Wigwam Jones

The 12th Annual Motor City Tattoo Expo is hosted by Eternal Tattoos in Michigan. It was held at the Marriott Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, and I decided to take myself on down there on Saturday morning, March 3rd, 2007.

Eternal Tattoos

Now, I've never been to the Marriott Renaissance Center before. I've spent plenty of time at various Marriott hotels around the country, ol' Wiggy used to be a road warrior and dang near lived in the things for nigh onto seven years. But I'd never seen as ritzy a place as this. What a showpiece! You just have to see it to believe it, and the website doesn't do it justice by a long shot. Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues would have had a fine old time driving through the mall built into this monster. Disco-Dancing Haircuts.

Marriott Renaissance Center

Wikipedia RenCen

I had no trouble finding parking - just drove down Woodward until I had to turn left onto Jefferson, then turned right at the RenCen. There was $5 parking on the left next to the RenCen. I did have some trouble finding the Marriott inside the place, though - this place is massive!

Entrance fee for the Tattoo Expo was $20 - a little high, I think, but given that parking was reasonable and I had a lot of fun, maybe not too bad. I would've liked $10 a whole lot better, though. I'm just saying.

So, I paid and got a nifty hospital bracelet and went on in. Right away, I'm seeing people lined up to get tattoos. It is very clear that although this is a show, it is also a place to get one's body inked. I've got a couple myself, but they date back to the 1980's and early 1990's, they're not up to the standards of tattoos as they are done these days.

The Photos

Please note: I have attempted to secure permission from each recognizable person I took photographs of. If you have a photo of yourself here and you would prefer it not be displayed, just drop me a line - I'll take it offline for you right away. Likewise, if you see your photo here and you'd like to have a copy of it, just drop me an email and I'll email you a larger scale copy of it that you can have printed or what not. You can click on any photo to see it larger, but of course the really big copies are not online, they're too big and would take too long to download. OK, let's get started.

---

This young lady was the first person I saw getting arm work done.

A couple who know secrets. Can't you tell?

Friendly guy with some nice neckwork, this is Mike Aul of Spiral Tattoo in Ann Arbor, MI.

A friendly Betty with a great smile - her real name is Bev Green, with Spiral Tattoo.

A little leg work.

A lot of artwork was available for sale.

And a lot of tee-shirts.

And all kinds of stuff.

I can only wish that I could grow hair on top of my head so I could do this, too.

I loved this tee-shirt, and asked the guy to pose for me. Very obliging fellow!

Ah yes, the Suicide Girls ™. Let me just say this. For a bunch of chicks who want guys to look at them (and presumably pay to have guys look at them on their website), they are not very friendly. Whenever one of them noticed me pointing my camera at them, they turned their heads away. This was the best shot I got of any of them. Frankly, it was annoying. I was polite and I asked permission to take their photos - not that I had to, but I was mostly ignored as if I had not spoken. Contrast that with, oh, everybody else at the event, who were friendly as could be. Really bad advertising, SG ™. Color me not impressed.

Suicide Girls

Yeah, they're too cool to be friendly. Whatever.

Some freehand drawing, in preparation for ink & needle.

---

Here is a nice series of a young woman getting some work done on her thigh. We see her smiling to her friends, the tattoo artist dipping his machine in ink, and bending into his work. This young lady was getting in the chair when I arrived, and was still there two-and-a-half hours later when I left. She was still smiling and chatting with her friends. Cool.

Just a hint of some nice neck work.

Getting ready.

The One-Thousand-Yard stare.

You don't have to be a guy to be a tattoo artist

Like I said, you don't have to be a guy to sling ink with the best of them.

Full back, plus some fresh shoulder work peeking around.

Drawing some work to be made into a tattoo.

In case you want to go into business for yourself.

Full sleeves and then some.

Crowd shot.

This is Diane Noble. That back is, um, part of her skin. Interesting!

This is Jennifer Brisbois. Those are some interesting piercings, eh?

Say hello to Dave Nestler. He does incredible artwork: Dave Nestler's Website

Tattoo inks are made in many bright colors these days.

More drawing artwork.

This is Lauren Yoder. She was very kind to allow me to keep coming back to get several shots of her as her tattoo progressed. Thanks, Lauren!

Here's a close up of her leg work. I've got another in my Black & White section, which I actually like a little better.

Here's another. A bit better shot of the tattoo artist, whose name I sadly did not get. Might be Andrew Stickler? Somebody correct me, please. NOTE: Lauren emailed me, the artist is Bud Weeks. Thanks, again, Lauren!

I caught the fellow with his eyes closed, but the tat work was good enough that I wanted to keep the photo anyway.

Arm work.

This is how my flash lets me know the batteries are getting low. Still, it is kind of cool this way, eh?

Big man, bright ink! And by the way, a terrifically friendly guy, too.

He wasn't sure why, but everybody wanted photos of his arms.

I got a kick out of this. Looked like mom, dad, and the boy. Ah, family!

This is Chris Bell and his wife, I think she said her name was Alicia. He does tattoos up in Traverse City, Michigan. Great back work - I have to presume he didn't do it himself.

Girl Scout Cookies! I love those things. Way too much.

---

My Funky Black & White Section

Well, the truth is, I got my white balance messed up by not shooting flash on these shots, I should have adjusted my white balance point before taking them. So I converted them to B&W - I think they came out well. Taken with an ancient Spiratone 85mm f/1.9 lens (1.5 crop on dSLR) shot wide-open. Funky bokeh. Anyway, here you go, B&W.