Park 2, The LA Section

Just caught the link and I was stoked to see a lot of names I knew.  The footage looks like it's a few years old, but the tricks are still stunning.  Definitely odd to see the different setups and styles everyone had just a few short years ago.  Heck, everything these days is shot in HD and by comparison, the regular DV footage looks plain awful.  What a difference a couple years does right?

Park 2: Los Angeles

Be-Mag, One, and other craziness..

So I have been relatively quiet lately on my blog.  It  has been absolutely hectic the last few weeks, but I have had news to post up here.  If you haven't caught it, I had two photos placed up on Be-mag's online photo pages.  One of Rainer over in Pic of the week and one of Anthony Gallegos over in Global Connections...

In the same day, I found out my photos of Kevin Yee had appeared in his Xsjado In-depth Interview..

 

The photos are on my Flickr under the SF Tour and Kevin Yee's set. 

Now, what else is up?  I was at LA All Day the other day and took a ton of photos (a good 170+), which I'll get to work on this week or so.  Not so much skating, but the feel of the event.  I always go to these sorts of things for the atmosphere you get having that many people share your passion.  It definitely fills the air with a vibrant feeling.   Sure the tricks are amazing, but getting to meet new people is just awesome.  I got to meet a pal of mine, Ben Karris from AZ, who writes for One and talked to Justin Eisinger, editorial direction of One.  Very chill guys!  Fret not, there are a few skate photos, Anthony 'Peanut' was killing it with true spin top souls and acids on the rainbow rail and some crazy nutter had backside backslide to topsoul on that thing.  I caught a few clips, so I'll try to post those up later tonight if I can figure out Final Cut Pro.  Or if I'm lazy, I'll just render them with Handbrake. lol.

Also found out at the comp. that one of my photos will be appearing in the next issue of One! My jaw dropped and I wasn't sure what to say afterwards other than thanks and "uhhh...uhh..uhh".  It'll be my first printed work, so I'm absolutely stoked.  Keep an eye out for it! 

Oh and I built a hackintosh a week or two ago, so edits and photo editing should be coming up.  I've been testing the stability and so far so good.  A few quirks like usb  freezing if you wake it up through a keyboard (just unplug and replug) or an odd pop if the audio hasn't been 'used' in a while.  It was this or buy a 2k mac pro vs the 600 I spent. Not too shabby!

So that is what is going on with me.  I'm looking to shoot more LA rollerbladers, so if anyone's interested, hit me up!

The Hazards of Skate Photography

There are quite a few things photographers will do for their shot. The Shot.  Plenty of hazards we'll conveniently forget about.  Anthony approached me about shooting this drop ledge at the far end of Tweedy.  It wasn't a nice spot.  It was too dark to shoot with natural light, had only one or two angles to shoot it from, the landing was 6-7 feet from a wall, a pain to light.  It took 15 minutes to figure out a workable lighting.  I told Anthony, "let's give it a shot". I asked him what trick?  He said top porn.  He then asked where was I going to shoot it from?  My response: "at the bottom, against the wall".  Wait what?  He would land 4 feet out and force a sudden stop a hair's breath from me.  Not only that, my human light stand, Abel, would be right next to me—as Anthony was doing a liu kang off this ledge.  Nothing is more terrifying than 145 pounds of flesh and plastic coming at you and your job is to time the photo, and quickly pull back to avoid being hit while the guy next to you trying to do the same.  It turned out to be an awesome shot under the less than ideal circumstances.

I suppose I value it because I put my camera and myself in harms way.  okay, and Abel's life. ha.  Or maybe because throughout the shoot, there was constant dialogue between skater and photographer about how to shoot, tricks that would work best, lighting, spot selection, and an understood trust.  Trust that you'll make the best of the shoot.  And of course not get kicked in the face.

Camera settings: 1/125, F/4.0, ISO 400.
Lighting: 580ex speedlite positioned camera left, 1/2 power.  sb-25, gridded, being held 8 feet up behind the camera at 1/2 power (I think?).

Thank you Greg for the Valo Shout out!

My good friend Greg was ever so nice to let me know he got some photos posted up on the Valo-brand page.  Even nicer to know they were photos I shot of him for an interview that didn't use them, and I even got a little shout out.  Things like that make my day.

Time Capsule Footage, 2004-2005

 
Mystery Edit from Jonathan Labez on Vimeo.
I was digging through some old hard drives, sorting out old footage from my Canon Optura Xi and I came across the last edit I made sometime back in 2006.  Like every kid, I wanted to film and make a video.  But I wanted to be artistic and make it interesting to watch because so many edits were just blasé.  It wasn't about the best tricks, but how you showcased them.  That attitude must have carried over into my photography which I became heavily interested in later that year.

