Just took a road trip down to San Francisco to shoot another urban snowboard rail jam for Yobeat. It’s halloween weekend, and there’s no distinguishing between those who are dressed up, and those who just live here and are out for a walk. Check out the gallery I shot at the bottom of the post here on Yobeat.

I shot video of a snowboard rail contest in the pouring rain on Saturday up in Seattle (who knew it rained in Seattle) for YoBeat.com. The resulting short video went up last night. If you’re into mini-shred snowboarding, or in this case, slushboarding, check it out. Despite the rain, it was a fun event, and had a surprisingly large crowd of plastic bag wearing snowboard enthusiasts.

I made my first trip to the Legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom (the 25th year) this past weekend to film this video for YoBeat. The event is amazing. It’s just how events like this should be: fun. Nothing more, nothing less. There’s no prize purse, yet the best snowboarders in the world (including some Olympians who still couldn’t resist despite the Games being just days away) make the trek to Baker to ride year after year. Some legends, like this year’s winner Temple Cummins, only surface for the Banked Slalom each year. As Mt. Baker manager Gwyn Howat put it, how many events do you know of that 10-year-olds, 60-year-olds, and Olympians compete on the same course on the same weekend? Not many, if there are any others out there.

Mike Parziale started Grease Not Gas along with Aaron Stuart of the band Piebald. They convert diesel motors to run on waste vegetable oil from restaurants, and Grease Not Gas was started to educate people and assist in conversions. When you consider the cost of fuel, a free product is an incredibly appealing solution.

Grease Not Gas have also converted buses used on nationwide tours for Snowboarder Magazine, Clif Bar, and a number of bands, Piebald included. Last winter Mike started the Grease Bus, which shuttles people from Portland, OR to Mt. Hood Meadows, for a mere $10 round trip (a 1.5 hour drive each way). A steal by all accounts.

Given his ties to the snowboard community, YoBeat.com gave me a platform for the above short video interview with Mike, in which you’ll see a bit of how the process works, and find out where discarded restaurant waste has taken him.

Shot a couple of portraits of snowboarder Shayne Pospisil up in Government Camp, OR for his YoBeat interview. View them both larger after the jump.

Recently I’ve wanted to start doing some more visual interviews with people who roll through the studio. Rather than just a standard Q&A, or a still photo, I wanted to use the internet to its fullest and get a little more personality out of the interviews. Sit down style, one-sided conversations.

The first victim is Pro Snowboarder/ filmmaker David Benedek for YoBeat (portrait above by Brooke Geery). David hails from Germany and speaks English better than most of the people in Portland. He was in town for a Bonfire photoshoot and since Bonfire is a few blocks from our office, he was nice enough to stop in. David is the mastermind behind such snowboard films as 91 Words For Snow and In Short, and was the first person to land a double-cork 1260 on snow.

Since David is a darn smart dude, and had a lot of good shit to say, this interview is broken up into two parts. Part One focuses on Snowboarding specifically. Part Two touches on filmmaking, new media, and more. If you’re into snowboarding and or media/film/internet, you might find these interesting.

You can check them out on YoBeat here or watch them below after the jump.

David Benedek Conversation Part One from Souney Media on Vimeo.

David Benedek Conversation Part Two from Souney Media on Vimeo.

I’ve been playing with the Nikon D90 a bit lately, which is the latest DSLR from Nikon, and it shoots HD video. While the D90 is marketed more as a “consumer” body, the HD video functionality has a lot of Pros toying with it, exploring the future of cameras. Canon has also released its 5D MarkII recently, which also has video built in (there’s is even a little larger file size at the moment, boasting 1080p as opposed to 720p of the Nikon). Beyond changing photography as we know it, these cameras open up doors for film-makers and videographers as well. Achieving depth of field with standard video cameras is tricky, and getting there requires expensive 35mm lens adapters. This entire camera kit is about half the cost of a basic 35mm adapter for a DV or HD video camera. AND you can use a full range of Nikon (or Canon if you are shooting the 5D) lenses, from fisheye to super-telephoto.

While both cameras are a bit finicky, and require a bit of “fooling” into proper settings and optimized footage, some great results can be had. In other words, you can manually control your exposure, but it takes a few tricks in the way of locking the exposure, and then adjusting the aperture manually on the lens. You’re also limited to manual focus in video mode, so planning out shots is essential, and a tripod is very, very useful.

