Random Photo

Winter is almost here and I am craving some snowboarding. This is one shot with my friend Nick Ellis on the south shore of Lake Tahoe from 2009.

Random Photo

Near Cusco, Peru

Yosemite National Park, CA

Snowboarding

It's January, and the realization that I am not going to have a snowboarding-filled winter has hit me. I have that itch. The urge to run off to Tahoe and be where I really want to be. Yet, that isn't going to happen this winter. So I need to at least edit some snowboarding photos as a weak substitute. But a substitute nonetheless.

I need to have snowboarding in my life in some way. Relive good times from the past and remind myself that, yes, it most definitely is worth all the effort to make it happen. It will remind me to plan ahead and make it happen next winter, or even when I return in March.

Here are some random photos from my last two winters:

Heavenly Jackpot Rail Jam 2009

Heavenly Jackpot Rail Jam 2009

FS boardslide

Rail Jam

Ryan Lurie - 360 tail - Heavenly

Ryan Lurie - 720

Ryan Lurie - Heavenly

Nick Ellis using the bathroom

no respect

downtown LA

Random Portraits

Decided to post some random portraits I've taken over the years.

for Airbnb - Dumbo, Brooklyn

Justin - Bleecker St, NY

Mike - Colorado

Camila - NY

Nick Jonas - Newport Beach, CA

San Martin Plaza - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Jay - NY

Federico and JP - Kirkwood, California

Lola - San Francisco, CA

Poyo - San Isidro - Argentina

Federico - Kirkwood, CA

Mike - NY

Photo(s) of the Day

I'm in heavy work mode trying to edit photos from 19 different apartments before Camila comes on Thursday. But I need to balance some work editing with some for my own personal interest to help keep sanity. The drive from LA to SF on the 5 is usually quite boring, but every once in a while the weather is pretty unique and offers some fun photo opportunities. The five hour drive really flies by when you are shooting photos out the window for most of the trip.

I have been on three cross country road trips in the last year including this last one with 13,000+ miles in five months. Each trip I have done alone and to keep myself occupied I have always shot photos out the window as I go along.

Cruise control set at 80mph, one hand firmly on the wheel, shutter speed as fast as can be, a steady hand and luck produced thousands of images (many sloppy and blurry). When I first started shooting out the window I rarely produced a decent image. It can be tricky capturing a sharp and well framed image speeding along at 80mph. Yet 25,000 miles of practice has made me able to time everything right and capture level, well framed images. From the beginning I've always wanted to create a portfolio of these images titled "Shot at 80" or something similar. So here are a few images to get me going in the right direction:














Photos from San Diego and LA up soon.

Photo(s) of the Day - LA

I was in downtown LA last night for a little photo shoot on the rooftop of my friend Jan's apartment. After leaving it had gotten a little foggy and had a surreal hazy atmosphere about it. So obviously I had to take advantage of having downtown LA, the freeway, palm trees and this hazy atmosphere to hopefully get some portfolio worthy images. Which I think I did, so it was a successful night. Here is one image so you can get an idea:

Downtown LA

Adam - Trapped in LA


Hollywood & Vine


Los Angeles

I had a fun 10 days down in LA and Vegas and tomorrow I'm heading back up to SF for about a week.

Lake Tahoe Back Injury

So it has been a week since my injury and I'm starting to go crazy. I can't stand for an extended period of time without problems and I certainly can't snowboard. I am in Lake Tahoe and they are getting snow every few days and I am forced to sit around and watch it from a sleazy motel room.



Last Thursday a few friends and I were up at Squaw Valley and were taking our last runs. We were by the bottom of the Solitude lift and I traversed and climbed up a little to hit a fun looking 8 foot cliff. I shot off the cliff and landed solid but with a lot of speed. It was getting bumpy and tracked out so it was hard to slow down. I saw a patch of powder ahead and I planned on carving through it to slow down and get a nice turn in. I hit a bump off-balance and nosedived on the landing which sent me into the air backwards. Expecting a soft, powdery landing I put all my weight in to it. But I was immediately stopped by what felt like a jagged brick wall in the middle of my back. It made a sickening noise, similar to the sound you get when trying to snap a soggy branch. I gasped in pain and imagined all my organs being punctured and leaking all over my insides. I looked behind me to see what ruined my day, which probably wasn't smart at the time considering the trauma to my back seconds earlier. It was a gnarly tree stump or bit of exposed fallen log maybe 6 inches in diameter.

After my friends and I decided against calling Ski Patrol, we headed back over to the gondola and down to the base. Nick ran to get the car while I waited. He returned moments later with the car idling 50 yards away. He came up to me, grabbed our snowboards and headed to the car and returned again, to tell me he locked his keys inside, with it still running. Perfect. At this point it was two hours after the accident and my vision had been blurring for ten minute stretches and I tasted blood at random moments. So my imagination was going wild, inventing rare medical cases I'd most likely have.  I saw all the blood and other fluids from all my organs spilling down my body on the inside to my feet. Each moment making my chances of survival less and less. It's amazing the thoughts that can run through your head when something traumatic happens and you just don't know what is going on.

Twenty five minutes later, loaded into my own car, I was being driven by a Chilean friend to the hospital in Truckee with another riding on my bed in the back. Fortunately it turned out I was wrong and wasn't dying . All I had was a fractured rib, a bruised lung and what would soon be, a nasty bruise in my middle back. I also happened to be very lucky. The doctor told me if I had hit the log an inch to the right on my spine I could have broken my back or even been paralyzed. Lucky indeed. So they gave me a prescription for painkillers and sent me on my way.

Now, a week later and I feel no closer to getting on a snowboard. After several days in this motel room I began to go crazy. I had sacrificed too many hygienic standards and the mess, constant noise, disorder and stench pushed me to my limits. 72 hours straight there would drive even the most open minded person mad though. No offense to the people living there. They are good friends and good people, but they are living in a shithole. The last few days were spent with my Aunt in Portola Valley and now San Francisco with a friend. The recovery was going well until I spent six straight hours on my feet yesterday taking pictures at my friend Taylor's parents' home in Sonoma. I head back to Tahoe tomorrow to hopefully begin shooting photos again, but we'll see if I'm up to it.

Here are some photos from my time in Lake Tahoe so far:

Nick, Foster and Cote building a jump near homes in Alpine Meadows

Jump building - the jump throws you over a tree and down a slope

Cote hiking

Cote, rodeo

Alpine Meadows homes

Nick Ellis on a North Lake dock


The three roommates minus one - Foster, Nick, Cote

Sunset at North Lake

random panoramas

I recently browsed through past photos that I hadn't looked through in a while and realized I had some pretty good stuff hidden around. At the very least it was memorable for me. It's amazing how much I remember of what was actually happening in and out of each of the photos I took - even from years ago. I remember exactly where I was, what the weather was like, who was around and what was going on that day. Due to the large number of poorly titled folders on my desktop, it is a difficult task of finding anything. But it makes for an interesting adventure. Feeling the need to get out and travel a little bit, my search led me to photos from my cross country road trips. I found some photos I liked and made some randomly sized panoramas just messing around for a couple hours and figured I'd post them. I guess that's why I made this blog in the first place, I might as well actually post on it.

Somewhere in Oregon


Interstate 5, Oregon


Crater Lake, Oregon


Crater Lake


Oregon

Leaving Crater Lake


Bryce Canyon Airport, Utah


Northern California

There will be more panoramas soon. But it is late and I have work tomorrow, so no more for now.