if you’re into film or into bikes or better yet into films about bikes then your film festival is coming up. next weekend here in beautifully soggy portland, oregon filmed by bike will be rocking the clinton street theater (+ the entire street in general). the opening night street party is gaining a reputation of fun + the thousands of bikes make for great community.

if you’re around for some of the flicks there’s a mix of short films + a few new longer inclusions this year as well. there will also be a filmmakers panel after two of the showings. i’ll be spewing on one of those after the sat 5pm showing so if you’re up for an earful drop by. actually, stoked to be on a panel with producer kevin sullivan.

Our Filmmaker Q+A sessions are powerful nights in the theater, an opportunity to get to know the creative minds behind some of Filmed by Bike’s favorite movies.

When the LCD Soundsystem remade the video for their song Drunk Girls, they chose to film it with a cadre of Portland bikers. The result is a gritty party video. Producer Kevin Sullivan will be on stage to discuss this piece, why they chose Portland, how they found the actors and how they developed the rough-and-tumble concept of an underground tall bike jousting bout.

does it work for you?

carry you away?

still looking for it?

don’t leave home without it.

even the grey days have something to offer. may not always be what you’re after or what you had in mind. hell, it might be something completely out of your realm of thinking. maybe just a nudge towards something smaller but different.

whatever it is, i’ve always found something in even the grey days, even the most mundane reading, even the slow times. this last weekend i had the privledge of shooting the 39th annual portland marathon for runner’s world. it started in the dark + the rain + only the dark part of that equation changed for the better. needless to say, we were after a very specific look + the conditions weren’t helping.

along comes this fine gent merrily making the most of his day…. + his bicep. had to laugh at the time but looking back i think it was the break i needed to snap me back to attention. bring the focus out of the grey + into what i was really doing. which is what i’m passionate about. you can’t have the good days, the great shots, the peak moments without the grey ones. even if you don’t live in the great pacific nw.

wrapped up a week of being inspired last week with students pursuing their passion for photography with a talk i give called my better is better then your better. it’s based on the nike / w+k ads from a few years back. the idea being that we’re all around to (a) be in business + (b) be creative. pursue passion, work hard + take pride in what you do. we should all be able to say “my better is better then your better” in some way, be it simply expressing our personal point of view or dominating what you do best. it’s not a put down towards others as much as it is a statement of belief in your self, your work + perhaps most importantly your efforts.

reading courtesy of ibooks on my flight home i was then caught by this piece off change this titled The Power of Passionate Creatives. the one thing among many that stood out for me was this,

Passion puts you ahead of the competition.

An interesting thing happens when we pursue our passions as our profession: We actually seek out more challenges. Rather than viewing them as sources of stress, we see them as opportunities to get better faster.
We want to push ourselves to the next level, and we get restless if we remain in the same place too long.
No matter what the area of work, some people are quite passionate about what they do. They can’t wait to get to work and test themselves. They love to drive their performance to new levels.
Increasingly, these are the people you will be competing with in the future.
We’ll say this a different way:
If you are not equally passionate about the work you do, you will undoubtedly get marginalized. The pressures will just be too overwhelming.

brilliant. kind of thing you intrinsically develop as a creative business owner but never put into place as an advantage. my better is better… in crazy synchronicity the piece even touches on my current book Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft where he argues that working with one’s hands can have deeply philosophical, even spiritual, meaning. if you haven’t, you should.

so here’s to creativity coming out your ears. this mind blowing trailer from life cycles, might help. it’s the best thing i’ve seen lately. pure inspiration. an ex pro rider friend relayed to me,

Holy ?!@#, I believe the standards for bike movies just went up a notch. Looks like a National Geo documentary merged with The Collective. Super rad.

back east recently + damn good time. sweet when the humidity is down. and thanks to everyone there. can’t wait to head out on the sailboat asap myste + beck. came across a trove of cool stuff so here’s a few images + lo down on the the adventure.

lomography gallery store 41st w 8th st nyc – great little space with examples + cameras from across this style spectrum. fun neighborhood if you have the time.

cooper-hewitt natl design museum nyc – brilliant design in all it’s form. really like the moma store as well as muji myself for the take home pieces.

institute of contemporary art boston – shepard fairey – this just ended but was great to see the street promos done in his style that randomly popped of neigherhoods while out walking city streets. acting out by five artists might be sounds like a very worthwhile alternative + is still showing.

museum of bad art boston – in their own words, “is the world’s only museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, exhibition and celebration of bad art in all its forms.”

then more recently in the ny times another look at what has become known as ‘photoshopping’ in certain circles though was around far longer then the mammoth program we know today.