So my friend Dan Randall, rather obsessed with fireworks (was an explosives specialist in the army for a while) put together a bottle rocket launcher that put 10,000 bottle rockets in the air in 2 and a half minutes last year on the 4th of July. It’s quite the entertaining video if you haven’t seen it. Check it out below. This year Dan put together the same launcher but we packed in an extra one thousand bottle rockets at 11,000 of them. I’ll have a post a bit later with some photos from the day and a video of the 11,000 bottle rocket launcher.
So with ski movie teaser time comes ski movie DVD box cover time! I’m stoked to get the DVD box cover for Rage Films‘ upcoming movie “Such is Life”. It’s the second year in a row I’ve gotten the box cover with them and both have come at Spring terrain park shoots at one of the places I grew up skiing, Stevens Pass, Washington. I’ve been working Rage Films since the start of my career shooting ski photos and am stoked I got this with them again. The skier is a crazy ski grabbing Canadian, Mike Mertion
If you haven’t already seen the teaser, check it out at www.ragefilms.com
So on the heels of getting the Rage Films “Such is Life” DVD box cover shot comes the Poor Boyz Productions Jib Jam DVD box cover. Poor Boyz Productions has been doing a spring terrain park shoot at Schweitzer Mountain Resort in Sandpoint, Idaho for the past 2 seasons now and is doing a seperate DVD from their main movie covering the entire shoot. I think it’s going to be pretty cool and of course I’m stoked that my photo is going to be on the box cover.
No, not at my place fortunately. However this pallette factory wasn’t so lucky. I’ve driven by some buildings on fire before but this was the first time I had my camera with me. I was out shooting a bit at the GT Live Tour at Miller Motorsports Park where a few friends were driving in the Time Attack and lapping session. If you have a chance to go out on Sunday, make it out for sure. It’s a lot of fun for not much money. Just going for the free go karting at Miller Motorsports Park’s outdoor kart track is worth it alone. More on the GT Live Tour later.
Anyways on the drive back home to SLC from the race track I drove past a pretty big fire in the SLC valley. I had to stop, I had my camera gear with me! It was a pretty fierce fire, things were exploding and the massive black smoke plumed into the sky like it was out of a news report from an burning oil field in Iraq. Here’s some photos.
So as much as I do not like the heat of the Summer, the beginning of the Summer is kind of my favorite time of the year outside of Winter. At the beginning of each Summer comes along the teasers for each ski and snowboard movie. The time in between the end of the season until now is usually filled with anticipation of what the film companies are going to come out with, especially the ones I work with throughout the season. It’s great to see a final video piece filled with clips of my ski season I was fortunate to be a part of and also to see all the footage from the other crews I didn’t work with.
Level 1 Productions is one of the crews I work with throughout the season, especially out here in Utah. Check out the teaser for their movie for 2008 named ‘Turbo’
For higher quality versions check out these links in Quicktime Format: 720p (210mb Quicktime .mov file) 480p (100mb Quicktime .mov file)
Wedding season has just started for me with my first one of the Summer to happen in 3 days. I’ve been meaning to put this up for quite a while now but just never got around to it but with Christian and Minh’s wedding coming up I finally decided to put it together. My friend and fellow photographer Ross was getting married and had me come out to Ohio (where him and his wife are from) and shoot his wedding. It was a great wedding to shoot, the site was great and it’s always a lot more fun to work with your friends!
I’m really stoked on this. It’s the best work they’ve done as of yet. I’ve been working very closely with Rage Films since the beginning of my career and it has been great seeing the progression we have both made throughout the years and seeing friends put together solid film segments. I can’t wait for the full movie. If you like the music as much as I do, go check them out and their album “Oracle Spectacular” - MGMT - Myspace page and their website - www.whoismgmt.com
I have been wanting to take a photo of my brother Stan in his SWAT tactical gear for a while but he was recently promoted to Sargent and has now back in a patrol car for his regular job as a normal part of the King Country Sherrif’s office. This change set set back when we could do the shoot. Now Stan is about ready to go back on to active duty with the National Guard in preparation to be re-deployed to Iraq with the US Army later this Summer. Now with him having all of his military gear it was a good time to finally get these shots . I have had a few shots pictured in my head for how i wanted to do these for quite a while now. I’m really glad I was able to get these in before he ships out to Iraq. Here’s a couple of shots from the shoot.
First off, can anyone read French? Cause if you can, you should let me know so you can translate this article for me! This was my first feature article outside of North America, running in issue 10 (January) of WeSki magazine in France. I’ve been working with them for 3 years now and it’s been good, they are all about the jib scene. This trip was in January of 2006 with Ahmet Dadali, Mike Hornbeck, Tim Russell, and Rage Films to the Rochester, New York area. It was 100% urban handrails and jibs, and there was a lot of snow. So much snow, it was a super productive and fun trip and was stoked to get something done out on the East Coast.
This is the part of the year that I absolutely loathe. Spring time means submission season. This means a lot of me sitting in front of the computer for 12-16 hours a day editing photos I’ve shot throughout the season I was too lazy to edit immediately after shooting, organizing, keywording, then compiling everything and getting them out to magazines and the gear companies. Then, sit back and hope for the best. Can you tell that I’m getting sick of it already!
This season I was much more organized and it’s taking significantly less time. I’m pretty stoked about that, and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s real close, then it’s time for some vacation. I can’t wait. Then it’s time for golf, for autocrossing, hopefully a track day, some karting, rafting on the Payette, maybe something new who knows. It’s so close.
Then I’ll go into Summer mode for some weddings, corporate events, some stuff out at the race track and whatever else people want me to take photos of. Photos of babies? Why not. As long as someone wants to pay me or it’s fun.
