http://justinkosman.com/index.php The latest news and extensive randomness is found here. en justin@justinkosman.com Copyright 2010 2010-03-03T18:02:00-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_monochrome_gallery_on_espn/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_monochrome_gallery_on_espn/#When:18:02:00Z 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. 2010-03-03T18:02:00-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_shadow_ad_revealed/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_shadow_ad_revealed/#When:17:58:01Z 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. 2010-02-19T17:58:01-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/malaga_spain_the_final_days/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/malaga_spain_the_final_days/#When:22:01:00Z 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. 2010-02-16T22:01:00-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/the_local/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/the_local/#When:16:44:01Z 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. 2010-01-28T16:44:01-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/san_frantastic/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/san_frantastic/#When:18:54:01Z 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. 2010-01-11T18:54:01-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/the_dslr_revolution/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/the_dslr_revolution/#When:17:26:00Z 7D or HPX? There is a really interesting article over on Sportsshooter.com about a broadcast producer who used the 5d and 7d over in China for some location projects. Andrew Watson made some good points about each camera compared to shooting with a typical broadcast set-up and really summed it up well in his final evaluation. Since the DSLRs have a limited range of audio quality, AW had to record the audio separately, which lends itself to great audio, but adds another crew member and seems to cancel out the convenience of using a small, quick DSLR set-up in the first place.  I’ll let Andrew say it best: ”neither the 5D Mark II nor the 7D are ideal substitutes for a video camera, the amazing images they produced make up for it. If you need to shoot hours and hours of video with sync sound then the workflow to these DSLRs still might not be realistic, but if you have some patience or the extra resources Canon’s 1080p, DSLRs are a great option. The minute Canon comes out with a DSLR that has XLR inputs, manual audio controls, headphone jack and multi frame rates, I’ll sell off my broadcast camera package” Check out the full version here: http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2331 That being said, I bought a 5d earlier this year and sold it a few months later.  I will say it was great for some behind the scenes clips and is not as intimidating as having an HVX200 stuck in your face. Ergonomically speaking, the DLSR leaves a lot to be desired if you are shooting long lens action and even wide angle action.  Probably the best case scenario is that you would use the DLSR with dollies and jibs, situations where you will be running manual foucus and won’t be pull focusing.  The consumer look of the unit lets you get away with filming in some private locations, where even a hand held DV camera in your hand will get you kicked out of places asap.  So I did miss having the quick draw of a DSLR and ended up buying the 7D last night. 2009-12-23T17:26:00-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_vans_ad_for_guettler/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/new_vans_ad_for_guettler/#When:23:44:01Z LBC X AUS I just got an e-mail from the art director at Vans with the new BMX ad for Vans Shoes. The featured athlete is none other than Australian sensation Ryan Guettler hanging a 360 nac-nac in the Long Beach ditch. The action photo and the portrait were shot on the 1Ds MKII using ProFoto lights.  The portrait was shot with the Canon TSE-45mm lens, and one ProFoto beatuy dish outside a bar down by sunken city in San Pedro. 2009-12-14T23:44:01-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/elbow_drop_with_the_best_of_them/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/elbow_drop_with_the_best_of_them/#When:18:30:00Z He built a vert wall going up the stairs and he wanted to alley-oop up and over the balcony. Sounds ridiculous for any normal human, but if you have any knowledge of what Taj has done one a bicycle in the past 15 years- this looks possible. But it didn’t happen and Taj came crashing down into the narrow space between the banister and my head. Somehow his head missed the corner of the metal desk that we had turned on it’s end for Will to film from. Look how far away Taj is an the end of the clip and it puts the stairwell in perspective. This clip was snagged from the Odyssey Electronical trailer where Odyseey took Taj to an abandoned school in rural Kansas to film his video part. Thanks to Odyssey, and Ron for all the help with this project. Here: http://archives.justinkosman.com/elbow_droptajtokos.mov Or here: Taj elbow drop on Justin from Justin Kosman on Vimeo. 2009-12-05T18:30:00-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/interview_on_fuel_tv/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/interview_on_fuel_tv/#When:20:54:01Z Thanks to Andrew Brady over at Fuel for the interview up on their website.  Check it out here. Andrew’s questions delve into a couple new projects I’ve started working on and the elusive motocross world of roosty turns and big doubles. 2009-11-30T20:54:01-08:00 http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/sandisk_for_christmas/ http://justinkosman.com/index.php/news/article/sandisk_for_christmas/#When:01:48:01Z Sandisk hooks it up with 112 gigs of speed! DHL made their 3rd delivery attempt today and inside the yellow box was a stash of awesomeness. Christmas certainly did come early this year for me and the rest of the Red Bull Photo Team.  Red Bull teamed up with Sandisk and Helly Hansen to outfit my digi bodies with seven (7) new 16gb high-speed CF cards, a firewire 800 reader, a USB 2.0 reader and a stylish new Helly Hansen windbreaker with more pockets than a pool table.  If there comes a time when I will need to blaze through 112 gigs of memory cards, I will not flinch.  At $250 a pop for these cards, I have to take my hat off to Sandisk for hooking it up this year and of course to Red Bull for making it all come together. The next event is Red Bull Soundclash in Los Angeles on December 16, so Garth and I will be transferring data at Michael J Fox speeds all night long.  Or, not all night long! 2010 Photo Support provided by: Red Bull, Lowepro, Helly Hansen, Sandisk. 2009-11-24T01:48:01-08:00