Lowlife Days

No trip to Japan would be complete with out one of my partners in crime, Mr. Mike Alexander.

 I know that posting blogs, in the middle of the night is pointless. Well, not completely pointless since our brothers in Australia are up, but for the most part, it just means that most people won't see it. I'm going to take my chances though since I really want to share these shots. I've came to the conclusion that I have enough pics to post for a year.

Our early trips to Japan were all business. We found ourselves working all the time.

Here is Makoto cruising in his truck.

This is the time when my brain seems to spin the most. I've had a few drinks, and it's almost midnight. But after a very brief discussion with my good friend Mike Alexander about blogs this weekend and my lunch with Max Fish today, I got motivated. Looking for pics to help my buddy Steve Wilk from Wilk Worx I found a ton of cool pics. So I figured why not share. 

We were on our way to a photo shoot.

One of the many clean ass Japanese trucks we shot.

I found some pictures from my Lowlife Video/Mini Truckin' Magaizne days. I know that these days are gone and behind me, but they sure were some good times. My favorite days were probably spent traveling in the south, hanging with my friends from DIB and hitting all those southern state shows. But my trips from Japan come in close second. These trips were priceless. I honestly think they were so awesome, that they never even sunk in. I mean, here we were, a handful of American "jerks" doing our think in Japan. We didn't hold back, maybe we should have. After all the customs (I don't mean the cars/trucks) in Japan are so different. But here we were, being assholes, tearing shit up and attracting the cops (literally). All in all we never held back and were true to ourselves.

 Check out a couple of candid photos from some of our trips. 

I don't think a moment went buy that we weren't screwing around. Bobby from Sadistic Iron Werks most likely gave Makoto a nut shot here.

The Lowlife Mike I remember.

You should see this thing now. It's come a long way. This is when it was shot for MT magazine the second time. I think this thing has run three times in MT now.

Love this 720. Nissan 720's are very popular in Japan. Picking a clean one to shoot is easy, since most of them look this good.

I didn't shoot this thing. Mike Alexander did. I took advantage of the set-up though and sneaked this shot in.

I did shoot this thing. Shooting in the middle of the day isn't always something you want to do as a magazine photographer. But in Japan you shoot when you can, especially on our crazy schedule. But getting the train in the shot was painfully timed and I love this shot.

Strange photo shoot. The dad was here, and his hot daughter was the owner.

Believe it or not, this is the effect I was going for in this shot. The subject is Takuji Murayama, the President of No Regrets Japan. We were cruising in his body dropped Toyota Pick up.

I absolutely loved this photo shoot. I had to ride with the owner of this truck for what seemed like forever. He didn't speak a word of English and I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but we both spoke minitruck.

Lowlife Video Circa 2004-ish

This is Mike shooting the cover to "The Corruption Tour" which was our unreleased video. Sort of, you see 1000 copies were produced and some lucky fans of the video did get it.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REST OF THE SHOTS

These Pictures are from our first trip to The Indy Truck Bash in Indiana. I remember that every truck we shot this weekend for Lowlife Video was from Relaxed Atmosphere.

Some of the tickets from our trip

I didn't always just wear black shirts

 

 This was a hell of a trip, Mike Venegas and I traveled by stand by all the time which means you may or may not get on the flight. To make it even more interesting this time we took a few friends with us. So now it was four of us on the road. We ended up in Ohio and drove a rental car to Indiana. Along the way we got pulled over on the highway and it would be one of two times we got pulled over while in Indiana.

I did end up getting a ticket for speeding, but luckily the cop didn't bust us for open container. You see while I was mashing out on the highway, good ole' Mike Venegas was drinking a good Bud Light. Instead of stashing the beer right away, he pounded it just before the cop got to the window. And where do you hide a beer, in the glove box of course, right next to my wallet. Luckily we the cop didn't notice and let us go on our way.

This picture is not from Indy, just from an old shoot same time period.

