Justin Kosman Photography

New Monochrome Gallery on ESPN

A couple weeks ago I put together a gallery for ESPN that features only black and white photos. The majority of these shots were B Roll, meaning that at any given location I shot two photos of the same trick.  This gallery represents many of these B Roll shots that were too good to retire.  Check out the gallery here.

“Any photographer will tell you that there is always another angle for any given shot. And that is sometimes the question I’m left with after shooting photos, “Was there a better angle?” And if we are lucky enough to have a rider shoot with us for two different angles, one of the toughest things to do is to choose between two angles of one trick. Many of the shots in this gallery were second angles that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. I just got home from a commercial shoot, which was all black and white, so my mind was in B&W mode when I made these gallery selections.”

I am off to Phoenix for the next week with some of the Vans BMX team.  We are hitting up a race and some of the amazing skateparks so look for some fresh footage in the coming weeks.

New Shadow Ad Revealed

Albert Mercado gets his 180 On

The Shadow Conspiracy just posted up their new print at with BMX rider Albert Mercado.  Shot in National City, California Albert is pictured here showing off his mad pop with a 180 over this bike rack.  The surrounding area is really good for riding and there is a skatepark really close by where he filmed his infamous blue ramps edit for SBL.  The sun was setting at this spot and lately I’ve really been into keeping some lens flare in the full frame images.  Thanks to Albert and Ron Bonner for making this one happen. Buy those handlebars.

Malaga, Spain - The Final Days

In the days of rain

I’m finishing up a ten day trip to Spain with a couple riders from San Diego and to be honest we were rained on for the better half of the trip. At one point we made it back to the airport only to find that every rental car place was booked solid for two weeks straight.  So driving to Barci was out of the question.

Every other day it was a battle against the clouds. Popping out for an hour, sometimes two hours and other times at night.  A couple days we were stuck in the muggy flat we rented and over dosed on coffee. Everyone put in some major work when the rain stopped and we are coming back with some amazing shots.  Big thanks to Rueben and Stefan for showing us around and making us dinner last night.  And big thanks to youtube for for keeping us sane on the days were were cooped up. Here is a shot from the castle we hiked to on the fifth day. 

This week I got to try out the new Elinchrom Ranger Quadra A pack and head and I give it a preliminary grade of A-.  The power is max at 400 watts, the modeling light is bright, the controls are a little confusing without the manual nearby and with a bigger reflector I’d say this is the best new flash for action photography on the market. Good job Elinchrom. Finally a fast pack without a car battery. Looking forward to next week with a couple Red Bull photo shoots and some more Vans shoots coming up.

The Local

Local shoots are always a blessing.
90% of the time a job begins with me stepping off a plane and crossing my fingers that most of the gear made it through security and that no bulbs or battery fuses are missing.  This week I have four days book solid and will be stomping around in my own backyard shooting some lifestyle and knockouts on location. Today I will be meeting up with the art director to scout the locations that we have penciled in for the next few days.  Of course I am bias, I think that anyone who has been to San Diego and doesn’t move here immediately afterwards is nuts.  With eh exception of the thirty-year hail storm we had last week, the weather is amazing year-round. And for a photographer, this place really does have a diversity of locations.  The beach is obvious, but there are places in North County and La Jolla that look like they could have been plucked from Colorado or Utah.  Looking forward to visiting some secret locations I’ve logged int he GPS.  A shout out to the End Search crew for shooting with me yesterday, Ty had a banger video line that will be in the video for sure.

San Frantastic

Hammers in Norcal photo shoot

I spent the last week in San Fran shooting with Kevin Kiraly while he was throwing down some hammers for his Deadline video part.  I only get to shoot with Kevin once a year if I am lucky and it always raises the bar.  A couple last minute tickets on Virgin America and we were shredding San Jose and Sac for 4 straight days. We ran into the Emerica skate team in SJ and are pretty sure we had a Boss sighting.  Here is a shot of one of the rails that we lit up the first night I was in town. Cheers to Yaburns and Ince for helping out and throwing down throughout the trip.