Up High in Utah

I had alot of fun riding in Utah this year.  Lots of parties, good friends, and crazy air.
http://slingshotsports.com/2012/03/utah-2012/

Bridge Rail Session

Spent a month in Florida hitting up some cable parks and filming with Billy Parker.  This is a video from one of our sessions.  Shot by Sean Carmicheal

Video - Weaponized

Fresh vid from Slingshot, little compilation of most of the features I got to hit this year.

My First Slingshot Ad

I've always wanted to be featured in a Slingshot ad. Finally after nine years of riding hard here it is. My man Lance Koudele and I synced up for this shot during the 2012 Slingshot Photo Shoot in the Hood River, OR. On this day there was no wind in Hood so we drove like 3 hours to a place called 3 Mile. The wind was light and fluky when we first went out so I took a 13m, but as the sun started going down the wind strength increased (still fluky as shit). Lance set up on the pier so I was able to jump pretty close to him and still have time to avoid the beach after landing (barely), but if the kite went down it would for sure be on the rocks. Shymac held this huge ass bulb flash that pretty much lit up like the sun whenever Lance pulled the trigger. I looked into it a few times and had to land in a haze while my pupils re-dilated. The hardest part was getting close enough to the flash while maintaining solid power in the kite since the shore line was disturbing the wind. Usually I wouldn't be very stoked with a Raley shot but the lighting and scenery in this shot is one of a kind, gonna be hard to top this one. Watch out for the video coming out from the whole Hood River Shoot, should drop sometime before New Years. Peace.

Shots in Every NA Kite Mag this Month

This month was pretty good for me as far as mag coverage. Scored shots in Kiteboarding, The Kiteboarder, and SBC Kiteboard.

This shot of a Nuke Glide in The Kiteboarder Magazine was shot by Jamy Donaldson right in front of the launch at Sherman Island, CA. I was on the new Slingshot Turbine 17m so I was the only one out which made it easy to get a shot with no one in the background, which is a lot harder than it seems. I was so close to the beach that crashing the kite meant fishing it out of the bushes, but that is what it usually takes to get a good shot.

These two shots are from SBC Kiteboard.

The first one, a double page spread of a Switch 313, is an ad for the Dakine Renegade harness, shot at Kitebeach, Maui by Tracy Kraft. Tracy noticed that at low tide the green moss covered rocks at the mouth of the river were exposed and thought it would be good in the foreground of a shot. So we had to wait for the perfect day where the tide, wind, and lighting all lined up. In the background, on the rocks, you can see a pole with a wire that the Naish Team was using for tracking shots on the beach.

This Backside Tailslide was shot by Bryan Elkus in Hatteras, NC on the LTR Rooftop. Unfortunately, since Hurricane Irene took out the entire Real Slider Park last month, this will be the last shot of this feature. As usual Hatteras comes through with the epic sunset backdrop.

Finally the shot in Kiteboarding is a double page spread of a Front Mobe by Lance Koudele. I was in the Gorge riding in the 2012 Slingshot photo shoot with Greg Norman Jr. We were riding downwind of the Klickitat River mouth in a small slew that was only about a kite lines length wide, so there wasn't much room for error and we had to take turns going in and out. Afterwards I had some fun sending it over the bushes in the background until the rest of the team showed up and we set up the log jam that is featured on the cover of the mag.

Cali Coverage

Was in Cali for a few weeks last month helping Slingshot's West Coast Sales Rep, Brave Dave, with demos in the Bay Area. We hit up 3rd ave the first day but the wind was pretty light. We had riders out on 12's and 14's for a while before it died off completely. Then we headed out to Sherman for the weekend. The wind was better, riders were out on 10's and 12's and stoked on all the new boards. After the demos I stuck around Sherman and the Bay Area for a couple more weeks shooting with Jamy Donaldson. Unfortunately the kicker was MIA but the flat water behind the islands is always good for load and pop. Had some good sessions for sure, it was windy most of the time and I got a few shots including this shot that was just published in The Kiteboarder magazine.

Jamy also hooked it with VIP tickets to Deadmau5 at Outside Lands in San Francisco. So intense being in a field with 10,000 other people all going nuts.

Dakine Photo Gallery

New Dakine site is pretty sick. So easy to compare products and navigate through the different sports. I even have a small photo gallery on the kite team page this year so check it out, dakine.com