This picture is not from Indy, just from an old shoot same time period.

Years later Lowlife Mike would be banned from this show, for running the Golf cart down the raceway and later into his own booth. GOOD TIMES!!!

This picture is not from Indy, just from an old shoot same time period.

If you were there, you would know. For the Lowlife crew it was always a non stop party. I just wish in these early days I would have taken more pics. Keep an eye out for more pics from the early days which I'll be posting over the next week.

Lowlife Videos for sale!

Want to replace a Lowlife Video you've lost or lent to a friend and never got it back. Well the Mind of Macias store now has a few of your favorite titles in stock for only $15.00 +s/h. These prices won't last forever so make sure you get on there and order your favorite Lowlife Video today!

We have the following titles:
Lowlife Video Issue #2 - No Regrets
Lowlife Video Scoundrels
Lowlife Video Borrachos
Lowlife Video Pendejos

TO VISIT THE MIND OF MACIAS STORE JUST CLICK HERE

Lowlife Video Pendejos, cover shoot

This picture you see below is the shot that ended up as the cover to Lowlife Video Pendejos. The shoot took place with Dayna Delux in Lancaster Ca. I shot the pics in the same spot as I shot the same truck for the cover of Mini Truckin' Magazine. This was easily the most fun shoot I ever did considering I was a nervous wreck. Dayna was awesome to work with, she knew how to pose and really work the camera. The funny thing is I had shot covers for Tailgate and Mini Truckin' before, but I had never shot a cover for Lowlife, so I was freaking out. Plus this cover included one of the most recognized car models ever. 

Besides the border and name in the corner, this image is unedited.

I remember thinking as I was shooting and looking through the View Finder just how amazing it was that I was shooting with Dayna. I absoloutely love her work and I thought shes was completely gorgeous. She had a great attitude and a bright smile. It's hard to imagine that the shoot almost didn't happen. Originally we were supposed to shoot it with Sabina, (20th anniversary cover for MT mag, I also shot) another famous pin-up model but we couldn't make it happen. Luckily for us, my homie Josh knew Dayna from going to the bar she worked at and was able to set this up.


Shooting the flame shots was nearly impossible because I was shooting a girl, and a truck shooting flames all at once. I'd say I took about 300 of those shots. I didn't actually need them, I only took them because Lowlife Mike was filming the sequence. But they ended up being pretty cool.



I've Been Everywhere!

If you collect comics, or stamps, or have a different sort of hobby their is a good chance you don't get to see or do much. I'm not saying those are boring hobbies, Ok I am saying that , I lie! However my hobby of being a minitrucker has helped me see more of the world than I ever could have expected.

The picture that was on my column in MT for those few years! This was taken at the sittin pretti show outside of Seattle Washington. It's what happens when Lowlife Mike has a fish eye lens and is bored.

I've been to over 25 states, Japan, New Zealand, Australia,  and Canada strictly for Minitruck related stuff. Of course having been a part of Lowlife Video and Mini Truckin' magazine defiantely helped that out. Another huge aspect has been having such a great group of friends. On more than one occassion my buddies have flown me out to some kick ass show or even Mardi Gras! Having a supportive wife at home also helps. My wife puts up with a lot. Everytime I tell her I'm going to see some new part of the country or world without her I know it bums her out, but she still backs me up all the way.


Hurricane Malt Liquor in Mississippi, we still never got these in California



Texas Heatwave, Austin, Texas. I suppose I got really excited when I saw the kick ass mural.



Maui, Hawaii

It used to be that I was hitting tons of shows a year when the economy was booming. These days I'm still hitting as many as I can but things have really slowed up. As I'm sitting here writing this I have realized that Tex Mex is this weekend, and as much as I have been looking forward to it, I may not be able to go. boooo!!! But what can I do? I can only do so much. I guess I'm kind of bummed out.


suburb of Phoenix, Arizona



Truckmasters, somewhere outside of Tokyo Japan, I can't ever remember the names of the towns in Japan.

somewhere outside of Seattle again lol



In the studio, Anaheim, California

SEMA Las Vegas 2006 or 2007, who knows

Space Needle Seattle Washing. We would have been to the top but it costs like $60 bucks!

