Monday, February 16, 2015

return of the past






almost exactly two years ago i found myself on my first international skate adventure, having been drafted by DGM as a picture maker.  I was unaware of the project and 4 out of the 5 people involved so this trip was a sort of meet and greet/make bulk photos that would ultimately sit around for 2 years before catching my attention this morning, distracting me until this point, and for a few minutes into the future.  The trip was epic as I got to travel and shoot with the 4 most influential people in my downhill life, the ones that onset my passion of downhill skating and eventually taking pictures of it.   






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Noah Sakamoto and JM Duran in NorCal. 









Those 4 fellows were James Kelly [probably the best downhill skater ever and pioneer of modern downhill and the whole standup thing], Cliff Coleman [invented the hands down slide back in the 70s (named the coleman slide), also a world pro yoyoer] finally Noah Sakamoto and JM Duran, two of the 3 blue-suit bombers, the guys who first alerted me to the adventure of downhill and influenced me to want to ride mountains, as opposed to little hills around Brisbane.  The 3rd member of the blue-suits was, and still is, awol...  supposedly flying off some of the largest rock formations on earth.   It was hectic, these guys were the biggest deals in downhill's core yet they were so mellow and down to earth; a realisation that led me to want to spend every moment inside that sport and it's community.  I also met a handful of other rad dudes whom i still acquaint with today, i realised that NorCal is a place to be.










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Noah by the bay and noah on a hill.


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Cliff, Berkeley Hills.







As i mentioned earlier, the trip was for DGM which is a photo-collective of downhill photogs which i was involved with until i left last year.  They're doing well, having released issue 1, yeoow!  












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JM 











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Byron Essert












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Tomio Choi











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Bob











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Im fairly certain i was star-struck when i took this photo.











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Bobby the assessor. 






note:  i did not make this film, this film made me.  [along with their first video of this style - Bombing Claremont]











Wednesday, February 4, 2015

reprieved concern




i think my creative process relating specifically to ranting on this blog is my most favoured.  writing on here is the result of stoke or motivation happening on the rare occasion that i have the time to sit down and spew forth nonsense and thats probably why it ends up with such obscurity and misdirection...  because i'm not trying to write or recount i'm just trying to jot down dateable mental transactions between the internet and my psyche.  music helps a lot, coffee and drugs don't count..  infact if your process is a medicated one then you are doomed and should figure out why you actually create because theres a point where you're simply creating because you reward yourself with consumables and your pleasure centres associate creation with the consumable, a shit time. 





lucky for me, my creative process is as simple as finding somewhere/thing/one pretty and then i just need to look at it with differing levels of analysis according to whatever impulse incited my desire to take a picture of it.  buttt, sitting on my computer is another undeniable part of taking photos and this is where my process falls apart, especially at the moment as i'm working on a website and a pseudopublication... my biggest qualm is that my laptop battery has swollen with age and now my trackpad can't be compressed so i can't right click or drag or highlight anything, very much a problem. 





however i just fixed my motorbike and it works so now its time to procrastinate aforementioned computer duties with some mountain mobbing and wind.



here are some pictures of a handful of the buildings i found whilst driving around the olympic park zone in Beijing. 






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7 stars.

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