By Chris Rockwell

I woke up in the middle of the night dazed, confused and freezing my ass off. I don’t quite remember how I got here. All I know is that I was sleeping on an old musty couch that was a relic left over from the 1968 “Summer of Love” that Janis Joplin probably passed out on, too. I was covered only by a thin blanket sufficient for a warm night in Hawaii. And the problem was that I was in San Francisco in December. It was a cold that I hadn’t felt since I was caught in a snow storm on top of Squaw Valley snowboarding as a kid. I focused my eyes in the dark and unfamiliar room to find heaps of laundry and old beer bottles surrounding me. And the only illumination was coming off a dull street light that was casting an eerie haze of silhouettes that sent my brain to the 1800’s in London during the reign of Jack The Ripper. I desperately searched my surrounding area for a blanket, finally settling on an old Levi’s jacket, some laundry to cover myself and just dreamed about the morning.

This was my first of many nights hanging with urban and graffiti art photographer Rob Greenleaf. With an introduction like that most people would’ve run the other direction. But Rob and I were immediately connected and running like we’d been causing trouble since high school. We met working together at Zazzle.com, a creative Internet space ship of Stanford and MIT grads, nuclear physicists, and shady characters like me and Greenleaf. Credit goes to Zazzle.com co-founder and President Jeff Beaver for having the foresight and guts to formulate this cultural chemistry that produced an amazingly innovative and exciting company on the forefront of on-demand product creation.

During that time I was learning a lot about everything. Part of this education was Rob’s insight into the urban and graffiti art world, and the artists leading the creative charge. We would roll up and cruise around the back streets of the bay area searching out the latest graf art that he could capture with his camera before it would invariably get covered up by another image within days or weeks. One of his classic moves was pointing his camera out his window at 60 miles per hour and machine gunning rounds of frames at graf art that was only visible from the 101. It was a rush, like searching for gold nuggets. Soon, I started seeing graffiti everywhere, but in a totally different light. The artwork was amazing and I was hooked. Rob’s edgy and artistic images tell a vivid story of this sub-culture in a context that I want the world to see and appreciate.

Check out his work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/habitforming

Duce Up!!