Updates / Get Hyped!

It has been a crazy month, and an even crazier week, culminating in two huge announcements worthy of this blog. Each probably deserves its own in-depth post, so I will do that when I have a minute, but before weeks go by without mention I'll do a little brief updating here.

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I qualified to shoot photos as part of a team for Red Bull's student design competition, Get It On Record. My team, Jordan Gzesh on video, Katie Swanson designing, Tori "Torsion" Howard as our dancer, and I, worked super hard for 30 days and came up with something we were really proud of. What's more, we won! 1st place!

I will update soon with the pictures I made for that and our finished product.

A few days after that excitement, I got a call from Mark Waters at eS telling me I have been chosen to hit the road with the eS Game Of Skate as the Photographer! I am beyond psyched on this opportunity and everything in store for me. I feel like my years (over 5 now!) of shooting skate photos, working hard (as hard of work as one can consider this), and traveling have really paid off in this.

Again, I'll get more in depth with what each of these wins means and how I got there, but I wanted to let anyone who reads this blog know what's up!

Horizon Perfekt and Digital Alternatives

So a while back I posted on how excited I was about getting a Horizon Perfekt "Swing-Lens" Panoramic camera. Since I got it I have loved pretty much every photo that has come out of it, all having such a unique look, and without the normal low-quality that comes with Lomo cameras.






Another appeal was, I thought, there is no way to do this with digital, as you can't curve a sensor the way the 35mm film in my Horizon curves. But it looks like the folks at Sony may have outsmarted me (big surprise).



I don't know what the quality will be like, and there are definitely advantages to the Perfekt, not the least of which being that you can make quick exposures, rather than slowly manually panning the camera, but with quirky images like these, having digital to toy around with all you want, instead of a finite roll of film, is definitely a selling point. Plus if you take the DSC-HX1 out with you, you can still make "normal" non-pano photos from the same camera.

Furthermore, apparently there is a pretty effective algorithm in Photoshop to accomplish the same end as seen here (before and after) captured on a Nikon DSLR. So, while nothing beats the wind-up sound my Perfekt makes as the lens sweeps across the film, are these better alternatives?

I Qualified for "Get it On Record"

"OBJECTIVE:
Judges will select the top 30 creative's from the applications and form teams of 1 designer + 1 photographer and + 1 videographer. Your team must utilize the expertise and talents of each member to present a package that clearly defines and presents your client's image."

I submitted a few images and a short statement and I got an e-mail the other day saying I was chosen as one of the ten photographers for this competition. The first meeting is this coming Monday when I will meet my designer and filmmaker, and we will meet our client. Even though this next month is going to be way too hectic, I am super excited to start collaborating and to see how this will all play out.

I haven't shot skating in a while...

but I did recently photograph some soap.

Tucker flexin afer the shoot

I hear he does like 100 VX curls a day.



The 8+ inches of snow and 15- degrees outside have me inside and going through old files. Messing with this snap was more fun than prepping a portfolio for internships.

5 Teens Shot at Chicago Skate Spot

Chicago can't keep its face out of the news lately. Chicago's own recently impeached Governor Blago put a national spotlight on the breadth of corruption in our fair city. Furthermore, in 2008 Chicago had more murders than any other large city in the U.S. coming in with 508. Only one week into 2009 Chicago has already seen lives lost to violence, and late last night five young men were shot in a drive-by at a well known Chicago skate spot, Dunbar High School. Dunbar, on South King Drive, is the home of the 7-flat seen in lots of local videos including some runs in the Midwest Video. Obviously these kids weren't skating, nor were they skaters, but its worth noting what goes on at the questionable places we sometimes choose to put ourselves in.

Read more here: http://chicagoist.com/2009/01/10/five_shot_outside_dunbar_high_after.php

Hey, at least we can claim Obama.

Nick D

Do yourself a favor and check out Nick Dompierre's Mag Minute over at The Skateboard Mag's blog

http://theskateboardmag.com/watch/nick-dompierre/

60 seconds of ripping in HD set to More Than a Feeling. Solid.
And it warrants mention on this photo blog (really, this is) as you see tons of hassy fisheye in a bunch of those clips as well as a skater who has no issues avoiding the maze of flashes we skate photographers like to set up.