The past couple weeks have been chaotic as we’re building out our new office space here in Portland (which I’ll post about separately), in the middle of which I took off to PA to shoot some snowboarding at Seven Springs Resort. Forum Snowboards sponsored a “real street” inspired snowboard park, and I headed out to the mountains near Pittsburgh to shoot the grand opening for Yobeat. The resulting video can be viewed after the jump. That’s Austen Sweetin above.

Two more shots from a recent trip down to New Mexico which I’m slowly getting to dig through. One Kickin’ Ass Ranch, and a toy plane crash-landed on a building somewhere in the sticks. See them bigger after the jump.

On a trip to New Mexico last week, we went and checked out El Santuario de Chimayo, an old church which has become a bit of a tourist attraction and or pilgrimage for religious types. The soil in the area is said to have “healing powers” and one of the rooms in the church is adorned with discarded crutches from those “healed” by the chapel’s powerful dirt. You can take dirt with you if you like, from a small pit inside the church. The pit, upon inspection, appeared to be a whole in the ground filled with play sand. But to each his own. Pictures inside were forbidden, so I’m going to hell, but I touched the play sand, so I should be good. I am also an ordained minister, so it’s cool. We found the above sign particularly amusing. It depicts a sacred space, yet is defaced with graffiti.

A fence adorned with hand made crosses. Hundreds of them.

The Holy water may be free. The containers not so much.

Delicious.

Structure next to the church.

Free baby shoes.

Jesus loves candles.

Church patrons and church art.

Entrance to the Holy dirt.

Woman fills a bag with Holy dirt. I hit my head on the way in.

Trying not to get sand in my shoes.

I borrowed a quarter.

Crutches from the healed.

Do not write on the baby shoes.

Do not throw holy dirt.

More handmade crosses.

There are some more photos from the trip that I shot with my iPhone over on my Posterous page.

A few weeks back we were driving up to Mt. Baker for the Legendary Banked Slalom and managed a double blow-out in Brooke’s car. Not one, but two flat tires at the same time. At that point, the spare is out of the question, because, well, who carries two of those? Fortunately, with two smart phones in the car, we’d located a tow truck within minutes. We got towed to a Sears about 10 miles back in the direction we’d come from, and I’d say we were back on the road within an hour and a half. Much less of a problem than it could have been. If you find yourself with two flats on the side of the road outside Kelso, Washington, give Bean’s a call. They’ll get you towed in no time. A few more shots after the jump.

Made a trip to Hawaii recently, first to Oahu, then to the Big Island, then back to Oahu, to do some shooting and roaming around amongst Hawaiian things like lava, trees, and coffee beans. It just so happened that the trip overlapped some of the largest waves in recent history, so Pipeline and Waimea were lined with tourists watching some of the best surfers in the world try to catch “the big one.” I don’t surf at all, but it was crazy to watch. That water was serious. I feel much safer on concrete.

We paid a visit (two actually) to my good friend Big Island’s (Mike Castillo) tattoo shop, which is not on the Big Island at all, it’s in Waikiki Beach. BMXers might know Big from his days working at Hoffman Bikes or for his tattoo work on guys like Nate Wessel, Kevin Robinson, Rick Thorne, etc. Mike gave us some suggestions on where to go, and where not to. No tattoos for me though. These are some outtakes from the journey.

Shot this photo of a bearded beggar somewhere in Northern Italy with a Yashica T4 sometime in 2004.

Shooting “Action Sports” contests can be a total mess. When I say action sports contests, I mean the contests put on by the TV networks or the larger outside corporations — they are the ones calling this shit “Action Sports” in the first place. True “inside” BMX and Skate contests are still fun to shoot, and far less of a hassle. The bigger contests require credentials, and even when you have said credentials you can’t get anywhere you need to be. X Games, Dew Tour… it’s a total fucking disaster no matter what pass you have (media, team manager, friends and family, etc., I’ve tried them all). Last year at X Games I actually had to borrow Mat Hoffman’s pass so I could where I needed to get a couple shots before I changed my ticket and went home early. Pathetic really. So this year I didn’t even bother to go, despite being in Southern California anyway.

