Matt Haughey brought be another custom bike last week, this time around it was a MTB. Matt’s a tall guy, so a fitted custom bike is the way to go. In the past I’ve shot his DeSalvo Cyclocross bike, and more recent his Cielo roadbike. His new MTB is made by local builder Vertigo, and outfitted with as many local-made or made in the USA parts he could come by (Matt is the founder of buylocalcycling.com so all his bikes have a lot of locally sourced components). Check out more shots after the jump. Horizontal shots can be expanded by clicking. Read more…

Since summer is in full swing, and two of the major snowboard summer camps are on Mt. Hood, right outside Portland (there is snow there year round), we wanted to do a special Yobeat shirt for the summer that had a kitchy tourist sort of feel… A souvenir of sorts for some of the campers and staff up there to take home. We ended up with a nice clean vector illustration of Mt. Hood’s silhouette, with a two-color print.

Rather than just design them and hand off a disk to someone else, I printed a ton of them myself right here on our press. One of the things I like about design and photography is the hands on part… the process of making shit. That hands on process is easy to lose when you pass off a computer file to a printer. I try to get as much hand done process in as I can, when I can, which is part of the reason I like screen printing. Now that we have a set-up in house, I get to do more experimenting, and keep myself sane and off the computer at times.

These are sort of a “locals only edition.” We’re not selling them in our online store. We gave away one free to each of the snowboard campers at the first week of camp at Windell’s (it was “YoBeat Week” at camp) and they’ll be for sale exclusively through Exit Real World’s Government Camp location throughout the summer. I just shipped up a batch yesterday for those guys so keep your eyes peeled in their shop if you want to get your hands on one. After the jump I’ve posted a few detail shots, and some images I poached from the Yobeat Facebook Page of kids wearing them around snowboard camp last week. Turned out to be a great promo, and kids like free stuff. Read more…

Last summer, Mark Rainha built the weirdest ramp I’ve ever ridden, hidden on a hillside in Southwest Portland. It’s small and tight, but fun, and hidden in a bizarre jungle environment that overlooks downtown. I posted this shot last summer after the ramp was finished, and now that the weather is clearing up around here, Mark has added to the ramps sketchy nature, and added an extension off the side. The weird jungle ramp is now even weirder, and it’s added to the challenging fun. You just have to be careful not to go over the side, or you’ll end up dropping a few hundred feet into the heart of PSU. The photo above is Mark, transferring from the new transition in the background into the mini. If you look closely, you might also see Ryan Barrett wearing a sweater over a collared shirt in the background. “It’s formal Friday.” At least he looked good, on and off the bike, while making the rest of us feel under-dressed. Heavy session on the ramp tonight, though, Barrett, Mark, Anthony Levenda, Anthony Buglio, Caleb Ruecker and more. I suspect I’ll shoot more on this fun contraption as the summer continues.

I came across these shots of Mat Hoffman from 2002, sort of by accident, while searching for some shots in my files. I’m not sure if they ever got used, but they’re from a “Soul Bowl” contest in Huntington Beach, CA in 2002. HSA (Hoffman Sports Association) was the sport organizer for the event, and while Mat wasn’t riding in the contest, he took some runs during practice. I can’t remember if he was injured or healthy… Injured or not, when Mat drops in it’s full throttle. Judging from the photos, whatever limb was almost detatched from his body at the time wasn’t holding him back. The photo on the left is a no-hander one-footer, which I’ve been know to call the “best trick in freestyle” on several occasions. Subjective, yes, but I stand by that, as it’s one of my favorites to shoot and to watch. Sure there are harder tricks, but that’s one that will never get old, at least to me. The photo on the right is pretty serious. The Soul Bowl was/is a full-size vert ramp, but also featured a 45-degree hip and bowl corners. People would jump the hip, but they’d mostly creep over it, and do feeler airs. Mat on the other hand, blasted the shit out of it with very little practice. In all the years the Soul Bowl events ran, I don’t think anyone else went this large over the hip… and Mat wasn’t even in the contest. Check out both shots larger after the jump. Read more…

Back in 2009 I posted another photo from this Warped Tour shoot with Joe Rich from 1999. I just came across two more slides from that day, and since Joe Rich photos are gold, I figured I’d scan them. The shoot resulted in an Etnies ad/postcard which you can see after the jump, as well as the other photo I scanned. You can also blow up the shots by clicking. Read more…

