PassionBMX Issue 9

iss ue nine

february 2008

Passion magazine

Contents Page: Park

Cover: Chill

contents

02 03 08 11 15 37 38 45

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photo by brad wakefield

issuenine

photos by ben turner

Intro Barca!

Event - Pull Some Stuntz Jam Unsung Self Promotion Rider Profile - Martin Lamyman Focus contributors

Well after every issue I always promise myself to not be slack and get the next issue rolling as quick as possible but it never seems to happen! So really this is a big thanks to everyone who doesn’t bore out of impatience and keeps pestering me about the mag.

For this issue we have an event, a few snaps from my trip out to Barca with the Tomorrow We Work boys last year, and mostly an article about Self Promotion Basically a chance to show off the website’s of the people who help out with the mag. Some excellent known and unknown photographers that publish their work on the net. These guys are the backbone of this magazine so go enjoy their work.| We all hope you enjoy......

02

BARCA! 2007 Trip - Tomorrow We Work

www.tomorrowwework.co.uk photos by homer

03

BARCA!

Joe Cox Josh Bedford St Marti Nose Wheelie Canyelles Rail Hop 360

04

ARCA!

BARCA!

JoshBedford 180 Gap

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! CHANGE OF SPEED

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! CHANCE TO WATCH ADMIRE THE DISTANCE 3TILL OCCUPIED THOUGH YOU FORGET $IFFERENT COL OURS DIFFEREN T SHADES

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forum go to www.passionbmx.co.uk/forum/files/

Events:

Pul Sum Stuntz Jam 2k7

Aaran Jones

words and photos by farley vaughn

Pul Sum Stuntz? What sort of name is that? Well what are you supposed to call a friggin BMX jam with a bunch of kids trying to be just like one chase or another.

We had a jam to get as many riders from Leicester and the surrounding areas down to the skate park. There wasn’t an awful lot planned and as we had never held or done anything like this before nobody knew quite what to anticipate apart from that just went round telling everyone that Harry Main was coming so they best be there. The date was set, a sketchy flyer was made .., and loads of second hand bike parts ranging from used inner tubes to other peoples profile wheels where set up as the prizes. Tuesday came around and the park started to get busy at 11:30 with the usual swanky kids asking if people were going to “do some back flips�, then the riders started rolling in from 1ish onwards. The weather had decided to stay nice and bright and the ground dry so all was set to be a fun day. 3:00 was scheduled to be the start of the high air comp from out of the quarter onto the deck, which was good because everyone could get involved in it even if your wrists and ankles were at steak, it turned out to be quite comical with people nose diving all over the place and falling into t this point it would seem like the day was gradually and steadily going downhill but then it all started going off, flips for the kids from Aaran, gaps out of the park from Harboro Tom, burly barspin wizardry

08

Events:

Tom Davis

Pul Sum Stuntz Jam 2k7

from Oakham Joe and everyone was having a great time the day calmed down when it got too dark to see anything due to having no floodlights. We didn’t end up even giving any prizes away because they were too cruddy and nobody wanted them. Hopefully we’ll have another jam next year with more people, more prizes and more fun, we can learn from our mistakes. Maybe the LOLzzz Jam 2K8? Best start planning.

Aaran Jones

Tom Davis

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UNSUNG

un•sung adjective.

Not celebrated; unknown words by nik ford photos by jay shears, tom elliot, nik ford and homer

For years now I have witnessed my friends do some of the most amazing things on their bikes and I wanted to give them something back for all the good times as well as a little something for their memoirs! That brings me to this article…..

If there was ever such thing as ticking all the boxes and pleasing everyone I would like to think the unsung dvd would come close. The dvd contains all types of riding from street to park to trails to concrete bowls to ghetto ramps to boats! The soundtrack I feel also caters for a wide range of musical tastes, there are some songs by artists you may have heard of, some you might not have and some by amazing unsigned bands helping tie in with the unsung ethos. Simon Tabron has even provided some tracks!

The dvd is 35 mins long with added extras including a Love Metal Jam edit, Stills gallery, Bonus riding/ outtakes and detailed music credits.

The dvd features over 50 riders from various parts of the UK including Stratford, Redditch, Cornwall and Birmingham.

