Life from the Road

Whistler Opening Day Video

2011-11-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

I picked up a D7000 last week. My trusty D2x that had been relegated to a backup camera the past couple years was really starting to show it's age and after 200,000 shutter actuations I figured it was time to retire the old girl. I wanted to start working with video more as well so the D7000 was a natural choice to get me started on that front. With 16 megapixels, 6fps and 1080p video, there's a lot of bang for the buck in this little package.

With the shred season upon us, I decided to bring it with me to Whistler for opening day and try and put a little video together documenting my day. Here's my first stab at trying to put together a video like this. Luckily I've got all winter to hone my skills before moto season kicks off, I'm excited to take on the new challenge.

Red Bull Blackfoot Yamaha Slideshow

2011-11-10T09:48:00.000-08:00

During the offseason here at home, I've been going through the thousands of photos I shot this year on the road and putting together various slideshows of the Canadian motocross teams for my weekly column on www.directmotocross.com

I had saved this one for last, as the Red Bull Blackfoot Yamaha team has always had a special place for me in my photography. The most dominant team in Canadian MX history, the Blackfoot crew out of Calgary won an unbelievable 10 MX1 Championships, 8 MX2 Championships and an unheard of 154 moto wins in the MX1 class. They sat at the top of the sport for a decade, their roster a who's who of Hall of Fame Canadian talent. But sadly, with the way the economy is going right now, they made the hard decision to cease their operations only a month after claiming another two Canadian titles with Colton Facciotti and Tyler Medaglia.

For myself, getting a chance to work with the top team in the sport would signify that, maybe I was actually starting to make it, and in 2007 I got that chance when they hired me to be their Team Photographer. For the next 5 years I had the opportunity to follow them around North America, making lasting friendships and getting more great photo opportunities than I ever could have imagined. It's going to be sad next year not traveling on the road with them but no doubt new opportunities will arise.

Here's some of my favorite shots of the team from 2011, their final season....

For best viewing, click the "fullscreen" tab on the bottom right corner.

2011 Blackfoot Slideshow - Images by James Lissimore

Fall

2011-11-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

With frost in the morning and a nip in the air, Fall is certainly here. Haven't shot much since I got back from the Monster Energy Cup in Las Vegas a few weeks back but I managed to grab the camera last week for an afternoon to grab a few photos. You can certainly feel Winter coming....

James

A look back at the Leading Edge Kawasaki's 2011 season

2011-10-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

Put together this slideshow of images for my column on www.directmotocross.com. As the year winds down I thought I'd do a team by team look back at some of my favorite images. First up is the Monster Energy Leading Edge Kawasaki team that I've been the team photographer for since 2008.

2011 Leading Edge Slideshow - Images by James Lissimore

Storm Clearing Timelapse

2011-10-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Shot this a few weeks ago. There was a storm clearing here at the house in the early morning so set up my camera outside on a tripod on interval and let it shoot for an hour.

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Program

2011-10-05T17:13:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a quick trip to Montreal this weekend for the Supercross race at Olympic Stadium. After having a fair amount of good weather these past few weeks it looks like we're into that familiar fall rain that is oh-so common here on the west coast. Hopefully we'll still get some more sunny fall weather in the coming weeks.

More TK

James

Home Sweet Home Part Two

2011-09-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

So again on the same theme from the last post, after the glorious sunrise yesterday I went to set out in the evening to try and find a nice vantage point to get some photos and ended up making it as far as the end of my driveway.
My neighbor's blueberry bushes made a nice foreground to go with the setting sun on Mt. Baker so I ended up just shooting from the side of my road. I tried processing the photos two ways - the first one is just a standard exposure with a graduated neutral density filter, where as the second one I went a little more over the top with HDR processing.

Personally I like the first one better, which one do you?

Home Sweet Home

2011-09-28T09:45:00.000-07:00

I've been spending a lot of time these past weeks here traveling around and trying to get back to my landscape roots. The West Coast in the fall is one of the most beautiful places I've been in all of my travels and I love trying to capture as much of it as possible. So, on that end I've spent a lot of early mornings lately getting out on the road and trying to get myself into an interesting spot to take advantage of the beautiful sunrise light. After staying out late last night trying to make something of the nice sunset that we had, I decided to sleep in this morning and catch up on a little work before I fly out early tomorrow morning to Montreal.

When I woke up, I was greeted to this amazing combination of fog rising from the valley floor and the sun lighting up the early morning sky. I only had to walk 20ft from my back door to shoot these photos from my driveway. I'm as guilty as anyone to going to great lengths to try and get an image, so much so that I sometimes don't see the ones that are right in front of me. I really like this shot and it reminded me that really, there's no place like home.

James

Silverdaisy Mountain Trail

2011-09-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

A look down the Skagit Valley from the Silverdaisy Mtn trail at dawn

Wanting to keep taking advantage of the nice weather we were having earlier this week, I decided to get up at 5am on Tuesday to drive out to Manning Park and check out the Silverdaisy Mtn trail to see if I could find any interesting photo opportunities.

The Silverdaisy Mountain trail is in a unique spot in southern British Columbia. Though you drive into Manning Park and park at the Sumallo Grove picnic area, as soon as you leave the parking lot and cross the foot bridge across the Skagit river you leave Manning Park and enter Skagit Valley Provincial Park. Then, after fifteen minutes of walking along the valley floor on the Skagit River trail you swing off onto the Silverdaisy trail where you leave the park and enter a rare pocket of non-park land, locked in between the two parks. The climb up gives you clues to it's non-park status as you see the remnants of mining operations from years gone by. The trail actually parallels an old tram line that used to service the Silverdaisy mine. The trail rises quite quickly, switchback back and forth out of the valley floor and after just over an hour of hiking up the mountain in the pre-dawn light, I came to an old rock slide that gave a great view down the Skagit Valley. I settled on spending some time shooting around there - between the valley overview and some of the smaller details, it was an interesting little spot.

I decided to call it a day from there and descend back down to my truck. One day, I'll do the whole trail but with a listed return trip time of 9 hours I'll leave it for another time. Here's a few of my favorite shots...

After leaving the parking lot you cross this foot bridge across the Skagit river.

It's a pretty well engineered bridge for a hiking path.

As soon as you cross the bride you leave Manning Park and enter Skagit Valley park.

After 15 minutes on the Skagit trail, you leave your second park of the day and head off into no-man's land.

Since the trail isn't in either of the two surrounding parks, the trail isn't exactly maintained to the most rigorous standards.

I'm not sure how old this sign is but I never saw any signs of anyone working. Maybe farther down the trail than I traveled.

This rockslide after about an hour of hiking seemed like a good place to stop and take a few photos.

The rockslide affords a great place to get a view down the Skagit valley. The trail I started on traverses down this valley floor.

Closeup moss photo.

Found this interesting moss formation on these rocks.

Along the trail you see the remnants of previous mining operations.

Othello Tunnels

2011-09-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

Went out for a drive this morning, looking for photo ops and ended up at an old favorite of mine. The Othello Tunnels near Hope, BC were originally constructed between 1913 and 1916 for the Kettle Valley Railway to punch its way through the Coquihalla Canyon when the Canadian government decided they needed a railway to link the Kootenay region, which was full of minerals, with the coast. With American railroad companies running rail lines directly up north relatively unimpeded into the Kootenays, the government knew they needed something so they helped KVR with funding for this line.
The Coquihalla canyon was a major problem for passage so engineer, Andrew McCullough, devised this tunnel system to get the rail line through. The railway is long since gone, having ceased operating in 1961 but it's now a provincial park and you can walk through and explore the tunnels. I like coming here in the fall - the soft, warm light really complements the tunnels.

