Forbidden Fantasy 2011 Preview

Alright everybody, so I took about 700 photos at the show this weekend. I didn't have the time, or the fast enough connection to upload my shots tonight. So I went through and picked a few of my favorites to upload. Tomorrow or the next day I'll be uploading the entire set, and talking about the show!

Thanks for stopping by and comments are always welcome.

FFF 2011 Preview - Flicker
Photobucket

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE COMPLETE FORBIDDEN FANTASY 2011 SHOW SET

Lancia Phedra

Original (Lancia GrandVoyager)

Hyundai Santa Fe

Original (Kia Sorento)

Toyota Starlet

Original (Toyota Matrix)

Showfest 2011 May 14-15 2011

I've been thinking a lot about Showfest this year, after all last year it was the most memorable show for me. I've been thinking about the past shows I've been too as well, the incredible times I had at those shows. The memories; Cops, Lowlife Video, cruising the streets, hanging with the locals, 3600 mile round trip, the amazing food, food fights at Shoneys, and buying the entire diner food on Lowlife Mikes credit Card and all the amazing friends I made.

Thinking about this made me look for old pictures of the show. I then realized that I had pictures of the show from 2004, 2005 and 2006. The pictures from 2004 were half taken from me and half by my buddy Steve Wilk, and the 05 pictures were definitely taken by me and 06 were the first time I shot it for a magazine. Such awesome memories. I'm glad the show came back and I'm looking forward to going this year. I'll be there from Friday to Monday. This year I'm shooting the show freelance for Trucktrends Magazine from Japan, and If at all possible I will be helping New Mini Truckin' Magazine editor John Mata shoot some features. You never know how busy he might get.

We'll start with the newest pics from last year, Showfest 2010! Be sure to click the links below to check out passed show coverage, and a lot of it.

NR 1 and High School Mini at last years show!

Showfest 2010, Tunica, MS - Photobucket -

10 Flicker

Showfest 2004 - Photobucket

04 Flicker

Showfest 2005 - Photobucket 

05 Flicker

Showfest 2006 - Photobucket 

06 flicker

Los Boulevardos BBQ 2011

When I first heard Los Boulevardos was hosting a bbq and show, I was pretty pumped. I love the style cars they build and their attitude as a whole. I was expecting a few cars and some cool people but I was blown away to see a ton of cool rides in the park the morning of March 5th.

For me this wasn't going to be an average Saturday cruise in my 72 Monte. My morning started early, 6 am. I woke up early because I knew it was going to be a long drive to Van Nuys from Moreno Valley and I was going to make a quick stop in Fontana to pick up Jimmy. Jimmy had been drinking until 4am, I knew this because of his text messages to me and his Facebook posts, so I knew Jimmy would be in a world of hurt, but I also knew he's still down as shit anyways. Steve showed up to my house on time and we hit the road to pick up Jimbo. When we got to Jimmy's house he was passed out on his couch, drooling all over it but he sprang right up and after only two hours of sleep and jumped in the back seat. "I didn't even brush my teeth!" he says, "ah, fuck it."

Doing about 85 mph we got to the show in less than two hours, not bad I thought. When we rolled in the first car we see is Roger O'Dell's bright pink 57 Cadillac. I knew we were in for a treat. Right a way a friendly face comes up to me an says I can park anywhere I want, the grass or the parking lot. My car being a daily and kind of beat I opted for the parking lot, I hid in between an old 70s suburban close to a PT cruiser. That might have been the only car that I was shocked to see. But hey, they apparently don't  discriminate.

As the day went on, people were bbq'ing (made up word) throughout the park. Carne Asada was in the air. We started getting hungry and that's about the time the LB guys started up the grill for their free BBQ. Because the BBQ was free I decided I would donate to the raffle by buying as many tickets as I could since all the money was going to charity.  That ended up paying off for me, I won two raffles including a bad ass skateboard. All in all, to me the day was a huge success. Jimmy, who slept for half the show in the back seat of my car, Steve and I had a great time, it was worth the drive and bottoming out my car on the 101 over and over again. I can tell you that if they have it again, I know I'll be back and next time maybe I'll bring a few more friends along. I know they had some hot dogs left over and I know a few fat kids that will help with that.

Thanks to all the Los Boulevardos members for the great time! Click the link below to see a few shots from teh show

Los Boulevardos BBQ 2011 - Photobucket

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