These are photos of the famous Hearst Castle up in San Simeon, California. I drove up there a week or so ago to finally see this incredible “house” that was owned by genius magazine magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst inherited the land his father had bought which was around 250,000 acres and 14 miles of coastline. That is a lot of land. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. Today, I think Heart’s children own roughly 82,000 acres now. Which is still absurd. Basically when you stand a top of where the house is and look in a 360 degree view, they own that plus some.

The house itself is gaudy to the max. Apparently Hearst had a thirst for antiquity and art. The house was designed by American architect Julia Morgan. The guest houses (one of them being the second picture in the series which is Casa de Sol) are probably bigger than your house. The famous Neptune’s pool is nothing short of amazing. Part of me really wanted to do these in color but I thought running with a 1930’s theme would be a nice adage to the Hearst Castle.

No detail was left unnoticed. Enchanting is a good word to describe the place. So many artisans were hired to carve this and carve that. The “house” itself is a museum filled with art and then more art. Must have been rough to have that kind of wealth. Too bad Mr. Hearst couldn’t have an iPod to bump at his parties. I’d love to see what a modern day Hearst would have as a house.

My favorite feature was the tennis court. I don’t know why. Our tour didn’t even go over there. I just kind of saw it and wandered over there. It was so clean and modern. It stood out from the rest of the gaudiness that made up the castle. I don’t play tennis but that would be an incredible place to play tennis. But not as cool as the tennis court on top of that tower in Dubai.

The last room we saw was this insane indoor pool that was modeled after traditional Roman bath houses. I’m not sure if Roman bath houses looked like this or not but this room was insane. Apparently it took three years to import all the tiles from Italy. The entire room is covered in these dark blue tiles that have gold mosaics to create creatures throughout. Yeah, the entire room is littered in gold tiles. Top to bottom. Maybe someday I’ll post the color version of the pool. Or you can just do a Google search.

If I were Hearst, I would have been totally ok with building a giant prefab home up there. Biggest damn box you’d ever see sitting on top of a hill over looking the Pacific.

A fun shoot I did with Massimo from Otto a while back. Totally forgot that I had shot these.

Also, the print shop is shaping up nicely. Right now I’m seeing which prints turn out the best. I have three so far and would like another three or six to add. Most likely, I’ll be offering two different sizes that include 11×17″ and either 30×40″ or 20×30″. I like really big prints so at some point, I’ll probably print larger once I figure it out. I’m hoping to have the shop done by September. Stay tuned! The prints are absolutely gorgeous.

I was rummaging through my old Mongol Rally pictures and decided to post up a few pictures of what Azerbaijan sort of looks like. In case you didn’t know, I did this thing called the Mongol Rally last summer. Me and another teammate drove from London to Ulanbataar, Mongolia in a very small, tiny car. Azerbaijan was one of the countries we drove through. I felt like I failed as a photographer trying to document this trip. I got some great shots for sure but overall, I wasn’t too happy with my photojournalism skills. The trip for me was emotionally, physically and mentally draining. So much was happening every single day that and we were never in one place for more than a few hours. And when I did have down time, all I wanted to do was eat. And most of the time I was just eating rice and butter cookies. I ended up losing 15-20 pounds on the entire trip. We were on the road for a total of 38 days. I felt like butter near the end.

The one important thing that this trip taught me is the importance of fiber in one’s diet. The lack of fiber will cause you to become very irritable and cranky. Bring fiber pills when driving through Kazakhstan. Your intestinal tract will thank you.

The first two images are from Baku, Azerbaijan. Baku is a big port town on the Caspian Sea. It was interesting there. It was the first time I’ve spent a lot of time in a Muslim country. We were at this port for six days waiting for a ferry to bring us to Actau, Kazakhstan. Temperatures were 100+ degrees and all we had for shelter were either our tents or cars. We walked around without our shirts on and being in a Muslim country, they were not happy with us. We never got in trouble but the police would often tell us to put our shirts back on. Ignoring them seemed to do the trick.

