Club Obi Wan

Hello everyone,

This past year I’ve been photo documenting my whip cracking adventures on the west coast. During that time I’ve met some truly great individuals, including some members here at Club Obi Wan. Thank you Dan, Louie, and Adam for sharing your knowledge and insight!

My photos cover a wide spectrum of whip work. You’ll see some informal cracking sessions with friends, some events and performances, as well as some knife throwing and blowgun action thrown in for good measure.

I recently shot some pics of Anthony De Longis on the set of “More Extreme Marksmen,” an upcoming History Channel show. One or possibly two of the show’s segments will be devoted to the whip, its construction and various uses. Hope you enjoy the pics!

John

The Whip Cracking Galleries

Hey John,

Welcome to Club Obi Wan! It’s about time you posted here and put up a link to your site!

For those who don’t know, John and I have been good friends off the forum for some time, aside from being a great photographer, he is also a pretty fair whip handler in his own right too so I’ve been bugging him for a while to join in here when he can and post his site as I knew everyone would really enjoy seeing his photos!

Undoubtedly some of the faces in his photos will look familiar, as well as some of the images themselves as it was his great work with a camera that really helped to add to the Anthony De Longis interview we have up on the main bullwhip section.

Dan

Great pictures.
Very interesting.

Excellant Pictures!
I really look forward to seeing this HC show!

Very nice photos

in the Racho Indalgo gallary, i found it interesting that Anthony has the Rundown whip!!!

I think here was some question about where this whip ended up... well... THERE it is!

FYI I just added some new photos of Anthony De Longis and his Rancho Indalo Riders performing at a wild west charity event last weekend. The event featured a wide variety of western performers and rodeo riders. I also snapped some shots of the guests, including stuntman/2nd Unit Director Terry Leonard and actress Kristy Swanson. Hope you dig the pics!

- John

The Whip Cracking Galleries

Fantastic pictures! Great to see how a Morgan is put together. Thanks for posting!

Satipo wrote:Great to see how a Morgan is put together.

It was a fascinating day. It really made me appreciate the patience and skill required to produce a good whip. Glad you liked the pics!

Last weekend I attended the 3rd Annual Wild West Gathering in California. I snapped a few photos, cracked a few whips, and had the chance to meet and swap stories with the attendees.

Many people brought their own whips, and I photographed a few including a vintage Wheatley, a variety of Jackas, and a set of Paul Nolan "Little Indys."

You can check out the photos here:

Whip Cracking Galleries

John

Very nice pics. Do you have captions or a story to go with them?

TurnerME wrote:Very nice pics. Do you have captions or a story to go with them?

Country musician and wild west performer Judy Taylor organized this annual event a few years ago as a way for members of the old WWAC to keep in touch, share tricks and stories, and teach new people about the wild west arts. Most of the attendees were from California, including wild west performer Karen Quest (the redhead in sunglasses), magician/yo-yo champ Farrah Siegel, and trick roper Felix Lopez (yellow/blue shirt).

Happy New Year!

I've added some new material I shot at David Morgan's shop on December 27th. As usual he was very generous with his time, and allowed me to photograph more whips from his private collection.

The following day David's son Will, Louie Foxx and I gave a whip demo to members of The Barton-Wright Applied Hopology and Historical Antagonistics League (BWAHAHA). Co-founded by writer Neal Stephenson, BWAHAHA is a Seattle and San Francisco-based group dedicated to the practice of Bartitsu, a martial art created by Englishman Edward William Barton-Wright in 1898. Will, Louie and I shared our insights on basic whipcracking, and everyone had a great time trying out a variety of whip styles and lengths.

Whip Cracking Galleries

John

Just a quick update to this thread, John has recently been traveling across the U.S. from California to Michigan and has updated his galleries with photos from his most recent whip cracking adventures; including a visit with Paul and Lauren at MidWestWhips in Nevada, as well as a visit with me a couple weeks ago.

Not only is John a talented whip cracker, but he’s also and one heck of a photographer. You might even recognize his photos in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Official Indiana Jones Magazine featured in the article with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull whip coach Anthony De Longis.

Check out all his newest photos at
http://web.me.com/johnleonetti/cracktice/home.html

Hey Dan - great shots! Love the ones with the flowers. Were those the wax flowers that I've heard some people use, or were they real?

Also - you seem to have a few extra whips there... I'll PM you my address!

Shane

all John's albums is great maybe John planing some trip to europe ??

Fantastic Shoot Indeed!

Dan, it looked like it was the perfect day for shooting, the Jacka looked so menacing in action! I also liked the photo set with Paul and Lauren, really cool black and whites on both of your shoots too, adds a lot of character and a certain mystique that color shots just miss sometimes.


Crack On!
Allen

Thanks,

Allen, I was pretty impressed with how the photos turned out too, I especially liked the black and white ones for the same reasons. We couldn't have really asked for a nicer day either, especially for early May. It was a lot of fun though and we had a great time hanging out and talking shop. We’ll be getting together again, so I’m sure there will be more photos to come.

Shane, they where cloth flowers. I like to reuse them, so I just snip the flower part away from the plastic stem & insert that into a plastic drinking straw. Then use the whip to cut the straw. The spaghetti was real though

Dan

Good to know! Thanks, Dan!

Shane

This post is a bit long overdue, as I've been trying to find the time for a while now...

But, we had an unbelievably great time with John when he came to visit. It was a lot of fun, and a great excuse to take some time to do a ton of whipcracking! John took an excessive amount of photographs, and he is an exceptional photographer. Just the one picture taking of the reflection in the sunglasses of me doing a wrap on Lauren, I don't even remember how many shots were taken of that, just to get that single one! We spent a good amount of time discussing and demonstrating different styles of whipcracking, and exploring different ways to utilize them. John was also gracious enough to take the time to photograph ALL of the whips in the Edward H. Cooley collection, that I will be handing the sale of and am currently preparing for, as well as allowing me to crack his newly acquired Leonard Wheatly bullwhip which was just a joy to crack!

All in all it was a jam packed, enjoyable, fun filled 2 days of whips whips and more whips! I really hope that he is able to stop back by for another visit on his way back from Michigan.

Thanks for all of the great pictures, and a wonderful time John!

And BWB, it looks like you guys had a great time as well, and John's pictures at your place look great!!! I wish we could have taken a trip to visit that weekend with the both of you, that target stand sure looks like a lot of fun!!!

Regards,

Paul Nolan
http://www.midwestwhips.com

Just a quick update, John's been updating his website with new whip cracking photos. http://web.me.com/johnleonetti/cracktice/home.html

Awesome pics Dan! You look so impressive!

Thanks Marhala We all had alot of fun taking these.

Lookin good, Dan! I just saw John yesterday and he was trying to teach me a crack that you showed him (we're calling it the Reverse Borton) and I'm so close to doing it but just.... not... quite... there! John had a good laugh watching me whap myself a few times.

Shane