Brian Chapman has been a fixture in the New England Bicycle scene for decades. Since the ’80s Brian has been one of the more well known flatland freestyle riders in the Northeast, and while many of the riders from his generation have faded into obscurity, Brian continues to progress. These photos were shot back in 2005 in a parking garage in downtown Providence, RI. The shot above never got used. The kickflip hitchhiker after the jump is very similar to a film version that ran in Ride, and the cross-footed halfpacker ran in Sophisticated Rider as a center-spread.

The Chapman Brother’s legacy in BMX run deep. In the 80s Brian’s older brother Kieran produced a well known ‘zine called Radazine, which eventually became Wire Zine. A long string of videos covering the Northeast BMX scene evolved into one of the first BMX websites, and one of the first BMX sites with dedicated web content, eWire. These days Brian runs a hand-built custom bicycle frame company out of Providence called Circle A.

A lot of custom bikes rolling through here lately. If you dig these you can check out some previous bikes I shot here and here. If you missed it, you can also check out the video I did on Jordan Hufnagel for Level Magazine here.

Hufnagel and Argonaut are both Portland builders I shoot regularly. DeSalvo is a well-known builder from Ashland who I’m told cranks out a ton of high-quality builds, many of them (the below bike as well) in Titanium. Nice, very different bikes from all the guys. Check them out after the jump.

Chris Noble is relaunching Level Mag tomorrow has relaunched Level Mag in online form. Level was one of my favorite print magazines a few years back (I wrote about it here). Level was a UK based magazine about “All Things Good” and inspired a few modern titles like Anthem and Monster Children to get their publications going. Unfortunately they shelved Level after 11 issues, but Chris kept the rights to the name when they sold 4130 Publishing a few years back. Now living up here in Portland, Chris is relaunching Level online. I contributed a photo gallery and video feature on Portland custom bike builder Jordan Hufnagel (seen above). Pretty happy with how that one turned out. The Hufnagel Photo Gallery is here and the video is here.

I’ve also got an iPhone photo feature up on Defgrip today, so check that out.

A few more bikes from some recent studio shoots with local builders. These bikes are by Hufnagel and Argonaut. I’ve been shooting a lot of bikes for these guys and others lately, and since each bike is a unique build, the photos tend to focus on the unique elements of each.

Images from other shoots can be found here in my Bike Portraits post or here and here.

I shot a few more bikes recently in the studio for Hufnagel and Argonaut, two of the many kick ass handbuilt bike builders here in Portland. One of the detail shots is above (showing the Hufnagel headtube badge). The other shot of Ashley Charles is from a few months back, inside an unused portion of a parking garage at one of the malls here in Portland. We got in and out super quick (he got the feeble grind done first try) as it was super loud in there. When we were leaving we all split up and I was walking back to my car when I noticed three police officers on Segway’s speeding in the direction of the rail. I heard one of them say “I think they’re over here.” I just kept walking and giggling. Mission accomplished.