopped. Right after a rain is one of my favourite times to shoot, so I happily snapped away. Reflections, mood, atmosphere…. love it..

Saigon Punk Chronicles: The Metal Edition

Not really a hardcore or punk show per se, but this show still had a lot of overlap in the crowd. The bill consisted of Orca from the Philippines, Diarsia off their brand new release, Method, Obsess, and the Korean shred machine Oathean. I grabbed the Fuji x100v and an old speedlight and rolled the dice. These shows give me a chance to experiment with different set ups - multiple cameras, light set ups, techniques…No pressure if I shit the bed and they turn out awful, but at least I learned something, right?. That said, I don’t think I’ve run into any insurmountable challenges, and different tools yield different results. I wanted to shoot a bit more abstract images to bridge over from the usual dragged shutter and speedlight combo and I think they turned out interesting. Tried a bit of multiple exposure shenanigans. Essentially played around and threw everything at the wall to see what stuck. Maybe a bit artsy even..

Recent Work : Cameron Foggo Design

Back at it with the amazing team at Cameron Foggo Design, we wanted to create some dynamic new images for the line coming out this summer. We built new sets, came up with new ideas, and overall had a blast shooting the new line. It’s always so good to have repeat clients so the work can evolve and improve over the course of multiple shoots. Many thanks for the trust and can’t wait until the next one. The last image is a bit of an extra as we blended ambient light with our strobes to create this evening vibe.

For all the photographers, these are a mix of images from my Sony kit as well as the little Fuji x100v. I’ve been taking the Fuji to commercial shoots for behind the scenes shots as well as documenting my lighting for future reference, but on this particular shoot, I grabbed some frames to see if they held up. I think they did, and it just goes to show you, the megapixelZ aren’t the end all be all for cameras. See if you can tell which ones are which. Put it in the comments and if someone gets it, I’ll mail you a free 8x10 print of anything on my website.

If you’re keen on seeing the first shoot, have a look here!