Clouds

I don't know if any of you guys have noticed, but we've had some dope as hell clouds around here lately. Screwy weather kinda does that (tee-shirt weather today, 10in of snow forecast for tomorrow). I was up at the new City Hall observation deck a few days ago and these were a few pictures I took.Over the Capitol District and Shockoe. I really like this shot because it does an amazing job of showcasing the architectural diversity of the city of Richmond. From the left we have the tallest (by stories) skyscraper in Richmond: the modernist-style James Monroe Building. Then, just below that we see the Mesopotamian-Revivalist Patrick Henry Building, better known as the Virginia Supreme Court. Beside that we see the neo-gothic towers of Old City Hall. Those spires then lead us up into the Jeffersonian Neo-Classical style of the State Capitol, which is shown right below the modernism of downtown buildings like the Wachovia tower and the international-style Bank of America Building. Many styles, one skyline.

Over the Monroe Building and Church Hill.

Over Church Hill and Northside.

I'm not particularly patriotic, but this did make for a pretty cool shot.

This guy stormed out onto the observation deck and over to the windows really angrily. I think the clouds calmed him down.

Happy 4th, Limited Edition!

If you're looking for the most exclusive, limited streetwear brands on the market in Richmond, from Rocksmith to RichYung, there's only one place to go: Limited Edition. I was over there last night to take some stock pics of the place and talk to my man Tommy, the manager of the establishment.

The boutique itself, located at 302 Goshen St., is a beautiful set up. Featuring atmospheric lighting and oriental motifs, the boutique has a very relaxed, warm feel. When you first walk in you enter the main display room, every wall packed with product organized by item of clothing and brand. Then, just down the hall, you'll find the sneaker gallery. Wall-to-wall lighted shelves of cellophane-wrapped limited release BAPEs, AF1s, Jordans, Nikes, and more.

Ltd/Ed was founded four years ago last monday by Tommy's cousin to be one of the few pioneer streetwear boutiques in the Richmond area. Since then, this hole-in-the-wall shop just off Broad St. has grown to be arguably the best stocked streetwear boutique in town. With area-exclusive holds on brands like BAPE and RichYoung, Ltd/Ed has become an oasis for true sneakerheads and leaders of the fashion scene in Richmond, not to mention its online store which receives orders from as far as Hong Kong for its goods. Even the owners of other streetwear boutiques in Richmond shop here. I met Jimmy Conway of Kulture (also a great boutique) as he was looking at some BAPEs last night.

The first time I walked into Ltd/Ed, Tommy kindly opened the door, lead me inside, and courteously introduced himself. He then gave me a tour of the shop, going through every brand and its place on the shelves, and then ending with the sneaker gallery. As incredible as their selection was, it was the attention to the customer and service that truly left me with my jaw dropped. Streetwear boutique workers are all too often elitist snobs (more on that later) who see customers as nothing more than the money they're willing to spend, and here I was getting treatment I wouldn't expect at a five-star restaurant the first time I'd ever walked into the place. What's more, Tommy is personable even beyond first-impressions. Since meeting him I've learned that he does his own emcee thing, and he's pretty good too. He told me yesterday he was going up to NYC soon to do a show with the likes of Rakim (a name anyone at all interested in hip hop should know). Check Tommy's MySpace and learn something.

To sum things up, Ltd/Ed is one of Richmond's best stocked streetwear boutiques and it takes pride in its service to boot. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself. If you do, that should be enough reason to drop by and see what's good. You're welcome.

Chicago #1: Welcome to America!

I've been meaning to get to it for a while, but this is finally the first of a few sets of shots I took while I was in Chicago a few weeks ago.

The first morning after flying into Chicago to visit some of my Filipino relatives, my cousin Ryann and I decided we wanted to to experience the city first hand and got a ride with some family to Howard Station to catch the Metra into town. While at the ticket machine, we were approached by a large, smiling, lazy-eyed man. He introduced himself as "I could be Santa" and asked what we were doing. My cousin and I explained to him that we were from out of town and wanted to explore the city. He broke out into a huge smile and told us, "Welcome to America!" He was so excited in thinking that he was giving us our first taste of what he deemed "this great country of freedom" that whatever attempts we'd made at explaining to him that 'out of town' meant the east coast were sad and ineffective. He then told me to take photos of him and Ryann together and then ordered my cousin to take down his address on his iPhone so that I could mail prints of the photos after my return "home." After this ordeal he said goodbye and wished us a happy visit one last time before heading up the stairs to catch a train himself. As far as beginnings go, I'm going to say that first morning of the trip was about as interesting as it gets.

The shit I go through...

As anyone who likes to view graffiti as a past time or write graffiti themselves will tell you, getting to the site is almost always a bitch. Whether it be a fenced-in train yard or the roof of a building, the best spots are often the least accessible. If that spot happens to be at the bottom of thirty feet of jagged rock and thorny vines, it might also not be the best idea to try getting down there with a couple hundred dollars of fragile camera equipment on your back if it's a slick, wet, rainy day. The shit I go through for you guys...

Cuts and bruises aside, these photos from under a bridge in Southside Richmond came out surprisingly well for how little sunlight I was working with today. The picture you see above is the beginning of a leapfrog piece that spans the entire wall, but the pictures I got don't do it justice so I'll have to get more some other time.

On the direct other side of the wall, across a pretty sizable creek, you'll find three gorgeous pieces in a sort of side-by-side gallery set up.

