Today was my last day of a quick “vacation” trip to Phoenix. It was Super Bowl Sunday, so we went to a BBQ at Parker’s cousin’s house. It was a typical Super Bowl BBQ, only we brought along John’s quarterpipe / box jump set up John uses for shows. We set it up in the street for a bit of fun to the delight of the neighborhood BMX kids and other confused neighbors. Instead of watching the football game, most of the neighborhood watched John, Tom Stober (above), and Joe Tecca ride the ramps. Check out a few more shots after the jump. And yes, those are definitely chem trails in the background.

John Parker

John Parker

Joe Tecca

I didn’t bring much in way of photo gear with me to Phoenix. I didn’t really plan to shoot much of anything, but I did grab a small Canon T2i that I normally use to shoot video, as well as a fisheye, and threw it in my bag just in case. I put it to use yesterday and shot a couple photos of John Parker at a school demo he was doing. Today I tagged along to check out an indoor skatepark down the road from his house that happens to have a vert ramp. Normally shooting a dark, indoor skatepark requires some sort of external lighting to make anything happen, and this spot was no different. Modern DSLR cameras keep pushing the limits of high ISO, so the old film speed limitations are pretty much extinct in low available light. What would have been insane grain and loss of detail with a fast film stock years back, is now pretty darn acceptable if you don’t mind a little bit of noise. Basically, the goal just becomes getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action, and keep the photo acceptably sharp. The T2i goes up to ISO 12800. Many years back I pushed a roll of TMAX 3200 BW film to 12800, and it was a mess. But this actually worked out pretty well. I’m impressed. I made the most of it and experimented a little bit. The photo above and the photo after the jump are shot at ISO 12800 at 1/320th of a second at f 2.8, with available light. Normally I like to stay at least above 1/500th of a second, but it still wasn’t letting in enough light, so I made due at a slower shutter speed. No noise reduction or anything fancy, just a bit of sharpening in post. There’s a couple more shots after the jump. I wouldn’t want to shoot like this all the time, but better high ISO opens up some possibilities in a pinch.

I flew down to Phoenix to visit friends and attempt to escape the cold for a few days. Of course, now that I’ve gotten here, they’re experiencing a cold front for the duration of my stay. Oh well. I tagged along with John Parker to some BMX shows he was doing at a school in the suburbs along with Billy Garwich and Tom Stober. It was a simple set up: a box jump and quarterpipe, with Billy riding some flatland in between. Above is John doing a no-hander on the quarterpipe. There’s also another shot of an invert after the jump.

There was a period of several years where I did a lot of shows up in the Northeast, so it was a bit of a flashback watching the ramp get set up, and seeing the process all over again. I guess the quarterpipe they’re using is 22 years old now. Older than many of today’s pro riders.

Not the most politically correct of trick names, by today’s standards, but back in the ’80s, when the trick came to fruition, America still had no problem naming sports teams, and in this case tricks, after native Americans. But whatever. John Parker called me earlier today from his new home in Phoenix, AZ looking for some photos of him for a project he’s putting together out there. While I was digging through stuff I came across this shot from the summer of 2009 at Six Flags in Valencia, CA. I posted it previously with a gallery from Mat Hoffman’s Crazy Freakin’ Stunt show, but you just don’t see this trick much anymore, and I love photos of it. So here’s a resurrected semi-archive shot of Parker.

I was down in So Cal this weekend shooting the Supergirl Jam (a women’s skate and snow contest), and a had a day to kill, so I went and met up with John Parker, Coco Zurita, Gary Laurent, and others, who were all doing demos at Six Flags Magic Mountain as part of Mat Hoffman’s Danger Defying Daredevil Stunt Show, which has been running all summer long (with some of the riders swapping in and out along the way). Gary Laurent rode for Mongoose as a BMX Pro when I was a kid. He still rides (and quite well as you’ll see in a couple photos) but in these shows he announces and rides in the Globe of Death on a motorcycle (the sphere you see motorcycles riding around, going upside down, etc). Gary lives in Vegas and for years ran Planet Plywood skatepark. These days he’s riding his bike and motorcycle in performances all over the world.

The set of the Magic Mountain shows is actually the old set of a multi-million dollar Batman Stunt Show that ran their for years. They made some funny modifications like changing a Batman logo on the set to an “M” and adding little “Condor” details all around. The globe actually sits up on top of the cityscape. Neat. I shot some photos with the Globe of Death riders during one of their demos. It was pretty freaky to be hanging out under the globe with motorcycles (sometimes three at once) speeding in circles in front of my face, but with a fisheye lens the photos turned out pretty cool. Then between shows I shot some stuff with Gary, Coco, and Parker. Check out a gallery after the jump.

Note: the black and white images are shot with an iphone.

More stuff from this weekend at Woodward. I’m leaving tomorrow, but may be shooting some more vert stuff with Kevin Robinson in the morning. Dennis McCoy has been in town this weekend as well, so I shot with he and John Parker today on the vert ramp in Cloud 9. Lots of heckling back and forth as is customary when Dennis is around. Large Ray, Warren, and a few of the other King of Prussia, PA old school crew were out as well (minus Gary Pollack this time unfortunately). Ray always has a vintage bike of some sort with him, and this time brought along a pristine 1986 Redline RL22. Amazing stuff.

I don’t know why this came up, but Dennis is still concerned that the legendary Camarillo ramp in the 80s had some rigged numbers on the height pole to make people look like they were going higher. Allegedly there are several photos in existence of relatively short people standing next to the height pole and being 7 feet tall. I’m glad that is still coming up in day to day conversation, but anything is possible when Dennis is around. I never noticed this, but I will be going through my old magazines when I get home to look into this further. DMC doesn’t miss a beat. He also called me out on a factual error I wrote in a magazine in 2002. I’m glad that took seven years. So if anyone is wondering, Dennis did tailwhip 540 tailtaps on mini ramps before anyone else.

Another one from the archives, though not really that deep (it’s from 2006). It’s John Parker, shot for Ride BMX Magazine. Nothings (the trick in the photo) aren’t really anything new. Ron Wilkerson did them on quarterpipes in the late 80s, and he paid the price in the form of a severe head injury, coma, and a week in the hospital. After that crash at the AFA Masters in Witchita, Kansas (1988), “Nothings” weren’t a regular fixture on vert ramps. While they were common on jumps, they always looked incredibly out of control on vert (thus Ron’s crash: it was more of a “let the limbs fly style). In 2006, Parker figured out that if you tuck it in your lap (as you would a tucked no-hander) you can control the bike, or at least keep it from dropping out from under you. The result is above: a fully extended (and controlled) nothing. I’ve yet to see anyone else do anything like it on vert. So Good. This shot ran originally in a Ride BMX Buyers Guide issue in ’06. While few people can get away with white kneepads on the outside of their pants, Parker can do whatever he wants. John is also notorious for riding the Cloud 9 vert ramp (above) at Woodward in the middle of the day, by himself, with no music on. I’m pretty sure this was shot about 1:30 in the afternoon, by ourselves, in total silence (except for the hum of the overhead lights and pop of the flashes).

I just got back from Cincinnati, shooting the Action Sports World Tour (that’s John Parker above). My Norman (flash battery) pack blew up, literally, complete with a large bang and a little bit of smoke. It was pretty cool. I’ve had that thing for ten years, and it seems to happen to every flash power pack eventually. Hopefully it’s serviceable, if not a new one is in order. Fortunately I brought more flashes than I really needed, so I was able to make things happen. If it’s dead, at least it went out with a bang.