The very first image though is from the back view of the ferry as we left Baku during sunset. I was somewhere on the Caspian when I shot that. It’s pretty awesome be able to say I took a ferry across the Caspian Sea. Not many people get to do that. Hell, most people have no idea where the Caspian Sea is. We also got some Muslim students staying on the ship wasted with a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label on the top deck and blasted Michael Jackson all night long. The other people staying on the ship were not happy with us. But since there was a huge language barrier, only a lot of angry fist shaking from afar went down.

The entire boat ride lasted a little over 30 hours. It was incredibly ghetto but so much fun. The shower was essentially the entire bathroom. The toilet and sink were all part of the showering experience. Unfortunately for our room, the toilet wouldn’t flush. And, well, a luke warm shower and bowel movements from the previous 20 hours don’t make for pleasant smells. Oh yeah, there also wasn’t a light in there. Ghetto at it’s finest. Turns out that would be my last shower for at least 10 days.

The second set of pictures are just random shots from when we first entered Azerbaijan via Republic of Georgia.

Continuing on from my previous post about Big Sur I also visited King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks just south of Yosemite. From Big Sur, I hit up Carmel, Monterrey and almost made it to Santa Cruz but instead I head drove around San Jose up to Oakland. I’m not entirely sure why. I was just driving and hadn’t really figured out where I wanted to go from there. I headed east towards Stockton and the back south down the 5. Around one in the morning, I found a decent rest stop to crash out at and slept in the back seat of my car for a few hours.

I woke up at six in the morning and continued on. I’m a machine when it comes to driving. I have driven through some of the most brutal blizzards and road conditions you could imagine and nothing won’t stop me. I have no problem driving 18+ hour days. So this trip was a breeze. I drove through the small town of Los Banos (No, not baños) to make my way towards Fresno.

The cool thing about California is that it’s huge. I keep forgetting that there’s a lot more to California than Los Angeles. There are so many awesome little towns with hidden gems. I wish I had stopped at this old 50’s doughnut shop in Los Banos. It would have been a perfect photo opp. But instead, I went to Jamba Juice to guzzle a carrot/oj at 7am. Driving through the parts I did, I got to see why California is one of the biggest agricultural states. I have never seen so many active produce farms. Especially some of the orange tree farms near Porterville on the 99. I originally grew up in Wisconsin and we have farms but nothing like this. These farms were definitely mafia controlled.

I got to King’s Canyon National Park around 10 am. Ate some eggs and pancakes that just made me hungrier. I talked to a ranger to figure out what I should do and see and headed out. King’s Canyon is awesome. Your beginning altitude is something around 7,000 feet (give or take). Then you start descending into the canyon which is spectacular and the park’s paved road ends at 4,000 feet. It’s like Big Sur in the sense that if you drive off the road you fall to your epic death. Except this would be a 3,000 foot drop instead of 400 feet. Blue skies. Huge sequoias. Rushing rivers. The works.

What’s really interesting about King’s Canyon and Sequoia is that they are the only parks in the world where sequoia trees grow and they only grow at altitudes between 5-7,000 feet. Sequoia trees may not be the tallest or have the most girth but they are the densest trees on the planet. They are massive. Also, Sequoia Park is home to the highest peak in the United States – Mount Whitney standing in at 14,500 feet. You can either take a long ass hike through Sequoia or you can drive through Independence, CA on the 395 and check it out.

It took about an hour of winding down the road to get to the end of King’s Canyon. I did a little hiking by myself and swam in the most amazing water ever. I found a calm spot on the river that wasn’t crazy rapids or had an insane current. I’m guessing the water was in the upper 40’s. It was all snow run off water and had a emerald green glow to it. Kind of like Lake Louise in Banff, Canada.

It was cold. The kids weren’t too happy if you catch my drift. Then the mosquitoes came full on and I had to get in and out before I was consumed by mosquitoes. When I got out, the pins and needles came and felt awesome. Then 10 minutes later the mosquito bite welts started to show up. Oh joy.

The fires you see in the pictures were done on purpose. It was totally surreal. I felt like I was driving through some burnt village in Lord of the Rings. I was waiting for Frodo and Sam to come running out of nowhere. But the fires were prescribed to probably burn off the excess dry brush. In any case. Tres cool.

