Good Karma

I must be doing something right, had some good things happen this week...

Rod Powell had been working on my dad's old motorcycle helmet. He surprised me this Thursday when he called me up and told me it was ready for me to pick up just in time for the 6th year anniversary of when my dad passed. I am really happy with how it turned out! Rod is one of the most talented guys I know.

It says "El Bonito" in the front and has the date passed on the back.



It looks even better in person.


We also finally got ourselves a video camera. The Canon HV40...




More good things happened too, a good friend gave me the set of wheels I've been wanting for my truck, another good friend gave me a 24" BMX bike, and another good friend hooked me up with tickets to watch Travis barker & ATrak live... It feels good to have such good friends.

-Juan

On the Scene

We've captured hundreds of thousands of pictures while shooting cars for Deadend Magazine in the last six years. We're not the best, or even close to it... but we sure have a great time. The cars are the reason we shoot, but meeting the owners of the cars is what's really cool. I'm not sure if most photographers are like us, but we don't just shoot a car shake hands and go, we usually hang out, talk, sometimes go for dinner and a drink. I've had a great time and have made some good friends while shooting cars. Sometimes we shoot a car in an hour or so and spend the next 3 or 4 hours talking... Here's a few behind the scene shots...

Photographing the March Meet in Fomoso, CA is always fun.

Here are the on-lookers as I shoot Joe's 35 Ford... We almost never travel alone, our friends love tagging along with us.

This may look staged but I can honestly say it's not.

Big watcha looking out for me as I shoot a car in traffic.

My carnal hanging out with Joe Epstein as we shoot his picture perfect 39.

As we're about to go shot RJ's bike..

On Whittier Blvd.

That's me shooting Randy's Chevy.

It's not always safe.

Beto, Lil Watcha and I in the background as John moves his beautiful deuce roadster.

Paz
-Juan

The Little Giant

Just uploaded Dj Sho-T's website.



He's one of the best and hardest working DJs on the Central Coast.

Peep game.. www.djsho-t.com

-Juan

Short Track

Went with my buddy Beto & his son to watch some short track racing a couple of nights ago... It was awesome, the racing and watching the little guy react to the racing.
I think this was my favorite bike at the event, didn't see it run, but it looks good.

Another nice looking bike.

Lil Beto... enjoying the races.. He would scream really loud.

The building where the racing was held was awesome.

Yo Gabba Gabba!

-Juan

Shooting Salinas Boys, Otra ves.

Last week my brother followed along and photographed Cole Foster & Aaron Elliott of Salinas Boys Customs for a couple of days for an upcoming catalog. I went after work to help and bug them. It's always neat to hang out and talk about custom cars with these guys, not only are they talented but these dudes got style. It's always neat to shoot stuff we regularly don't. We usually shoot cars without people, this time my brother's client wanted Cole and Aaron in the pictures..

Here are a few outtakes...

On the first night I showed up late to just pretty much BS with them. Cole and Aaron brought out some very nice Japanese Magazines for us to check out.

One of the places we shot at was Ben Rega's shop... The place is awesome. This is Ben's shoebox that hopefully you'll get to see in person one day. One of the nicest Shoeboxes I've seen (and I've seen a lot of Shoeboxes)

Ben was smart enough to grab this sign before it was destroyed... Nice!

Aaron asked us to get a shot of his logo (done by Rod Powell) so I could digitize it..

After shooting in both Ben & Aaron's shops we headed to the Foster residence to shoot Cole, Aaron & Susan. Here's my brother doing what he's best known for.

Susan brought out a very cool Las Vegas book that I now want!

Of course when we're all together we start talking about random stuff... It usually starts out with cars and this night I think the conversation ended somewhere between blogs and porn...

You'll see some of the pics my brother took later this year. They're neat!

-Juan

Cellphoto

1 - My god daughter & I goofing off.
2 - Chavelas from Mi Tierra in Old Town Salinas
3 - $7.00, That's Hood!
4 - Sushi from Ikebana in Salinas
5 - 101 Root Beer, Pretty cool to walk into a store and see a label you designed
6 - Diego messing with my ipod
7 - Rod Powell art
8 - Diego relaxing as I drive down south 101

-Juan

SR500 - Salinas Style

I posted a few pics of Aaron (of Salinas Boys) working on an SR 500 that went to Japan a couple months ago...

http://939o5.blogspot.com/2009/10/weekends-were-made-for-fun.html

I figured I'd post some shots of the finished bike...







Are these dudes good or what!?

photos by my brother Jesus Espinoza (of Deadend Magazine)

-Juan