I Wound up doing an unplanned shoot with Roman Tencza riding some dirt jumps today. Dean Dickinson was filming a project for ESPN and wanted to get some behind the scenes photoshoot footage. Roman and I had been talking about shooting some dirt at his friend’s private spot, so it was a good excuse to get out there… He killed the dirt much like he does the concrete. If you’re unfamiliar, check out my previous post. Or continue on after the jump and check out some dirt shred. Note: the horizontal shots are expandable.

I shot a bunch of photos of Roman Tencza last month (and over the course of the last year really) that turned out to be some of my favorite things I’ve shot recently. Those shots evolved into a bio for the ESPN site, which evolved into a video to go with it. This feature is a good example of why I like producing content for the internet: I can melt together all the aspects of content that I like into one piece (photo, video, etc). Roman shreds the skateparks up here in the Northwest. Don’t be surprised if you see him on the contest scene this year too. He’s got the big tricks, but the style and flow to go with it. Very Rob Darden, Brian Foster, and Brian Hunt inspired style. Awesome. Check out the video above, and click here to go through the photo gallery and interview. It’s worth it.

BMX photography and rain don’t really mix.  Last week just wasn’t working. The rain finally gave us an afternoon to get out and shoot some photos for more than a couple minutes yesterday at Tigard and Vancouver. I shot a bunch of photos to add to some archive stuff I have of Roman Tencza from the last year or so. I’m going to put together a little Profile for ESPN BMX which should be up next week. Keep your eyes peeled, we got some cool stuff. In the meantime, here’s a teaser. That concrete quarter is ten-feet-tall. Camera shutters (it’s digital so I guess it’s not really a shutter) also echo like crazy when you’re standing inside a full-pipe/capsule. No-hander, Vancouver, Washington. Click the photo to go bigger.

The plan today was to hit up the Tigard skatepark with Verde Bikes rider and Colorado native Roman Tencza. He’s been hitting up Tigard for daily sessions and charging hard. A lot of the Northwest riders are trails or street riders, which I like, but I prefer shooting transition stuff if I had the choice. Roman kills the transitions.

Despite some nice weather up here in Portland lately, it’s still iffy until late June. So a day that started out sunny quickly saw ominous clouds rolling in. Looking North, we figured we could still see sun in the sky, and hoped to beat the rain over the bridge to the Vancouver, Washington skatepark; Just barely. As soon as I got there (Roman beat me by a few minutes so at least he had a chance to roll around) and I stepped out of the car we could feel it starting to rain. I pulled out one light as quick as I could, barely had time to focus, and it was coming down. Roman got two quick hits at this turndown transfer into the extension before it started dumping down. About three minutes at the skatepark and we headed to lunch. Somehow we still managed to squeak out a cool shot. Button pushed and straight to pack up the gear before it turned into camera bag soup. Tomorrow we’re hoping the weather holds and we can get some actual time in.

I like the single flash result here, as if you look closely the hubs are sharp and as it moves out the wheel you get some motion blur from the fast spinning wheels. Lends a bit of movement while still stopping the main action. For the tech geeks: There’s one Elinchrome Ranger RS AX pack/head on the right side across the bowl at full power. I started unpacking a second light, but it was about to dump so it sat unused.

A 4th of July (3rd actually) gathering/jam of sorts went down at Shad Johnson’s house in Portland earlier today. Actually, it’s probably still going on… I had to leave after about an hour to spend the day sitting in an aiport on my way to Vegas for Lavin’s jam. I didn’t expect there to be much of anything set up, so I figured it would be more of a BBQ, but the boys had built two 8-foot wide 8-foot tall quarterpipes, one on each side of Shad’s front stairs. Awesome set up. Really awesome. By the time they got it all built I had about a half hour to shoot a couple pictures before cruising to the airport. Not much time, considering nobody had even touched the ramps yet at that point. But even still we managed to get a few shots. Roman Tencza (above) was killing it. Flair over the channel, tailwhip over the channel… he didn’t even need a shirt.

Just as I was leaving one of the local street dudes, Tony, ate shit messing around on the long jump they had set up, and smacked the back of his head on the road. Blood everywhere. Ambulance. No good. From what I hear Tony got some staples in his skull, but was otherwise okay from a head injury standpoint. Hopefully that’s true. Check out a few shots after the jump, and keep your eye on the Goods BMX blog for videos which will likely surface shortly from some of the locals.

Roman Tencza, flair over the channel.

Boyd.

John Ivers.

Roman Tencza.

Headed back to Portland tomorrow. Here’s Another shot of Roman Tencza from the same ramp back in Portland as the photo I posted the other day. I liked this one a lot, so rather than hold onto it for possible print, here it is. The web is a larger audience anyway, eh?

Shot with Kevin Robinson this morning at Woodward. I’ll post up that shot at some point soon.

If you’ve seen the movie Twilight (which seems to be gaining a cult following) you’ve seen Roman Tencza’s work. Roman moved up here from Denver and does a bit of acting/modeling, aside from being a really good bike rider. He did some body double work in Twilight recently, but even though he’s that bigtime I got him out to a backyard ramp I’ve been wanting to shoot on for a while here in Portland. Roman is also a recent addition to the Verde Bikes flow team. If you need a bike, I can vouch for the niceness of the Verde. I’m holding on to my favorite to shot at the moment to see if the mags want it, but since they all seem to be going under lately (or on their way) it will likely end up here soon, which is fine too.

This one is a fufanu on the pool coping extension. That transition is pretty tight, but it worked out. I love the look of the ghetto plywood on the transition. It’s fine for bikes, but I feel bad for the guys at the house who can’t skate that side of the ramp. Thanks Dude Barn dudes.