At the beginning of April I made my annual trip to the North America Buggy Expo (NABX - Previously known as SBBB) held in the Mojave Desert. Like all years past, it was an amazing trip filled with lots of great kiting wind, amazing friends and just all around good times.
Complete Gallery - NABX 2006
I finally did it. My portfolio gallery has made it the #4 most popular gallery on PBase. Two days ago it was #8, yesterday it was #6 and today #4. If you have a PBase account, keep those votes coming and get me to #1.
Thanks everyone for the votes.
I finally finished going through my archives and picked my favorite action sports images to create a true portfolio. This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, but was always turned off by the daunting task of going back through all my images. What finally gave me the spark to get it done was the release of Apple's kick butt new software, Aperture. While importing all my galleries, I painstakingly cataloged and added keywords to all of my images. From there I went through each gallery and tagged my favorite images (in all categories). I think I narrowed my favorite sports images down to about 300 shots. From there I picked the best-of-the-best and created my official portfolio.
I now invite you to take a look. At the bottom of the images you will see links to Vote for the gallery and to Leave a comment. If you like the portfolio, please click the vote button. If you have time, leave a comment (and still click the vote button).
And now, to the Portfolio.
I also like to go back through all the images I took at an event a few days later. It seems as though my eye always picks up things I missed during the first round of picks or I'm just in a different mindset.
Tonight I went back through my images of the 2006 Mavericks Surf Contest and created a new Part II Gallery
For the past three years I have waited in anticipation for the Mavericks Big Wave Surf Contest. Each year, 24 of the top big wave surfers in the world are invited to the contest held in Northern California's Half Moon Bay. No one is certain when the event will happen because it all has to do with the weather. From January 1st to the end of March, contest organizers watch the swell and weather forecasts trying to determine when the big waves will hit and if the weather will allow good conditions. When it looks like a go, the word is put out and all contestants, organizers, sponsors and spectators are given 24 hour notice that the contest is on.
The night before the contest I usually can be found scrambling around getting my gear ready and attempting to get some sleep. My alarm goes off at 4:30am and I quickly have some coffee, get dressed, kiss my wife, grab my gear and head out the door. By 6am I am at the boat dock waiting for my ride out to the surf break. By 8am I am sitting 100 yards from giant 30+ foot waves, my eyes are wide and my heart is pumping. I get my camera together and it's showtime.
This year was spectacular! The weather could not have been better. 75 degrees, no wind, blue skies and perfect waves.
Enough talk, now to the photos. The complete gallery can be found at www.SportsShutter.com.
A couple weeks ago the Bay Area hosted the 5th annual King of the Bay Kiteboarding and Windsurfing contest. KOTB V was run a bit different this year with new events like Kiter-Cross and they replaced the pro Kiteboarding contest with a 30 minute no-holds-bar expression session.
The expression session turned out to be the best contest event I have ever seen. Some of the best riders in the world throwing down the sickest tricks they knew for 30 minutes straight. Even better was the fact that the session started around 6:30 in the evening when the lighting was perfect and we were blessed with some good clean wind. I managed to grab a huge amount of incredible kiting images, many of which will grace the pages of several of the kiting magazines.
The days immediately following the contest, Gabe Brown, editor of Kiteboarding Magazine, managed to get a number of the pro riders together for a series of photo shoots around the Bay Area. I was lucky enough to get invited as the photographer and ended up with some seriously good images for the next few issues of the magazine and my portfolio.
To see a number of select images from the KOTB express session, head on over to THE GALLERY.
Ruben Lenten
Ruben Lenten
Shawn Richman
Bryan Lake
Mark Doyle
Antoine Jaubert
I was going through a bunch of my galleries tonight and got a laugh at some of my self portraits. Enjoy.
Once again I neglected my poor little photography blog. The longer I waited to write an update, the harder it was for me to get it done. Sounds like A.D.D. doesn't it? In any case, I'm sitting next to my pool with a very wet Labrador, a bottle of Pale Ale and my laptop. What a good time to post a message.
Much has happened in the past four months. I've been traveling a bit seeking out some of the best terrain and athletes to photograph.