Here's a few of my favorite images from the day. With the weather looking good for tomorrow, I'm excited to get back out again and shoot some more landscapes. I love being home this time of year!

The Othello Tunnels lie in the Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park, east of Hope on Highway 5.

The engineers were forced to blast directly through the walls of the canyon, quite the feat at the turn of the century.

The canyon walls are quite steep and made construction treacherous for the workers.

The combination of the tunnels and bridges allowed the railway to make a straight shot through the winding canyon.

The third tunnel features this concrete archway to hold things up.

View to the second tunnel and the Coquihalla river.

All four tunnels are lined up in a straight row through the canyon.

Aside from the tunnels themselves, the whole surrounding area is beautiful and makes for a nice walk.

Hiking Mt Cheam

2011-09-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Enjoying the view from the top of Mt Cheam.

Finally made it home after seven weeks on the road that took me to four provinces and three US states as I covered the last half of the Canadian Motocross Nationals and two of the final three US Nationals. It was a long haul but thankfully I came home to perfect sunshine and great weather. I didn't want to waste any time getting out and getting re-acquainted with the awesome west coast scenery so when my friend Jackie asked if I wanted to hike Mt. Cheam I was all for it.

Dominating the skyline along the southeast end of the Fraser Valley, 6,900 foot Mt Cheam is a relatively easy hike for the size of the mountain as although the north face is a near vertical 6,500 ft plunge to the valley floor, the south face makes a gradual slope all the way to the summit that makes for one of the most popular hikes in the Fraser Valley. As a testament to the trails popularity, we made it up the extremely rough, four wheel drive necessary road early Saturday morning to find the parking at the trail head already full. With hot temps and perfect bluebird, everyone was looking forward to that epic Mt. Cheam view.

I've hiked Mt. Cheam a few times over the years and it's always been one of my favorite hikes in the area. It had been probably 6 or 7 years since the last time I did it and I guess my fitness has slacked off a bit in the mean time. Carrying a camera, a couple lens and my bigger tripod, I definitely paid the price and it seemed like I was stopping every 5 steps to catch my breath. Despite considering turning back a few times I was reminded why I didn't when I reached the summit. It was pretty hazy but the view is always pretty amazing. I'm glad I went and now I'm motivated again to get back out and photograph our beautiful local area.

Here's a few photos from the day...

Mt Cheam (on the left) is the northern most mountain of the Cheam range near Chilliwack, BC.

The road to the trail head is pretty rough, four wheel drive is pretty much a necessity...though it was funny watching the guys with the rented Ford Edge make it up.

Adjacent to Mt. Cheam is the also scenic Lady Peak. The trail starts off by criss crossing up the face of Lady before heading onto Cheam via a saddle between the two. There isn't a defined trail but the summit of Lady can also be accessed from the saddle.

The backside of Cheam is much mellower than it's northern face and makes for an easy hike.

I remember dirt bikes and atv's making a real mess of the alpine area when I hiked up here years ago but they've done a great job of making it inaccessible these days. It's really too bad that as a motorcycle journalist, these idiots get lumped in with the rest of us so it's good to see.

Hikers make their way along the clear-cut, towards Lady Peak.

Once you pop out of the clear-cut, you drop down into a nice alpine meadow before making the steep vertical slog to the top.

The meadows were alive with color from the alpine flowers.

A few hikers stop for a break along the meadows on the face of Lady Peak. You can see the access road to the trail head off in the distance.

Jackie's dog, Pablo, was rescued from California during the spring and had never seen snow before. He was having a great time playing around in the cold stuff.

Stopped to take this image from the saddle between Cheam and Lady Peak. On the horizon are Mt. Slesse, Mt Rexford, Tomyhoi and the always towering Mt. Baker in the distance.

After taking the previous image it was time to start making our way up Mt. Cheam proper where the ground became loose as we made our way along the shale.

The view from the top is one of the best view points in the Fraser Valley and with such a nice, sunny day, plenty of people were hanging out and enjoying it in the warmth. You can see Cultus Lake off in the distance.

The fisheye lens is always fun for a summit shot. The north face of Cheam drops 6, 500 feet straight down to the Fraser River. It's a pretty unnerving sight looking over the edge.

Pablo is clearly in better shape than me as his little legs made it all the way to the summit with no trouble at all. He even stopped a couple times to roll around in the snow on the way down.

View from the summit towards Lady Peak on the left and the mountains to the southwest.

The Popkum motocross track actually sits directly under the north flank of Cheam and you can see it thousands of feet below from the summit.

Someone planted this little Canadian flag along the route, which made a nice photo with Jones Lake in the background.

Heading back down the trail, with the northeast flank of Lady Peak in the background.

The wildflowers were in full bloom along the slopes of Cheam.

Walton Slideshow

2011-08-31T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've been wide open all summer but things are finally starting to taper off a bit here as we come into fall. I've got one last week here in London, then heading down to Delmont, Pennsylvania to shoot the Steel City AMA National, then finally I'm boarding plane to head home on Monday after almost 7 weeks on the road. I can't wait to get back to BC and hopefully catch the last few weeks of summer.

After catching the outer edges of Hurricane Irene last weekend in Massachusetts, I've spent this week drying gear out and I found some time to put together a slideshow from the Walton Trans Can Canadian Amateur Motocross championships that took place two weeks ago. Check it out!

Slacking big time this summer

2011-08-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Touching the Atlantic Ocean, in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia

Sorry folks, I've been totally slacking on the blog lately. I hit the ground running at Kamloops in the beginning of June and I haven't stopped since. This past month I've flown to Ontario, driven to Quebec, on to New Brunswick, over to Nova Scotia and then back to Montreal and on to the Ottawa area where I'm typing this from currently. It's been crazy busy but an awesome time and I've been enjoying traveling this beautiful country again this summer chasing the circus known as Canadian Motocross. Though I haven't been on the blog as much as I'd like, I have been adding photos from my travels to a gallery over on my James Lissimore Photography facebook page so hit up this link to see some of the random photos from my travels: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150280013604874.376859.191678854873&type=1

James

Hanging out with the Allison's

2011-06-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

Managed to come home for one night after the Nanaimo national this week. It was a short turnaround as I was on the road Tuesday to the Allison's place outside Red Deer, Alberta. I was driving by myself, but the 13 hour drive flew by. I always love the drive from my place to Alberta and I'll never get sick of driving through the mountains so I was excited to take a different way and headed up the Icefields Parkway and over through to Rocky Mountain House.

Of course I stopped to take a few landscape photos and I must be getting a little jaded as at one of my stops to photograph some mountains there was a bear grazing a hundred feet away and I couldn't be bothered to take a photo. Probably has something to do with the twenty or so bears I've seen in the last couple weeks. Finally at 2 30 in the morning, after getting lost thanks to Billy Rainford's awesome directions, I pulled into the Allison family's farm near Delburne, Alberta and got a few hours sleep. Now I've been here for the past couple days and I can only say how awesome the whole family has been. It's families like the Allison's that truly make this sport so great. I've been having a blast exploring their old homestead looking for photo oppurtunities so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites from the past two days.

Now it's time to get ready to head down to Calgary in the morning and off to the next round!

Stopped along the Icefields Parkway on the way and took a few landscape shots.

