Weekly Work: Rudy Rodriquez

For this segment that we’ve been doing irregularly for a few months now, we are showcasing the work of one artist within the BMX community once a day for a week. So far it’s only been photographers but hey, that’s just how it is. Your smartphone didn’t come with a case of paintbrushes, did it? (Use the “submit news” button on the top right to show us your work.)

This week we are featuring photos from Texan Rudy Rodriquez. I first saw Rudy’s photos start popping up in the Flickr pool. He obviously had a firm grasp on successful composition and was keen on dramatic lighting. His black and white shots were tonally accurate and his color shots were vivid and lively. So far he’s had four of our Photo of the Week’s and he’ll most likely have many more- it seems he’s always shooting.

Get to know Rudy a bit more with this short bio or simply enjoy his photos for the next seven days.

“I’m Rudy and I’m from Houston TX. I’m 43 years old. I’ve been shooting for five years with cheap equipment, but for some reason seems to be my style. I’ve never owned a legit camera bag, nor light stands & have tape & a nail or two holding these ridiculous cheap tripods together which is disgusting, but for some strange reason gets me hyped because I always find a way to make it work. When I was 10 or 11, I would see this stoner looking dude riding by on a deep blue colored Schwinn with black Skyway mags pedaling doing a wheelie sitting down, smoking a cig on his way to go see his woman. He would always say “Aye, what’s up?” That was probably in 1982 or ’83. I mostly just BMX. Sometimes, skater homies as well. But, if given the opportunity, I would also shoot a thief breaking & entering into my house. I don’t know if I have a favorite photographer. There are so many good ones out there. I have a lot of favorite photos from different photo takers though. When I’m not shooting, I have a couple of homies I jam with in a garage. We like to play very loud guitars & drums and are always in search of the next riff! We’re into rock-n-roll man! And, I try to spend time with family when I can. I’m always in fear that one day this might be my last day to walk the earth or it may be theirs. My setup isn’t much at all… It’s a Canon T3, 2 flashes- a Vivitar 28FD that was given to me & Sunpack 3000 powered by soldier pixels. I’m like that kind of person that is content with jamming on a $99.00 pawn shop guitar. You can still shred on it. I used to go to a Mexican restaurant for a nice meal and large margarita & study the BMX magazine photos looking for where placement of the flashes were, how the angles were shot, what was included in the overall composition and just little things like that. That would be my advice for people who want to shoot BMX photos is look at the BMX magazines and study the photos. They will help you a whole lot.”