Friday, May 31, 2013

Portrait of the VW Driver as an Artist

A few people have become friends through this online VW world we have going. One of those folks is Jeremy Nix, who lives with his wife in some sort of home built into the mountains where is snows often and his daughter tires him out daily.

It's wonderful to become friendly with people over the interwebs and seem to connect with someone you've never met face to face. But Nix falls into a small category with a few others - as if we'd be instant friends if we got to meet but now it will never work because I write these types of things about him.

Nix has a skill that has been flourishing that you should know about. That skill is telling stories.  He uses photos as his way of telling those stories. And it's been fun to see him get his sea legs and go for shot after shot. Each week he seems to go deeper and gain more courage to find the truth.

He pushes himself deep into the spectrum of others - something he and I communicated about early on. He was resistant to get take shots of random people on the streets. I encouraged him to get over it. And then he blew right past me. While I shoot people from a distance, Nix engages. He get's right into the commute of the person, right into the moment. And the viewer is better off for it. Here are a few examples (remember, this is copyright Jeremy Nix):






And my personal favorite (which I purchased from Nix and just had framed this week):


Why should you care? Because one of these days he is likely to get stabbed by one of his subjects and then you'll wish you had paid attention to the transformation. But until that happens, he is churning out an awesome docu-study of the average-everyday street walking human being. Something we all often overlook.

Oh, that and the fact that he often shoots his 1976 bus, "The Pig", which is why I am writing this post here on a VW website. He sent me a copy of a photo that was included in a show recently. Here it is coming in, and it's final spot (until framed) in my office. Thanks, Nix. Keep up the solid work.





Thursday, May 30, 2013

Finnon Fright Fest 2 is set for October 18-20 at Finnon Lake.

Last year, I organized this campout but wasn't able to attend. details are still coming, but the date has been picked. For those of you in the NorCal area, put this one on the books now as it is not to be missed (says the guy who won't miss another one!).

Details to come at: http://vwcamperfamily.ning.com/events/finnon-fright-fest-2-static-s-revenge


Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Mysterious drivers of New Mexico

On a recent visit to Taos, New Mexico, I encountered a strange phenomenon. I saw several cars there with their license plates altered as to be unreadable. This seems to be accomplished by 1 of 3 ways:

1. paint your entire plate white
2. Paint your entire plate yellow
3. remove all the paint completely from the plate

This wasn't 2-3 cars - I must have seen 20 or so in the week I was there. Of course, this seems to me to be an attempt to avoid detection from traffic (and ticket) cameras. But doesn't this seem to just invite getting pulled over by the police? Here are 2 cars I happened upon in the same parking lot. But, like I said, I saw several at different points of the trip. Am I missing something here? Some grand plan I am not part of?



Monday, May 27, 2013

Oak digs Big Blue...


Friday, May 24, 2013

Bus City 2013 - the 5th annual vw bus campout along the Russian River!

I'll post more pictures and a write-up of the event soon, but here are the first pictures from last weekend's Bus City 2013, held in Guerneville, CA. 35 buses, including Big Blue, made the trip to hang out in the redwoods. Good times!






























Monday, May 13, 2013

some vintage photos - clearing out the digital closet.











































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