I’ve been shooting the ASA Action Sports World Tour for the last couple years, primarily because I shoot it for the event organizer (ASA) and have a proper credential. Even without that “special” pass the events are a bit less restricted, and at least a bit closer to a true BMX contest. So a BMX publication could, in theory, go and shoot photos without the “We don’t give a fuck about you or your stupid magazine” attitude of X and Dew. During X Games this year they had a contest called the BMX Triples running in Costa Mesa, about 40 minutes South of LA and X Games. So Costa Mesa it was, and I avoided X at all costs.

This gallery is a selection of the photos I shot for the event and BFD.com (where you can find a replay of the live webcast from the contest’s final round and more photos/results). My friend Aaron Nardi also posted a gallery, and a cool video from the contest on his site. Check that out after the gallery below.

Note: Shot above is of Josh Hult doing a superman tailwhip.

Made a trip to Vegas this weekend for a jam at TJ Lavin’s house celebrating both the 4th of July and the tenth anniversary of the jumps in his yard. Unfortunately it was really windy all day long, so the riding on the day of the jam was pretty minimal, and didn’t start until right before dark. So I didn’t shoot much in the way of photos… aside from these ones of TJ with his dog. I did shoot some video for BFD.com which they’ll likely post within the week. It will be mellow since the action was such due to the wind. Despite the small amount of riding that went down, it was nice to be back at TJ’s. I think it’s been at least 5 years since I was at his house. That was long before dudes like Brad Pitt and Oscar de la Hoya would roll up to hang out with him. You can see another photo of TJ with his dog after the jump. Edit: I added a video from BFD.com. I shot the footage, and they edited the clip.

The past two weeks I’ve been busy bouncing around photographing the ASA Action Sports World Tour. Last week I was down in San Diego for a Freestyle Motocross contest, then a few days ago I was out in Minneapolis for a Skateboard Vert and BMX Jumping contest. Later this week I’m off to Chicago for a little more of the same. You can check out a few more shots after the jump from both events, including DJ Paul Oakenfold and Theory of a Deadman.

Several months prior to Hurricane Katrina I watched a Discovery Channel feature on New Orleans geography, which detailed how the low-lying city was likely to experience a catastrophic flood. Shortly thereafter Katrina hit, and nearly every aspect of the Discovery special came to fruition. Of course the documentary failed to predict the completely slack government and aid response.

Fast forward three years. From a media standpoint New Orleans is an afterthought. As a bystander, it’s easy to assume things are back to normal, or at least well on their way.

Recently I got to see first hand how “not back to normal” parts of the city still are, three years later. Venture beyond the French Quarter (which sits above sea level and was in a sense spared) and the few rebuilt upper-class white neighborhoods, and you’ll find a city that has seen very little in the way of aid.

While tourism provides jobs for many who were left with nothing after the storm, it’s clear very little money beyond that goes back to the people. There were no donation buckets in hotels (or anywhere at all). Expensive tours bring out-of-towners through the Lower Ninth Ward in large buses, a scene much like a Safari. There is no direct tourist tax to give money back. There should be.

Much as scientists warned about a Katrina like storm long before it happened, Wired Science recently published a story which describes how California will no doubt experience a disaster of Katrina proportions, if not worse.

In June 2008, President Bush signed a bill approving another (roughly) 200 billion dollars be allocated to the Iraq War for 2008, which brings the cumulative total to close to $800 billion. Yet much of the meager 70 Billion (or roughly six months in Iraq) promised for Katrina relief remains stuck in bureaucratic red tape.

The following photos were shot around New Orleans — mostly in the Lower Ninth Ward — during November 2008, three years after the storm. They were not shot from a tour bus.

Check them out after the jump.