The left-most piece of the wall is an Elk wildstyle. The colors used provide a contrast that makes the image jump out at you, even in dim light. Also adding to the animated effect is the seemingly organic feel of the piece. Anyone remember what the inside of cellular mitochondria look like from biology? Though I definitely like this piece, it's a little too experimental for my taste. You almost can't make out the lettering in the art. In my humble opinion, you can only get so creative before you lose touch with your artistic identity in a piece if you're a graf writer.

Lucky for us, Elk also did the piece directly adjacent, and this time you can make out who was responsible. Here we see another wildstyle, my favorite of the two, but with a completely different feel. For me, it seems kind of extraterrestrial in theme. The excess of shadow in contrast with the outline glow gives an unnatural aura to the piece while the little nodules give it, as Elk seems to love, an organic presence. Unnatural, but living. Like an alien. Also, just to the right is a cigarette character by Diet One, as one of my graffiti-writing friends informed me.

The last piece on the wall was unfamiliar to me and had been added since I'd last been to this site. Where a Roy piece used to be is now a mural of a camel's skeleton imposed on a geometric background with some floating directional keys. As my writer friend also informed me, this was the work of Mania One. As you'll notice, Mania managed to work around Diet's cigarette character, preserving some of the preceding art. Good looking out. Personally, I really like this piece. The camel, for anyone who knows the history, is a sort of unofficial mascot for the "tobacco capital of America." From the Carolina Tobacco Building to the Tobacco Company club in Shockoe to the headquarters of Philip Morris and Camel, it's in Richmond's heritage. We even have a bar/lounge on Broad called The Camel (check it out, good music). Besides that, it's just an interesting depiction, being skinless and all. The background was also obviously given much attention in this piece as well, being perfectly patterned and ornately detailed. Too few artists pay attention to the possibilities of the background of a work.

From her good side

Everyone has heard stories about Church Hill. The crack deals, the auto theft, the muggings... Truth is, all of those are still problems in the area, but as my friend Amanda showed me today, Church Hill has a lot of beauty to it as well. The residences in the area are as old and historic as any you'd find in the Fan, and the churches on Broad are some of the most beautiful in Richmond. Church Hill is also the site of a lot of gorgeous urban parks. For instance, these first two shots were taken from the hill at Jefferson Park. The last one was taken from another hill I found behind the old WRVA Broadcast Building. Now I know at least some of you reading this will be squirming in your seats at the thought of one kid taking photos in Church Hill at eleven at night, but the Church HIll I saw tonight was completely docile and even endearing at points. I shared the park with a total of two other people: a couple on a park bench enjoying the same view as myself. Eventually, the man scooped up his date and carried her across the entire park to their car, both laughing the whole way. Endearing.

Call it art

Just before you hit the north side of the city, under one of the many interstate underpasses, you'll find one of Richmond's urban art scene's best kept secrets. These were a few photos of the location I took yesterday while on a walk with my friend Jack.

This concrete bridge is a haven to graffiti artists. It's isolated, out of sight, and has a hell of a lot of concrete surface area. For years this has been one of the city's hot spots for writers and has featured our who's who of artists from the DOS Crew to elk to EXPERT.

This underpass is also a home for many of Richmond's homeless populace and is riddled with cardboard boxes, old mattresses, and dirty pillows. Also I'm a little pissed that someone went over that Sunk piece for a throwie, though I hear there was good reason behind it.

On a more positive note, this EXPERT piece has managed to stick around for some time now. I first saw it four years ago, making it at least that old, but judging by the chipping of the layers, it could've been around for a lot longer than that. For those that don't know, EXPERT is one of the more famous writers of Richmond. He's known for having done one of the largest blockbusters in graffiti history. It was easily legible from a jet plane, if that gives you any kind of perspective.

These two pieces, by Aest and Sigh, respectively, were done side by side. To give you some background, both Aest and Sigh were member of the now-disbanded Dirty Ol' South Crew (DOS), probably Richmond's last truly great graffiti crew. As you might have noticed, both of these were done in very similar styles, which was a practice used by writers of the same crew doing a co-op together in the same place. This technique both shows uniformity as a crew and strength in the individual artist's ability to adapt their works to different styles.

Another invaluable aspect of graffiti, in my opinion, is its potential to truly be 'art' in the emphatic, emotional sense. This piece features an elderly, Native American woman under a starry sky. If looking at this doesn't do anything for you, you can stop reading my blog. You're not part of the audience I'm writing for.

I'll probably get up some more graf pics as I find the time to hit up the hot spots in Richmond.

Jimmy

This was a short interview I did with my friend Jimmy Nguyen. I've recently been meeting both people very much into photography and people just getting started with it so I wanted to get some general background on a few of them just to compare stories and beginnings. Jimmy here rocks a Nikon D80 and these are a few of his shots. I'll let him tell you the rest.


Erik: Yo Jimmy.

Jimmy: [laughs] Yo!

Erik: I was just surveying some of the kids I know who are serious about taking photos. I wanted to ask you, "Why?"

Richmond #2

You know the deal. More RVA.

This is the mural found at the entrance to the loading alley for the One Capitol Square Building. Not the facade of the building. Not the outer wall. The loading alley. It depicts canoers on the James in front of, you guessed it, our very own River City. I have no idea when this mural was done or who did it, but it's just another example of the many, many beautiful hidden treasures to be found if you take the time to look for them in Richmond.

"Do you do a blog?"

A few weeks ago, I was in DC with my boy Connor. We were walking around Chinatown, doing our thing, taking pictures, when some guy rocking a Stüssy Varsity and a backpack decked in ALIFE tags stopped us on the sidewalk. "Do you do a blog?" was the first thing he said to us.