Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

While I’m at it, I might as well put up some of the other pictures that I’ve shot recently and never posted. Last week, my cousin Max was at a conference in San Francisco and – without knowing that I live in the suburbs of L.A. – decided to rent a Harley with matte-black finish and ride it down to Los Angeles. He jokingly told me to drive the 2,000 miles or so from Missouri to come and see him, and was quite surprised when I told him that I was already there.

We used the opportunity to get together for the first time in about three years and went on a camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park. I should probably mention that Max is somewhat crazy – he is one of those guys who jump off 100-feet cliffs on their skis. He also loves to be photographed, especially when he chews tooth picks on his Harley. And since I like taking pictures, I ended up hanging out of the window of my car taking pictures of Max while Beth was driving all the way to Joshua Tree.

Photographing a moving object from another moving object was new to me and quite a lot of fun. I ended up taking about 1,000 pictures of Max over the two days that we were out there (ridiculous, I know), but the two photos in set below are the ones that stood out most to me.

National Park Boulevard in Joshua Tree National Park, Calif., May 7, 2011.

Max rides his Harley Davidson on the I-10 near Palm Desert, Calif., May 5, 2011.

Taking a break at the Lookout Road House on the Ortega Highway near Lake Elsinore, Calif., May 5, 2011.

A Joshua Tree stands in front of some of the granite formations that are the hallmark of Joshua Tree National Park.

Max rides his Harley Davidson down Pinto Basin Road toward the Cholla Cactus Garden at Joshua Tree National Park, Calif., May 6, 2011.

It has been awfully quiet on this blog for a long time now, and the silence has a sad reason. A week before Christmas Eve, a major tragedy hit my family. For the following weeks, I had absolutely no mind to think about photography or anything related to it. After the first shock had settled down somewhat and some important things were taken care of, I traveled back to Germany for two weeks to spend some time with my family. The days I had with my mother and my siblings were an amazing and important time to heal. Especially my little three-year-old niece Lisa with her innocent light-heartedness helped me a lot in my grief.

Photograph by Gabriele Berr