START TO FINISH

It was pretty obvious that Adio needed a visual face lift. So I took it upon myself to help create a rough guide line that would evently turn into the new campaign, and over all look of the brand. The old style was so dark, layered, and truth be told, kind of harsh on the eye's. I felt like it needed to have the lights turned on in a simple, and breathalbe manner. To help simlpfy the look I made the decision to shoot all in natural light with a 50mm lens, and try and capture the over all feel of the spot/subject/session. Another aspect was not to focus on having a gnarly "stunt" being done for the ad, just something that looks more or less photogenic. I have shot about 8 of the ad's so far, and about half of them were thought out with the rest just happening naturally which is what we were going for.  After shooting the photos I would make a crude lay out in photoshop to give to the office for some sort of ground work. Which they built upon, and made about 5o different versions before we all finally agreed with what you see below, and in the magazines. Much thanks to Chirs and Travis for helping mold this and seeing it through. Now I just need to get back from South America to see them in print.  

First mock up

Final version

BOMBING THE ANDES part three...mendoza

The drive from Valpariso through the Andes to Mendoza was amazing. We had a few loose canons that were getting rather wild in the van on the drive over, and I was a bit curious to what was going to happien when we had to drive through customs at the border.

Being some what in charge of this trip, the one who I was most preoccupied with making sure he was in order to pass through the border was Freddy. Driving though in a rental car is way more complicated then just flying in on an airplane landing and getting you passport stamped. You have to get certified documents from the rental car company, buy an insurance from a seperate company at the border, every one has to fill out 5 forms, and clear both country's customs before they let you in...Of course this whole process is in spanish only, with no real direction or order to it. By the time we finally get to the first customs agent 5 hrs later I was over it and stopped caring about dudes with beers and all that...I was talking to the agent explaining what we were doing ect, and he said his nephew skated, and that he reconsied Freddy from TV or a video. Freddy was physced, put down his Quilmes, and shook the dudes hand and gave him an autographed board and we were out. Funny how those things work out.

Jack and Mike-Mike were doing physical challengs where ever they could. Usually both would make it, but this time climing up the side of a bridge, Jack was the only sucessor as Mike-Mike got scared and climbed back down.

We didn't have any loc to show us around for the two days we were in Mendoza, which was not too bad being that most of the spots are in the plaza's that are all over the city. We did stumble upon this old, crusty, ramp. You could see were the coping used to be, but was taking out to sell the metal. There was a pit under the bridge in the back that had about 50 used condoms spread all over the floor. The flat bottom of the ramp was bairly even ride able, with mud puddles at the bottom of the trainy.  Mike-Mike, and Freddy killed it.

On the way back to Santiago we stopped and went swimming at this lake at the bottom of the Andes. The water is from the melted snow and was super clean and pure. 

Perfect way to end the trip.  

GRINGO INVASION part two...valpariso

Brian will not let me use this because Kenny had a back tail photo on it last year, I can respect that.  So you are seeing it on this blog and not in a mag

I know you what you are thinking "damn Freddy's looking fat" but please note that he actually weighed in less than Shier and Clint.

This is the last photo I shot pre flash drama that would plague me for the rest of the trip. His board flew out into my flash breaking the bulb, lucky not over the barrier and into on going traffic 50ft below like Freddy's did minutes before. Anyways, I brought a spare bulb, which was the wrong one even though the camera store assured me it was the one I needed. No, biggie I have been meaning to get a back up flash and now was the time. So I found a small used camera store in Vina that had what I was looking for, but by the time I got there it was closed so I would have to return in the morning. 

On the way back to the hotel we found these perfect hubbas that were at the city hall. The crew was fired up and started skating before I could even break out my "let's come back when I can shoot photos" speech. Being the city hall in South America there was the security guard inside freaking out and he eventually called the real police to deal with the scene we had created, 10 gringos, grinding down hubba's, a van basting 36mafia, random 40's laying around, and about 50 bystanders gathered around to see what the hell was going on. The real police showed up about 10 minutes later, some one yelled cops and we all made like Carl Luis and literally jumped into the van in under 5 seconds and took off. We thought we made a clean get away for about 2 blocks then were cornered off by the same cops we just dipped from. Me being the only spanish speaker I was asked to get out of the van to deal with the situation. Policia in latin countries are usually pretty mellow, but they can basically do what ever they want, so I played the easy role of dumb gringo and he let us go just promising that we would never return to the city hall. Shier thanked me later for breaking my flash, if not we would have never, found that spot, had that experience, or these bnw low light photos that I was forced to shoot but that I like more than if I had all my normal working gear.

 Cheers Mate.

COME ON CROWD!!! part one...santiago

I invited a random crew to do a little trip to around Chile and into Mendoza, Argentina. It was originally only going to be a few heads, but it snow balled into a crew of 10 over night. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen but they all showed up one way or another...B Brown, TJ, Shier Mate, Mike-Mike, Bender, Clint, Sabback, Freddy, and Joey P to video capture it all. If you know any of these characters then you could imagine the chaos of putting them all together in South America. The trip is almost over, but I have not had much time to post any photos, so here are a few from Santiago.

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