This is a shot of tough guy turned actor Danny Trejo. He's really a nice guy [as long as he's on your side!] and a pleasure to work with. Though he did something like 15 years of hard time in San Quentin.

The film was TriX [320] rated at ei125 and processed in dr.5 developer #2. This is a process that takes b/w negs and converts them into transparencies, and the two different developers are either cold tone [dev. #1] or warm tone as seen here.

Just thought I'd share an inage from a recent assignment, and give a plug for a cool product.

-- Robert Anderson (info@rapfoto.com), April 06, 2001

Answers

For as warm as its tone is, this is image is so cool. Love the off-level framing and cold, simple, bold brick background. Beautiful composition and image toning. Love the expression and shadow detail. Love the cigar, but I think it ought to have been lit, or at least showing some smoke for effect. This guy... I wouldn't even mess with his image, much less him. I'll have a nightmare, thank you: my last lifely view before being stabbed in this cold, dark alley. Excellent work! I'm impressed with this one.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), April 07, 2001.

It looks like genuine street lamp light, Robert, very nice. Regarding the unlit cigar, lotsa people just like chewing on them, or using them as a fashion accessory, so it doesn't seem incomplete to me. Lit would have wored as well, but certainly would have complicated the shoot... don't cha know you would have needed a whole box of 'em, and an assistant just for the fan to clear the set between every take.

By the way, who makes dr.5 developer #2?... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), April 08, 2001.

Nice pic.. I feel he's using the cigar to make his point

t. I think you have to send your film to them. There's a site about the process at dr5, click on the FAq for all the info.

-- Nigel Smith (nlandgl@unite.com.au), April 08, 2001.

Thanks guys!

As Tony noted, the cigar looks unlit, but this image was #3 or #4 from the first roll. I just liked his expression here. If you look real close you can see that the upper edge is discolored --from being lit. Later on we played around with flicking ashes on the 'little people, ect.

dr.5 is a process done in-house by AIM in Los Angeles. Invented [?] by a former photographer, David Wood, it is a complicated collection of soups that based on your ei. and film stock yields either wonderful [or disastrous] results. This marked the first time I used the process on an assignment, and I am very happy with the results. I no longer have to make numerous prints, tone them , and submit the whole mess to the client. dr.5 lets me continue my workflow as usual, submitting trany's, and thus [mostly!] ensuring that what I shot [the look/feel and exposure] is what they're going to reproduce [well, that's the plan anyway!].

We shot this in the real 'hood' of south L.A., and I had to have several assistants stand guard [we had at any one time at least seven to eight 'locals' that wanted to get involved, or poke around in my camera cases looking for my stash of cookies or something]. I wish that I had the gonads of most of you street shooters here and would have grabbed a couple of shots of the extracurricular activities -- there was one lady in particular who had one of those Aunt Unice hat's on, and she was muttering [okay yelling] that we were all invited over to the ‘laundry’ for supper. But with a worried publicist, and a setting sun we just shot what we were after and then ate at Mickey D’s.

Thanks again!

-- Robert Anderson (info@rapfoto.com), April 08, 2001.

Excellent!

But it seems like he should be behind the bar. Guess I've seen too many Robert Rodriguez films. . .

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), April 10, 2001.