the meattortillas: February 2010

There is a wonderful thing out there called film por vida. It's a print exchange program in which you guessed it, send a photographic print to someone and in all of my experience, you receive one in return. Well i first sent one to Jai Tanju maybe a year and a half ago. He posts the ones he receives on the website, which is where Brad must have got my address and i shortly later received a print from him.

Well time passed and we exchanged a few more photos through the program, i randomly stumbled upon him on flickr and just started checkin out his stuff. He has a rad mix of analog and digital with cool content werth checkin. Recently he had seen a photo i had taken on my account, that had Donnkie in it at the Orcas park. It turns out they had spent sum time out there together which made me real happy and a little sad. I guess Donnkie had told them to call him "papa donnk". of course he did.

After emailing back and forth a bit, i asked him if I could post up sum of his stuff here and he happily hooked me up. His stuff is rad and it captures the moment at hand with fun and creative spontanuity from the road and home alike. Thanks Brad. Hopfully i'll see you this summer.

"I don't really know what to write about myself other than that I know what makes me happy. I love skateboarding, trains, and exchanging photos through the mail. If you know those three things about me, then you know me more than most do." -Brad Westcott.

- where are you from and where do you reside these days?

I'm from Indiana, but I've lived in Arizona for about 3 years.

- what prompted the move from indiana to AZ?

Well after I graduated high school I realized that Arizona was where I wanted to live. I'd taken several trips to Arizona during high school and it seemed like the only place where I could skate everything...parks, pools, street spots. All the parks here have lights until 10 every night, so for the most part I am able to skate no matter what my schedule is. As for pools, there was an article in the Arizona Republic a few months ago that claimed 60,000 pools in Phoenix have green water in them (and need to be drained)! There's also an abundance of ditch spots and street spots here. It also worked perfectly with my schedule because when it gets hot here, I head back to Indiana for the summer.

-whats the best and werst things about living in AZ?

The best things are the parks, the people, and Venezia's Pizzeria in Tempe on Southern and Mill. The worst thing is the heat in the summer.

lee

backroads Millhelm, Pennsylvania

-Whats up with your love of trains?

I'm pretty much just intrigued by anything that is old. The railroad has been around for a really long time. What interests me most about trains is what is actually on them. I'm most interested in paintstik monikers. When I walk through a train yard, I really do feel like an archeologist because there is stuff on these train cars that are 10...20...sometimes 30 years old. That is amazing to me. Marking on a train is also such an anonymous act...but yet it has the capability to be seen by many many people. It's crazy because you become so familiar with some of these monikers, but you have no idea who is doing them.

-how often are you receiving/sending out photos through the P.E.P?

I just sent off 20 this morning. I've been exchanging photos through the Print Exchange for a little over a year and I've sent and received at least 300 photos or so. I probably get at least one print a day. I'm pretty OCD about sending prints out...I scan all the prints I get from people and I also scan the prints I send to people just so I can keep track of who I owe prints to. I get some amazing shit in the mail. Nothing beats the anticipation of skating to the mailbox everyday.

filmporvida, Send Brad and Me mail!

the first print I received from Brad.

Brett Reed, Ahwatuckee, Arizona

Tyler Franz. drop in, Tempe Arizona

-favorite film?

I shoot a lot of provia and velvia. Lately I've been shooting portra 160nc. It just depends. Anything I can get cheap or free. I order a lot of expired film off of ebay. That's one way to get decent deals on film.

-tell me a rad story from the road cause it seems you have been to quite a few places.

Hmm, the first one that comes to mind is the first time I ever went to Orcas Island. The first night we camped on the beach and when I woke up in the morning I saw my good buddy Tim a little ways down the beach standing over the water. I walked over to him and he had a little stick with string and a piece of hot dog attached to the end. He was claiming that he was going to catch a crab. I fixed myself up a stick and we stood next to eachother with our lines in the water for a little while. All of a sudden I got a HUGE crab that scurried out of nowhere and clamped onto my hot dog. Seconds later Tim got one too. We're screaming and laughing and we pull them out of the water. When we turn around to walk back up the beach and cook them, we see 2 deer sniffing our friends still asleep on the ground. It was fucked! We cooked the crabs and ate them for breakfast.

Later that day at the skatepark we're talking to Donkie and he's telling us, "No man you did it all wrong". First of all, he explains that it's red tide and then goes on to explain the proper way to kill and cook a crab. He told us when crabs are threatened, they poison all of their meat as a self-defense mechanism. So any predator who eats their meat will get poisoned. Before you cook them, you are supposed to grab both sides of them and split their bodies over a sharp point like a rock, so that way the crab doesn't have time to release the poison. Now we're worried that we're A) sick from red tide...and B) sick from the crab poison!

Homewoods bowl, Bloomington, Indiana.

Wez, Ramona.

Preston Harper, Tucson, Arizona.

-give me a run down of a average day in your life.

Hmm, well right now I don't really do much. Wake up early and ride my bike to school. Stay there for most of the day. Meet up with everyone in the neighborhood and go skate a park at night. Fun times.

-film or digital? just kidding. whats your plans for the upcoming months? it starts to get really hot quick i imagine.

Hah. I enjoy shooting both film and digital. I definently shoot more film, but I also shoot a decent amount of digital. It's two different things to me. I compose photos when I shoot film, but when I shoot digital it is more sporadic...fire away and fix my mistakes after viewing them. Both are necessary. Film has taught me a lot about digital and vice versa.

Well, I'm done with school in May so I believe I will head back to Indiana around that time. Right now I really don't know, my summer last year was really anticlimactic and I know I don't want that to happen again this summer. Hopefully I'll meet up with some of my buddys from the east coast and go on a few small trips. I haven't been to the Northwest in over a year, and that has been killing me. It would really be nice to make a trip out there this summer.

Yellow Wood Ditch, Brown county, Indiana

-alright, last question. Who are some inspirational chararacters and forces in your life?

I'm inspired by a lot of things, but mainly skateboarding, my friends, the railroad, and the mail system. The ability to travel around and see/skate new shit is also pretty rad. I've been skateboarding for 10 years now and I still get excited when I go skating.

* all photos by Brad except the first one. thats him.

-agentasian