I ended my solo trip in Santa Monica. My home. I drove to the beach and jumped in the water and took some pictures of the pier. I drove 950 miles on my day and a half trip. On my next auto voyage, I’m going to hit up Death Valley.

I’ve loved Danny’s work for a number of years now. I actually ended up befriending a gallery owner over one of Danny’s pieces he had at his gallery. Danny’s work reeks of nostalgia and great craftsmanship.

Before I moved west to the beaches of Santa Monica. I “grew up” in the San Fernando Valley. It was there I cultivated my love for nostalgic imagery and sounds. Danny’s art captures everything I loved about the valley. The warmth, the warmth and the warmth. If you live in the Valley, you’ll probably know exactly how each painting makes you feel because at some point, you’ve lived a day where the sky looked just like that.

Out of all the artists that I’ve seen in my life, Danny’s work has probably made me feel the most. It stirs up so many emotions for me and some day… some day I will own one of his pieces of art. But for now, I suppose a beautiful giclee print will do.

Danny’s work is why I miss the valley (even though I’d never live in Van Nuys again). It captures the sweet, warm summer nights that made it special for me. Besides capturing raw emotions, his subject matter couldn’t be more fucking cool. I’m actually surprised the design blog realm hasn’t caught on to Danny’s paintings yet. In any case, his eye for Modern architecture is spot on and captures houses at their sexiest angles. And it’s hard for a house to look sexy.

Check out the rest of Danny’s amazing work: Danny Heller Art.

The other day, I decided that it would be healthy for my soul to take a random road trip. And that I did. I literally just grabbed some stuff, threw it in my car and headed north via the Pacific Coast Highway. If you’ve never had the chance to drive up the PCH, do it. It’s one of the most spectacular, vastly varying drives I’ve ever been on. If you visit Los Angeles, forget visiting Hollywood and Beverly Hills. You’ll be sorely disappointed. Instead, rent a car and do yourself a favor and drive in any direction on the PCH.

I filled up my gas tank and drove north towards Big Sur. I’ve never been to Big Sur and I don’t know why. It’s only four hours from me. Next time I make this drive, I’ll try to document it better. When I go on road trips, I tend to stop a lot for short periods of time. Like… five minutes. I really wanted to see all of Big Sur before the sun set so I had to hurry out of there. I originally had planned on camping out there but all the camp sites were full and you can’t really sleep on the beach since there isn’t any beach as you can clearly see. Just cliffs. Epic, massive cliffs. And driving this was crazy because if you missed your turn… off you go. The pictures don’t do the vastness of Big Sur any justice. It’s just huge and one of the most gorgeous places I’ve been to. America is a truly awesome, beautiful country once you start driving around. Unfortunately, it was insanely windy and cold in Big Sur so I had to keep driving.

Eventually I ended up in Carmel. I tried to find food but… nothing was appealing to me. I kept on. Through Monterrey and San Jose. An hour or two later, I found myself in Oakland. Why I ended up there is beyond me. I could have easily gone to San Francisco but no, Oakland it was. I ate a terrible sandwich at a Denny’s but I was hungry so I swallowed the weird, tangy, high fructose corn syrup flavored spicy buffalo sauce that was smothered on my chicken breast. Ew.

I sat at a gas station parking lot for a good 15 minutes looking at my map, trying to figure out how to head east. A cop rolled up to me and actually helped me. I was waiting for him to ask me if I had been drinking and/or doing drugs and then asking me to step out of the car for no reason. I can never talk to cops like humans. It’s not that I view them as a lower life form by any means but America instills a huge fear in citizens when it comes to cops. I just feel like I’m going to have a panic attack every time one talks to me or is driving behind me.

I headed due east and then south on the 5 freeway. I slept in the back of my car for a few hours and got up at six am. Watched a beautiful sunrise over the Golden State and made my way to King’s Canyon/Sequoia National Parks. Which is where I’ll pick up on the next post.

Forgive me for the terrible picture above. All I could find were 300×300 pictures on Google. So I had to double it in size to make it fit the width of my blog.

