Big Bear

The Big Bear Motorcycle Run was first held in the 1920s and involved a 100-mile ride that started with a 50-mile loop in the Mojave Desert and ended at Big Bear lake, 5000ft up in the mountains.

These shots, from the Life archives, where you can see lots more, were shot by Ralph Crane in 1961. That year, when around 1000 riders lined up, saw a series of cock-ups, beginning with a pre-meditated jump-start from one club, that rendered the results void. That, as far as I know, was the last of the classic Big Bear runs as the ever-growing entry prompted the authorities to shut it down.

Read more about the Big Bear, and other classic US desert races in issue 18 of Sideburn. MP

EDIT: As I finished writing this, I realised that issue 18 has sold out, which just emphasises why you need to get hold of your copies of Sideburn as soon as possible. Leave it and you'll miss out. However, eBay is your friend.

Juno Calypso

Well off-topic Sunday. This is the work of award-winning British photographer, Juno Calypso. They are self-portraits, Juno in her role as her character, Joyce. The photographer's own website states...

'After 20 years of taking photos of herself in private, Juno Calypso began a series of self-portraits in which she stages herself as the fictional character named Joyce.  Confining herself to rented rooms and honeymoon suites, Calypso performs solitary studies into modern rituals of seduction and the laboured construction of femininity.'

See more at junocalypso.com

Remember if you just want motorbike, come back tomorrow when there'll be another post, or look through one of the over 5000 posts elsewhere on the blog. Why not investigate the carpet shoes label? G

Chiffon Specialist

Inspired by the album cover of Love & Kisses 1979 disco hit, photographed by Scott Hensel, we are conjuring up a photoshoot with Jason’s equally glam Borile scrambler.

We are looking for an accomplished high-kicking model who is available for a day's shooting in Leicester, UK. (in lieu of a Los Angeles heat-wave, we will be indoors).

Do have golden Farrah Fawcett big hair?
Do you like the feel of chiffon blowing in the wind?

Please contact us if you think you are a contender. BP

Leon Foggitt

Evocative shots by Leon Foggitt of DTRA Vintage Class racing.

There's much talk of 'correct body position' being the corner-stone of racing but Anthony's sack-of-spuds poise seems produce results for him, and here, on Wliky's Triumph framer. Hot Chip.

Mobile emporium of metal flake funk. Guy Bon Zorro on his trusty street-legal Triumph.

Drogo on Co-Built Rotax with team manager Dickie Brown

Hot Frog / Ninja Turtle, Hubert Bastie not doing a wheelie for a change. On not very converted Husqvarna MX.

See these fellas juggle their metal and spuds TODAY!
Amman Valley, South Wales SA18 1UT

Deus + Sideburn x Michael Schmidt

Atmospheric photos from Michael Schmidt made at Perris Raceway at our Deus + Sideburn evening jolly back in June while on our way north for DQUSA. BP

The complete set on his The World is Flat blog.

Hammered

Photography exhibition of ace Sideburn contributor Grant Robinson. Saturday, January 31st, 7pm @ Motovida, 1254 Ellis St, Kelowna, B.C.

The Film is Over

Ask any photographer over the age of 20 about film and they are liable to get misty eyed. Like with vinyl revivalists there has been a fighting rekindling of the magic that is white noise and all the other touchy feely properties of something that isn't scientifically perfect. Sure the digitisation of photography has cut off lots of inconvenient and expensive corners, but with its obsolescence something wholly has been lost.

Having found my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic, in a field recently camped in by Girl Guides, I worked my way up to the mighty Linhof 6x12", a Brough Superior of a camera. I've worked both as a commercial and editorial photographer, and as a darkroom mole.

Although big jobs were shot on a Hasselblad 6x6" or a Mamiya 6x7", my personal favourite was the more humble Zenza Bronica 6x4.5". It's quality defied its modest size and pedigree. But with the digital tsunami it was relegated to a dusty crate in my office along with a Super 8 film projector and a once state-of-the-art Kodak Carousel slide projector. Both saw action in Amsterdam clubland before the video killed the fumbling celluloid star.

