I had been driving for two hours and with every passing exit grew more anxious over rather the stop I was assigned to rendezvous was past already. It was dark now and my only company was The Rolling Stones Exile On Main Street, an empty can of Red Bull and a bag of Pretzels. Just when I was about to take any stop I could find for gas, the sign for Baker flashed by my eyes. Sweet. I pulled off and realized nothing looked at all like the directions, I scrambled for my phone and tried to get a call out, no luck. Then it rang, it was Jon. So ya the directions were wrong, we were two exits back. After a moment of pointless bickering I got my bearings and headed back on to the freeway. Not long after I pulled into a rather poetically shabby gas station that resembled more a shed with pump stations in the front and broken down trucks in the gravel field that substituted a parking lot. Just as I parked, out of behind a propane tank I see a shirtless mullet bearing, mustached monsieur with a cowboy hat and a can of Tecate heading my way, it could be none other then Miles Lauridsen, genius photographer and virtuoso ladies man.

Jon hopped in my audi (about to undertake the roughest terrain its 8 year career had yet to see) and we begin to follow Miles on to the unknown of a dirt road. Darkness all around, contrasted by glaring headlights bouncing over what were more like rocky dunes, then bumps. We came to stop at a rather Kerouac inspired congregation of propped tents, make shift chairs, guitars, beers and steak crowned barbecue aligned beneath the gaze of a giant boulder, casting lighted shadows upon its face. The officials of the ceremony were laughing and carrying on as one of them imitated Bon Jovi to the delight of the others. And at that moment we were in its fullness, Last American Buffalo.

The night went on as such, pictures, tecates, hot dogs and other accoutrement to the late hours. After passing out in the tent, the next day would awake us before sunset in a scramble to throw clothes on and assemble lighting. We lined up near the flash stand as Miles tested shots, just as the sun came out took as many as he could. The rest of the day would consist of climbing rocks, walking around dunes and basically taking the torment of the sun as Miles followed us around the wasteland documenting our sojourn. At one point we drove off to a distant mudflat, parked and took shots of our deliruous escapades, our brains flimsy from beer, sun and.. well, you get the idea. The experience as a whole solidified in my mind the philosophy that if a band is going to do a photoshoot, the shoot should be of an experience, rather then the shoot being the experience itself. We certainly didn’t take it as far as I would want, but it was a good step in the right direction. My hope for the future would be a longer trip, time spent becoming invested in the journey, with the goal of writing and/or recording a record as part of the process to not only be documented by photography but video as well, and hopefully in a foreign place rich with subtleties, the point of which hopefully becoming the life experience that would change us and influence our craft. we spoke briefly of Argentina.