@futureroadmaps-blog / futureroadmaps-blog.tumblr.com
Ok people, this is exactly what I've been talking about. This makes my heart well up with the same pride that must have lived in the non slave keeping founders of this country. This is a real American. A warrior in the battle for freedom, and it's hilarious. Please watch this and share it with a friend.
Yep, there was a time when we could ride in the back of a pickup truck with all our friends down to the beach or the river. A time when you could catch a baseball at a Yankee game and not get taxed for it. A time when the interior of cars looked like this beast I found just outside of Woodstock. A time when Woodstock itself was not just rich country club people who once knew Levon Helms lawyer in Manhattan and thus feel connected to hippie culture so they live on the golf course here.
Below are two frustrating news stories that just seal the deal that we as a nation are no longer bad asses. We have become a fat sick nation of sheep who let "the man" run our lives. The future is crappy electric cars that go a little further than a golf cart before running out of juice, complete with crappy plastic interiors. Also, this bleak future will not contain lemonade stands with happy children pouring the sugary goodness into dixie cups for a quarter, and if they do, they will have to witness their first sad visions of 1984 style bureaucracy as they accompany their parents to city hall to get a license for something that should be a damn birthright for Americans. People will throw their home run baseballs back on the field, and probably not even get pay checks any more, rather, hand them over to the government in exchange for some GMO food rations.
You mess with the lemonade stands and baseball, you mess with everyone of us! Please read these below and face the shame. Stare it right in the eye and ask yourself if you can abide lemonade stands being shut down by the heat?!
Doing my best nature photography impression out here. There is some really beautiful country in these parts. These trees I found on a short hike.
What can you say about New York City? They do it right a lot of the time. 4th of July from Ira's place in Williamsburg. Now I'm upstate, I have spotted something of interest. It will be vigorously photographed tomorrow.
The opening went really well, other than the fact that we were still typing the price list into the computer 2 hours into the show, but at least the walls looked good.
We are going to do a closing night on June 11th. For those who have purchased or will purchase prints, you will be able to walk out with them that night.
For those who are outside of southern California, we will be posting the entire show on a website prior to June 11th for your viewing, and we would like to thank you all, near and far, for your support and kind words.
Right now, Neil and I are on a little hiatus in NYC, making some photographs around Brooklyn and Manhattan, oh, and mostly eating. We will post some of the NYC work when I get a chance. I got some sweet night shots.
Here's a little preview of finishing touches for the opening last week. As soon as we are back from NYC we will get the show photographed and online. Over and out.
So if everything else does not work out in life, we can at least start a frame shop. We have roughly 40 pieces in the show for Saturday night, and have been matting and framing all of them ourselves (with a little help from our buddy Angel).
We are becoming expert matt cutters and framers. And that's right, we listen to our music out of that one speaker in the corner in actual mono through a mildly vintage NAD receiver. Stereo is so trendy.
I would like to give a shout out to Sam Outlaw our patron saint of country music who's record I have been producing when I'm not printing or framing, and has us listening to Gram Parsons non stop. It is become the sound track to Future Road Maps.
We will be adding a closing night for the exhibit, and will post that date soon. It will be June 11th.
Is this fun? It may be becoming a little bit stressful. We are working all day every day on this show. Things are coming together beautifully. For those who are photo nerds and want a little look behind the scenes, here is our studio in Long Beach. We are doing both silk fiber prints, as well as silver gelatin prints.
Below is my darkroom, it consists of a mechanized BESELER 45MCRX ENLARGER with a Zone VI cold light multigrade head. We are printing on my favorite paper of all time. Ilford Multigrade Fibre Warmtone. Fantastic, beautiful, creamy, rich, if you are not a good photographer, simply using this paper will make you one of the best. You don't even have to take good photos any more!
Now If we could just figure out an endorsement deal, this crap is 2 dollars a sheet, and you throw away 5-10 sheets before you finally nail the print. Here is my latest batch of prints drying below. On silver gelatin paper, the prints pick up 6-10% density once they are dried so you have to be careful to not print too dark. Anyhow, that's our world right now. Signing off. wignall
Our first Future Road Maps exhibit will take place May 7th in Long Beach, CA, and online. It will largely consist of silver gelatin prints, with other mixed mediums. We will do some postings along the way of the dark room printing process, and framing, and hanging around our studio.
This was a big day for me. Fort Bragg, CA. wignall
I met a lady who looked exactly like the woman on the cover of Led Zepplin IV in Point Arena, California. She had a bundle of long thin sticks attached to her back pack, I mean, people, she was that lady. I decided I would offer her 6 dollars, which was all of the cash in my pocket, if I could photograph her.
Many of you know that I tend to rant, I rant about fluoride in the water, about chemtrails, about EMF's... you get the idea. Well I asked the Led Zepplin IV lady, with as much charm as I could muster, if I could quickly make a photograph of her, and I would give her all the money I had on me. Rather than an incoherent Charles Manson-like-homeless-freak person, she ended up being a weathered, but strangely coherent conspiracy lunatic living home free, off the grid, and owner of one of the most fantastic quilts I had ever seen.
She thanked me for asking her permission to photograph her, but said absolutely not, and then went on a rant the likes I had never heard. There will be no pictures because the chemicals pollute the earth, and the ocean, and the EMF's and the poles shifting and chemtrails ad infinitum. She ranted me under the table for an hour, and then asked if I would avert my eyes for a moment as she peed on the ground. Watch how I receive indeed.
I took that as my cue to leave because it just does not look good standing around homeless people while they urinate. I did however have to confront the fact that I am a coward because I talk about dropping off the grid, but I believe I need money to do it. The simple truth is, if I'm willing to give all this up, I can have freedom. Does true freedom equal loss of ambition? Loss of art? I don't know. Here is some trains and stuff:
Train Study, Fort. Bragg wignall
Train Study II, Fort. Bragg wignall
Volkswagen, Fort. Bragg wignall
Ok, for those who have inquired, we are still alive, just not unnecessarily posting. We have decided to only post when we are doing something of interest. We have been off of the road for a while, but are now gearing up towards a big springtime trip.
In other recent developments, Neil and I will be doing our first official Future Road Maps exhibit at our studio/gallery in Long Beach, Ca. this April. More details on that soon...
Right now I am on a 1 week trip to Fort Bragg, Ca. as my better half is going to the Living Light Culinary Institute. My days are spent driving up and down this fantastic coast looking for whatever it is I look for. Neil is at home, so this hardly qualifies as a FRM trip, but I'm thinking of this as a way to keep my chops. A lone Future Road Map following the Neil and Wignall protocol of "Watch how we receive."
I shot some pretty intense black and white images today, but decided to post something a little more light hearted first. As a side note, if you have never driven the Northern California coast in an '83 diesel Mercedes while listening to Grizzly Bear, then you have not lived.
all photos: wignall
So far this coast has been good to me, remind me to tell you about the most amazing crazy lady that I did not photograph.
Tired Santa, CA, Wignall
Southwest Rock Study, NM. Harrison
Low Riders and Train, NM. Wignall
Alberto, Chimayo, NM. Harrison