I had Kyle's truck so I thought I'd get a shot for him with the mountains in the back as a keepsake.

The Allison's house

There's a hole in the road down the street. Parker checks out the depth.

There's an old World War Two 6x6 that was converted to a water truck in one of their old barns. It actually fired right up.

Parker and another of the old homestead buildings on their property.

Nathan Bles checks out a sweet old sidecar. We need to get this thing hooked up to a 450.

The Allison's used to hold the odd race at their backyard track.

Brent Allison's custom artwork - now this is just funny.

They've got an awesome track in their backyard.

HDR sprayer shot.

Jared busts out the shotgun with Kory Snelgrove and Topher Ingalls.

Headed out to a nearby train bridge with Jared and grabbed this landscape shot along the walk.

The train bridge is crazy tall.

Jared(l) and Nathan(r) on the train bridge.

An impromptu distance rolling challenge broke out on the bridge.

Always looking for a challenge, it was game to see who could stay on the rail the longest.

Billy and Kyle take the side by side out to film for the DMX Canadian Motocross Weekly show.

Ripping around the track.

Jared and Parker waged an impromptu goon lap.

Getting the pit supplies cleaned up for this weekend.

Pemberton Shoot

2011-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

With only a few days to go before the kickoff of the 2011 Canadian motocross season, I'm into one of the most hectic weeks of my year as everyone scrambles last minute to get their new photos done for the season. With the Canadian moto industry being a lot smaller than our neighbours to the south, things tend to come together last minute most of the time so it's a mad panic to get graphics, gear, race bikes built and everything ready for the first race so there's not a lot of time to fit photo shoots in.

With everyone trying to fit their stuff in last minute, I've hit the road for a week with a truck full of photo gear and I'm going to try and keep this blog up to date as I work around the clock to shoot everyone I can before the National this weekend. First up are a few photos I shot last night for Todd Schumlick's PerformX team and Shawn Maffenbeier of the Yamalube Schrader's Yamaha team.

I drove up the always awesome Sea to Sky highway yesterday afternoon to Pemberton and with Trae Franklin waiting for a few things to show up last minute for the riding shots, I got to work building a little studio in Todd's garage. We were able to knock out a few different looks before Todd whipped up an awesome dinner(healthy of course being Todd's the training guru) and now it's Weds morning and we're just waiting for the rain here to stop(I can see the sun!) and then we'll head out to the Green River track to get a few riding shots. I won't have much time though, as I've got to hit the road and head for Kamloops where I'll be setting up the static shots for the Monster Energy Leading Edge Kawasaki team later this evening. Going to be a long day!

James

On the drive up to Pemberton I stopped to photograph Shannon Falls near Squamish

Trae Franklin's PerformX KX250F

After a successful amateur career, Franklin will race his first National this weekend while still an intermediate.

Maffenbeier gets his bike all buffed up for the shoot.

Schrader's and Troy Lee Designs are long time supporters of Maffenbeier's racing.

Jay and Crystal's Wedding

2011-05-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

OK folks, here's the follow up for my previous post. Like I mentioned, I was down in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico last month for Jason Hughes' wedding at the Grand Sunset Princess resort and I have to say that after shooting there I'm kind of ruined now for weddings. You can't really get a better location for a wedding - the ceremony was right on the beach, the weather was hot and sunny and they were played down the aisle with the sweet sounds of an acoustic guitar. It really was as close to perfect as can be.

The resort had so many great photo spots that we ran out of time to get to them all - it's not often you can say that. Usually you're scrambling just to find enough usable locations. Then, to cap it all off, Crystal asked if we could "Trash the Dress" and shoot in the water. Well, you don't have to ask me twice - I'm always looking for anything creative we can do so I had her in the fountain and we finished things up with Jay and Crystal in the Caribbean at sunset. I couldn't have asked for anything more and now I can't wait to shoot another location wedding. So much fun!

Here's a few of my favorites. To check out the rest you can see the entire gallery on my website: http://jkliss.photoshelter.com/gallery/Jay-and-Crystals-Wedding/G0000EHTZb4KcMhU/P00004AIW_n.FgZU

Jay and Crystal's daughter, Serena, got her own little wedding dress

Serena and Crystal, ready to walk down the aisle.

Crystal and her bridesmaids, Toby and Sarah, enroute to the ceremony.

The wedding location

Flowergirls

Playing out the bride

Here comes the bride

Music, beach, sunshine...perfect day for a wedding

The Hughes family

Fun on the beach with the wedding party

I really like shot

The lobby in the part of the resort that Jay and Crystal were staying in had this neat bridge across water. I loved being able to shoot down on them from above here.

Crystal and her mom, Holly

There were lots of interesting pockets of light around the resort

Crystal was nice enough to get back into her wedding dress on Friday evening so we could "Trash the Dress." First spot we tried was in the fountain.

Another shot I really liked

Crystal, Jay and Serena on the beach

I loved getting them in the water

And in the sand

I got wet getting this shot but it was worth it. Looking like a mermaid as the last rays of light leave us.

That's a wrap and time to clean the sand off.

Mexico

2011-05-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

The lovely turqouise waters of the Caribbean.

Ok, I've got another catch up blog post today. Last month was crazy, after my last blog post about Brock and Jenny's wedding I had caught a redeye flight that night to Toronto to shoot the supercross, came home for 2 days and then went down to Georgia for 4 to shoot the Blackfoot Yamaha team. From there I was home for another 4 days before heading off on the trip I'm going to blog about now....Mexico!

I've known the owner of Leading Edge Motorsports for a while now, since he began sponsoring my friend Brock(the wedding I shot in the last post) back in 2007. When Jason stepped up his team to become the official MX2 effort for Kawasaki, he approached me to do his PR and I've been close with him and the team ever since. About a year ago he approached me to shoot his wedding and I was pretty excited to hear that it was going to be in Mexico. So finally, after a year of anticipation we found ourselves at the airport for our flight to Cancun for a week of fun and relaxation in the sun.

I'll get into the wedding itself in the next post but for now I'm just going to share photos of my week. We were staying at the Grand Sunset Princess resort in Playa Del Carmen and I've never been to Mexico so I've got nothing to go off of but it was a great place. I really haven't had an actual vacation since I became a photographer so the chance to hang out in the sun and enjoy doing nothing but sitting at the beach or the pool for most of the week, with just one day of work in the middle, was just what the doctor ordered. Other than losing my bag on the flight down, I couldn't have asked for a better time and it was nice to come home feeling refreshed and energized.

So, here's a few photos from my trip. Now that I've been I can't wait to go back and explore more, it was a great place and awesome friendly people!

The lobby at the Grand Sunset Princess Resort

The Grand Sunset Princess courtyard

Hanging out at the beach, man that water is warm

Shawn decided to take the serving into his own hands.

The beautiful resort

We made a day trip into Playa Del Carmen

Here's a little moto related content for the blog: Spotted this Alpinestars T-shirt with Marvin Musquin on it in a store.

Hand rolling cigars.

A Mexican accordion player strolls the streets of Playa Del Carmen

Our pre-wedding dinner at the resort featured some traditional dance.

On Friday we took a ferry ride over to the island of Cozumel. Cozumel is a major docking port for Caribbean cruise ships.

Jenn rides one of the local horses.

Sweet Mexican 7-11

You can get anything in Mexico.

I liked the architecture of this Cozumel church.

The Cozumel waterfront.

Glass bottom snorkeling boats. We took one of these out on an amazing 2 hr snorkeling trip.