I could go on and on about the highlights of the dvd and the spots we hit up during our travels but we covered some serious miles and there are too many highlights to list. Some of my favourite clips would be Chicken 360’ing over a canal, Ben Sutor 720 to fakie, Shaun Haddlington double whip on the streets, Chris Zawlocki’s sideshow, Olly Dale’s whip transfers and Ed Tongue’s street skills! Plus so much more so you should go buy a copy, its only £5 and available direct through the myspace page at www.myspace.com/ unsungbmx as well as any good bmx shop, details of which can be found on the myspace page. But if your not down with the whole myspace thing google the words “unsung bmx dvd” and that will give you links to the shops that have stock or drop email me at; unsungbmxdvd@hotmail.co.uk

11

UNSUNG

un•sung adjective. Not celebrated; unknown

Photo Comp!

UNSUNG

un•sung adjective. Not celebrated; unknown

If you haven’t got a copy of the unsung dvd yet and think you are pretty handy with a camera send your best photo to me at; unsungbmxdvd@hotmail.co.uk The top 5 will win a copy of the dvd and have their photo included in the next issue of Passion. Please ensure all entries are 300 dpi and don’t forget to include who the rider is and who has taken the photo. The winners will be contacted for their postal address, good luck.

13

Coming Soon!

Check www.passionbmx.co.uk

Self Promotion

Self Promotion With the endless advances in services and software, it’s never been easier to show off your work on the world wide web. From Flickr to blogspots to full blown websites. Here are some of our contributors own personal websites. Enjoy...

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Self Promotion Name, age and location?

Jonathan Shears, 19 years old and I currently live near Stratford upon Avon

What’s your site called?

www.jshearsphotography.co.uk

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or with help?

I made the layout of my site using Dreamweaver and then my galleries are made using simpleviewer. I learnt how to use Dreamweaver simply by trial and error trying different buttons seeing what they would do etc. Eventually I made a rough website design which looked pretty terrible. After a while of playing about I got to use the program a bit better and made the layout which I currently have just a simple straight to the point design The gallery’s where pretty easy to make I just got software from www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/ and it has step by step instructions on how to make the galleries. At the moment my sites hosted at a place call www.sitesled.com which is a crappy free place which is slow and has banners which I have to try and hide but it’s only a stop gap till a sort out something good. As for the .co.uk name that costs me 2 quid for 2 years at a place called www.123-reg.co.uk

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

I would describe my photography style as constantly changing. I tend to have phases of doing things like shooting black and white stuff, shooting photos with next to no ambient light, shooting landscapes etc.

http://www.jshearsphotography.co.uk

Self Promotion Like lately I’ve been shooting a lot of landscape stuff and I haven’t shoot stuff like BMX properly for a couple months. I don’t really think my site reflects this because I just try and make it real simple and let the pictures do all the talking.

Any plans for it your site in the future ?

I’ve been thinking for a couple months now about making a section on the site to sell prints from because I go to a lot of motor racing events and take photos, so I would quite like to be able to just upload all the photos from the day so people can just browse through and purchase photos of themselves you know just your stock sports sort of website. I’d like to try and get that done over the next couple months

http://www.jshearsphotography.co.uk

http://www.deanphoto.co.uk Name, age and location?

Dean Smifff, 25, Winchester, UK

What’s your site called? www.deanphoto.co.uk

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

How would you describe your photography style and doyou think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

Black, boring and simple? Pretty much sums me up personally I guess, oh no hang on, I’m white!

Photography style, hmmmm. That’s a hard one, I’d say I do my own thing and that’s normally different to the norm, I try to keep it original you know? I think that since I started photographing car’s more often my style has really developed. My BMX photo’s used to be the same old stuff you’d see everywhere on the web but of late, I’m trying to bring some of the techniques I use to photograph car’s into my BMX shots, people have said they look very ‘Top Gear’,I’m going to take this as a compliment.

Self Promotion

The website is hosted by NewNet Powerhost. The main layout was designed in Photoshop and then all the link’s were put in place using dreambeaver. The flash gallery was a free download and is available from JAlbum, it’s such a simple tool, the only downside to it is that it resizes images to web browser sizes and makes the images soft when they’re re-scaled.

I’m not really sure that the site portrays my photographic style. I just wanted something nice and clean, easy to use and navigate and quick to load, none of this art fag type stuff, it just confuses the hell out of me :-)

Any plans for it your site in the future?

Well, the one thing I really need to do is sort out the ‘About’ section. I’m also going to make a wallpapers section for sure, I’m fed up of being asked for wallpapers of my car photos on forums. Then possibly an online shop of some sort where people can order prints.

