Blazing Saddle Cycle

Jamey Rychak and Travis Peebles build, repair and restore bicycles. I got to spend a few hours with them to photograph their new location near 75th & Detroit in Cleveland.
For decades, that building was home to Lakefront Hardware & Glass, and while I was there several customers came in to get keys made; lucky for them the guys can do that, too.

Tech specs:
lenses: Nikon 50mm f/1.8 •  28-75 f/2.8 • 70-200 f/2.8
various manual exposures [generally between f/1.8 – f/4.5, ISO between 200-1600, shutter speeds generally between 1/60-1/125sec
all full-size uncropped images
shot raw and processed in Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image, or buy a limited-edition print…
email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651



January 26th, 2012 , admin
No Comments

Voxcaster in the studio



12.2.11
the making of This Is Ellipsis


Six weeks ago, five people got together to play in a band called Voxcaster. Right away, something was happening. Freedom was happening. So we kept meeting every few nights. Each time, there were new songs to work with. So we started making a record. It’s called This Is Ellipsis. I was able to snap the occasional shot during two sessions. Black & white photos are from the first session, and color photos are from the second session.




Eric Schulte

Voxcaster was founded and is fronted by Van Gogh Round Records producer and treasured Davenport Collective *rent collector* Eric Schulte.



Schulte also was the manager, then guitarist, then bassist for The Dreadful Yawns (their new album Picnic features Schulte’s song Figure It Out {previously titled Time Machine Song.} He’s also an original member of The Village Bicycle, Aluminum Anemone, and Shiny Penny). Here’s an old-school Cool Cleveland article about him.




Here, Schulte records the bassline for This Is Ellipsis while Collins looks on.


Eric Collins

Collins splits his time between bass and drums, swapping instruments with Joe Vecchio during live shows.





Joe Vecchio

Prior to picking up the drums for Voxcaster, Joe played guitar with Schulte in The Village Bicycle. To further illustrate the family tree, Joe had replaced Ryan Shobe in VB, who now plays guitar in Voxcaster. (Ryan wasn’t at these two sessions, so we’ll have to get his photo another day.)


Chris Russo

The album is being engineered by the amazing Chris Russo, who also played drums with Schulte in their Dreadful Yawns era.



He also recently cheated death. For real. He got a serious foodborne illness in Thailand and it paralyzed him from the neck down. It took a few months of hospitalization and physical therapy, but he regained everything.



He’s got a monk-like calmness. He’s even looking forward to the impending Ohio winter. He’s inspiring.

Update: The album is now being mixed and we’re currently booking tour dates.
Our official debut is Friday January 6 at the Grog Shop
Voxcaster on facebook
Voxcaster on last fm

the sound looked like this…

Tech specs:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 • 28-75 f/2.8 • 70-200 f/2.8
manual exposures, shot raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.



December 4th, 2011 , admin
No Comments

Light My Fire



9.22-25.2011
Recycled Rainbow: Cosmos

Some friends in the music scene have been trying for years to get me out to this annual 4-day leave-no-trace camping trip, and I’m glad to have made it this year. In addition to the opportunity to photograph fire for the first time, I was camping with some of Cleveland’s finest friends (including Matt Cassidy, Craig Chojnicki, Nick Traenkner, Eric Alleman). And even though we slept in tents, we certainly weren’t roughing it. We basically built a 24-hour outdoor nightclub, complete with a full bar, deejay booth, domed dance floor with light show, kitchenette, and various seating configurations. It was definitely the place to be that weekend.


This is John Dudas and Jim Guilliams, who headed up the temple-build. It was made to honor their friend Greg and all loved ones who passed away. Campers wrote names on the walls, left mementos, and like all other builds it was burned before the weekend ended. John is a firefighter and co-owner of Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop in Lakewood. John told me that when he saw this photo, he knew he wanted make Jim their new manager at the store. As a gift to Jim, John asked me to make a big canvas of this photo for them to hang in the store. I use only the highest-quality materials, and the piece looks amazing.

