Monday, June 7, 2010

Fish out of Water

This corrugated photograph was taken with an iPhone under the subway tracks at the Marcy JMZ station. Riya was sitting on the hood of our car making sure we didn't get a ticket for parking in a 'no standing anytime' zone. We were on location for a shoot by German photographer Stephan Pielow who's putting out a coffee table book in 2011 about New York and people who do watery things here. He's associated with a publication called Mare, which deals solely with ocean related topics. For this shot Stefan didn't want to do 'surfer at the beach' because it's too obvious. Instead he wanted the whole urban surfer vibe. I think he achieved it nicely enough. I also had the 9'6" down there with me and almost mowed over a few Hassid and Orthodox types when turning it around to get the closeup shot. Whether this shoot makes the book will be up to Stefan and the publishers. It was a fun shoot anyhow. It felt so New York I could hardly believe it. One of those moments when you have to pinch yourself. I wore a quintessentially 'me' outfit: an oxford shirt, my twill gstars, brown oxfords no socks, co-op tie, and my vintage pierre cardin blazer that I scored at Static in the upper Haight about 4 years ago (Japanese do vintage right!). Sometimes I do go for a darker aesthetic but this shot needed lighter clothing or I would drown in the shadow. The board I'm carrying is my 5'9" Channel Islands Ksmall - no rocker, glass on fins - a real wizard of a board. It goes well in anything from 2ft mush to 5ft ramps. How did this happen anyhow? The kind folks at Mollusk Surf Shop NYC gave me a ring out of the blue and then linked me up with Stefan and his wife Tina. I got an email that read: "Wear a Joy Division tee and bring your hot rod." I wore the Joy Division tee for our first meeting, but that too was too dark for the location. All in all it was a good time. I was a bit stressing about the car in traffic as blue smoke had been wafting out of the hood accompanied by the lovely smell of burnt oil, which reminds me of a jetski or a rickety ski boat. We took the car in the day after. It's looking like head gasket repair. Yikes! Hope to have it back soon, but if not I'm doing surf lessons by train. Just hope I don't kill any innocent bystanders lugging that 9'6" down to Rockaway.