Unfortunately it was raining nearly all of those 48 hours. But thankfully I had an eager assistant, Amy Beaver who helped out immensely. And the most surprising, the guys in the motorcycle clubs were literally some of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. Big, burly, muscular, rough, leather-clad, loud-motorcycles… yet never hesitated to listen to what I had to say or give me a helping hand… not to mention they always asked if I wanted a beer. (duh, yes)

Working with RIDES is a joy, they’re definitely one of the magazines that “get it”. Courteous editors, talented art directors, and very respectful all around. The icing on the cake, however, is my pictures were picked up by Harley-Davidson and are now being used all over their website.

What I lack in muscle, I make up for in height!!!… right?!? Not sure if I’ll ever fit a Harley between my legs (I’m more of a sportbike guy), but I had a great time hanging out with some of the finest from ATL.

Excellence’s photography style is a little more traditional than my edgy style, so I had to back off the lighting and post-processing for this shoot. A small challenge. The featured car is a daily-driven badassss (had to go back and add a few more s’s) 930, cleverly titled “Sledgehammer.” The owner and I met in the mountains of Saluda, NC for the shoot, and do some spirited driving. Time ran a little short, but got all the shots we needed for a nice feature… and a chance for me to get to ride shotgun! This car makes the infamous esses of the Saluda Grade look straight. Big thanks to my buddy Danny Tang for assisting.

And now my book collection has birthed triplets. I was suggested to pick up Porsche: Excellence Was Expected to help with my future collaborations. Every nut and bolt of every Porsche ever conceptualized is in this collection. Yes, this feature is just the first of many many more to come.

That’s all for now, hopefully the next time I blog something about bikes it’ll be about me winning! (Cat 4, cough)

So alas the second issue further expands what we as a team want to see in WMB 3D. More interaction, more variety, more stories, more more more! All of this gibberish to me means more designing. We jumped from 8 features in the first issue to 15. And instead of featuring primarily beautiful women, the second issue has everything from motorized bicycles to the legendary Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee. Just take a glimpse for yourself:

Gabrielle Union graces our second cover of WMB 3D. (2D version displayed)

Beefed up Table of Contents, and a much longer list of team members.

The Legend: Stan Lee. It was an absolute joy to design this feature.

Introduction spread to Gabrielle Union’s feature. Simple, graceful.

Funny guy Chris D’elia hamming it up for the camera. This is a good example of how much more words were added to the second issue.

Nick took his 3D camera to Kenya… yep, Kenya. Yep, 3D camera. You gotta see this.

Even more variety. Dyson fans, Louis Vuitton shoes, Pioneer speakers, to name a few.

And arguably one of the best photoshoots in the existence of photoshoots… this issue’s Fashion feature. Nick Saglimbeni tore the roof off wit this one. The pictures in 2D are stunning, but in 3D?!? It’s unbelievable. Further insight on Nick’s blog HERE

This is just a small taste of what the magazine offers. Once you finally put the 3D glasses on (c’mon, they’re cheap! Maybe $2 at a party store.) and view the magazine in digital or print form, you WILL be taken to a whole new world… Above all we’re a group of artists putting our heart into something we love, and hope the public enjoys as well.

Download WMB 3D Issue #2 from iTunes App Store, Android Market, or 9×12″ Limited Print Issue.

Mo Sabri – The Overnight Classic album cover

For the shoot, we decided on 2 different locations/looks. One would be in an open field with lifestyle photography. And the other would be a more stylized commercial look. With the sun setting, we went to the first location in the hills of Johnson City…. no shortage of grass and trees in Tennessee. Like that rhyme? I could be a hip hop artist too!.. (cough)

Then we headed to “downtown” Johnson City to do some low key night shots. The album title “The Overnight Classic” had already been determined, and I thought a night shot would be most appropriate for the album cover. Here it is without the title added:

His lyrical genius, good beats, and loyal fans skyrocketed him to the top 10 of iTunes World chart on January 1st on release day. Damn good way to start the new year.

The location was the HAX Athletic Club basketball courts south of Los Angeles. Like most shoots with high-profile persons, this one was short. My lovely assistant Lauren and I had roughly 15 minutes of shooting from first shot to last. No worries, I had more than enough images to mess with when I got home.