My beloved Bronnie has been kept like some holly relic, as I thought one day I'd like my son to use it. Family heirloom and all that. I'm so romantic. But I haven't touched it for what, 15 years. So I've broken it down into its constituent parts and chucked it on eBay for 99p.
What made me saddest was, while I was cleaning it at my desk, ike came in and said "Dada what does this do?" as he tried to reassemble the wonderful mechanism. BP

Shayna by Yve

Shayna Texter on the Castrol Latus Triumph at Lima by Yve Assad.

See a portfolio of Yve's flat track work in Sideburn 17.
We featured Shayna back in issue 5, but that's sold out. G

Dennis Hopper in Rome

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS HOPPER

Questa è la storia di un uomo/bambino che decise di sviluppare i suoi cinque sensi e di vivere e fare esperienze piuttosto che limitarsi a leggere. - Dennis Hopper

La mostra è stata realizzata in collaborazione con The Hopper Art Trust, dedito alla salvaguardia dell'opera e della memoria di Dennis Hopper. The Hopper Art Trust é stato fondato dal Dennis Hopper Estate nel 2010 e ha sede a Los Angeles, California.
www.dennishopper.com

FINO A NOVEMBRE 8, 2014
INGRESSO GRATUITO

GAGOSIAN GALLERY
VIA FRANCESCO CRISPI 16, 00187 ROME
+39 06 4208 6498
WWW.GAGOSIAN.COM

The Revivalists

Acclaimed photographer, and Sideburn contributor, Nick Clements is doing a book signing in Mayfair, London, tomorrow evening.

Dirt Quake Portraits by Ian Roxburgh

 See more of Ian Roxburgh Photography.

Horst does Dirt Quake

If you're coming to race or spectate at Dirt Quake, make sure you're looking your best because highly acclaimed photographer, Horst Friedrichs, above, is the official photographer of Dirt Quake III. He'll be shooting portraits of the finest and most memorable.

Horst has had a number of books published of his photography including 21st Rockers; 21st Century Mods; Drive Style; Cycle Style; Pride and Glory; Mali and Troubadors of Allah. G

Danny Lyon Photography Exhibition

From Sideburn's well of print knowledge guru Mark Wilson:
The new show at the Atlas Gallery (who hosted the McQueen exhibition a while back) is legendary Magnum photographer Danny Lyon's seminal series The Bikeriders from 1968 and ties in with the original book being re-issued.

The show opened last week and runs to 16th August. A few iPhone snaps attached. Some nice bikes showed up for the private view on Wednesday.

All the classics are there of the dirt track racers in the Midwest (that shot of the guy with 88 on his back is one of my all time favourite images) and the iconographic images from when he was running with the Outlaws MC.

Well worth a visit if you're in west London. Danny Lyon is now in his 70s and still bucking the system by all accounts. For those who can, original photographic prints start at £2,500 - but Ben also has a few signed copies of the new book left for £40 (Get in very quick!).

Atlas is at 49 Dorset Street, Marylebone, London W1U 7NF. Open Mon-Fri 10 - 6 and Saturday 10 - 5.

Vintage Girls

Another worthy photo book from acclaimed 'revivalist' and founder of Men's File Magazine, Nick Clements. His period correct tableaux style is sexy in a very classy polite way. Shot on location in England, France, Romania and the States. His obvious attention to detail is painstaking, but the final result seems effortless. Wether in film noire setting or holiday snap-shot, you feel as the viewer, intimately close to the subject matter.

This boxed edition also comes with a handy Roy Rogers denim pocket wallet. 196 dreamy 10x8" pages. BP

more background info and sample photos on the Men's File blog.
to buy a copy email: sales@thecurator.co.uk