Chasta
Mt. Hood
In mid March I headed to Skyline Utah (10,000 foot altitude) to attend the Ozone Snowkite Masters tour. I had no idea what a treat I was in for. Besides the most spectacular views you could imagine, I got to do a private shoot with Gui llaume "Chasta" Chastagnol. Now I've seen thousands of people kite and some that could pull jumps as high as five story buildings. But never did I imagine someone would do that over solid ground and then soar down the face of a mountain for a couple hundred yards. Chasta was just that person. I started shooting when he first made a jump and quickly realized he wasn't just jumping, he was actually flying. Hang times of over a minute had me scratching my head wondering how to actually take pictures of such an amazing feat. In the end I managed to get some of the best kiting images I have ever taken.
Chasta
Chasta
Shortly after the Snowkite Masters trip I headed out to the dry lakes for my annual trip to Spring Break Buggy Blast. Actually, this was the first year with a new name for the event, NABX (North America Buggy Expo). It turned out to be a spectacular year (unlike last year when we got rained out). We had wind for 8 days straight. I actually didn't take nearly as many pictures as I normally do since I spent most of the time kiting. The conditions were just too good not to have some fun.
Dave
Loren
Me and Gabe
After returning from NABX, my buddy Loren and I decided to take up Paragliding. We've thought about over the years but never really put much effort into learning what it really was all about. We dove in head first and managed to breeze through the intensive lessons and get our license in record time. Since then we have been spending all our spare time (Loren has much more spare time than I do) flying along the coast. We've even managed to do a mountain trip and a trip to Point of the Mountain Utah. The way this sport gets in your blood, I definitely think Loren and I will be going on many paragliding trips in the future.
Loren
Self Portrait
A few weeks ago I spent several days in Utah doing a huge photo shoot for Ozone Kites. I've been wanting to work with those guys for years now. Finally they recognized my work and gave me the call. Keep your eyes out for the latest Ozone advertisements.
Ozone
Ozone Kites
Last week I took a nice vacation to Oregon with my wife to hang out, scope out real estate (for the future) and take some pictures along the way. We spent most of the time in Hood River and headed out to the coast for a day to hook up with friends Eli and Brooke.
Bri Chmel
Eli Anderson
I was looking around my house the other day for images to hang on the wall and I came across the picture above. "Naked", is an image that was done by one of my best friends during my college days at RIT. To give credit where credit is due, Jeff Keegan is the artist. When I first saw that image, I was blown away. It was different than all the other thousands of photographs I had seen, and it was way beyond my creative thinking. Jeff is just one of those people who dances to the beat of a different drum.
When I pulled the image out of my closest, I instantly remembered all the great times I had with Jeff and his girlfriend Carolyn. Every Thursday night I ventured over to his apartment in downtown Rochester to watch "Must See" TV, drink some beer, eat some grub and smoke some.... We'll leave it at that. Most of all I remember all the laughing.
The last time I had spoken to Jeff and Carolyn was just after 9.11 when I sent email to Jeff to make sure they were OK. That was all about to change.
A couple days ago I shot off an email to Jeff, hoping his address was still valid, and soon got a reply. Yesterday, my cell phone rings with a unknown caller ID and to my surprise it was my bud Jeff. We got the customary hi how you doing chat out the way and quickly turned into two little boys during show and tell after summer vacation. Damn it was great to hear from him and Carolyn. They are the only people I have stayed in touch with from college.
It's hard to explain, but me, Jeff and Carolyn are so totally different people, but we get along like the best of friends. I miss them just as much as I miss the rest of my family. Being 3500 miles apart makes casual correspondence something that just doesn't happen. Hopefully, that is all about to change.
Something that Jeff and I have always had in common is kites. We used to drive over to Lake Ontario to fly our stunt kites on the beach. I still have the kite that I once thought was a gem to fly. While talking to Jeff I mentioned my upcoming annual kiting trip to Spring Break Buggy Blast (now called North America Buggy Expo). Several hours later I got another call from Jeff and he told me he and Carolyn were seriously thinking about flying out to join me. WOW! That would be amazing. Having them come out to the dry lakes to experience what I consider my favorite time of the year would be nothing short of spectacular.
So now it begins. The rekindling of a friendship that I hope will last forever. Jeff and Carolyn, I really love you guys. Please, let's stay in touch.
Finally got through processing some of the images from the Mavericks Surf Contest. I am a very happy camper. Got some excellent shots to share with everyone and some to print up and hang on my wall. The D2X worked out perfectly and produced beautiful, crystal clear images. The biggest challenge is managing the amount of memory it takes to store all the images. Even my new 4gb flash card is no match for 12.4 megapixels.