Out on the boat.

Our guide, Carlos, gets our snorkeling gear ready to go.

He also kicked things off right by offering us some beers.

We capped off our epic day at Cozumel with some big margaritas at Fat Tuesday's

Brock and Jenni's Wedding

2011-05-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I'm sitting in the airport as I make my way back to California this week to shoot some bike tests for Direct Motocross and the USGP this weekend at Glen Helen but I thought I'd start catching up on some of the fun stuff I've done in the past two months. I'm going to start where I left off and start updating this blog with photos from a crazy busy spring.

My crazy month started with my good friend, Brock Hoyer's wedding as he married his long time girlfriend, Jenni French, down in Las Vegas at the end of March. It was a quick in and out trip for me as I flew in on Thurs, shot the wedding on Friday and hopped on a redeye flight that night to Toronto so I could make it in time for the annual Canadian stop on the AMA Supercross series.

Here's a few of my favorites from Brock and Jenni's wedding...

We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging

2011-04-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

I know the blog has been pretty sad lately, I definitely need to apologize for that. It's certainly not been due to lack of stuff going on in my life, that's for sure. Since my Atlanta miss-adventure, I've bounced around to Vegas, Toronto and last week, Cairo, Georgia so I've got tonnes to talk about. But, after a few short days at home trying to catch up on the massive amount of photos I've shot the past two weeks I'm already off again, this time to Mexico so alas I'm going to slack out on the blog again. But I've got lots to share and I'm sure over the course of the next week in Playa Del Carmen I'll end up camped out in the room putting some stuff together. There's probably only so much lounging at the pool I'll be able to handle before I'm bored and just want to look at photos.

Till then...

Atlanta, Maple Leafs and being stuck in Georgia

2011-03-02T17:37:00.000-08:00

The sun rises at the Vancouver airport to start my Atlanta adventure

It's funny how sometimes the most seemingly inconsequential decisions can cause a domino, topple down effect and the more I travel the more I expect that eventually, something like this is bound to happen. It started off innocently enough whem Matthes asked if I wanted to go to the Atlanta Supercross - awesome. I'd always wanted to go to Atlanta as it consistently draws the biggest most passionate crowds of the entire tour. Then, a few weeks ago he asked if I wanted to stay an extra day and go to a hockey game - again, awesome(though it was Leafs vs Thrashers). So, he switched my flight from Sunday to Monday and on Friday I made the trip from Vancouver down to warm and sunny Atlanta.

Saturday was race day and oh man, what a race it was! With one of the best races I've ever seen in the books, we made the trip back downtown on Sunday for the Thrashers-Leafs game and it was actually pretty entertaining. Bonus was our seats - only four rows from the glass. I doubt I'd ever have a chance of getting seats that close at a Canucks game so there's something to be said about going to a game in a place where Hockey's way down the popularity chart. The game itself was pretty entertaining and it ended up going down to overtime where the Thrasher's scored to take the win. Putting Steve on suicide watch, we drove back to the hotel in Buckhead.

Looking forward to getting home, here's where things started to go south. My flight ended up being fairly late, around 5 pm so I ended up going to the airport with Steve as he was flying down to Tampa at 11. No big deal, I could get some work done while waiting for my flight. Eventually I made my way through security to find out my flight was delayed. It was going to make catching my connection in Chicago a little tight but the agent assured me I'd still make it - barely. So, here's where it started to fall apart. As the plane made it to Atlanta and actually was in the landing pattern, a huge thunderstorm swept in, shutting down the entire airport. The plane deferred to Nashville and just like that, I wasn't going home.

The funny thing is that it had be nice the entire time I was in Atlanta. Even if the plane had been on time, I would have taken off before the storm hit and I wouldn't be talking about this. So, with no other options, it was a night of sleeping in the airport and a 6am flight to Chicago. I'd still be home in Vancouver by noon so it sucked but what can you do so I made the best of it. Or, so I thought. After managing four hours of restless sleep at the airport, I headed back over to my gate only to find out the flight was delayed again 2 and a half hours and there was no way I was making my connection in Chicago. Seriously?!! Now, I was starting to go crazy - I'd been in the airport for 20 hours already and now I was looking at another 3 hrs there and five more in Chicago before the next flight to Vancouver took off.

So, finally I made it back home at 9pm last night - 36 hours after I walked into the Atlanta airport.

Next time I spend 36 hours flying somewhere, I'd better be going somewhere on the other side of the world.

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. The cascade mountains looked great in the morning light.

A few months ago I blogged about my trip to the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State. Here's the largest hydro producer in North America from the air.

Waiting for our car to head to the Leaf's game. Steve is overflowing with excitement.

There's some really cool architecture in Atlanta.

The home of CNN.

Phillips Arena is the home of the Atlanta Thrashers and the NBA's Atlanta Hawks.

We had great seats, right up close to the ice.

Vancouver seriously needs to look into getting these girls to clean their ice during TV timeouts.

With the Leafs up 2-0 early in the game, Steve calls his bookie.

Unfortunately, the Thrashers rallied back to take the win in overtime.

My bed for the night at the ATL airport.

One small consolation after so many delays - they upgraded me to economy plus. Extra leg room!

Finally, the last leg. En route home to Vancouver!

Yoga in the Snow

2011-02-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

So, I had an interesting photo shoot the other day. I was asked by my good friend Amy to do a yoga shoot for this contest she'd found out about. The only real stipulation was that it had to be a yoga pose and it had to be a cool photo, so immediately the gears started turning in my head. I could have just done something on white seemless and called it a day but I started thinking about cool outdoor venues and if I could somehow incorporate yoga into them. I thought it would be neat to try and blend something relaxing like yoga into the calmness of nature.

This isn't actually the original concept that I had. That one I'm going to keep to myself for now and hopefully soon I'll be able to pull it off and share the results here on my blog. Plans ended up changing when I looked out the window on Monday, our planned shoot day, to find snow falling. Now, living here in the Vancouver area, that is not a normal sight but instead of canceling the shoot I thought maybe we could use the snow as an added element in the photos. Luckily, Amy was still into giving it a go even though she was guaranteed to be getting extremely cold and we headed for a nice quiet spot along a creek near Mission. It was snowing pretty hard by the time we got there so there's not much in the way of set up shots. That and the couple I took were with my lens inadvertenly set to manual focus so they went straight into the garbage bin. You tend to forget things like that when you, your gear and your model are being pelted with snow.

Amy was a champ to work with, I'll say that. She stood in the snow and did pose after pose, with hardly any clothes on while I set up different angles. Finally, I decided she'd had enough suffering and we wrapped things up. Here's a few of the shots, I'll be posting more if I get a chance to pull off my other idea.

I had a lot of fun and I hope to get to do more stuff like this. For now, it's off to Atlanta and back to shooting photos of bikes....

James

Here's a quick test shot of the first location. I probably could have spent some more time tweaking things but as you can see it was snowing hard and that umbrella started filling up with snow pretty quick.

Support Kyle Beaton's Supercross Season

2011-02-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,
just got back from a week in California with Kyle Beaton as he prepared to race his first AMA Supercross race in three years. The trip was awesome and it was great to see Kyle qualify right away, straight out of his heat race, even though he was burnt badly in practice. If you haven't checked out my slideshow from the week already, it's definitely worth a peek: http://www.directmotocross.com/news/features/2011/02/behind-lens-week-beaton

Kyle is pretty much footing this trip on his own. It doesn't make sense for his Canadian based sponsors to pull money out of their budget to race in another country, so though he's getting a little help, a lot of it is coming right out of his own wallet. We all know how much discussion there is about Canadians racing in the Supercross series so here's your chance to help: I donated a photo and the one and only Dawn McClintock donated her design time to create a Kyle Beaton T-shirt. All proceeds go directly to Kyle to help fund his racing program. It's only 20 bucks plus shipping and you get a cool shirt. It doesn't get much cooler than that, does it?

So hit up this link and get your own KD Beets t-shirt and lets all cheer on "Canada's" rider!
http://store.directmotocross.com/shirts/kd-beats-t-shirt

Get your Beaton shirt!

Here's the original photo

Beaton's Supercross Helmets

2011-02-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Just down here in Menifee, California with Kyle Beaton as he prepares to make his supercross re-debut(is that a word?) this weekend in Anaheim and he had just received his new, custom painted Monster Energy helmets so I thought I'd throw up the flashes quickly and grab a few detail shots before they get all muddied up. Cool touch with the Maple Leaf in the center of the helmet.

James

Product Photography

2011-02-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

Just sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting to catch a flight back to California so I thought I throw up a few photos from a shoot I did on the weekend. I had a chance to step outside of my comfort zone and do some product photography, which is about as far as you can get from shooting dirtbikes flying through the air as possible. I love every aspect of photography though, and I was excited for the challenge.

My friend Shawn's girlfriend, Margherita Porra of Arithmetic Creative(www.arithmeticcreative.com) needed some of the products she's designed shot for her website so we spent a solid day working our way through everything and shooting as many different ways as possible. It was a long day but in the end, I think I got a few shots that I'm happy with so here's a few of my favorites. I can't wait to do more of this type of photography, I love the creativity that goes along with it.

Ok, California is calling my name. Next update will be from the supercross practice tracks of Corona....

Vancouver Motorcycle Show

2011-01-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not usually a big bike show fan but with the Vancouver Motorcycle Show taking place down the road from me at Abbotsford's Tradex I really didn't have an excuse to not go and check things out. Plus, Dusty Klatt was staying at my place since he would be signing autographs at the show for Yamaha and Chris from Kawasaki asked me if I'd take some shots of their Team Green bike presentation so I figured there'd be enough moto content to make it worthwhile.

Though the majority of the show caters to the street crowd, all the big 5 manufacturers had enough dirt bike content to satisfy the hardcore motocross fan. Here's a few moto related shots from the show....

Dusty Klatt gives two thumbs up to his ultra cool, Damon Bradshaw inspired bike that he raced at this years Montreal Supercross.

There was a supermoto exhibition outside in the parking lot and Brock Hoyer showed everyone the fast line around the course on his KX250F.

Nickalis O'Connor scopes out the competition for his dad, Monster Energy Leading Edge Kawsaki Team Manager, Pat O'Connor.

Kawasaki had one of their Factory Rider for a Day bikes on display in the Motovan booth.

Honda was showing off Kyle Keast's arenacross bike.

Hoyer was signing autographs over at the Kawasaki booth.

Though he's going to be 450 mounted in 2011, Kawasaki had a Teddy Maier replica 250F on display in their booth.

Canadian Kawasaki sales manager, Claude Gagne, presented new 250F's to the two Team Green riders who scored the most points over the course of the past season, Trevor Pearson(r) and Jess Pettis(l).

Hoyer also did a little mini supermoto demo during the evening.

It didn't go as well as on the big bike.

Wild Road Trip to Revelstoke

2011-01-17T12:23:00.000-08:00

Wow. Just got back from a crazy couple days in Revelstoke and it was hectic, to say the least. The whole idea for the trip came about pretty last minute as I came home from Anaheim on Tuesday with reports swirling about this huge dump of snow we were supposed to get. I was so pumped and with a solid 4 inches of snow on the ground at my house when I woke up Wednesday morning it looked like the powder gods were smiling. But, with the snow came warm, moist, tropical air and it warmed up super hard. After waiting around all morning at Baker for the patrollers to bomb the whole mountain, we finally got on the chair at 11 and the snow was heavy and sloppy to say the least. Knowing that things weren't going to cool off soon I started checking the weather forecasts and things were looking grim for the entire Coastal area.

On a hunch, I figured I'd check the Revelstoke weather and it was dumping hard up there. With my friend, Kevin, living up there this winter it seemed like a good time to hit the road and ride what's probably the sickest terrain in BC. Sev was down to go so we hit the road, heading east for the Selkirk mountains. Unfortunately, the drive would not be an uneventful one. Though it was warm out and raining right up to the top of the pass on the Coquihalla, the temps dropped rapidly as we approached the outskirts of Merritt. Sev even noticed it, and as he was saying, "It feels like the temp just dropped a bunch," we were spinning out of control down the highway. We smashed into the median before flying off the road and into a rock bank. It was scary to say the least as we hit super hard, but luckily the truck was still running.

I looked over to my right and there was a truck off the road about a hundred feet away. After looking to the left I also noticed a car off the road. The black ice had claimed many victims, there was no way to prepare for it. The police officer who came to the scene said we were the 9th accident he'd been to that evening and there were two other officers on shift. After an hour we finally got pulled out and by some complete fluke the truck still seemed to drive just fine. It looked a little rough with the side of the box smashed in and the bumper bent 90 degrees on the one side but after taping the tail light back on and driving into Merritt we decided that there was no point wasting the crash for nothing so we pressed on. It was a late night but after dodging small slides east of Salmon Arm we finally made it into Revelstoke at 2:30 in the morning.

Waking up at Kevin's after a couple hours of sleep it was time to shred some powder. We were first in the gondola lineup at 7:30, ready and waiting for the lifts to open at 8:30. We weren't the only ones looking to score fresh tracks as all time snowboard legend, Johan Ollofsson, was one of the next riders to roll up to the line. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we were up at the top of the mountain and ready to ride untouched snow. I rode the longest continuous pow run of my life, just going and going and going, until I looked around and realized that no one was around. I had ridden past the lift and on down towards the mid mountain station...doh! So, I ended up riding half of the day by myself just enjoying the insanely deep conditions and cursing the fact that I hadn't brought a pow board until I finally ran back into Kevin later in the day and he showed me some mind blowing runs. By the end of the day my legs were so destroyed I could barely walk but it was so worth it. We capped the day off with a trip to the pool to soothe our aching muscles in the hot tub and some beers at this sweet snowboard shop/bowling alley/pub called The Cabin.

Revy wasn't immune to the warm temps that were working their way up from the coast and Saturday morning dawned with the highway in and out of Revelstoke closed due to avalanches. Instead of waiting around all day and hoping the highway opened at 4 like it was supposed to we decided to take the back way, down south across Arrow lake and through Nakusp and then west to Vernon. I'd always wanted to check this highway out so we figured now was as good a time as ever. At least we'd be making our way in the general direction of home instead of sitting around and waiting. It took us 11 hours but we finally made it home and the drive was definitely worthy of the billing. I can't wait to go back and spend more time exploring the area.

Here's a few photos from the trip:

There's no way we were getting out under our own power

The tow truck was lifting off the ground but eventually he was able to yank us free.

A little packing tape to hold the light on and we were good to continue the rest of our journey.

This is what happens when you leave your camera in the truck all night and then try and take a photo.

Thanks Kevin for all your hospitality!

