Starting in on the Summer's Photos - Mike Davis, Drop In

This ditch spot in California was the first real street skating we did this summer on the Hometown Heroes tour, and while most people wouldn't see a nearly vertical wall with a drainage hole in it as a spot, Mike Davis from Portland had no trouble dropping in on it. In fact he had so little trouble that he didn't mind doing it multiple times so the filmer and I could both get multiple angles. I could pick which one I like better, but it's the internet, so why not put up both.

So, everyone waiting to see their photos from this summer, you can see I am working on them and I promise they are coming. This is the first of 3-months' worth of rad skating. Lots more to come...

Two Street Photos from CA

Before I get around to working on all the photos I shot this summer I wanted to catch up on some older stuff gathering some metaphorical dust on my harddrive. Here are two photos from my trip out to California last January



Skating around downtown LA this brick volcano spot is a pretty safe bet for a good time. Tucker boosted a little ollie before Paul road a Segway.



I have known Tylor for a pretty long time, so he is used to waiting for photos from me. Between my last post and this, he should be pretty stoked. He didn't come with Tucker, Paul and me on our trip out, but Tylor happened to be southern California at the same time, so we did some skateboarding and he got a Front Blunt across this Huntington Beach ledge.

Red Bull: Get It On Record, 1st Place Winners

So this is the promised update on the first of the two exciting contests I have recently won. In short, this contest, put on by Red Bull, in its third year overall and first year in Chicago, was a design competition for college students. I applied with three images and a short statement about why I thought I would be good for the contest. I was accepted as a photographer and put on a team with a filmmaker, Jordan Gzesh, a designer, Katie Swanson, and we, group 10, were assigned a client. Our client was a breakdancer named Torsion. Our assignment was to create a marketing package for our client, however we interpreted that, utilizing all four of our respective talents.
In the 30 days we had to complete the project we met many times, bounced ideas off eachother, always building on what everyone else came up with, and just collaborating in every sense of the word. While almost every tangible part of the final project materialized in the last 10 days, the prior 20 were what made the project what it would become.
I was super lucky to be grouped with 3 talented individuals, and without further description, here is the finished product (click for larger):

Photography: Phil Blair
Video (Shot and edited): Jordan Gzesh
Design (Graphic work as well as book construction): Katie Swanson
Dancer: Tori "Torsion" Howard









Those are the shots of the finished product. The book, handmade by Katie Swanson was held shut magnetically, and when opened contained a tri-fold pullout featuring large images, a DVD with Jordan's video, and a digital picture frame that cycled through a slideshow of Torsion.
Also contained are Torsion's business cards, which feature his logo and contact info on the front and back, and in between is a flipbook of Torsion breaking. The flipbook sequence is featured at the end of Jordan's video, which is here (I recommend going HD and full screen!):



Also, Click here to be taken to the Flickr set of all the images featured in the project:



Thanks so much to Red Bull for sponsoring this contest, and Katie, Jordan and Tori for being so awesome to work with! The experience was worth it, but having the win on my resume and the gift card for an Apple Macbook are nice perks!
1st Place!

Cornerstone, Day 1

The End of June brings me back to southwest Illinois to photograph Cornerstone Festival. I have been here for just over 24 hours and am completely exhausted already (not to mention hungry and sunburnt). I will see what I can do to post on here as the fest goes on, but be on the lookout for my photos in the "Live Coverage" section of the Cornerstone website.



In spite of the amount of "work" (the quotation marks are important here) I have to do here, the decreasing number of bands I care to see, and the lack of company, cornerstone remains one of my favorite times of the year.

Wednesday is PHOTO Day

I've been slacking on updating, and the posts have admittedly been rather unphotographic, particularly considering the subtitle to this blog is "A photographic supplement". Therefore, I am instituting PhotoDayWednesday, because while they may not be the best, my photos are inarguably more interesting than my life as of late. SO HERE GOES:



ELY PHILLIPS comin through with the crailslide at Wilson
This is the photo that was run with his little interview last month in FTK Mag, so in case you already saw that, to be fair I'll throw in another one



THOMAS CHRPA threw down for this photo to help me finish my studio final. The ollie wasNOT a land, but as far as my final goes, he really came through in a pinch for me.

so there you have it, I'll do my best to keep up with PhotoDayWednesday, and maybe even get some photos in in between as well. So, what do you say, DO YOU LIKE IT?