Air and Style

Finally to the reason we were in Beijing...The Oakley Air n' Style....I'd never been to this event before and was siked to check it out, especially in China...Chinese law says there has to be a shit-ton of security guards at any spectator event.....They definitely respected the law.

This security guy had amazingly good seats for the Chinese boy band that played after the event.

A little excessive?

The Birds Nest was next door to the venue we were at...I never got a chance to check it out but she was poking her head out the whole time.

Grilo and I had a chance to film some funny video stuff before the event. I caught up with him before he hiked the 7 stories of stairs for the 1st time.

The level of riding was super high...Sebastian Toutant walked away the victor.....The security guards even got a chance to get a quick cell phone photo...Hopefully I make it back next year

Tourism at its finest

We got a chance to get out of Beijing a bit and check out some of the Chinese countryside. The place is def not easy living. Seems like everyone is struggling to survive in a way..

We rode a day at Nanshan...A local ski hill about an hour outside of town....When we arrived there were a bunch of guys making a mogul field with shovels. Right before a park jump?? Not too sure their logic on that one.

The next day we made it too the Great Wall. I hadn't been to this section of The Wall before and it was just as impressive as the other section years ago.

After the Wall we headed to this super low key restaurant in one of the traditional Chinese neighborhoods...The place was amazing. Apparently, this was one of the Emperors old cars...This was before the entire fleet was converted into Prius's.

Jesse enjoyed dinner. And decided that he was going to be Tony Montana from Scarface for the night...Not quite sure how I have all these photos of Jesse?

They Love Mao

Everywhere you seem to go in China there is a picture of Mao....such as this restaurant....Seems kind of weird loving someone so much that brought your country less freedom? (communism)
Before one of the dinners, we had a chance to sit down and catch up on our Chinese history. Jesse read it to us aloud, over drinks.
Ryan, Claude, Todd, and I headed up to the Budda temple one afternoon. He looks directly over the Forbidden City. This is the view Budda has, all day long.
There is no shortage of street vendors to take photos of either....The kite business must be booming these days in Beijing...its always windy

Smell that Fresh Air?

I had some time to walk around and shoot some photos and TL's while in Beijing.

The 1st day we were there was brutally cold and had the worst air quality possible. A little different than when the Beijing Olympics were in town.

Everyone seems to work their ass off in ChinaOn the second day the air cleared and we had some time to head to Tiananmen Sqaure. It was so damn cold. Not sure why these guys didn't have matching beanies instead of baseball hats?

A Nice Historic Flatground Spot

One would think that when you have to walk through X-ray machines to access Tiananmen Square, skating would be out of the question.....

its China afterall, I think they have bigger things to worry about...such as 1.3 billion citizens..

p.s. Jesse and Mao say hi

No Blogging Allowed

Just got back from an amazing trip to China with a couple days in Tokyo on the back end. Both places are great for blog photos and I should have some cool posts in the upcoming days...The Chinese government actually blocks Facebook and Blogspot from internet users....luckily I can jump super high and I was able to outrun them.........................

....actually, Ryan Young and I were waiting for our van to pick us up and I asked him to shoot this photo....The timing wasn't as easy at it may seem. I finally landed it like 6th try.

Where did summer go?

Yesterday was sooo nice in San Diego...On the way to the airport Justin, Katie, and I decided to shoot this photo idea I've had for a few months...we didn't have quite enough time to get exactly what I wanted but this works.Now im back in SLC and its 17degrees. A cold winter of travel starts Monday.

3 Filmers 3 photog's and 1 small jump

Last spring we had a super productive shoot in Flauchawinkl, Austria. Towards the end of the shoot it was getting so hot out that most of the features had disappeared and there were rivers running down the slopes. On this particular day everyone was trying to get as creative as they could to shoot the last jump which wasn't the most photogenic thing ever. Andro and Luka had a crane out. Blotto, Cyril, and Howzee were running around everywhere trying to get the shot and I was doing what a I could to make things interesting. It was a fun atmosphere and we ended up getting some pretty cool stuff.This was one angle that I really liked. Yea, I know its been done a million times, I still like it. Maurer, bs rodeo

Check out Andro's super good edit from the session:

http://theliftline.tv/?page_id=133&channelEmbedCode=k3MzNrMToFe8fCuc4pFCmdzrCUcTK2Ga&videoEmbedCode=RicjhyMToeCwt1M_LOZr5WU8QJeQmRa3&page=1

We actually got kicked out

One of the nice things about being a filmer/photog in the snowboard world is the fact that everywhere you go you run into friends you dont normally see more than one or two times a year. This particular night was the night of X Games big air....I had snuck through the fence to get a side angle of the big air jump. As I got into position I realized Silent Greg and Chris Wellhausen had the same idea as i did. We hung out for bit and eventually were asked to leave...Not really sure why but we obliged.

