I met Matt back in the mid to late 90s, before I moved from Massachusetts to California. When I moved in 1999, Matt was starting to get better at flatland, and over the next few years I started seeing him at some contests around the country. In 2000 I shot a photo of him at a contest in Florida that ended up in Ride Magazine, where I was working at the time, but I’m not sure I’ve shot photos of him since. Matt ended up going to school for Graphic Design at the same school I went to (The Art Institute of Boston), and recently moved to Portland to work at a small time advertising agency called Wieden+Kennedy. They do work for some upstart brands like Nike and Old Spice. He now lives a few blocks from the flatland spot downtown, so we’ve been riding quite a bit. I saw him doing the above seatgrab plastic man variation the other night, and thought it would make a cool photo, so tonight, despite heavy parking lot traffic from a Major League Soccer Game, we shot it. There’s another shot after the jump as well. Check it out.

It’s possible I posted this years ago on here. But either way I’m bringing it back out because I like it. It’s a turndown flair, over a channel on the B3 BMX Ramp at Woodward Camp in 2003. I was laying on the roll in that runs through the channel, and getting attacked by birds which were nesting in the side of the ramp. It was off-season for camp, so birds had taken up residence in the ramp, and they were dive bombing me between Jamie’s runs.

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.

Check out the full batch of photos on Matt’s Flickr page.

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.

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.

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.Below is the first “real” BMX ad photo I ever shot. Looking back it’s a bit silly. Boks, a division of Reebok that was making shoes for the BMX market had just folded, and since Kevin’s feet were kicking giant “Boks” logos at me, he put Hoffman Bikes stickers on the bottoms of his shoes. This ended up getting used as a Hoffman Bikes ad in Ride BMX, and perhaps elsewhere.

The photo of Brian Tunney below is from one of the Impact contests, during a time when I was experimenting with some different techniques. I was washing film in the washing machine, processing film in a mixture of folgers coffee and washing soda (seriously), and trying whatever I thought would yeild weird results. I don’t even recall what the combination of madness was used on this roll. There is a similar scratched photo of Marcel Tremblay in the gallery below.

Below is current Staff BMX Mailorder owner Bob Pratt, riding a Basic Bikes frame, and nosepicking the giant sub box toward the back of the park. At the time, this thing seemed massive.

Note: if you’d like to view a larger version of the images below than what the gallery shows, you can right-click, and select view image. You know, when you guys grab these for your facebook and such. Might as well get ‘em big.

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.

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.