Cody Sanders Profile on Wheel Scene Magazine

I finally had a chance to drive out to Huntington Beach to shoot rollerblader Cody Sanders after his arrival to the west coast. He had been living out here a few months and we've been talking about working together a cool minute.  Working on his Wheel Scene Magazine profile was more an excuse to hang out and shoot.  Though the same day, I find he was moving back to Texas.  On the plus side, it gives me a reason to head to Texas to shoot.

We tried a few spots, with nothing quite working out.  We were saving a drop ledge for the end, but since two spots were no go, this would have to do.  Lighting wasn't anything intricate.  A strobe set camera left and out of sight to light the ledge and stairs, providing some nice patterns on the stairs.  Another flash camera right with a Honl 1/4" grid raised to 8-9 feet to just fill in Cody.  It's a short ledge, but boy is it high!  Even higher when you add your height to it.  There were only a few goes, but who could blame him!

Afterwards, I took him aside for the portrait.  Next to one of the spots we were just at is a vacant, vast grass field with the late afternoons sun in the backdrop. Perfect.  I was going to shoot him in digital, but Cody insisted on polaroid.  If you knew him well enough, he insisted, you'd understand why that made perfect sense.  That was shot on an SX-70 with PX70 color shade Impossible Project Film. It was the first time I had tried it.  It has a nice color palette, but it's far too sensitive to light.  You have to crank the light wheel down to bring detail into the film.  Still, it has a dreamy quality to it.

In a lot of ways, Cody in Cali was dream like.  He appeared out of nowhere, there were flashes of him at sessions, and when he was finally the main focus, it was time to wake up.  (It just gives me an excuse to check out the Austin scene!)

It feels like every time I go out to shoot another rollerblader, it's another dream captured, if only the best snippets.