business cards

The best part about a lot of these travel shoots is simply all of the wandering around. Granted, I take hours and hours to set up the necessary people, locations, lighting, etc. to make it look effortless, but when I do scout an area, I often stumble upon these little pockets of heaven I never knew existed. Take, for example, this teeny tiny bar I found in Jack London Square in Oakland that is surrounded by modern construction scaffolding and ugly tarps. It's been around since before the 1906 earthquake and the floor was so buckled from it that the bar was at a 10 degree angle. The room was filled with layers of crap including hundreds of business cards tacked to the ceiling which, over the years, have attracted so much cigarette smoke you can hardly read them. Aren't you glad there's no smoking in bars anymore?