Despite the short time-frame of the shoot, Derrick was very kind enough to personally come over to me while I was packing up my gear and say a genuine “thank you” and pose for a picture with me. Definitely a moment I’ll never forget. The Chicago Bulls instantly skyrocked to my 2nd favorite team, and DRose easily my favorite NBA player… C’mon I can’t be a bandwagon jumper, go Suns!

For the short-attention spanned people out there, just watch the video below. Yes that’s right, you get to see me walk and talk (in High Definition at that). I bet you didn’t know today was going to be your lucky day.

NOW for the normal-attention spanned people out there, I’ll go in to a little more detail.
First of all it took much more time than I thought to find a good quality/sturdy desk that could roll. Simple to ask, hard to find. After some uninspiring hours of googling, I stumbled upon Anthro, a company out of Portland, Oregon. They have more options than a McDonald’s Big Mac. TONS of desks to choose from, and the one I got is the 60″ Anthrocart. Black, with 5″ caster wheels, and computer siderack.

Introducing the World’s FIRST rig shot from a desk.

It may look like a typical desk, but the quality of Anthro is top notch. You can just “feel” it. No flimsy parts here. Not to mention their customer service is 2nd to none. Ask for Doug Campbell if you give them a call.

My other quest was to find sturdy monitor holders that clamp to the back of the desk. I’m extremely impressed with the arms from Ergotron. Super snazzy, sturdy, and quickly adjustable on the fly to my heart’s content. The big 30″ monitor needed the MX model for the extra weight. For the smaller monitor I got the more compact LX model. Power Rangers eat your heart out.

See that big window in the background? That’s one of the main reasons I wanted the desk to be portable. During the day the sun can really beam down on the desk. No worries, just push it a few feet into the shade. I’d bore you with specifics on the computer. But to skim, it has 12GB DDR3 RAM, i7-920 2.66 GHz Processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 grahics card, SSD internal hard drive, and TONS of bullet proof back-up external hard drive space thanks to drobo. pew pew pew! Steve Demmitt helped me put all the pieces together, can’t forget about that.

And there it is. I’d bore everyone if I went over EVERYTHING associated with my workspace, so leave a comment below if you have any questions… Chances are I’ll be typing my response from this very desk!

I’ll be the first to admit that I hop on google and dedicated creative sites to brainstorm. For example look at what I found after doing a quick search for “creative résumés” www.honkiat.com

Reading résumés can be boooooooooooring, and boooooooooooring résumés (unintentionally) can reflect your personality. I chose to be light-hearted with my approach. Specifically, talking about being the “Grand prize finger painting winner at Sunshine Preschool” in 1986, continuing my timeline to 2021, and inserting a slew of informative fun (somewhat true) graphs.

A few rules I go by when creating a résumé:

1. Keep it under 1 page (more than 1 page makes you seem egotistical)
2. Address each résumé to their respective peers (cover letters are so 1997, and wastes paper)
3. Throw in a few fun facts and/or graphics (a wall full of words isn’t very engaging)

For a final touch, I made two versions: computer friendly and print friendly.
On computer monitors (back lite), less energy is exerted with the color black. And for print, less ink is used on white. You get the idea. Not like I’ll be saving any forests here, but this small step can go a log way into showing attention to detail.

Left: computer version / Right: print version

Who is Cargo (the addressee)? A killer ad agency in Greenville, SC I’ve been working freelance for over 6 months now… See a connection here? I’ll save another blog post for that. But till then check out their website: http://thinkcargo.com

Rahsaan also brought along local cyclist Stella Tong as well to model the women’s outfits. She was like the Asian MacGyver, she had a reflector (reflective car sun shade), flashlight and a bike shop in the back of her Xterra. Also big thanks to Roxie for assisting, Nick Saglimbeni for letting me borrow his AMAZING Canon 85mm 1.2L lens, and my boy Luke Munnell for letting me borrow… everything else! That’s right I didn’t even use my own camera or lights for this shoot.

A few items are available to purchase here.

On a serious note… on the day of the shoot, Rahsaan got word that his first cycling coach that brought him out of trouble, and on to a bike of limitless opportunity, had passed away. The cheetah marks on his uniform are symbolic of his coach nicknaming Rahsaan “little cheetah.” Pedal on big cheetah, you’re an inspiration to myself and many others.