Rob Dolecki has a tight article up on the Red Bull Bike site which breaks down the year-round culture of street riding in New York City and includes some incredible photos like this one of Oba Stanley. Check it out here.
Category Archives: BMX
Brian Peters by Rudy Rodriquez
Brian Peters rail rides while a homeless man sleeps.
Posted in BMX, Photo, Weekly Work
Tagged Brian Peters, Canon, Rudy Rodriquez, Sunpak, Vivitar
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.”
Posted in BMX, Photo, Weekly Work
Tagged Canon, Houston, Rudy Rodriquez, Sunpak, Texas, Vivitar
Internetography Contest Winner
The winner of the Push It A Stop Internetography screenshot contest is this frame of Sean Sexton from the Odyssey in Vancouver video filmed by Walter Pieringer and captured by Robbie Devine.
Stay tuned for our next contest which will be announced next week.
Posted in BMX, Contest, Photo, Video
Tagged contest, Internetography, Robbie Devine, Screenshot, Sean Sexton, Walter Pieringer
BRRRR! Jam Photo Gallery by Zan Bergeron
Check out some photos from the ABQ DNV BRRR! Jam that went down December 20th. Thanks to Zan Bergeron for lugging the gear and pressing the buttons.
Photo of the Week: Timothy Burkhart
“Sometimes all you need is a little bit of luck when it comes to photography. Usually you try to plan everything out to the last detail, but sometimes things go a little haywire and you scramble at the last second to pull it all together. That situation is exactly what happened when capturing this image of Matt Lough doing a ledge ride to drop in Joliet, IL while filming for his latest edit.
Matt and Anthony Loconte, hit me up when they were going to head out for a evening of filming about 35 minutes outside of Chicago; they had said there was a set up Matt wanted to hit up around golden hour. So, I had braved rush hour traffic and headed out to Joliet to meet up with them and we kind of just cruised around and played on some nibble spots while we waited for the light to be just right. Once we were ready we headed over the the set up, which was a pretty tight ledge ride to drop that went right into a busy street and down hill. So, we tried to figure out the angles for the video and where I can get a clear photo of everything and still be out of the way of the second video angle. I settled on a head on shot, since it flattened things out and I just liked the clean look of everything as well as the side lighting coming through from the sunset. The street where Matt would land into had tons of traffic and we had to wait for the right moment where the traffic lights synced up and he could get a go at it. I knew it would most likely be a one and done situation and I had to be ready. Myself and our friend Pat Richert were on traffic duty keeping an eye on everything and all of a sudden I glance up and Matt was heading down the ledge. I guess Pat had yelled and gave the OK to go and I hadn’t realized it, while still looking at traffic. So I pulled my camera up to my eye and tried to get everything composed and lined up to where I had wanted to have him on the ledge although he was already getting to the bottom of it and I just got to fire 2 quick shots. Magically on the second shot he was coming off the ledge and the brief second where his elongated shadow synced up with the overpass tunnel was captured. I had originally wanted Matt a bit further up on the ledge, and I was super upset at myself for practically missing the shot I wanted, which I wouldn’t get a second go at. Afterwards, some of the crew really digging the shadow image I kind of started to appreciate it more and more. It was all pretty serendipitous and there was something rewarding about scrambling and getting something probably a little better than what I had originally planned.
Nikon D800
NIkon 50mm 1.8 AF (Old Version)
1/800
f / 5.0
ISO 1600″
Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Photo of the Week
Tagged Illinois, Joilet, Matt Lough, Nikon, Timothy Burkhart
Behind the Photos with Alex Coleborn
Go behind the scenes with Alex Coleborn and photographer Dean Smith as they shoot a handful of photos at the Adrenaline Alley skatepark. If you’re gonna be shooting indoors a bunch this winter, you’ll probably be able to pick up a few flash/ambient mixing pointers by watching this.
Photo of the Week: Brant Moore
The photo this week comes from a set of pipes in the ceiling at Ray’s Skatepark where Thriller BMX‘s Sponge finds a snug toothpick stall.
“The idea for this photo originally came during filming for the odd couple video contest. Hollywood told Sponge and I about an idea he had given to one of the other dudes on another team and we kinda left it at that. Then this past Sunday we noticed the setup while riding and talked about how it really didn’t look like it would be too bad to get done. I don’t have two front pegs so this one was all Sponge’s.
Shooting the photo was pretty fun too. I had to stand against a wall on the deck of a quarter that was only about 6 inches, then hang onto some nails that we’re sticking out of a board bolted to the wall. My girlfriend Victoria held the flash for me and I snapped a couple test shots as Sponge attempted the trick. We moved around a bit until I was satisfied with the angle and lighting. The second to last photo was good enough but he hadn’t pulled the trick yet so I tried another angle on the next attempt and it turned out to be a winner. He pulled the trick and the photo came out perfectly. I don’t normally like to shoot photos where you can’t fully see the riders face but this was one of those occasions where the angle to see his face wouldn’t have done any justice to how awesome the trick and setup really are.
Panasonic GH4
Rokinon 7.5mm @ F/3.5
Lumopro Flash with Cactus Receiver
Flash Set At 1/64
SS – 1/100
WB – Flash
ISO – 800”
Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Photo of the Week
Tagged Brant Moore, Lumopro, Panasonic, Photo of the Week, Push It A Stop, Rokinon, Sponge, Thriller BMX
Ben Smith’s Photography Site
Up and coming photographer (and filmer, the man behind WHTHOUS) Ben Smith has a new portfolio site with a bunch of tight action / lifestyle photos he calls “Triple-Beam” which you can check out here. I hit him with a few questions about it which you can check below.
What’s up? Hey what’s up! I have been pretty busy lately. Just got back from California to escape the winter weather. Been healing up from a back injury this summer, so I have focused more on shooting photos and filming with my time.
Where are you from and how long have you been shooting? I’m from Helena, Montana. I have been shooting seriously for a about a year and a half. Mainly just 35mm and disposable cameras. And in the last 6 months I have gotten into digital.
Did you make the site yourself? I did make the site myself, using a popular website hosting program. I didn’t write the code or anything like that.
How often do you think you’ll be updating it? I’m planning to update it regularly with new galleries of work that I have been slowly stacking. I am always shooting photos, whether it’s within bmx or not.
Did it take a while to pick out exactly what you wanted to display on there? Not too long actually, I have been slowly putting photos I like aside in a folder for the site. Of course you go back and forth on some of them, but I had a good idea of how I wanted it to look.
Are you currently working on anything new for it? I am working on a flat rail gallery, which should be done in the spring. It is showcasing flat rail tricks, which are usually not the most interesting for a bmx photo, but will be portrayed in a unique way through the location of the rail.
View Ben’s site here.
Push It A Stop 