This is the first ferry that crosses Upper Arrow lake at Galena Bay. It's about a 20 minute crossing but we missed it by one car so we waited almost an hour.

Artsy photo from the deck of the ferry.

The scenery is quite spectacular from the ferry but it was mostly socked in so we couldn't see too much of it. Definitely going to come back.

South of Nakusp we hit the second ferry of our trip to cross back across Arrow lake as we traveled along Highway 6 back to Vernon.

The Needles ferry is a cable operated ferry so these cables on both side guide the ferry as it makes its five minute journey.

A Tour of Matthes' Studio

2011-01-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

Steve Matthes hard at work building his global media empire

I'm currently in Las Vegas, preparing to drive out to Anaheim in a couple hours for the first round of the AMA Supercross series. My good friend and colleague, Steve Matthes, flew me out to his Vegas home and then to make the road trip with him to California for the big race. Steve's been working hard growing his www.pulpmx.com website and his Pulp MX radio show and things are really starting to take off. As someone who's been involved in the industry for a long time, first as a mechanic and then as a journalist, he's amassed an impressive collection of moto memorabilia so I thought I'd quickly showcase a few photos from his studio.

Check them out....

James

Steve's co-workers have the same strong work ethic that Steve's used to build his media empire.

Who doesn't love an original JT ALS-2 helmet?

Steve's also the goggle guy for X-Brand goggles so he was building all the goggles needed for their sponsored riders to get through the weekend.

Steve's got a news reader now for his radio show. This is "Tits Legendary's" work station.

Of course there's Rollerball memorabilia here. Will De Clerq just sent this over from his archives.

Carmichael and Lechien jerseys grace the wall.

Steve is testing a new, prototype Nintendo game system.

In case you didn't know, Steve's a big Wendall Clark fan. Who else would have a signed Clark Islanders jersey? The Emig number one jersey is cool though.

More Rollerball stuff.

Matthes shows off his own sweet photo skills with this Dungey shot.

It takes all sorts of wires and switches to make the Pulp MX show a reality. It almost looks like a real radio studio.

Some of the riders Steve has worked for in the past...plus a Carey Hart poster for his wife, Angie.

Some Canadian flavor: A signed KD Beets jersey from his 2008 SX campaign.

The last ever Racer X Canada cover plus a Tortelli jersey.

There's just a slight Tim Ferry theme to Steve's collection. Here's a story he wrote for Racer X about the great 15.

New Years Snowmobiling and Snowboarding

2011-01-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

Brandon Davies powers up the hill while snowmobiling in the Coquihalla region of British Columbia

For as long as I can remember, it's always been a New Years tradition to get out and snowboard on New Years day. After receiving a hefty dump early in the week, it ended up getting sunny and cold here on the west coast and the prospects of riding an icy resort to keep the tradition alive didn't seem too appealing. Luckily, an old friend of mine invited us to come out on his snowmobiles to do some sled accessed shredding in the Coquihalla region. I've been wanting to get out on a snowmobile for years so the offer was too good to pass up. After a mellow New Years Eve, we met up early at Brandon's house to load up and make the trip up into the mountains. The weather was perfectly clear and cold, it was -18 when we made it to the unloading spot so plenty of layers were a necessity.

Brandon is involved with the snowmobile club and grooms the trails there so we had access to some great trails in to the backcountry zone and luckily with the cold, built a nice fire in the cabin up top to warm up in. Our first run started out so incredible, with fun drops the whole way down but we ended up in dense forest and had to bushwack out so we found some shorter but more accessible runs to ride for the rest of the day. It was quite the learning experience to pilot a snowmobile in deep snow but Brandon's a great teacher and now I'm hooked, which is too bad cause those things are expensive. We strapped my camera bag to the back of one of the sleds so I was able to get a bunch of shots and now I can't wait to get out and do some more shooting...it was way too much fun.

Here's a few shots from an amazing day!

We made it into the parking lot with the first rays of light cresting the mountains.

Brandon unloads the sleds.

With temperatures hovering around -18 in the morning, we stopped in to warm up and have a beer at the Henning cabin.

Brandon gets the fire going inside the cabin.

Strapping in for an epic run.

Brandon got a little stuck.

Sev gets his method on off a nice little drop.

Amy makes some turns.

Sev rocks the ice beard.

Scoping out another great line.

Brandon puts the power to the ground.

Ok, now he's just showing off.

Last rays of light on the mountain.

Time for one last run as the sun sets.

Then it was back to the cabin to cook some dinner and relax with a few beers. The end of a great day!

World's Greatest Christmas Tree

2010-12-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

So, it's that time of year. Christmas is almost here and after working away on my annual "Best of" slideshow(which you can check out here if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.directmotocross.com/news/features/2010/12/james-lissimores-best-2010-slideshow) I needed to spruce my house up with a little Christmas cheer. Since I live in my Grandfather's old farm house here in Abbotsford, I wanted to keep a tradition alive that was always a part of the festive season here on the farm: He would always get the barest looking tree he could find, drape it in a set of outdoor lights and call it a day. The so called "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree. It's one of those things that I always associate with Christmas here on the farm so I figured since this is the first Christmas since he passed away, I needed to keep the tradition alive. So, last Saturday, my friend Jackie and I hiked through the forest behind my house and found this beauty. Sure enough, the old lights were still hanging in the garage so with the lights and a few decorations we were done.

I love it, it reminds me of good times with my Grandfather

Merry Christmas

Turning 30

2010-12-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

Group shot while enjoying our salmon bbq after a great day of riding up at Hemlock Valley Resort

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, but I turned 30 this past weekend. It made me feel old and not so old all at the same time. Yeah, my 20's might be over but with an already packed schedule of adventures starting to take shape for 2011 I'm more excited and ever for what the next year is going to bring.

I'm lucky to have some great friends and with my friend, Andre's birthday the day before mine, we decided to have a day of snowboarding and barbequing up at the Opening Day for Hemlock Valley Resort near my hometown of Mission. The day dawned clear and crisp and with it being opening day we knew there'd be plenty of untouched powder to be plundered so we made sure to get there nice and early. I rarely ride Hemlock these days with Baker being almost the same driving distance but it was fun to hang out at the low key mountain with friends and ride untouched snow until our legs couldn't take it anymore. We made one last half hour hike to hit an untouched line and then it was salmon time. After a few hours of grilling and enjoying some beers it was time to call it a day and I can't think of a better way to have spent my 30th. Thanks to everyone for coming out and making it such a great day!

James

Sev fires up his bionic knee so we can get this day started

Self portrait: So stoked to ride!

Trev checks on the snacks

Sev brought an entire salmon to grill up for lunch

Our parking lot grill/hangout zone

BBQ time

Nothing's better than beers and friends after a hard day of riding

Fresh salmon burgers, right off the grill

Trevor shows how it's done

Someone forgot to give Matt the memo that Movember is over

OK, all three of them missed the memo

More mustache

The last rays of sun hit the mountain

It was Andre's birthday the day before so we celebrated together, even if he's way greasier

Good times

Look at this Guy

2010-12-03T12:44:00.000-08:00

I've had an owl living in my barn for as long as I can remember, but other than the odd fleeting glance as he flew over me at night I've never really got a good look at him. Well, driving home from Whistler the other night I came up my driveway and low and behold he was just sitting on my fence. I figured he'd fly away as soon as he saw me but he just sat there and hung out and allowed me to get my camera out of the bag and grab a few shots. Finally, I drove up the rest of my driveway and he flew away, off to find more mice, I'm sure. It's not exactly the most artistic photo I've ever taken but it's not too often you get a chance to photograph one of these unique animals.

