Huge ups to Jordan Manley for taking home first place for the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge. If you never have heard of Jordan before I would take a poke around his website to see what this man can do… This is of course after you climb out from under your rock. It was unreal to be part of his team during this contest.

Also the party shots from Jordie Lunns Grilled Cheeze Party and the Cove Bikes Party are both up in the events section of the site… AND there also is a new page in my still life section of the last project I shot, which was mentioned in the previous post.

Last week I did a quick product shoot with Colin Poon for a project concept he had of a store called Stockroom. We combined items we personally own to get the styling all put together. Things turned out well, here’s a preview:

So. Good thing it’s been almost a year since the last blog post. No stress though, new site is up and running, been working hard on tons of projects as of late and just picked up 1250 new business cards to match the new stee.

For a gander of projects as of late :

Pinkbike.com – Nationals reports //

Connor and I took a small stint out to Panorama to document the racing intensity this past weekend.

Day 1

Day 2

Results

Full Recap

NSMB Bike Reviews //

Cove G-Spot (Preview)

Trek Session 88 (Long Term)

Trek Session 88 (Preview)

Santa Cruz Driver 8 (Long Term)

Semester Project: Animalia Canadiana

This project springs off of one piece I put together last year of 3 Elk crossing a river. There are now 3 more pieces, a bear, a big horn sheep, and a moose. This project speaks to the idea of man setting out to conquer nature and understand it. All pieces are collaged from 10-20 original photos I have shot while out and about. The frames are milled from dead-fall timbers from the animals natural habits. These pieces are up for sale so get in touch if you’re interested in prices and sizes.

In the last few days Connor and I have been getting wiley with shovels and saws building a new billboard of a wallride on top of two old growth stumps.

Hers a shot of the vintage historic ladder we recycled. It was the first gap to ladder ever built, and it has been cased by the infamous Chris Glew on his epic yellow Brodie 9 Ball, other seik roidahs to this this legendary nug also include boy wonder Geoff  “Gully” Gulevich on his Banshee hardtail with Monster T’s and everyones favorite rider circa 2003-2005 Tyler ‘Super T’ Klassen has also sent this legendary hit.

Since the bridge is so narrow we also snagged a second section of bridge that was used elsewhere on the trail.

All the slats have been pulled from both bridges and the stringers have been used for the frame allowing the face to sit wider and stronger since we use 3 stringers.

The posts used on the back to support the wall also are original posts from the old trail. Here’s a detailed shot of those shits.

For the past little while Ross, a few others and I have been working on a few lines in our zone known as MTBville, for some shooting/filming.  The whole project has been a huge load of work but we finished up two of the hits today and they are looking unreal.

All the stuff built is for Gully, Lorny and Ross to film on with Anthill and, Me and Harookz will be shooting some stills like bawses. Peep it… maybe puppets can pick up a few tricks on how to build proper stuff in their local MTBville.

The hit I’m most stoked on has to be the curved wall to gap. It’s not something absoloutly nuts when it comes to size but the building of it had Ross and I stoked the whole way through. We worked like god-damn child prodigies at the puzzle section in Dad’s Sunday Paper. When we framed everything up we made sure not to nail into any live trees… This worked out perfectly and there are only two sections where the stringers are anchored down to the ground for support. The rest of the support comes from the stringers being pressure-fit between the two live trees we framed against. Best part is though, we winged the whole thing.

Here’s three shots showing the progression of the pressure fit stringers.

Once we got all the sringers together I missed out on a couple building days while Ross and Harookz sent it with the gas axe. Last night at Jordie’s birthday all I heard about were these unreal cedar rungs they got out of this log that were about 5’6” long, 8” wide and 2.5” thick and straight, without knots. Apparently they just came from Ikea and they didn’t mill them… Realistically though, they found a burried long with a diameter of about 3 feet that was left from when the mountain was originally logged at the start of the 1900′s.

With it being burried that allowed the wood to stay moist over the hundred something years the tree has been fallen for allowing it to split easily and straight seeing as there was plenty of moisture in the grain of the wood. This also prevent the rungs from splitting once they get hammered into.  To split them all that was needed was one sharp axe head and a hammer, with two hits they would pop from the section cut out of the log. Once I saw what they had made I was stoked!

Here is a quick gander at the slats starting the wallride (the ones at the lip are shaped far better):

There also is the fact that the dirtwork leading up to the ladder is absolutly top-notch aswell.  We framed in all the gold soil with the rungs that didn’t split off perfectly just to create a nice box to hold everything in and look better than Kate Moss on the cover of Vogue (sheeiiiiittt).

The landing still has to be buffed out and packed but that’s also looking unreal. For now though take a gander at some more sweet cell phone pics, beucase as a photographer I aim for nothing but the highest quality images.

Ross fine-tuning some slats on the entrance:

Connor and Ross jumping around like some sickiwicki froggys:

Slats still need cutting for everything to look level:

One dark shot looking from the lip of the step-down into the wall:

Hope you enjoy not riding this shit beucase once it’s polished up there will be a chain going up aswell.

Cheers.

-Derek

Hope to see everyone out there tonight for the release party of MTBville.

Just got back from setting up and this is our favorite photobooth to date. We’re also giving away a Rocky Mountain Flow frame courtesy of Rocky. There’s also tons of other goodies that will be handed out, you know… just to make a super sweet party more sweet.

Doors are at 9 tonight and there is a decent chance of a big line, so arrive early.

Check some pics of the booth.

Over the last week I’ve been working with Harookz assisting him with the Deep Summer Challenge, we shot with Brandon, Gully and Ross so obviously we were a solid team filled with windyjindy jokes to keep smiles on our faces, despite it being a stressful 3 days with little sleep for all of us but we’re all satisfied with the results.

The screening of everyons work is tonight at The Fairmount, tickets are 15 dollars available at Whistler guest services… You know, that spot where you buy your seasons pass. Hope to see the venue packed!

Thursday night is the official MTBville release party at the Savage Beagle, cover is 10 buck and it should most likley be the most fun to happen to crankworx since the Gap-O-Tron.

Here’s a little celly shot of some of the fine weather we took advantage of and a sneak peek at some MTBphotobooth goodies: