The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

Chase Jarvis is the man. Not only is he one of the most highly regarded commercial photographers in the world, he lives in Seattle and is a pretty friendly chap. On Monday night he hosted a photo session that I was lucky enough to secure an invitation to. About thirty of us met up at his studio and walked over to Inner Space, an indoor skate park in Seattle. Chase and his crew had rented the park for the night, hired models (read ‘skateboarders ready to shred’) and outfitted the space with six Broncolor lighting setups. After doing a quick demo where Chase shot a Nikon D3 tethered into a MacBook Pro and 30” Cinema Display, he turned us loose with PocketWizards, 3200 w/s packs, and all the kick flips and mute grabs we could shoot. Having gotten my start in photography 10 years ago by shooting aggressive inline skating, I was stoked to ‘get back to my roots.’
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Nikon D300. Nikon 18-200mm VR lens @ 120mm.
Program Exposure. 1/13 sec @ f/5.3. ISO 200.

On a Saturday night in early May Jon, Ryan and I walked down 45th Street to Musashi’s for sushi. This place is ALWAYS packed; I brought along the D300 to keep me occupied while we waited for a table. If you have not been to Musashi’s, you’re missing out on inexpensive and excellent Japanese food. Musashi’s is just another part of the equation that makes Wallingford the best Seattle neighborhood. That might be slightly biased since I do live in the aforementioned ‘hood. I live near 45th street on Bagley and enjoy being able to walk to anything (grocery store, bars, breakfast places, movie theater, pizza, bank, StarbucksTullysEspressoStandTeaRoom, hardware, left-wing propaganda bumper sticker store—you know, all the Seattle-ite essentials).

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