It's interesting to look back and remember all the fun times and remember exactly what it was like skating then, just because of a two minute edit.  Some of these people have meandered off and haven't strapped up in years.  Some of them I pick up every Sunday without fail.  I've seen them (and myself) develop as rollerbladers and as young adults, becoming an extended family.  Anyone I skate with on a semi-regular basis is part of that family, which includes anyone I've met in the last year from the Long Beach scene/Monday Night Skate.

I remember how foreign it was to walk in that first night a year ago and not know anyone, but know I was excited to see that many rollerbladers.  I hadn't seen anything like that since LA IMYTA years earlier.  My driver friends weren't into driving out far, or going to spots we had already been to a hundred times before.  I like to explore, check out new places and spaces.  It's how I ended up at Monday Night because I had been driving 6 months and I ran into some rollerbladers at Tweedy saying we should come out to Monday Night.  I haven't regretted that decision.

My family's grown exponentially with some of the coolest people you'll ever meet.  A year's worth of memories and friends to add to the years of rollerblading.  Here's to 2010 and the new memories coming up on the horizon..

Inri, LA sessions and other things..

I've been busy lately, shooting and editing, living the life.  I recently spent a good week or two shooting with Sean Sea/Inri, capturing some photos of LA's finest - Jeremy Soderburg and Anthony Gallegos.  Not to mention getting some spectacular photo of Sean skating the most ridiculous sculpture. Jeremy skated some spots downtown.  One spot we had two tries before an Asian lady tried to take my flash.  The other was a fun curved ledge by the LA courthouses.   I got to meet Sayer Dansforth on my last shoot.  He's such a quiet guy.  I should have taken a photo of him, but it slipped my mind as I was shooting Anthony skate another impossible sculpture.  Hopefully I'll be able to post those up after The Inri Lookbook is up.

I forget whenabouts I shot with Quinn Feldman and Winston Wardell.  We checked out the new Drama school right off the 101 freeway.  That place is immense.  And it saddens me that they have such perfect ledges everywhere, but everything is capped minus the rails.  Made no sense to me.  I'll be getting some of the photos soon.  I believe Quinn's photo is to be used for his Be-mag online section, In the know(?).  Be on the look out for those two things. 

Oh and there was a big session that went down at the Tweedy ledges a few weeks ago.  A good 30+ people from all over LA.  I snagged photos and I'll try to get those up asap, seeing as I want to make that a once a month deal.  We don't have group sessions like in other cities and I'd like to see more unification among the LA rollerblading scene.  Maybe this is the way to go?  Give me some feedback/

So yes, I've been busy.  Also saving up for that 7d,  so this means edits and videos of my setups here and there.  The year is just beginning, so hopefully I'll have some cool stuff for you to look at. 

Anthony Gallegos' Trick Tip up on A Chosen Few..

My good friend Anthony Gallegos (Guy-uh-goes) just did a trick tip profile for a new online video series, A Chosen Few (run by Quinn Feldman).  So of all the tricks out there, Anthony did True Kindgrind on a ledge, a practice rail, a handicap, a down rail and up a curved ledge...revert 360 out.  Talk about versetile!  Anthony is a very consistant guy, so I'd listen to everything he has to say.  Check out the video!  He's due to have a profile on A Chosen few sometime soon, so be on the look out for that as well!

Tour photos and updates..

So the Get Out of Town Tour was a complete success.  For those of you who did not know, I was up in San Francisco with some of the Long Beach crew - Anthony Gallegos, Gregory Preston, Danger Dan and Warry.  It were packing a tight car.  Tighter still with Kevin Yee giving us the grand tour.  All I have to say is I had an absolutely amazing time! Took a ton of photos but I'll have to hold up on posting them up since Shock is giving us the space to post up our tour photos on their site! How flipping cool is that?!  So it means I'll be working hard this week to edit a ton of photos.  No sleep for me.  Then again, when do I sleep?  Anywho, to sum up the tour, San Francisco architecture was stunning, their city planners are on top of things, there's a sense of community (albeit a little militant), things are open late, the streets are sketchy, we skated some well known spots (hubba's hide out for one), I can't remember saturday night (oh my), and did I  mention I got to skate with Kevin Yee?  Such a good skater.  But the pictures will speak for themselves... In the meantime, you'll just have to make due with some camera phone photos.

At beginning of the drive, Dan show's off his stunner shades.

 Somewhere in the grapevine.

Obligatory smoke break.

We managed to park under a ton of bees.  No one wanted shotgun at that pit stop. haha.

After a stop at Jack in the Box, we're off again.

Anthony smiling as usual.  I think were were just glad to be out of town.

Anthony has a t-rex on his mirror which I thought was uber cool.

All I have is a wooden cat head on my car.

Greg watching Fantastic Puncher.  Wonder what he's thinking about..

The mystery that is Greg's mind?

The GPS lost signal for 15-20 minutes midway through the drive.

A blurry photo of Greg balancing two folks on two toothpicks.

Also, a subliminal Valo ad.

The Get Out of LA Tour.