Tech specs:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8, 28-75 f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8
shot raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.



bonus video
Matt Cassidy casually treated us to his execution of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, while dressed as Marvel Comic’s The Watcher, complete with homemade cape, papier-mâché mask, and Ultimate Nullifier (amplified Chaoscillator). I love hearing Cassidy play guitar, and stoked that his friend & 9-Volt Haunted House bandmate Craig Chojnicki snagged a minute of it on his cellphone:

September 29th, 2011 , admin
No Comments

White Noise



Murder By Death
at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame
8.17.11











Tech specs:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 • 70-200mm f/2.8 • 28-75mm f/2.8
manual exposures, shot raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.




August 21st, 2011 , admin
No Comments

Shivering Timbers



Shivering Timbers
at Cain Park, 8.2.11




Sarah and Jayson Benn

The husband and wife team liked this shot so well, they use it for their branding promo/press/publicity photo and on their current tour poster.




Jayson Benn






Sarah Benn




I made a version with logos, sized for their facebook and twitter icons



Tech specs:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 • 70-200mm f/2.8 • 28-75mm f/2.8
manual exposures, shot raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.




August 11th, 2011 , admin
No Comments

The Family Band



7.23.2011

Usually I’m out shooting live concerts or band portraits.
But I probably wouldn’t be doing that if I hadn’t grown up in such a musical family.
Mom sang to us as babies, Dad blasted Johnny Cash and Cat Stevens to wake us up on Sunday mornings, my brother and I played in rock bands…
All six of us had huge yet vastly differing album collections, and they’ll tell you I listened to pretty much every record in the house. Repeatedly.

On Saturday, the whole family was in town and gathered at our 90-acre family farm for a reunion/joint birthday party. The family band played a few songs. And I got to take pictures of everyone there. This one, my sister with her four-year-old son, is my favorite of the day.

Mother & Child

Tech specs:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 • 70-200mm f/2.8 • 28-75mm f/2.8
manual exposures, shot raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.




July 27th, 2011 , admin
No Comments

Painter In Your Pocket



Destroyer
Pitchfork Music Festival, 7.16.11

When Bill Lipold of I Rock Cleveland asked me to be his Pitchfork photographer again, one of the first things I mentioned was looking forward to seeing Destroyer.

Destroyer : Dan Bejar • © Mara Robinson

The first and only other time I’d seen Dan Bejar was with The New Pornographers on the second date of theirTogether tour [Newport Music Hall, Columbus Ohio, 6.13.10]. He’d slip in and out of the wings, waltzing slightly with the neck of his beer bottle balanced lightly in his fingertips, for Myriad Harbour, Testament To Youth In Verse, Silver Jenny Dollar, Jackie. I wasn’t photographing that show, [and Destroyer was already touring Europe during the New Pron shows I covered]. I wasn’t sure how this shoot would go.

Destroyer : Dan Bejar • © Mara Robinson

He’d seemed so elusive. I wondered whether he’d despise the camera’s presence and obscure himself behind the mic stand. Would I be able to achieve a usable photo? Or would I leave the pit having failed at the weekend’s greatest personal and professional challenge?

Destroyer : Dan Bejar • © Mara Robinson

“His is a body of work that consistently flouts convention in favor of musical leaps of faith, statements of purpose cloaked in subterfuge, and the joyous refrain of an optimist’s heart cloaked in cynicism.” — MergeRecords.com

Destroyer : Dan Bejar • © Mara Robinson

Thankfully, I felt welcomed and incredibly zen throughout my allotted three songs in the pit. Gone are the days of playing acoustic guitar with his back to the audience. And while he’s still, thankfully, more about the songs than the spotlight, he locked eyes with my camera, knelt down in front of the lens (which was awesome because the stage was taller than I am), looked out at his crowd, and kinda smiled.

Destroyer : Dan Bejar • © Mara Robinson

Tech specs:
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8
manual exposure: 1/800sec, ISO 200, f/9 [give or take]
shot raw processed using Adobe Camera Raw

To book your session, license an image for editorial use, or buy a limited-edition print… email Mara@MaraRobinson.com or call 330.414.4651.



bonus: Dave Molnar and I put a band together for a one-night-only halloween tribute show at Beachland, where we played a set of New Pornographers songs. Matt Clement joined on drums, Tara Klein on cello/keys, Sharon Yoo on guitar, and Justin Seeker on bass, Dave played guitar and sang, and I played keys and sang. Here’s a video].




July 20th, 2011 , admin
No Comments
« Older Entries