Self Promotion

http://www.deanphoto.co.uk

http://www.deanphoto.co.uk

Self Promotion

Name, age and location?

Andrew Browning, 32, Bristol.

What’s your site called?

www.andrewbrowning.com

Self Promotion

http://www.andrewbrowning.com

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

The site is hosted by topclasshost.com, who I couldn’t recommend enough. The site uses wordpress, a customised theme and various plugins. I designed and built it myself.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you?

If yes how have you managed that?

On and off. I go through phases without taking photos for ages but at the moment I’m back on it and trying to take something everyday. The site also covers my website and graphic design, so it has to try and reflect that as well as my photography.

Any plans for it your site in the future?

Finish adding content, got tons of old work to go through. Hopefully design a new theme once all the content is added.

Self Promotion

http://www.andrewbrowning.com

http://www.andrewbrowning.com

Self Promotion

http://www.watfordphotography.co.uk

Name, age and location?

I’m Max Quinn, I’m 17 and I’ve lived in Watford (just north or London) for almost my whole life.

What’s your site called?

My photography portfolio is www.watfordphotography.co.uk and that’s where the best portion of my shots end up, but I also have a Flickr (www.flickr. com/Photos/MaxQuinn) for sharing all the other shots with riders.

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

I host my site with www.sniffhost.com. It costs me about £16 a year and has all the space I need, I’d highly recommend them! I’ve never had any downtime and it’s quick and cheap with a good online control panel.

I created it myself, I’ve run a few websites in the past (I currently also run www.amplocal.co.uk) so wanted my portfolio site to be something I could be proud of making 100% by myself.

First I made the background Image in Photoshop and then sliced it up and took it all into Dreamweaver for the rollovers and added the div over the top which has the actual content in it. It still needs a lot of work though; the rollovers are the main weak aspect of it I think.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

Well while I still consider myself a complete beginner to photography I’m starting to develop a style. I have no fisheye for a start so in today’s world of BMX photography the old nifty fifty stands out a bit. I’m at school in the days so when it’s winter I often only get to shoot at night so I’m dialling in my flash technique, and also starting to use coloured gels which are really fun to work with. Keith Romanowski was a massive inspiration for that. I think the only thing on my site that can truly reflect my photography style is the photos themselves, but the design does reflect me as a person. It a bit different which makes it stand out from a lot of standard portfolio websites. It’s also a playful, fun and arty which fits my personality.

Any plans for it your site in the future?

I’m no longer too keen on the layout, as I don’t believe it shows the photos as well as it could do due to having a too small content area. So instead of putting more work into this design I’m planning to completely redesign and rebrand it, along with new business cards, and build a sleeker flash site

http://www.watfordphotography.co.uk

Self Promotion

with a larger area for photos. I still want to stay away from the standard gallery sites that a lot of photographers have however as I don’t believe they really stand out from the crowd so I’ll be looking at original, standout colour schemes. I’m also considering a new URL such as just www.maxquin.co.uk so it’s a bit more of a personal site. Now that my AS modules are over I should hopefully have a bit of time to work on both that and improving my photos.

Name, age and location?

Chris Hill-Scott, 21, Reading

What’s your site called? quis.cc, same as the URL, keeps it simple.

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

http://www.quis.cc

I pay for some server space. To make the site I installed Wordpress then customised it a fair bit. I learned a fair bit doing it, but managed by myself.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

I like to think my photography is precise. Maybe my site reflects that, but the main aim was to provide a nice neutral background for the photos to sit on.

Any plans for it your site in the future?

I’d like to be able to expand outside my own site a bit and get my photos shown in other places. This should let them be seen a bit larger as well, which a few people have said they’d like to see but isn’t really possible the way my site’s set up at the moment

Self Promotion

Self Promotion

http://www.quis.cc

Self Promotion

http://www.quis.cc

Self Promotion Name, age and location?

Brad Wakefield, 21 Somerset

What’s your site called?

www.bradwakefield photography.com

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

I signed up to ClikPic.com and just used their online program to build my site. I wanted something simple and easy to update. Html what? I don’t get it. I found this a lot easier.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

I would say my photographic work is very News Based. I think my site is a very good reflection of my photographic style and myself. I have managed to do this buy adding a selection of photographs. Photographs that I take frequently.

Any plans for it your site in the future?

