Internet Posts

Here are a couple of internet posts from the last month.  It’s always nice to have your work shown on other sites, and I always greatly appreciate it.  Three are from the revamped National Geographic site, then the “Walk With Pride” project was featured on the prominent “Daylight Magazine” blog,  and finally graphic artist Bhagat Singh, who does some pretty incredible work,  sketched out another one of my Nihang images.  The link to his site is posted just over to your right.  I urge everyone who would like to see some compelling images, stories and art to visit each of these sites.

I’ve personally been pretty busy the last couple of nights working on some new MotoHeart posters, which I hope to have done in the next couple of days.  All of the rain here in Taipei has kept off my bike and in front of my computer, which is great for working on images, but not so great for the soul.

“Walk With Pride” to be featured in India’s Largest LGBT Magazine

I don’t think it is a secret that I love India.  It is the only country that I have returned to time and time again.   So when I heard that Mumbai has it’s own pride parade, I told Sarah that it was a priority.  Now, the “Walk With Pride” project will be featured in “Pink Pages,” India’s largest LGBT magazine.  I would like to thank everyone there not just for the feature but for their offer to help in any way possible.  The date is for the march isn’t until August, but with a project this big you have to be thinking that far ahead.  Here is a link to their online magazine http://pink-pages.co.in/new/

“Walk With Pride” Featured on Two Prominent Gay Sites.

Our “Walk With Pride” project has been just been featured on two prominent gay sites.  I always love coming across websites which feel my work is good enough to write about.  The first site is http://www.towleroad.com/ Towleroad began in 2003 and is now a leading online news source offering a broad range of information on politics, pop culture, gay culture, media, entertainment, photography, fashion, technology, men, music, and travel.  A big “thank you” goes out to them.

The second site is “Just Out” which can be found at http://blogout.justout.com out of Portland, Oregon the site  is a great resource for information concerning the gay community.

Writer Nick Mattos wrote up a really flattering piece on the WWP project.  ”Need something to put a smile back on your face after a long holiday weekend of rich foods, cheap liquor, and family drama? Take a few minutes to appreciate how far the gay rights movement has come, relive some Pride weekend memories – and see some breathtaking Taiwanese drag queens – with a new project that seeks to capture the global Pride parade phenomena.”  Another huge “thanks” goes out to them.

Walk With Pride Accepted to Verve Photo

The Walk With Pride photography project is going to be featured on Verve Photo. This is another highly respected social documentary website, and it is an honor for me to have my work accepted. Our project isn’t up yet, but here is the link:  http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/

Walk With Pride is Accepted on socialdocumentary.net

I am very happy to say that the Walk With Pride project has been accepted and shown by socialdocumentary.net

SDN is a very respected website with some truly amazing photography. The images themselves are mostly heartbreaking, but please take the time to go through them. You won’t see 99 percent of these stories on any TV news channel, but I can promise you’ll learn more about the world we live in.

I am honored to have my work included alongside these projects and my name listed amongst these dedicated photographers.

www.socialdocumentary.net/index.php

Fear and Loving in the Philippines

Do you know hate?  I mean real hate.  Not “Man, I hate going to work in the morning.” or “Man, I hate it when it rains on the weekend.”  I mean HATE.  It’s a word that gets tossed around a lot.  I personally use it all the time.  I would say “I hate people who drive slow.” or “I hate having a bad waitress.”  I use to think I knew hate, but now I know that isn’t hate.  That is something else.  A dislike at best.   I know hate now, and I am trying not to hate those that showed me it.  The participants in the Manila pride march, mostly laughed, posed for a photo and went on their way.  They are better people than I am.  My stomach burns.  My eyes go to a slit.  I just booked my ticket for Sydney.  They give me resolve.

"I am glad you have AIDS." Just one of the things this man was screaming.

The Walk with Pride Project

Well, in just two days I will be in Philippines to photograph the “We Dare, We Care.” pride parade in Manila.  While this will be the second parade that I will have photographed, it is actually the first installment in what should be an incredible year of travel and photography.  I showed up at the Taipei parade on a whim, and had no idea that the imagery from that day would snowball into what is turning out to be my most planned out and publicized photography project to date.  The scale of this project is HUGE and will take my girlfriend Sarah and I to 6 continents in around 14 months, ending in a gallery showing in Washington DC.  The response from the Gay community in Manila has been great with several publications and organizations helping us publicize the project, and group leaders giving insights and invites to many of the activities.  I can’t thank them enough, but I am going to try on the blogs that are sure to follow.

I am really looking forward to my first trip to the Philippines, meeting everyone there, and getting this project started on the right foot.  The main goal for me, is to try and get straight guys like myself to stop thinking of this as a “Gay Thing”  and to start thinking of it as a Human Rights issue.   Well..the pics should be posted early next week, so make sure to check out the WWP website to see the goings on.  Wish me luck!

On a side note, I can’t tell you how upset I am that this weekend is also the last race of the season at LTNS.  When I bought my plane ticket, I had no idea.  I had been covering the 2009 season, and now the last race will be missing from my body of work.  I just can’t believe how somethings just work out this way, and I am really distraught over it.  Pray for rain.  Pray for rain. 100 sunny days for just one Sunday of rain.

Well I never said I was going to be good at any of this…..