James

November Snow

2010-11-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

I think I can count the number of times we've gotten snow out here in the Vancouver area in November on one hand but this week we got not only some crazy cold temps and super high winds but a healthy dump of snow yesterday. I love the snow so I certainly wasn't complaining...but as usual here, by the time I got up this morning the rain had washed most of it away. Glad we managed to sneak in a night mission last night, riding through the forests at night with flashlights is way too much fun.

James

We found this little rock drop up on Sumas Mtn so Sev hiked up and hit it while we dodged passing cars.

Baker Opens!

2010-11-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

I'd really like to thank Mother Nature for coordinating this winter weather we've just recieved with my schedule. With a busy month of arenacross and people staying with me for the arenacross, it seemed like just as I was finally finishing up on all the work related to the indoor season when everything cooled down and the mountains started getting pounded with snow. After staying glued to the internet for a few days I got the good news I was looking for: Mt Baker had received enough snow to open and it was all systems go on Saturday.

All I can say is, it was an awesome day. We got there super early, parked right next to Chair 1 up in Heather Meadows and were one of the first people on the chair to kick off the new season. With sunny weather and fresh, light, snow, riding with good friends and laughing it up all day long couldn't make for a better day. Once our legs couldn't take anymore, we finished it off with the obligatory Pabst Blue Ribbon's and finished the day off with some killer mexican at El Nopal in Sumas.

Pretty much the best day ever, now bring on La Nina!

James

I didn't ride with my camera, since it was first day, my legs were jello and it was hard enough staying upright but I shot some stuff while we were hanging out.

We were in line early, ready for first chair.

Trevor

Andre finishes up a last minute wax job

Sev also gets a few shots while waiting for this show to kick off

Yeah, M and M's!

Sev, having a mid morning coffee break with Mt. Shuksan in the background

Andre's greasy movember stache

Mt Herman looks good with all the fresh snow

Mitch's movember stache is pretty greasy as well

Snowcat is ready for action

It's already looking like a winter wonderland at Baker's Chair 1

Got to stick with tradition: the annual post ride PBR

One last Sev portrait as the sun fades after an epic day

The Baker Bus is ready for the first day on the job

Everyone is stoked after a solid opening day. Next stop, Mexican!

Going on a Dam Trip

2010-11-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

Had a chance to go on a fun little road trip this weekend. With an off weekend before the arenacross series kicks off next weekend, my friend Jackie suggested that we go check out the Grand Coulee Dam, in eastern Washington State. I looked at the map and figured that we could make a pretty cool loop trip out of it through the North Cascade mountains and there'd be no shortage of spots to take photos from. Plus, there's two cool little theme towns along the route, as we'd be passing the restored western town of Winthrop and be coming back through the Bavarian town of Leavenworth in the south.

So with that, we loaded up her Tacoma and hit the road early on Saturday morning, heading for the scenic North Cascades Highway. It closes for the winter once the snow hits so we knew that this was probably our last chance of the season to check it out. Here's a few shots from the trip.....

First town on the North Cascades Highway was the old town of Concrete

Concrete has the craziest school I've ever seen. It's built over top of the road and there's classrooms up above there. Wonder what gave them that idea?

Mini church on the side of the road

The first powerhouse up on our trip was the Gorge Lake powerhouse, near Newhalem.

The next dam on our trip, the Diablo Dam, you can actually drive across.

The Diablo Dam from the side.

It was snowing at the top of Washington Pass. There's actually a really nice view of Liberty Bell mountain from here but you'll have to take my word for it.

After hitting the back side of the North Cascades, the first town up was the old restored Western town of Winthrop.

Jackie got dressed up in her Sunday best.

The most important sign in town.

The wall shows where we just came from.

Though I had been there when I was a little kid, I forgot how truly massive the Grand Coulee dam is in person. The largest concrete structure in the United States, it's also the biggest Hydroelectric producer in North America. We just missed out on the tour but it's still pretty cool to check out.

After we left the Grand Coulee Dam, we were driving along Banks lake and a storm blew in, making for a cool sky. I stopped and shot this island, and even though the sun had gone down I left my white balance for daylight. I thought the cool, blue tones really enhanced how it felt when I took it.

After spending the night in Wenatchee, we got up early and hit the Bavarian town of Leavenworth. With it's location, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade mountains and the Bavarian theme it really does have a European feel to it...but with lots of cheesy tourist stores.

Fall is definitely here.

Now that's gangster.

Custom parking sign modification.

Bavarian themes abound everywhere.

Leaving Leavenworth, we made one more trip through the Cascade mountains.

Here's a trend that hasn't caught on in Canada yet. Every town you pass through has these little drive up coffee bars, about the size of a lawn shed. Naturally we had to pull in and get an Egg Nog latte.

I'm not even sure these guys realized it was halloween.

Arnett Poster

2010-10-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Yorkton, Saskatchewan's Brendon Arnett raced the whole series this year as a member of the Murphy Motorsports Suzuki team. His dad, Doug, asked me to put together a poster of his season so they could thank some of the people who helped them out and I thought I'd share it here.

The Arnett's are good people and I know that Brendon had a great time getting to see the country this year. Hopefully he'll get a chance to do it again next year.

James

A Good Month

2010-10-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

I've had a pretty good month on the magazine front, this month. After working so hard it's always nice to see that people are stoked enough on your work to showcase it and this month I scored my third cover with MXPerformance magazine. It's a shot of our two Canadian Champs, Dusty Klatt and Tyler Medaglia and despite the subpar lighting conditions we had to deal with while shooting it, it turned out pretty good.

Also, this month's issue of Racer X Illustrated features a shot of Bobby Kiniry grabbing the holeshot on the same day I shot the MXP cover, at Walton. It's always cool to get shots in Racer X, being the sports biggest magazine it's cool to know your work is going to be seen all over the world. Though I've shot 4 or 5 features for RXI before, this is the first time one of my images was selected for their "Gate Pics" section, which features the coolest shots of the month. I've got something in the works so hopefully I'll get another one in their soon.

The October/November cover of MXP

My Gate Pic image in the November issue of Racer X Illustrated

Quick Trip to Vernon

2010-10-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Went up to Vernon for a few days last week to shoot some Freestyle. I love getting out to shoot freestyle and freeriding but this year has been so busy with racing coverage that I haven't had the time to do much so I figured now was as good a time as ever. Plus, the light in the fall is probably the nicest of the year and that warm quality definitely helps expand that "magic hour" a lot longer into the day so that's a major bonus.

So with that, I hit the road to Vernon to meet up with my good friend Reagan Sieg to shoot as much stuff as we could. Joining us were fellow freestylers, Morgan Kaliszuk and Kris Foster. We had an awesome day, shot a bunch of different stuff and capped it off with some pizza and beer and just checked out photos and footage. It couldn't have been a better time and really reminded me I need to make more time to get out with those guys.

On the way back, we decided to take the scenic route, going south through Penticton and on to highway three. We saw some kite surfers out on Skaha lake so we stopped and took a few shots. It sure looked like fun. With a few more weeks until the arenacross series kicks off hopefully I'll find time for another of these trips, I can't wait!

Here's a slideshow of my shots from our day shooting FMX:

Freestyle Oct 13, 2010 Vernon, BC - Images by James Lissimore

Here's a few extra shots from our drive:

Sev was jumping for joy to shoot some freestyle.

