The single most influential element outside of other people’s photography in my own work has been seeing the mountain bike movie “The Collective” by, The Collective back in the summer of 2004.  A co-worker, Kendall Card who was the guy that was keying me into what was cool within skiing at the time was putting on the premiere of the film so I went by to go check it out.  My mind was blown and after I got a copy of the DVD, watched it over and over and over again.  The way the movie was filmed, put together, it was very different from what I had seen in other action sports films at the time.  It had given me a completely different perspective into the way I look at shooting my own realm of skiing.

The second round of that same influence and inspiration has begun for me and FINALLY, the teaser for Life Cycles is live.  Back in April, I got to see one of the rough cuts of this teaser at The Gathering (very different than the current one BTW) and my mind was blown again and then, my creative juices were flowing.  It’s very different, very creative, and for me, very inspiring.  It just oozes creativity.  I can’t wait to see the film and I hope you feel the same after checking out the teaser.  Enjoy, and go pre-order your copy on their website.

Tom Wallisch – Scott USA Ad – 2011 Freeskier Magazine Buyer’s Guide – 2 page spread

Shot in Minneapolis, MN with Level 1 Productions for their new film “Eye Trip“

Nikon D3, Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed, Alien Bees 800, 400, Nikon SB80 DX’s, Pocket Wizard Plus 2 Transcievers

Spy Optics Ad - 2011 Freeskier Magazine Buyer’s Guide – Back Cover – Ahmet Dadali

The Bonneville Salt Flats is a place I’ve been to a few times, however never while any racing was going on.  It was quite the scene, very different from any auto race I’ve been to in the past, no frills, just insanely fast cars, as many RV’s as you’d see at Burning Man, vintage cars, vintage people, and…rednecks, lots and lots of rednecks.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to spend much time there so I didn’t really know the schedule and missed out on things like rocket cars, and an electric powered car breaking a land speed record reaching 307.66 MPH among many other things.  Another thing of note for those that haven’t been to a race out at the Bonneville Salt Flats, the racing itself is not exactly much of a spectator event, as the courses ranging from 1, 5, 7 and 14 miles don’t leave much for you to see.  What is great is the people and the cars themselves.  It’s definately worth the trip and I did get to see a lot of insane cars, the weird scene and of course being out on the salt is always an interesting experience!

Notice the VHS camcorder being held on to by the older guy……

Another first for me, I’ve never shot photos of or seen a road bike time trials before.  I also have never seen this out on a road course for auto racing.  Yesterday was a really cool experience, I got to walk around the race track at Miller Motorsports Park.  It’s usually something you don’t get to do, the track is usually buzzing with race cars and motorcycles going 100+ miles an hour, the track is usually on lockdown.  As the most of the track was shut down for the general public due to the use of the perimeter road I decided to go out to help my friend Re Wikstrom run strobes while she was covering the event.  Since she didn’t really need them till the end of the race when the light got low, I got to shoot quite a bit.  It’s quite the different scene at the Tour of Utah Time Trial with such different gear, the crazy helmets, wheels, etc.  It’s very different visually and I’m glad I went.

I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s tour time trials out at Miller Motorsports Park and the crit race for Stage 4 of the Tour of Utah in an hour up in Park City.

Cycling isn’t exactly something I usually pay attention to, or shoot for that matter.  However, this summer has been one of shooting photos of things, sports, events that are new to me, or at least that I don’t usually cover professionally.  I headed up to the Mt. Nebo Summit today to shoot the second stage of the Tour of Utah cycling race.  Today’s stage was a pretty brutal climb of over 4,500 feet from Thanksgiving Point to Mt. Nebo Summit.  As I usually light 75% of my ski photos, I figure why not give it a go with this?  The clouds in the background were pretty dark and gloomy looking so this pretty well setup perfect for how I usually shoot cloudy day ski shots.

Stage 3 is tomorrow at Miller Motorsports Park where the race will be a time trials event on the full road-course out at MMP.  I haven’t seen anything besides a race car or motorcycle out there so I’m stoked to see how it goes out there!

This photo, shot about 2 years ago in October of 2008 is one I simply forgot about until recently.  It wasn’t until recently that I met a local automotive photographer, Orlando Echeverria and reminded me about composites and how I could make this shot work better than when I shot it.  I had some issues with my flashes working on this shoot so the lighting wasn’t as even as I was hoping for.  Today, I opened it up, and did some work in photoshop to bring it closer to what I had in mind originally.  I’m pretty stoked to get out and shoot a bit more, things such as this.  Look for more to come.

About a month ago I was out at Miller Motorsports Park taking some photos of my friend Matt Guiver racing his junkyard Nissan 240SX project and came across an old friend, Scott Brown who runs TDC Motorsports in Salt Lake City.  TDC helped me on my 77′ Scirocco build way back in the day, so needless to say I spent a lot of time at his shop and got to know him and his crew.  Scott brought me into one of the team garages out at MMP to show me the Audi R8 and all the parts from Heffner Performance twin turbo kit about to go in.  I’d been wanting to shoot some photos while Matt was working on the 240SX however our schedules just didn’t seem to work out very well but as it turns out, I had time to come out during the R8 build that Scott was doing.

The twin turbo would bring the R8 some pretty big gains, going from a stock 353 HP at the wheels to 536 HP with the added bonus of some great sound as well as some great looks under the trunklid (rear mounted motor) however once the heat shield and the rear bumper go back on the beauty of all turbo piping and exhaust get hidden.  At least it’s being covered with the PPI carbon body kit with the carbon diffuser on the rear bumper.  In fact in order to get some of the PPI carbon body kit parts mounted both bumpers had to be modified, as of course some drilling and cutting to mount the twin turbo kit.

It was pretty sick to see how quick Scott from TDC and Zach from Heffner Performance worked to complete the build in 5 days as it was quite a daunting task that was achieved.  It’s been a while since I shot a project that was really for fun and nothing else.  There will fortunately be more projects this summer that I’m doing, just to do.  I’m hitting the reset switch.

The crew at Saga Outerwear wanted to test the waterproofing of the new Anomie suit for the 2010/2011 season for their new look book,  so where else could we go in the summer except a car wash!  Saga had me come out to shoot a few entertaining photos of the highly un-scientific waterproofing test.  Tim Durtschi was in town, so he became the unlucky guinea pig.  Austin of course could barely contain himself with excitement with the thought of flogging Tim with the high pressure power washer.

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