Despite a few quirks which will no doubt evolve, this camera is fun to play with, and from a photo standpoint has all the features the average user would need. From a pro standpoint, it’s smaller making it a bit harder to hold with large lenses (then again if you have small hands, this could be a benefit), it lacks a pc port, and the flash sync is lower than I prefer at 1/200th of a second. The small size does make it more carry-around friendly (my main camera is the more weighty, girthy D3 series which for carrying around the town, it’s not ideal). The image files produced by this camera rival the higher end bodies for sure.

This weekend I brought it out to try out a tough shooting situation: a snowstorm. White ground, white sky, and white snow blowing around everywhere. Quite drab really, and not ideal conditions by any means. But we’ve seen a ton of footage floating around from these suckers in great, blue sky conditions. I took it the other direction, into a total shitstorm, with much of the filming happening late in the day as the light got poor. I also took a couple photos too (one of which is above), and tried to emulate how the “average” person might shoot an action shot. I didn’t lug out a lighting kit with multiple strobes, it’s just a straight on camera flash shot, though I did use an added Nikon SB-800 in the hot shoe as opposed to the built in flash, which allowed me to use a higher shutter speed than the standard 1/200th. The high speed sync mode of the SB-800 isn’t something I play with very often, as I’m typically using strong enough lights to overpower the sun, but it’s a neat feature in a pinch. Basically, it allows the use of a faster shutter speed, which can be useful stopping action, or cutting out ambient light. Anyway, enough mumbo jumbo, the action shot of above of Tim Breaux, was shot with a D90, using an on camera SB-800. The lens was a 10.5 fisheye. I also made a point to shoot at a mid range ISO of 640, to see how it looked at higher ISO settings.

Despite getting battered with blowing snow, and freezing temperatures, the camera did much better than I expected. The video capabilities really do change the game of photography.

Below (although to watch the HD version you have to click through to Vimeo) is the video I shot this weekend with the D90. A day with snow blowing everywhere is tricky for a camera to handle, but this was all shot without manual adjusting the exposure (autoexposure was used) to get a true feel for how the camera would react. That, and it was too damn cold to futz with settings anyway! All the shots are manual focus, as that’s your only option, but I think it gives you a neat effect if you’re patient with it. The depth of field possibilities are amazing with this thing. Also, I have despite poor reviews of the cameras audio, I thought it did remarkably well on the beginning interview, considering the blowing winds at the time, and mere mono recording. Not incredible, but definitely much better than I had expected. This video is a good example of what this camera can do on a very blah day! At some point soon I’ll throw something together with an “ideal” light day for comparison, but there is already a lot of that out there… google it. Also, the Studio shot below the video (of a Hufnagel Cycles headtube badge) was shot testing the D90 as well. For that one I used the “kit lens” with a screw on close-up filter, and then added two gridded studio strobes to light it.

Thanks to the YoBeat crew for dragging me along on an otherwise useless day to film the fun!

Opening Day- Southeast Portland from YoBeat Magazine on Vimeo.

And below is the above mentioned studio shot. While the lighting is studio strobes, it shows that this camera can work with the big guns if necessary.

I like what snowboard outwear brand Holden has done with its new site, specifically the little videos that play when you click on a product. Much more visually interesting than the stock product shot, and a great use of flash video. Great interactive experience here, coupled with clean design and some nice looking products. Check it.

For the most part internet ads are all just gray boxes to me. I tend to see right past almost all of it. But a little while ago I came across a Facebook sidebar ad featuring Shaun White, and the goofy thumbnail was such that I couldn’t resist. It brought me to this Hewlett Packard micro site that I found pretty amazing. Sit there and watch Shaun for a bit. It’s amazing really. His awkwardness and goofy sense of humor comes across and makes this one of the best little web diddy’s I’ve seen in a long time. The great thing about Shaun is that his personality isn’t getting eliminated from all the promotions he’s doing for huge corporations like Target and HP. The personality is all Shaun.

When I went back to take the screenshot above I was more impressed. The site is smart enough to recognize you as a return visitor, and Shaun greets you with “It’s you again… back to look at more clips?” and then another refresh greeted me with “Haven’t I seen you here before? You come here a lot! Have at it.” Really, really smart. He even throws in a Big Lebowski reference if you wait long enough… “This not clicking will not stand, man.” Good work, Tomato.