As I lift my head out of my mirror to see if I can take the left BAM I'm flying over the windshield of my bike and thankfully land in my lane in front of the bike. I’m here writing this, so I guess all’s well, but WoW. How did I get there and here for that matter?

I’m Jim Wojdylak but you can call me Wojo, my friends do, in between other colorful adjectives. I’m the guy with the camera you see running around CMT from Call of the Wild Photography, if you follow the biker lifestyle you might have seen my work. I’ve been into photography and lighting since when I was a kid. First a camera operator for the school cable company shooting with local personalities and doing lighting for the drama club. Some things change, some things stay the same and I still have a camera in my hand.

I have shot so much of Catskill Mountain Thunder Motorcycle Festival over the years and it is great to work with the Handel family - they rock! Photography and CMT doesn’t just happen and my route here was, well, as you see above, a bit bumpy - not really a shocker if you know me.

It was in 2010 I’m on route 20 in Massachusett trying to take a left turn into my office. Route 20 is a $hitshow two (2) lane road and in hindsight I should NOT have tried taking the left and should have just used a side road to turn around, but hindsight is well,  you know. Anyway, I'm trying to take the left. There's a white pickup in my right rear view being a little erratic. I'm about ready to dump the clutch and take off but he straightens out. Then it happens - As I lift my head out of my mirror to see if I can take the left BAM I'm flying over the windshield of my bike and thankfully land in my lane in front of the bike. 

I get up and see a girl in the road and the front of her car smashed from rear-ending me! I called her every name in the book and shattered her windshield with my helmet. Then I looked at her again and she's crying her eyes out and pointed to the car behind her. Turns out she was stopped behind me and  took about an 80 mph impact from a crack who*e and was shoved into me so hard that I was tossed over the windshield. 

One of those shake your head moments - literally in my case. I walked away from the accident but had a hell of a concussion so much so the next two weeks are very foggy to say the least.

So, how did I get here, well, something like that makes you look at life and not want to miss out on things. Well, I had been wanting to get back into photography but it's very expensive (just ask my wife) and something else was always more important than buying a new camera, but this accident made me go buy a DSLR and not just to have it but to be on a mission to be the next “Micheal Lichter” the other part of that plan was to have only the gear I could fit on a motorcycle - I can assure you that ship has sailed. If you look around this studio I'd need a pretty good sized uhaul to pack it all up. Sure makes my CMT trips interesting. 🤣

After we moved to northern NH the same opportunities weren’t there but it was still pretty common for me to have a film SLR camera in my hand but skiing, girls and partying encompassed most of my time……

I was bit with the motorcycle obsession around 2008-ish my friends are pretty amazed that I haven't skied in well over a decade. Permin Zerbreggin was asked in an interview once why he was still skiing and his answer was “I’m still looking for that perfect turn”. Finding the perfect turn on a bike replaced finding the perfect turn on skis for me and I fell in love with the biker lifestyle.

As a result I also became a huge fan of Micheal Lichter the former staff photographer of Easy Riders. His work is phenomenal and he captures the lifestyle perfectly and always seems to be in the right place at the right time to grab the perfect shot and tell the story. 

Photography and motorcycles have opened so many doors and have led to me meeting so many cool people - maybe even You! Every event I cover I get to have awesome conversations with the strangers I'm shooting and we then quickly become friends. 

I have been the staff photographer at Cady's tavern in Chepachet, RI for over a decade now and Catskill Mountain Thunder Motorcycle Festival for a number of years. How lucky am I? I get to cover some great local and touring bands not to mention motorcycle events in multiple states over the years. We have also been doing a Cady’s vintage motorcycle / pin-up calendar shoot since 2016 with the proceeds from the calendars donated to a different charity every year.  Ask me more about this family run, biker favorite (sound familiar - I may have a theme LOL). 

This is about Catskill Mountain Thunder & wow there is a lot there. I have been the Staff photographer for CMT since 2019. It’s an incredibly busy week but so much fun! I start by shooting the Pub Crawl on Wednesday night. Who knew you would start coming so early that they do Taco Tuesday now too! We then get a couple of models and kick ass motorcycles and do a promo shoot on Thursday before the Blackthorne starts getting really crazy. 

I then go into full on event mode shooting both the huge array of local bands they have during the event but also covering the national headliners such as Drowning Pool, Texas Hippie Coalition, Saliva, Adelitas way and Buckcherry. But my favorite part is still grabbing shots of the CMT attendees having fun and hopefully causing some mischief and getting to talk to all the different people for a little bit. Capturing moments, I see them, I shoot them, but you folks are living them and I am just thrilled to be part of your mischief and good times! 

The entire staff at CMT is incredible and once again these friends are becoming family and have made the June Run and CMT annual events we do not miss and try our best to hit the Blackthorne a few more times to get to come back out and catch up with everyone. 

So I look forward to seeing everyone this September at CMT and please don’t hesitate to grab me to snag a picture and introduce yourself. I'm also normally fully stocked with my stickers which double nicely as pasties so grab a few of those too!
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​{ Editors Note: Wojo captures great moments, you see a lot of these moments on the website and our socials, jump in his pics so we can feature you too! It's a special talent to enjoy Jack & Coke, snap shots all night and get up in the morning and keep going - Respect! }