Sunny Southern California, still my favorite







Shooting a Cover

Shooting Chad Lucas's truck for the cover of Lowlife Video was a hell of an adventure. To understand why, and really have it in perspective you would have to understand where I live in accordance to where Chad lives and Aaron Ihas shop is. The reason why is we met all those involved in this shoot in the Los Angeles area, but I live in the Riverside area which is a bit of a drive. After meeting there I realized that Truckin' was also shooting a truck at the same time as us. Why were we shooting together and all that I have no idea but we were. We also had a guest, Makoto Akamura from Trucktrends magazine of Japan was with us, and he always makes every situation more interesting.

Chads truck, STK TRUK, and the Desert Dragger can be easily seen in this shot, but also notice the Chassis by Aaron truck in the background being shot by Truckin'

So as the day wore on, we finally jumped into the rides and headed off to the shoot, we were shooting Chad Lucas's truck for the cover of The Borrachos DVD and Truckin' was shooting Aaron Ihas Tundra for the cover of Truckin'. When we jumped on the freeway I had no idea where we were going but I was very surprised to see that we were running out of light because we were driving kind of far, and we were driving back towards my house. I thought to myself, why the hell did I drive all the way to LA, only to end up back in my hood? Just part of the madness of these shoots, but at least I knew we had a hot model lined up and just hoped she would be on time which she was.

We always used some of the hottest models available, this model was provided by Gil Luna from Tailgate Magazine.

As we drove all over Rancho Cucamonga trying to find our location I remember that everybody was worried we would run out of light so we scrambled like crazy trying to get situated.

Once on location we started shooting, Lowlife Mike was filming, I was doing nothing as usual so I started taking background shots and Chad Lucas was shooting his own truck. I don't know why I always took background shots. We didn't need them and we didn't use them, but I'm really glad I did or else I wouldn't have this material today. I don't know if I was practicing my photography or just taking pictures of the pretty girls. But I'm glad I did it. Check out some of these shots and click the link below to see them all. You will notice that some of my shots are blurry and that's because I shot them hand held in lowlight. I never thought I would need these for anything and therefore didn't use a damn tripod.

Ok, sometimes the models were bad!

And sometimes they were even worse! (Whats up with those shoes?!?!)

Static dropped minis come in handy at photoshoots.

Such a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

The finished product

Borrachos Cover Shoot - Photobucket

Borrachos Cover Shoot - Flicker

Just Another Day at Work

As the Shop manager for Tattoo Revolution I always have to come up with interesting ways to get the shop name out there. Of course having a friend like Lowlife Mike makes it easier for me, because after all he has a great talent. I knew that Mike liked getting tattooed so I figured why not use his talents to help us out, and help him out at the same time.

I asked Mike to help me make some clips and so far we've made two. The first was a clip for Marc Jackson; it was a hand Tattoo. On 2-23-11 he came into the shop to do the second clip and had Aaron Funk tattoo a portrait of his daughter on his ribs. It was about a four hour process and we filmed the whole thing. We did take it a step further and did it live also. Sure, it wasn't as awesome as we envisioned but we learned a crap load of things through the process. First we learned that we need to turn the audio on and we should probably use a station that has a better vantage point for placing the cameras.

Aaron Funk doing work!

The finished product. (picture courtesy of Lowlife Mike)

Aaron Funk Portrait on Ribs teaser clip 

Marc Jackson, Tattoo Revolution hand tattoo

Check out some of the shots from the shoot and I'll be sure to post the video when it's finished. And be sure to stop by Tattoo Revolution and check out the work we do.

Lowlife Mike Tattoo Revolution Shoot - Photobucket