Well, it’s been two weeks since Raceday, and while I got all of the shots up on Flickr, I have yet to add the images onto my website or write anything about the day on my blog.  I shot just over 2,000 images that day..or maybe it was a little over 3,000.  I can never remember these number things, but it was a good day.  Infact, it was a great day.  I found out early that I was going to be watched very closely, and that I wasn’t going to be any place thought to be a hazard to either myself or any of the racers.  Fair enough, but even I wasn’t expecting not to be able to cross the straight via the footbridge, or not to be allowed on the walkway opposite the pit.  But these restrictions gave me the chance to stay in one place, and the chance to try to capture some images that I wouldn’t of normally.  I really love photographing people,  and on Raceday everyone loves to be photographed.  If you can remember not to step out in front of one of the bikes flying by, you can get some pretty nice people shots.  And I was reminded that I love photographing the racers more than the racing itself.

Another great part of the day was a couple of really incredible races.  Robbie Kilpatrick went out and smoked everyone in his class.  This came as a really big surprise, not that he won, but because his NSR class is usually a battle between Robbie, Temple, and 張 家齊.  Robbie killed it though.  And I am hoping that this will add even more to the next race.  I know for a fact that none of these guys like to lose.

The second is what I will always remember as “The Battle of Longtan.”  They had put the SuperBike A and B classes together, which meant putting the fastest riders from the B class up against the fastest riders in the A class.  It was a chance for the B class riders to prove themselves, and the A class riders to distinguish themselves.  Chen, Wu, Lewis, Leo and MotoHeart’s Ahway, did not disappoint.  There may have been more, I dont’ know.  It’s a bit strange trying to watch a race thru a camera’s viewfinder.  I was in the pit, and the energy was really intense.  The new rules prohibited me from leaving and photographing much of the race, but I knew who ever pulled out the win would be greeted with a lot of emotion from his team.  So I waited.  In the end, it was Chen who grabbed the checkered flag.  His wife was in tears, and I was there when it was all over.

It was an emotional win for Chen.  He had crashed and hurt his shoulder two months before, and had only two practice days since the accident.  Then, earlier that day, he had come off his bike again during what is usually a routine  time trial.  As a photographer, you are always looking for real emotion, a real moment in time.  For me, this is one of them, and it is probably my favorite shot of the season.

Well there are a couple of more subjects that I would like to write about at the tips of  my fingers, but it’s almost 2am, and I think I’m going to go to bed.  Another big thanks to MotoHeart for getting me my photographer’s pass,  I hope to see you guys soon.

Sunday is Raceday!

One of the only actual race images that I want / need to work on this weekend are grouping shots like the one above.

It’s been almost 2 months since I made my way out to the track.  It’s funny how fast time goes by, but a busy weekend, followed by a rainy weekend, followed by a weekend shooting in the mountains, and before you know it, you are getting e-mails asking if you have left the country.  I did feel that I needed a break from it all.  I was there almost every weekend for months, and getting a bit burned out on it. I have thousands of images, many I haven’t looked at in months, and some that I have never even seen.   On top of that, they changed the rules to it all, and I knew I had to regroup and think a bit differently.  This weekend, I won’t be focused so much on the racing, but on the people.  By doing so, I am hoping to add a bit of body to the story.  I am really looking forward to catching up with all of the riders that I haven’t seen in all that time, the smell of burning oil, and the energy created by so much adrenaline being pumped around.

I would also like to share one my greatest sources of inspiration for motorcycle photography.  Andrew Wheeler is a professional motorcycle sport photographer, and his images are just simply incredible.  He not only focuses on the racing, but on the story surrounding each race.  I highly, highly recommend going to his blog and watching the video interview that was posted on July 6th, 2009.  The video is a great look into the man, his passion, and some of his favorite images.  You’ll also get a quick look into how he works and the tools he uses on the job.  You can find the link to his website and blog .  Enjoy!

Oh, I don’t know why, but I am having some trouble putting his links here.  You can find them just to the left under under Motorcycles.

His website is under Andrew Wheeler, and his blog is under AutoMotoPhoto.  Get to it!

Cheers,

Chad

Gay Pride in Taiwan

I don’t think it is any secret that the US is in a bitter war against what would seem to be the natural legal rights of the Gay Community.  Sometimes, watching the news from back home, I am just amazed to see how many people still believe that gay couples don’t deserve the rights that any straight couple naturally enjoys.  Ummm….we do have a little thing called the Constitution don’t we?  Church and State are separate, right?  We are capable of compassion aren’t we? Rational thought?  Empathy?  

Make no mistakes about it, this is our Civil Rights movement, and for those sitting on the fence about this issue, I wonder how you will think of yourself in time, when I have no doubt, The Gay Community will triumph or should I say Ignorance will be defeated.  Imagine if your parents or grandparents had the chance to march with Dr. King, but didn’t.  And when you asked them about it they said “Oh, I didn’t really care, one way or the other.  It wasn’t my battle.”    If you can’t get over the “Gay Thing”  try thinking about it as a “Human Thing”.  I am sure you will be more than welcomed.  Why is this so difficult?  Oh, Obama, how long must we wait?

Gay Pride Parade, Taipei

As a photographer, I knew instantly that I wanted to photograph this event.  I gave my day at the race track up, and arrived at the parade’s location around noon.  There weren’t a lot of people there at this time, just some vendors setting up stands.  I was hoping for a cool, overcast day, but the sun was bright and hot – I was not optimistic.  But I waited around, and more and more people came out.  Then the square was packed, and things just somehow naturally fell into place.  I didn’t get all of the shots that I wanted, and I worry that I spent too much time on the flamboyant  side of the parade, and not the serious Human Rights issues of the march.  In the end, everyone was having such a good time, I just decided to join in and enjoy the day.  Maybe the fact that the Gay Community can do that says more about their character than any image I could have taken.