Plans for my site? Well I have just completed a over haul. Adding more pictures. Changing the layout a little bit. I think the next time it gets a update will be when I have some more pictures.

http://www.bradwakefieldphotography.com

Self Promotion http://www.bradwakefieldphotography.com

Leon Stimpson, 25, Derby

What’s your site called?

Leonstimpsonphotography. blogspot.com

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

It started because people were requesting to see the photo’s that I have taken. I wanted to build a site, but i wanted something that was a bit different and looked good.I dont really have much skill when it comes to web desgin so i just started with a blog.

http://leonstimpsonphotography.blogspot.com

Name, age and location?

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

I dont think i really have a particular style. I try to vairy my work between a modern and traditional look.

Any plans for it your site in the future?

Hopefully to progress to a proper site fairly soon.

Self Promotion

http://leonstimpsonphotography.blogspot.com

Self Promotion

Self Promotion

Name, age and location?

Peter Haynes, 21, Kettering, Northants

What’s your site called? www.fadeawayfast.com

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

I use topclasshost for the hosting and all that stuff, think a lot of people are on there also, scruffian and prettyshady.

I’ve been using a site called carbonmade for the layout because it was free and simple, i began off only being able to upload 25 photos but some how i got a pro account so i could put 1000 photos on there. i recently came across a another portfolio style site called www.indexhibit.org which gives me the options to edit the way things look a little more. i got board with web design a while ago so this is some where in the middle with a little less effort. looks alright at the moment i think.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

http://www.fadeawayfast.com

I’ ve kept the design pretty simple and easy to get around with a few different project and some links to other people i’m into. at the moment theres alot of photos from the summer, just snap shots from my lomo lc-a as

http://www.fadeawayfast.com

well as a mix of old college / uni projects. i hope to keep it up to date with my work and keep people coming back and checking me out really. i love watching that hit counter.

Any plans for it your site in the future? just to keep it updated and the content fresh and interesting. get something published in 2008 would also be a real treat.

Self Promotion

Self

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Name, age and location?

My name is Craig Tull, i am 24 years old from Maidenhead, UK.

What’s your site called?

My site address is www. craigtull.com

http://www.craigtull.com

How do you host it and how did you make it? On your own or outside help?

I have a friend over at www.flowtography.co.uk that helps me out with server space so all my pics are up on that. I made the site fairly quickly with Adobe Photoshop CS2 on my Powerbook. I’ve never done a web design course hence the simple design of the site but i prefer it like that anyway.

How would you describe your photography style and do you think your site reflects you? If yes how have you managed that?

This is a hard question but i’ll do my best. My style i would say is bold, colourful and clear. I like to make the rider stand out from the background to emphasize exactly what it is he/she is doing. I use the Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 lens quite a lot to style most of my pictures. Thats why my fisheye shots are very similar as i mostly try to place the ramp at the bottom of the frame and rider at the top.

My site reflects my ideas of what photography means to me. I like simplicity on my site as well as in everyday life. The site is a way to keep friends updated on what i’ve been up to with my camera.

I want to keep it updated all the time with new and improved pictures. I have a plan for a different site but that will be in the future. I’m keeping the idea secret at the moment but it will include unseen footage and photos and hopefully showcase some amazing riders.

http://www.craigtull.com

Self Promotion

Any plans for your site in the future?

Rider Profile photos by tom sears

Martin Lamyman 37

photo by lloyd wright

38

Antony Lille Disaster, Bedminster photo by leon stimpson

Tom Forster Footjam

photo by leon stimpson

Focus...

Karesz Sieger Table

photo by leon stimpson

Focus...

Trevor Ashworth Wall Smith, Schenectady, NY

photo by ted stachnik

Pants Footy Whip

photo by leon stimpson

Focus...

Dave Watt Xup, Perdiswell

photo by ben turner

Sleaford Sam Lookback

photo by tom sears

Focus...

Alex Bathurst Turndown, Perdiswell photo by homer

Focus...

Dave Drury Vertwall Carve, Troy, NY

photo by ted stachnik

Focus...

Contributors

web : www.passionbmx.co.uk myspace : www.myspace.com/passionbmx email : contributions@passionbmx.co.uk

Homer Kung Brad Wakefield Tom Sears Pete Haynes Nik Ford Tom Elliot Farley Vaughn Jon Shears Craig Tull Chris Hill Scott Ted Stachnik Ben Turner Leon Stimpson Max Quinn Dean Smith Lloyd Wright