Tattoos

I have always been interested in the meaning behind people's tattoos or what inspired them to get what they did. So I decided to do a project and photograph people's tattoos and learn the stories behind them. It was pretty cool to hear what people said and to see a variety of tattoos. Here are you few of the photos from that project.

This is my personal favorite. Never in my life have I seen a tattoo quite like this one. The writing is slightly obscured by his necklace, so if you can't read it, it says, "daddy calls me princess". Basically it is a fight against "machoness ".

This one was for a friend of hers who died in a motorcycle accident. He was planning on getting this tattoo, but never did. So she got it in remembrance of him.

At one point I wrote down what this tattoo means, but I can't for the life of me remember. But I do remember the story behind it. The model here was in Thailand and met someone who she fell in love with and they went and got this tattoo together, but I can't remember what it means, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

I am not even going to try to tell you everything that this tattoo means because as you can see, it is pretty intense. One aspect of it is that it deals with good and evil and how we have both sides in us. I can't imagine how long this would have taken to finish this.

When I asked him why he got this tattoo, he said that it is a birthmark. So I guess we'll just leave it at that.

She's a ninja.

This guy got the symbol on his stomach because he had heard that it was the most painful place to get a tattoo. He said it hurt pretty bad. When I asked him about the face of the man, he said, "I just liked him, haha, he's asian."

For a friend who died.

This one was one of those spur of the moment tattoos. It says heart, but when you look at it upside down, it says his ex-girlfriend's name which was Tagen.

This was his first sleeve and just got excited about doing it and went for it.

When I asked him about the meaning behind his stick-figure robot, he said that he hates putting meanings to tattoos. But I finally managed to get some explanation for it; I believe it is a reminder for him to not be a robot. If that's not it, its a pretty cool tattoo on its own.

I was really curious to learn what inspired him to get this tattoo, but when I asked him, all he said was, "you're not getting the story, no one is." He did tell me that it is his favorite of all his tattoos and that he got it when he was 17 and the tattoo artist wasn't going to do it for him because he wasn't old enough, but then he saw what he wanted and was all about it.

This tattoo represents all the important people in her life with each leaf representing someone.

I personally love the green tattoo with her red hair.

This is a tattoo about life.

Panoramas

While we were in China, my professor was kind enough to let me borrow his Hasselblad xpan. It's a really cool camera and I secretly wish it was mine. It uses 35 mm film, but exposes about 2 1/2 frames of what a regular 35 mm camera would to create a panoramic image. So here are a few of the photos from China taken with this camera. And you can click on the photos to make them a little bigger, sorry I realize that they are tiny.

Mao Village: The Mao people are the largest minority group in China. We had lunch at one of the villager's houses and were able to experience some of their traditions. When visitors come to their village they welcome them by holding up a horn shaped thing with wine in it for you to drink as you enter their house. While we were eating, they also had girls walk around the table singing a traditional song and serving us more wine (by serving us, I mean that they hold the cup up to your mouth and wait for you to drink). If you don't drink alcohol, it's probably not the best place to visit. Can't say that I'm a fan of wine, but it was a cool experience nonetheless.

Shanghai, Pudong side (if I remember correctly)

Somewhere in China...

Tibetan Village

Lyrics

Here are a couple of pieces from a project that I am currently working on. For this project, I am illustrating Bob Dylan lyrics in which he sings about women. I still have a lot to do for it, but it definitely has been one of the my more enjoyable undertakings. I have read every song in Bob Dylan Lyrics 1962-1985 which if you have seen the book, you can imagine how long it took just to do that. Hopefully, I will have some more work from this project to post soon. But for now, here are these two. Let me know what you think so far.

I Shall Be Free No. 10

I gotta woman, she’s so mean

She sticks my boots in the washing machine

Sticks me with buckshot when I’m nude

Puts bubblegum in my food

She’s funny, wants my money, calls me “honey.”

Every grain of Sand

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need

When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed

There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere,

Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair

Long forgotten blog of mine...

Regardless of how it may appear, I do still take photos.

Here is some old stuff that I did with my 4x5 field camera awhile back. I will post some current work shortly.

Refineries SLC, UT

Great Salt Lake SLC, UT

Silver Plume, CO

Silver Plume, CO (Taken with dry mount tissue in front of film)

Somewhere in Utah