jason jones

© 2008 kelly castro

mini beast

© 2008 kelly castro

sleestaks

photo © 2007 kelly castro

So... I'm on my cruiser on the way back from the beach last Saturday morning when all of a sudden I come across these ruins that look like a set from Land Of The Lost. There they stood, smack-dab in the middle of my otherwise nondescript residential neighborhood, so I had to check myself, wondering if maybe I had absorbed through my feet a whole page of blotter acid that some dirty hippy had dropped in the sand.

I stopped and reached for my new point & shoot. A skinny, sunburnt man in a wifebeater with a john waters moustache and greased-back, jet black hair approached on the sidewalk, carrying two bags of groceries from the Safeway down the street. He looked straight out of an FSA photo. I figured I'd ask him if he knew anything about the place, but he darted into the yard before I could say anything. He kept looking over his shoulder at me, like I was gonna out him for squatting, then disappeared into a crappy camper hidden behind all the brick and dried palm.

I snapped this shot and got back on my bike. Further down a sidestreet, I asked an old surfer who was kickin' it in his front yard if he could tell me what the deal was with the place. He said it was an estate that belonged to some rich guy that had croaked without any heirs, and had set-up a trust fund to pay the property taxes in perpituity. Apparently the place has just been sitting there, rotting away for years and years.

After getting my Google on, I learned that the old surfer was full of it, and that the real story was far, far weirder. Known as "The Court of The Mysteries" or "The Unorthadox Chapel", the place was built in the 1930's by a guy named Kenneth Kitchen, who raised goats, practiced a lot of yoga and was a pretty shredding brick mason. The triangular abalone plaque at the center of the entry arch actually has no religious significance whatsoever - but Kitchen wanted it to look that way so that he could declare the place a church of some sort and get out of paying taxes. He was later hauled off by government spooks for building two radio towers in the front yard (still there) that could somehow thwart the Japanese submarines that were sinking everything that moved in the Monterey Bay during World War II.

Nobody knows whatever happened to Mr. Kitchen.

JPG Magazine

© 2002 Kelly Castro

Got word today that this super old shot of G. Camp backstage at S.I.R in Hollywood is gonna be published in issue 11 of JPG Magazine. I fully thought they were gonna pick a different (and what I consider to be one of my best) shots, but apparently they're all about 3 megapixels. Though it's not the shot/theme I thought they were gonna choose, it's still pretty cool. I get a 100 bux and a free subscription. Shweet.

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

© Gordon Parks

Did an interior shoot photographing an 8.2 million dollar spec home in Atherton - guess it beats weddings. Stopped off at the Cantor Arts Museum at Stanford University to check out the last day of the Gordon Parks retrospective. Amazing. Check it out if it comes near your town. Hit IKEA in East Palo Alto on the way home and bought a ton of frames for my show in January. A little crack too. Whatta bargain.

Flickr favorites 3

The genius, originally uploaded by Tous les noms sont déjà pris... pfff....

The Genius by Rodolphe Simeon

Flickr favorites 2

, originally uploaded by Masahiro Makino.

Untitled by Masahiro Makino

Whys and What Fors...

photo © 2007 kelly castro

After years of neglect, my updated photo portfolio website went live this week. I'm pretty happy with it. My buddy Michael Renninger of sensitiveartist who did all of the flash programming (pictured above) says it looks like it was designed by a 3rd grader.

Anyway, this is where I will be putting up all the text and junk that would otherwise be cluttering up my beautiful new squeaky-clean website. I also plan on posting some of my outtakes, as well as favorites from other photographers and info about whatever photo gadgets/news that I find to be interesting.

At the Cafe, Chez Fraysse. Rue de Seine, Paris, 1958

© Robert Doisneau

One of the reasons I started this blog was to share some of the the photo related stuff that I find inspiring, interesting or informative, as well as to spotlight some of my favorite images. This one - At the Cafe, Chez Fraysse. Rue de Seine, Paris, 1958 by Robert Doisneau is a great place to start. I found it while paging through a book on my cousin's coffee table called Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski. At the time, I had no idea that it was a fairly famous book. Though out of print and difficult to find, it's definitely worth seeking out, if just for this image alone, which speaks volumes.

Setting up a blog is a big pain in the ass

photo © 2007 kelly castro

... and that's about all I have to say about that.