Skies and Bags

The view that I wake up to every day in Wanaka is absolutely ridiculous how beautiful it is. The sunset is usually pretty killer too.

My coaches and I have a habit of beating up on my brother. somehow they managed to get him inside a Boardbag ad zip it up to his face. All done by force not by choice. the zipper than preceded to break. I came to take pictures for the sake of the memory not the photography perspective. But I have never seen my coach laugh that hard, literally doubled over the banister gasping for air.

Sea Lions

So our flight out of Queenstown, NZ was canceled due to the weather. With ten of us it was difficult to find a flight that ill connect us all the way through. So we got back in the van and drove from Queenstown to Christchurch. We saw this sign that said "Penguin exhibit" or somethin along the lines of that so we pulled over and checked it out. The penguins stay out at sea until 6ish PM but we just walked down to the water and took a couple pictures. I looked down on the Rocks and BOOM there was a sea lion 5 metres away from us. I had to call my girlfriend at 2 dollars a minute just to tell someone about the beasts. Looking over to the side the water was crashing up on the cement peir which looked pretty cool. Walking back to the van I saw the sign saying Penguin crossing so I had to take the picture

Snow Park

All of these shots are from Snow Park in Wanaka New Zealand. Okemo Mountain School, (my school/team) came down this summer to get some off season practice. Beautiful skies, a closed halfpipe and plenty of willing riders will always allow you to get shots like this.

More

Top to Bottom:

Ceiling of the Museum of Natural History in Oxford, England

Megan outside the Queenstown Airport, New Zealand

My friends Julie was the Model for a project I did. This image was fit for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" by the Beatles


Rex Calabrese At Breckenridge, Colorado in late 2007

My coaches at Snow Park NZ summer of 2008

Randall Reynolds at Snow Park New Zealand Summer of 2008

Luis Reyes at Snow Park New Zealand

Flower (not sure what kind) outside Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, England














Keble Road in Oxford England right near Keble College. My project as signs around the city.

South Hill Road

So with my hurt shoulder I spend a lot of the day sitting around not doing much. I decided to drive around my neighborhood and take pictures on one of the most beautiful days this winter. The area is covered in old building like this one. The roads are very intricate and turn corners suddenly allowing many opportunities for cool composition. I like this shot because the blue sky works well against the snow and the brown. I purposely got the sun in there, but I forgot that I had no hood and the lens flare was nuts. But whatever, I think the final product isn't that bad.

Racoon?

We got a visit from a little critter over the summer. I have no idea how the animal managed to leave prints on the cover and the one in the corner, because there were no other prints anywhere else. Nor do I know what was on the racoon's foot that made it leave a mark, I didn't see anything else around the porch for it to step in. Quite the mystery?

This is a fun picture. These are actually three separate photos and angles all rolled into one. Luckily he grabbed the same spot on the board each time and it is somewhat fudgible. I think that the noise around each one of the riders adds to it along with the posterize makes it seem a little more action packed. I love the kid who this is of, when I showed it to him he got all excited and made me send it to him and I think he is gonna want a print. I really like this photo because rarely do I feel like a did something unique, but I have never seen three separate shots in the same picture as far as the snowboard industry goes. I think I should take the pole out underneath the first rider from the left. I wish I noticed this before I wrote this whole post. Whatever.

Oww! My shoulder

So I got my shoulder all jacked up yesterday and I can't really lift my arm very much. I can't snowboard for a while and I'm sitting at home by myself. I decided I had looked at enough pictures of various styles of photography and I started to wonder around my house looking for some cool stuff. The wood pile used to be neatly stacked but they got frozen together and we have to kick them apart to bring them in so it became this mess that I thought would make a cool shot. The Icicles aren't much but I love every photo of ice like that because I think ice is one of he easy things to capture in a camera as far as clarity of the subjects is concerned. And the Buddha is a statue that we have in my house asa present to my little brother (he has a thing of the big guy) . The problem with this one was I had to move it to set up a shot, and lifting a thirty pound statue with a gimpy arm isn't particularly fun. Feel free to criticize. Enjoy!

September

My brother, my friend and I went over to the school across the street. We were just cruising around and the skies started to turn into this pinkish purple color. I don't think the rest of the shot is particularly good due to the darkness in some of the more detailed places but I think the colors justifies me posting these. Something about the fall sky that always makes it sooooo beautiful.

Fisheye Bitch!!

SO over the Summer I order the Tokina 10-17mm Fisheye. I was dying to get this lens so I can shoot up close photos of Skateboarding and Snowboarding. I would say that this lens paid for itself within 6 hours of me having it. I went don to my local skatepark and started snapping photos of my friends. I started out just playing with angles until I got some sick shots. As the sun started to go down the light got really nice and the open landscape allowed for the pavement and ramps to absorb and orangish tint. This is one of many that casted a nice warm feeling but still brought the contrast of the blue sky. I think the rail don the center of the picture adds to the image by dragging your eye towards the more intricate subject. I think that without that rail the sky would be too open and there would be too much empty space for the subject to be sitting in.

We set up a wall ride while on a school trip in CO. The light was starting to go bad but we kept riding for the hell of it. This shot was originally too dark to see much but my coach suggested I put it into B&W. This made the lighting better and made it look sick. I sent this in with a couple other pics to Snowboarder Magazine, never got an email back about them and they aren't on the sit, so I guess I am shit out of luck on that one. I sent this one to NY Times as well to thte travel section, I titled it, "Why we don't need a Mountain to Snowboard" I thought it was pretty clever. Never got an email back from that one either but whatever.This is a kid from my school and I gotta say this shot slays and the kid deserves more props than what he gets.

First Pic

I think this is one of the more important photographs I have ever taken as far as my own progress is concerned. A lot of the pictures taken with my camera are of snowboarding or skateboarding. since I have based a lot of my life around snowboarding, it only seems reasonable when trying to look at my history of taking pictures. It wasn't until recently that I learned about composition of a picture. And this was the first photo I took where I actually meant to incorporate the good shoot of the snowboarder with the rules that I learned about a "good picture" and even though its not perfect I think this is one of the more important photos I have ever taken.