I drove up to the Seattle area today for a flatland BMX jam. I only shot a few photos as I spent most of the day riding, but you can see a few more shots after the jump. Above is Mark Florek, who I spent many years riding with on the east coast. Mark now lives in Seattle, and fired out plenty decade variations and combinations. Read more…

A little while back, FBM Bikes Team Legend Mike Tagliavento (or Mike Tag as we all know him) was diagnosed with cancer. Aside from being all together shitty, we all know that stuff like that is unbelievably expensive to treat. FBM immediately set up a fund for Tag, and riders all over the globe have been coming together to kick in money. Today’s gathering in Hillsboro, Oregon was organized by some locals including Pro rider Chester Blacksmith, in an effort to raise some money through prize raffles and a BBQ. From a turnout perspective, this was one of the larger Northwest jams I’ve been too, which hopefully resulted in some decent help for Tag. If you’d like to help out Mike, here’s a link to the FBM Bikes page where you can do so.

Above is Portland’s favorite former Huffy rider, Josh “Boyd” Cornell, who took some time off of the Party Planet and shredded some lookbacks. You can check out some more photos after the jump (the horizontal photos, including the one above can be blown up by clicking them). High turndown ration warning. Read more…

The original Chenga World Skatepark in North Ridgeville, Ohio was one of the most important indoor skateparks of all time. If you were a rider, or BMX photographer in the early 2000s, there’s no doubt you made your way there, no matter where you were from. It was that good. Designed with bikes in mind, the flowing style created by Nate Wessel essentially changed the way we thought about indoor ramp set ups. Owned by two flatland riders, Scott Powell and Dave Schaffer, Chenga also boasted a huge area dedicated to flatland. The original Chenga World closed its doors a few years back when they lost their building due to real estate development, but they still have two other parks in the Cleveland area: Chenga 2, and Chenga 57. That’s Adam Banton above (click to enlarge) on a rigged curved wallride setup. Check out a photo of Chenga founder Scott Powell after the jump. Read more…

I hit up the Tigard skatepark for the second day in a row, since my friend Anthony Napolitan was in town on a trip with a fancy shoe company you’ve probably never heard of. A bunch of people were down there shredding including Anthony, the shoe crew, and the usual Portland suspects like Ben Hucke (above), Caleb Quanbeck, and Roman Tencza. Check out some more photos after the jump. Read more…

The sun is back in Portland, hopefully for a while now. I cut out of the office early, admittedly for the second day in a row, to go ride bikes. I met up with Roman Tencza, Mark Rainha, and a few others at the Tigard Skatepark, and fired off a few photos of Roman and some local skate rippers. You can view them bigger after the jump. Read more…

I mentioned this video a couple weeks ago, that’s been up over on LevelMag.com in their player. I had a bunch of great stuff left over from the Yobeat interviews I did with Draplin that I posted a little while back, and just couldn’t leave this stuff on the cutting room floor. Like the Yobeat videos, this one got featured over on the design site Notcot.org, and received a lot of good feedback. Aaron’s become a big name in the design world in recent years, and his work hold up to the image he’s built. Check out his workif you haven’t already.

I remember a few years ago as photographers we’d labor over strange ways and devices to get cool POV perspectives. In the last few years, GoPro and a few other manufacturers have made it incredibly easy and cheap. I’ve been itching to try some flatland stuff with it for a while, but kept forgetting. This time around, I remembered to bring it, but forgot to charge it, so I only got a few clips, but I thought it was neat. These suckers have become cliché in an “everyone’s doing it sort of way.” Nevertheless if gives a neat perspective that can be used well in moderation. Next time, with more planning and battery charging, I might try it with two of them, to splice different angles together.

Meta Filter founder/programming wizard Matt Haughey dropped off another nice custom bike (with an enormously tall stand-over height) to have shot. His DeSalvo cross bike, which he brought by last year, can be seen here. This time around it was a Cielo road bike, built by Chris King here in Portland, Oregon. Nice stuff. Built up with Chris King and SRAM components, in a Meta Filter-ish blue color. Coincidentally, Matt grew up riding flatland BMX in Southern California, and just built up a new flatland bike, so hopefully we’ll see him out at the flatland lot soon. Check out some more shots of the Cielo after the jump. Read more…

We went up to the 2011 Holy Oly at the Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle on Saturday. Holy Oly is a fun, mellow snowboard contest, which features a huge quarterpipe, and jib/rail set up. The winner for the day (as judged by a panel of notable snow industry veterans) wins a pallet of Olympia beer, and gets his (or her) name etched into the “Holiest of the Holy” trophy. This was the 8th annual event, and past winners include Peter Line, Austin Hironaka, and Wille Yli Luoma. This year, Manuel Diaz gets to lug a bunch of beer back to Chile. I put together the above video for Yobeat. Yes, the soundtrack is sarcastic.You can also check out the story and Brooke’s photo gallery on Yobeat.

I also put together a “Show and Tell” video for Level Magazine, with some cool footage I had of Aaron Draplin that wasn’t used in the Yobeat video series from a few weeks back. In this one, Draplin shows some of the neat old packaging he’s collected from estate sales over the years. Some would consider it junk, but as Aaron points out it has a “Fuckin’ Rad value of millions and millions of dollars.” Check it out here.

Today was day two of the 2011 Old School BMX Reunion. Another full day of riding, along with an after party, complete with the Dave Nourie flatland demo that has become tradition. Some new faces showed up this year, including Fred Blood, Scotty Freeman, and Rick Allison. Bill Allen, the actor who played Cru Jones in the movie Rad, made an appearance, along with Jose Yanez, who was the first rider to do a backflip. Jose is most well known as the guy who did the backflip stunt work for Bill Allen in Rad.

Woodward West opened up its Mega Ramp for a three hour session. In theory, given the group of 40-somethings, this could have killed some people, or broken some hips, but it actually went over pretty well, and things stayed relatively safe. A few riders jumped the gap for the first time, while others focused on just the quarterpipe, and Mat Hoffman blasted a few giant airs. There were a few scary moments to watch, and honestly a lot more people played around on it than I expected, but fortunately, no old men down.

It was an incredibly diverse group this year, and once again, well worth the trip to California. If you missed day one, check out those photos here. Check out the photos from day two after the jump. Read more…

For the third year in a row I’ve made the trip down to Woodward West in Tehachapi, California, for what’s become my favorite event of the year: The Old School BMX Reunion.  It’s sort of like a class reunion, only with 200-some-odd BMX freestyle pioneers from all over the world… all in one place. Many of these riders pro careers date back to the late 70s and early 80s.

This year many of the riders arrived later in the day, so day one was a bit mellower than in the past. Tomorrow is expected to be a bit more packed in and should see a heavier riding session. Today was mostly people getting into town, and playing catch up. So far, BMX legends floating around Woodward include Dennis McCoy, Joe Johnson, Gary Pollak, Dave Nourie, Pete Augustin (pictured above with Jimmy LeVan), Rich Sigur, Brian Blyther, and Eddie Fiola. You can check out some more photos and a small gallery from day one after the jump. I’ll post a more diverse gallery from day two tomorrow night. Read more…

Had this Argonaut Cycles custom built road bike, complete with integrated electronic shifting, in the studio the other day. Nice internal wiring, custom paint meeting polished stainless steel, and fancy removable (changeable) dropouts. Nice stuff. You can check out a few more shots after the jump. The bike was built for a tradeshow, and it’s for sale, so if you’re in the market for a bad-ass custom machine, and you’ve got a few grand (okay, almost 12) kicking around, go get it. You can see previous “bike portraits” here (you’ll find further links from there as well). Read more…

I’ve been doing design work for Woodward Camp since 2006-ish. I do the catalogs every year, as well as a lot of the advertising, collateral, shirts, etc. They’re growing constantly, even expanding internationally, and there’s always something new going on, so it’s fun stuff. We work with a number of different brands in our office, both big and small, but Woodward is one of the most consistent. This year’s print and web look started with a sheet of steel in my garage, a few stencils, and some muriatic acid. The resulting rusty steel textures got used as subtle elements in the catalogs this year, but they take on more of a roll in the ads. Essentially, I quick-rusted the area around the stencil with the acid and water, then shot photos of the result to use in the designs. The textures got worked in with some provided action photography (I shot the BMX ad of Morgan Wade) and we were off and running. We also worked QR codes into the print campaign this year, to direct readers to the various Woodward web portals by simply scanning them with their smart phone. See the ads after the jump. Read more…