I decided since its a recession I might as well save mega-pixels and shoot Greg and Travis at the same time.

After Travis's heat he came over to check the shots and recover from the extremely flat landings. I need to give Greg this photo for Xmas or something...

The next night I snuck back through the fence to shoot Shaun...This time i didn't get kicked out. Since Shaun was doing 23ft bs airs the security dude decided I could stay.....

Craig Kelly Proto Facility

Burton just opened up a new factory in Burlington to build and test new products. The place is amazing. All kinds of crazy machines everywhere...the crew filmed a quick video about the new place with Jake B while Blotto ran around and snuck in behind the scenes photos when he could.I haven't the slightest idea what half of this stuff does?

Working with Tim and Andro is always a pleasure.

Jake nailed the interview 1st try

Corey Koniniec (foreground) and I have been working together since the Neoproto's Some Kinda Life, about 6 years or so. Any time we get a chance to shoot together is dope.

Thanks for the photos Blotto!

Thats a good crew!

We had a great media/team planning meeting in Burlington this week. Its always good for everyone to catch up before the craziness begins.These guys/gals are amazing to work with.

This doesn't look quite right?

Runke and I headed to the Paramount lot in Hollywood last week. We had a little trouble finding the correct sound stage and at one point ended up on the set of what looked like "Little House on the Prairie part 2."

Watch Out Backstreet!

Slice of Life

This photo of Kailee cropped pretty sweet!!

Favor for a friend

My good friend Brennan decided that he needed some engagement photos for his upcoming wedding.

His fiance Kailee didn't quite agree....HA...
In all honesty...Shooting with these guys was great. Especially since I am a huge rookie to using strobes and all that. I'd love to get more practice

Its Not Everyday.....

You go to private Metallica show and stand 20ft from the stage....not a bad birthday.Runke had the biggest smile on his face the entire night. Honestly, the guy was sooooo stoked.
Kirk Hammit still rips...Metallica only played 2 new songs. Which means so many of the classics were played.

This was the 3rd time i've seen old ass Metallica and by far better than the last. Maybe not as good as the 1st (Lollapalooza, 1995) but still all time. Many thanks to SWE who hooked this up!!

My Brother Has A Mop

Not too sure how many species live in here but I'm sure Darwin would've been stoked

There are Street Gaps at Whole Foods

I know a total of about 10 street spots in SLC. We happened to be down the road from one of them the other day and decided to snap a quick shot.

Notice the landing being a 5ft long manny pad. Not ideal (I dont know why I didn't shoot the action shot from this angle)

Levi didnt seem to have a problem with it.

Dodging Rain with Levi

This weekend I met up with some of the local SLC rippers to shoot a few skate images....One being this kid Levi Faust. Levi skates really well, good style, good pop. Unfortunately, day one turned into rain....we shot these couple of shots while warming up

I still cant figure out how to hi-speed sync my strobe to my 5d. Its rocket science apparently. The on-camera flash just couldn't quite hang.

King Kong lives in VT

Every time you drive through small town America you end up seeing some wild shit. On the way down to Stratton with Linn and Hot Wing last spring we came across King Kong.

Tourist photo, check.

Everything's a little brighter in Spain

Not sure what it is about Spain, but you always seem to walk with cool skate shots when your there. Sani and I pulled up to the boardwalk area in San Sebastian and there was this giant flatground spot that had a ton of people playing soccer, skating, hippy longboarding, and just hanging....It was getting near dusk and the mountain in the background was already having some pretty cool light on it. I pulled out the camera stuff as Sani ran to get some beersI was trying to think of a different type of photo to shoot other than a stock flat ground photo. We came up with this slow shutter idea. This is my favorite photo from the entire trip, (hopefully i didnt already say that somewhere else)...Sani and I just skated back and forth and eventually came out with a good shot that Im going to surely send to him for Xmas.
Mu and Hitsch chose surfing over skating...we didnt see them again until night.
After Sani got such a good photo I asked him to snap a quick shot of me ollieing as we had initially planned.
Dom walked up and was looking extremely fashionable so she got a shot too...

Im gonna miss summer:(