Raining Cats and Dogs, Snowing Small Children

It's been raining for a couple months now. Non-stop. Except for when it snows. We're at the record for snow accumulation for Bellingham, or atleast for how long it's stuck around. Warmer temps and some rain has melted all the snow in town, so I headed out for a local Chuckanut Mtn ride with some broski's from Transition Bikes.

The gate on Cleator Road was locked, so we went for a steep lil pedal up. Off the bat, we were greeted with road damage from all the flooding, which we found out was why the gate was closed. Oh, and there was still snow. Lots of it.

Kevin and Cam examine the road damage

Did I mention it was still snowing at the top? Hard. Since it was about 34 degrees, it was real wet. And real cold. Ugghh.

Kevin's sweet new Transition TransAm frame. I gotta get one of these.

Since I couldn't feel my fingers after about 5 minutes after that last photo was taken, there are no photos of the descent. It was snowing, raining, slick, wet, muddy, snowy, etc. A total slopfest. Felt good to get out though. Or atleast get home afterwards. --Brad

Finally, a break from the snow

It's been snowing for a month now, which is largely unusual for Bellingham. I've had to cancel several outdoor photoshoots because I prefer to not get electricuted with my studio lights in the wet outdoors. Not only that, but the mountain biking has been non-existent with the nearly 2 feet of snow we've had.

This past weekend I got up with some buddies, Sam from Transition Bikes, Chris from Kona, and Jason from, well, not sure right now. Word on the street was there was cross-country riding to be had down south in Anacortes (not pronounced anna cortez, but anacortus). Anywho, the riding was really good and we got in 3 hours of hiking & riding with some snowy sections but generally it was pretty clear. I gotta get a lighter bike to hang with these dudes.

You can't really tell by the pics, but the wind was racing at near 50 mph, and it was well below freezing. I was lucky to have some buddies that were willing to take the time to let me setup my lights for the photos, but my hands were frozen- coldest they've ever been. When we were done and I was packing up gear, my fingers wouldn't even work to operate the zippers on my bag. Fun times! --brad

P.O.D.

For those of you who don't keep up with mountain biking, Pinkbike.com is the industry's leading news, photo, and video online source. I upload photos to Pinkbike occasionally just to keep in the scene and see which of my photos people like the most. Pinkbike awards P.O.D., or Picture of the Day, to photographers and riders who put together a good picture. I'm still not sure how it's picked, but alot of it has to do with viewer comments. I've had POD a few times now, but today was a bit different, since today's photo is the first one I've uploaded that has not received any negative comments (as of this morning). Although it's an online award with no prize or money, it's still pretty cool to me since there are alot of great photographers contributing, and it helps to get my name out there. To give you an idea of the popularity of the website, the photo was posted as POD at midnight, and at noon today, a 12-hour span, it has been viewed 16,000 times, each time from a different computer. That's a serious website.

The photo is my buddy Joel in Squamish, BC, Canada. It's in my portfolio because it's one of my favorite shots from last year. I got really lucky with the sun in this pic. It was planned, but the timing was totally luck for the position of the sun. I mean, no one, no one, can shoot a single frame and nail that down without luck. Joel is travelling at supersonic speed if you can't tell by the dust cloud. I only had a single frame to shoot since it was shot with a flash. Perhaps with 'spray and pray' technique where the photographer just holds down the shutter and hopes for the best at 10 frames per second it would be a more likely capture, but I only had one click. Luck.

The Eagle Has Landed...

Happy 2009! The last real job I had the employees had a code for when the boss-man showed up at work. "The eagle has landed" they would say, and quickly everyone would look busy.

It's been snowing alot lately and without much opportunity to ride bikes I went to shoot some bald eagles. Well, take their photograph I guess would be more fitting.

Okay, those are alright huh? Are you ready for the cheesiest picture I've ever taken?

BAM:

Proud to be an American dammit.

Glorified vultures as my buddy Jason says. They're still pretty awesome looking, just sitting there and all. --Brad