Before I moved back East from California in 2003, I spent a lot of time riding and shooting with some guys down in the San Diego area: mainly Gary Young, Ryan Sher, and Mike Parenti. This was right about the time Gary started getting a ton of coverage, and picking up more sponsors. We shot an interview for Dig Magazine, which resulted in a cover shot, and that same year he had covers of Transworld BMX and Ride BMX as well. I don’t remember much of this day, other than I know I have some shots of Parenti as well. It was prior to the Dig interview… I only know that because he’s wearing Duffs shoes, and during the Dig interview he’d started riding for Vans (and he still rides for them today). It’s shot at a park in Lake Perris, CA, then called Real Ride, but I believe it’s now called Da Compound. This no-footed can-can is out of the 6-foot mini ramp they had at the time. Come to think of it, this might have been the last time I made it out to that park. Click image to go bigger. And check out a previous Gary Young archive photo here.

The second part of the video interview I did with design guru Aaron Draplin is up on Yobeat. This one talks a lot about his work ethic… scrapping together a lot of “little stuff” versus working with the big guys. He also touches on early graphic influences including legendary skate artists like Jim Phillips. If you get the chance to see one of his design lectures around the country, do it.

This is part one of an interview we did with Graphic Designer Aaron Draplin. Draplin cut his teeth in snowboarding, working on Snowboarder Magazine, Snowboard Mag, and on identities for brands like Union Binding Co. and Coal. He’s since evolved into national design speaking gigs and has done work for the Obama administration. Part Two next week.

In 1997 Kevin Robinson and a few partners opened up a skatepark in East Providence, RI called Impact Stunt Park. At the time, there were very few skateparks in the area (ZT Maximus and Skater Island were about it) and the ones that existed only allowed bikes one night a week at best. The Northeast winters are harsh, and the only option, if we wanted to ride, was riding indoors. For many of us, this meant spending a lot of time riding flatland in parking garages, and waiting for the only bike night at the other parks.  Thanks to Kevin and crew, the Northeast was saved, at least for a few years. Impact was one of the few skateparks in the country (at the time) that was designed with bikes in mind. As a result, the clientele was nearly all bike riders and inline skaters. The vast array of transitions didn’t really appeal to skateboarders, which, from a business standpoint, didn’t really cut it after a while. But from a bike riders perspective it was great: there was a mini ramp with a spine, big quarterpipes, a box jump, street spine, sub boxes, grind ledges, wallrides…. Impact had had everything… for bikes at least.

Impact held contests every few months, drawing riders from all over the east coast. Props’ Road Fools came through the park in its infancy. Impact was featured in the major BMX magazines of the time, and I shot the first BMX ad photo I ever sold there, fittingly a photo of Kevin for a Hoffman Bikes ad (you can see the shot after the jump). Impact’s large parking lot often saw gatherings of some of the best flatland riders in the Northeast.

Every good skatepark needs a shop, and Impact brought in one of the best BMX shops in the country at the time, Dick Maul’s Bike Shop. Dick Maul’s only other location was run out of a garage in Halifax, Massachusetts, and to this day I’ve seen very few shops that rival the selection Maul’s had (and I assume still has). A second location opened up inside Impact for the first year the park was open, but sadly, it just wasn’t doing enough business to stay open. John Maul and Rich Daguirda, who ran the shop did get to spend a lot of time riding the park, though.

During the late ’90s Impact was like a second home to me. I was living in Boston and working at a magazine while going to school, yet somehow, I found time to help Kevin out running the place a few days a week. I’d go down early, ride flatland indoors before the park opened, and then help run the park for a few hours, all while either riding or shooting photos. Like many east coast indoor spots, Impact was so dark it made photography difficult, but that actually helped me to figure out how to use a camera and shoot action. A lot of screwing up and “wasting film” was one of the best learning tools, and the constant flow of great east coast riders ultimately led me to shooting BMX for a living.

I moved to California in 1999, and not too long thereafter Impact saw its demise. Kevin had moved away to Woodward, PA to focus on vert riding, and in his absence a lot of things were falling apart. Indoor skateparks are an incredibly tough business, and Impact fell victim to that. Economics just aren’t in favor of indoor skateparks. But while it lasted, Impact supported the Northeast BMX scene and gave us a place to ride. Many of the riders who regularly shredded Impact still ride today, and have had success in BMX, including Ryan “Biz” Jordan (pictured above, click to go bigger), Jerry Bagley, Keith McElhinney, Derrick “The Maine-iac” Girard, and of course, Kevin himself. Check out more including a photo gallery after the jump. Read more…

Last night I dug out a bunch of old photos from Impact Skatepark in Rhode Island to scan for a more elaborate post down the road. Located in East Providence, Impact was Kevin Robinson’s skatepark in the late 90s. I spent a ton of time there before I moved to California. It was a dark, dungeon-like place for photos, but the tricky lighting actually made it a great place to learn. If you could get a decent photo at Impact, you could do so just about anywhere. The park saved us east-coaster from the winter, and saw riders come in from all over. Derrick Girard, who later became known as “the Maine-iac” and joined the illustrious FBM team, was a regular, despite living three hours away in Maine. He’d show up on a race rame (I believe that’s a Reynolds Racing frame in the photo) and destroy the box jump and wooden doubles (which you can see in the background).

I’ve got some scanning to do, but I’ll be posting some more photos from Impact in the near future, including some shots of Ryan “Biz” Jordan, Jerry Bagley, Keith McElhinney, and Kevin Robinson.

This one is from a contest Play Clothes held in Montreal, Quebec. It’s right about the time I started figuring out BMX photography, without completely blowing it. Funny side story: I got third in pro flat (Andrew Faris pictured above won). Hal Brindley asked if it was cool if he gave me Canadian money for the placing. I didn’t think about it and said yes. I forgot to consider Canadian currency was worth of half of US currency at the time. Oh well, it was fun, so it didn’t really matter. This shot of Andrew screams the time period, and Andrew himself. A Basic Bikes frame, a Baco “Pride” sticker. 48 spoke wheels. Pony tail. This was when Andrew was starting to win everything, and right before he got on the Schwinn team.

Before the SIA Tradeshow (the big snow industry show) in Denver, we threw around some ideas in the office in regards to handouts for Yobeat advertisers, pro riders, and overall cool people. Something to give away in meetings or run-ins that wasn’t just a business card that they threw in their bag and forgot about. We wanted to do something that made an impression quickly and that people would actually look at. We also wanted to communicate visually that Yobeat is more than a snowboard web site, we also help brands create marketing strategies. We thought about basic t-shirts and hats, but everyone does that, and again, they just get tossed in a SWAG bag with other tradeshow goodies, often to be forgotten about.

Yobeat’s traffic has grown tremendously in the last year, so we had to show that we were just as “Pro” as the corporate guys, but still had that DIY mentallity that sports like snowboarding are born from. In other words, Pro, without being too Pro. Since we’ve been doing all of our new apparel in-house, a t-shirt was a good way to promote that, but we didn’t want to be cliché about it. So we decided upon a packaging option we could create in-house that would contain a limited edition t-shirt (we did 60 shirts using our new script design, in a limited gold flake ink just for the show), as well as a limited edition die-cut sticker, a screen printed Yobeat sticker, and of course, our business cards. The shirts and header cards for the packaging were all screen printed in house. Woven tags were sewn onto the shirt for a custom, finished feel, and everything got put together and shipped off to Denver. We got a lot of great response. The general reaction seemed to be “Holy shit, you guys got Pro.” A few brands quickly asked us about the creative direction side of what we do, so it worked well. We gave away all 60 pieces pretty quickly, and at this point I don’t even have one for myself.

The draw to design for me is the actually creation. I’d much rather create something on a small budget entirely in-house if we have the opportunity. This was the perfect opportunity to do that. Had we outsourced these, it would have been too costly, but in-house they were about $3 each. Check out some more details after the jump. The white with gold was a tradeshow only edition, but we may be releasing a gold ink black shirt version in the future (without the fancy kit, though). Read more…