It's exactly just that. Three days of unadultered fun.  Anthony Gallegos, Gregory Preston, Danger Dan, someone else who joined last minute, and myself are going to head out tomorrow to San Francisco.  Why?  Because we need to get out of LA.  It's part of that love-hate relationship.  Then again, sans myself, the former three are from Bellflower/Long Beach.  It's a trip cooked up by Anthony and myself as a way to escape it all, go somewhere new and session a bunch of new terrain along the way.

We'll be documenting the trip extensively - photos, video, iphone.  As far as iphone photos are concerned, we'll have those up in the evenings.  The dslr photos and video will come up soon (hopefully).

All I'm going to say is this is going to be one hell of a trip.

Stay tuned for words and photos!

Sequence shooting

Sequence shots are funny things.  I've never been too keen on them, especially in the post photoshop world where sequences are merged into a single photo with 15-20 shots for a topsoul or something too small for a sequence.

When I think sequence, I think Daily Bread's section of how to do X trick like a pro. There was Louie Zamora doing an alley oop topsoul that I found funny because he never explained how to do it, just that he went up, he manned up, and did it. haha.  Or A couple years later, Brian Shima did a 720 from ramp to gap that Daily Bread described as 'Motorcross' style. I had that thing taped to my wall for ages.  Each shot was side by side, in rows and columns.

These days, sequences are photo-merged into a single photo.  The only recent single image-sequence photo I have liked was of Don Bambrick in a recent One Issue of him doing a line in Texas.

I've stayed away from sequences since I bought my Canon 30D a year and some ago.  But a few weeks ago I was out with Anthony Gallegos, Jeremy Soderberg, Ranier, some of my friends, some of their friends, and Lonnie Gallegos shooting in Lincoln Heights for the new Fade Nation video.  I lucked out and shot some great shots. Some skate, some candids.  Unfortunatley I kept having issues with my Canon 580ex. Ugh. Always that flash! (and now I think one of my pocket wizards is going..)

When it came to the early evening, the last spot was a long staircase that Haffey does disaster Backside Royale. Looks easy, in person it is a BEAST.  Ranier decides he is going to go fakie, gap the 1st short set and gap the main set fakie 540. That's where I thought okay, I need to try sequence shooting because his spins are just too good to pass up.  I pumped up the iso to 1600, set my focusing on AI focus, 1/125 second, and f/3.5 (?).  I already knew it was going to be a black and white shot. What I found out was my camera's buffer is 9 photos when shooting in raw.  That puppy fires! It's unbeliebable how quick it snaps photos.  Anywho, I'm rather happy with the results, which means I'll be trying my hand at sequences again very soon!

On the Prowl for New Spots...

Back to rollerblading for a quick second...

but does anyone out there actively hunt for new spots?  I understand the passive approach - you pass by something and think hey that wasn't there before, I'll skate it later. I mean pack your bag and skates, and roam around searching for new locales.  Not for the sake of a photo opp or filming the hot clip of the week, but just for the sake of skating something new? (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for clip hunting and snapping that fresh spot with my lens.)

It got me thinking yesterday that my friends and I passed over 2 spots to skate a tried and true spot.  Albeit the first spot was completely unwaxed, and was a gap to waist high ledge that spans a 10 ft dirt patch...and the second spot in Hollywood was nice sans the homeless buy napping at the end of the ledge. But, something Abel said struck a cord..We only have a set time out, and he wants to do is skate and not look over our shoulders for cops while brick rubbing a new spot.  He has a point. I was busted in Glendale some time ago for rubbing down a ledge (not the act, but we have the rub on us) and had the cops interrogate me and threaten to take me in for vandalism. But it's Glendale. They have nothing better to do. Not a fun way to spend my night.

But the allure of finding a new spot, working it, and making it your own is just too hard to pass up.  I love roaming around and looking for new new challanges.  Oftentimes I can't skate what I see due to my own inabilities, but that doesn't mean I can't think and dream.

I don't mind pulling over and glancing over a potential spot with a jeweler's eye and an artist's imagination. I don't even mind finessing a spot with brick rub, what's left of the wax in the car, the industrial push broom that sleeps in the car along with some rags.  The end result is a brand-spanking new spot we didn't have before.  And that's just satisfying on so many levels. That is, until I get hurt and ask myself why I bothered fixing the spot up. haha.

I'm the sort of person that likes to meander and roam for new pasture.  Maybe I spent too much time as a nomad in college between two countries (American and England), what might as well be two state (nor cal and so cal), and searching for what little spots there were in Santa Cruz.. I know I like new terrain and testing my tricks in uncharted waters.  It's a great feeling to know your skills transfer over past your traditional local spots.  The tried and trues.

Now the question I pose is who out there likes looking for new spots?  If so, why?  What do you look for?  And...for all my LA-Long Beach friends, care to share any of your finds? hah.

It's a Friday folks, spread the love!