Lately I’ve been on a HUGE vintage cowboy/country/blues/crooner kick. The dirtier and grittier the recording the better. It puts Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros to shame. I’m not a fan of Edward Sharpe but stuff like Lee’s is so classic. Lee Hazlewood has a great collection of old school crooner tunes. He’s collaborated with Nancy Sinatra and Nina Lizell.

I absolutely love the time change at 1:08 when Nancy Sinatra comes in and melts your soul.

So enjoy the tunes.

Lee Hazlewood & Nina Lizell – Hey Cowboy

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Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra – Lady Bird

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Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra – Some Velvet Morning

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I decided to write a post showing the process of how I painted my big six foot by four foot painting of koi fish. I’ve done one other piece of the same size but it’s not nearly as cool. I love working on large projects like this. If I had a proper studio to work from I would create larger pieces. I like epic things in case you haven’t figured it out by now.

The picture above shows the first steps. Basically I had this idea that I wanted to paint a big koi pond with red koi fish. I was going through this big Asian kick at the time and thought koi fish would be fitting for the theme. Even though koi fish are slightly creepy in a pretty way. The first step I applied a shimmering gold paint in a cross-hatch sort of style. Then composed the fish with pencil and outlined them with a brown fluid acrylic.

Step two is pretty quick. I use an airbrush for a lot of my work because I’m obsessed with smooth gradients when I paint. With my airbrush and three or four different colors later – I have “burnt” edges. Which also gives it a vignetted look.

The third part is to paint the fish pure white. This requires multiple layers of white so that the background doesn’t show. Easy but tedious.

Now I add the red colors of the fish. This part is fun. Anything that’s a solid color I have to paint over multiple times so that it’s solid.

I’m very influenced by the art of screen printing. I love the clean lines screen printing produces and I always try to mimic screen printed lines by hand. And I have no mastered that art yet. Doubt I ever will.

Add some poop color.

Ahhhh masking… my least favorite part but most essential. This part takes foooorever. Small strips of tape are peeled and applied on the outside of the fish. I try to take on multiple fish at a time so that I can airbrush more than one. Once their fully masked, the airbrushing process is really fast. The most important thing about masking is to mask EVERYTHING. Otherwise paint can and will find it’s way onto the canvas. And there is not command/ctrl-z when it comes to airbrushing. If you fuck up. You fuck up.

And at some point, if you look in the lower left corner of this painting, you can see where I messed up. I was airbrushing with a siphon fed airbrush and the paint canister dropped and threw up a blob of paint onto the canvas. I carefully wiped that area off but it had removed the previous airbrush paint exposing part of the base paint. It’s a small thing to notice but it’s there and it’s annoying.

Almost done. This is the part where I render the fish with an airbrush.

And my absolute favorite part is peeling off the masking. It’s like Christmas for me. It’s interesting to see how the rendering plays with the rest of the painting.

For the final step, I hand painted some white eyes and koi whiskers. They look like pissed off koi fish. Sometimes I’ll introduce the painting as my “angry sperm koi fish”.

And the end result is this. The more you stare at it, the weird it gets. I’m still discovering new depths to this piece and I get to look at it every day.

I use Golden acrylic paints. They’re the best in my opinion as far as color and usability goes. 90% of the time I use Golden’s airbrush and fluid acrylic paints. I never use tubes of paint. Always canisters. It’s just how I work. I use one or two brushes at the most. My favorite brush ever is a big fatty multi purpose brush that has been hacked to death and barely resembles a brush.

If you have any questions – feel free to ask in the comments!

Part III of my shoot with Kiersten. This part is totally different than any of my work. What’s the biggest difference? I used a flash. What flash? I used the really shitty pop up flash on my 30-D. Shame on me. Whatever. I cranked the f-stop down really low and got these sweet results. The eyes are a bit on the dull side. If there’s one thing I didn’t quite capture in this shoot is Kiersten’s INTENSE blue eyes. They’re absolutely gorgeous in person. Very striking. But the cheap flash produced some beautiful results.

One of these days I’ll rent some proper lighting equipment and we’ll see what happens.

This is extremely true. I’m assuming a lot of artists who understand the importance of mastering their craft is would find this video very interesting.