The windy conditions on Thursday made for great Kite Surfing conditions on Penticton's Skaha Lake so we stopped for a few minutes to check it out.

Kite surfing silhouette

The Kite surfers were rocking this sweet RV. I need this thing for the Nationals next season.

Ok, so this wasn't on the trip but Sunday night I went out and did some exploring near Hope. Love that Fall sunset light.

Busy Busy Month

2010-10-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

It was cooold at the 14,100 foot summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado

Ok, I've been slacking a bit on the blog the past month. I know it's supposed to be the "Off Season" in moto but I've been busier than I was in the summer, which is awesome. I've been on the road for the past two weeks and finally get to stay home for a little bit and let all these experiences soak in.

First, I flew to Denver, Colorado for the Red Bull Motocross of Nations. The premiere event in the moto world, countries from around the world send their three best riders to determine who the top nation in motocross is. I was able to attend 3 years ago when the race came to Budds Creek, Maryland and I couldn't wait to take in another one. When the 2010 edition was announced to be taking place at Lakewood, Colorado's Thunder Valley Raceway I knew I had to make the trip south.

I flew in on Thursday but the rest of my co-workers weren't coming in till the following day so I had the day to kill. Luckily for me, in a strange twist of fate, my mom and two brothers were actually in Colorado on a three week camping trip through Wyoming, Colorado and Utah so they changed up their plans to come and pick me up from the airport. My brother, Jeff, is a big rally fan so we decided to head up to Pikes Peak outside of Colorado Springs. The Pikes Peak road, which hosts the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb rally, is a crazy winding road that works it's way all the way up to the 14,100 ft summit of the peak. This turned out to be one of the craziest roads I've ever driven up, if you're ever in the area this should definitely be on your "to do" list. The view from the top is pretty unbelievable as well, with a sweeping 360 degree panorama of the surrounding Colorado countryside. The altitude sure is hard on the body after flying in from the sea level elevation of Vancouver, I got pretty dizzy after only a few minutes up on the top.

My family up at the summit of Pikes Peak

A section of the Pikes Peak road from 12,000ft. You can see how winding it is.

On Friday, I met up with the rest of my crew - Dawn McClintock, "Big Wave" Billy Rainford, Steve Matthes and Rick Bradshaw of Schraeder's Yamaha/Honda/Suzuki in Yorkton, Saskatchewan who was our host for the weekend. I can't thank Rick enough for his hospitality and the entire weekend was one of the highlights of my career. Now, I have to get working on a plan to get to next years edition of the race which is taking place in France.

Billy boarding the bus at the Des Nations. We rode it for about a hundred feet.

Red Bull pulled out all the stops for the race. Here's one of two, two story hospitality areas they had set up. They had a killer party here on Sunday night.

The Thunder Valley track in Lakewood, Colorado

The current fastest man on the planet, Ryan Dungey.

Team Iceland. We're supposed to be going riding with these guys in the spring. I can't wait

Kaven Benoit got the honors of representing Canada in Colorado

Just after this shot I filmed a funny video segment with Steve Matthes(r), Trey Canard(center) and Transworld Motocross's Donn Maeda(l). You can check it out on Steve's website, www.pulpmx.com

After flying back from Denver on Monday my week wasn't over, though. I had a couple days to get my photos sent out to everyone and then I had to hop on an early morning flight to Montreal on Thursday morning for the annual Montreal Supercross at Olympic Stadium. Always a highlight on the Canadian calendar, it didn't disappoint as usual. Montreal is one of those cities where you can't help but have fun, especially since it's the last race of the year and everyone is pretty relaxed. Now, I'm finally home for a bit but there's no shortage of stuff to shoot. Stay tuned for more as I follow up on a couple of projects I've had in the works that I hope to get working on here soon.

James

Montreal's Olympic Stadium is the setting for the annual Montreal Supercross.

Tried shooting Dusty Klatt behind my back.

The Endurocross race had this tire section that caused carnage every lap.

Did a photo shoot with Josh Demuth for a Canadian clothing company called Brass Knuckle Therapy while I was in Montreal.

Busy Weekend on the West Coast

2010-09-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

Got to be a motocross wedding - Colt and Jocelyn with their boots

Wow, had a busy weekend last weekend and I'm finally getting caught up. It might be the off season but it sure doesn't feel like it, which is great. I love having all this stuff to shoot. Last weekend it was 2-time Canadian Motocross Champion, Colton Facciotti, and Canadian Women's Motocross contender, Jocelyn Killough's Wedding and I was hired to shoot it. I love shooting weddings, you have so much creative freedom though it can be pretty stressful - you only have once chance to get the shot on what amounts to a once in a lifetime day. It definitely made things easier that it was friends and once the weather dawned sunny and nice a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders.

With how fast paced a wedding day is, I hired my friend Sev to assist me. It made things run so much smoother having someone be able to get gear to me quickly, hold lightstands and generally jump on any problem that arose. Huge thanks to him for coming out! Another bonus was their wedding venue, the Redlands Golf Course in Langley, BC. It was a super nice spot, plus it was just down the road from historic Fort Langley and their was no shortage of great spots to shoot the wedding pics at. The only limitation was time and we had to head back for the reception before we exhausted all the great photo oppurtunities.

After a fun reception and getting to see a lot of good friends who had flown in for the wedding, I got a few hours sleep and jumped back in my truck for the 2 hour drive to Whistler. The Red Bull 5000 Down mountain bike race was taking place and with friends like Dusty Klatt, Shawn Maffenbeier and Shawn Greenaway competing I couldn't miss out. This race is a cool and unique event featuring a mass start at the top of Whistler mountain so it's much different than the usual one at a time, timed format of Downhill racing. The weather ended up being pretty crazy with 6 inches of snow at the top and driving rain at the bottom but despite landing on his head, Dusty still came through in 25th place out of 132 riders. Pretty good considering he rode a downhill bike for the first time 2 weeks before. Maffenbeier was close behind in 33rd while Greenaway came through in 82nd. Though they all looked like they'd been through a war zone, you couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces. The funny thing was that I was having breakfast with Todd Schumlick and almost missed the race. It took so long to get our food that by the time we started eating we looked at the clock and realized they were already on the course! Well, we still made it back in time so it was all good. I'm glad I went and I'm definitely going to be back next year, hopefully with better weather.

After the guys got showered up and clean we headed back into the Village for some beers and food, and of course some bench racing about the crazy day. Then, of all people who walked by outside, I saw Colt and Jocelyn! They had come up with Jocelyn's parents to spend some time in Whistler before everyone headed back to Ontario. It was good to see the newlyweds so soon after the wedding.

Well, it was time to head home so I hit the scenic Sea to Sky highway again and made the drive home. I was exhausted but it was worth it, two great days with great people. I wish every weekend could be like this!

Here's some photos

Jocelyn and her dad walk down the aisle

The Redlands Golf Course in Langley, BC was a nice venue for the ceremony

The wedding party on the banks of the Fraser River, in Fort Langley

Cheers to a great day

Walking along the tracks in Fort Langley

I loved shooting them with this old caboose

The boys try to get all serious. Kind of hard when your Groom is wearing a pair of moto boots

Sunday morning it was off to Whistler for the Red Bull 5000 Down Mtn bike race

Whistler's own Tyler Morland won the race

This guy ate it right at the finish line and taco'd his wheel

In his first ever mountain bike race, Dusty Klatt came across in 25th place

Not far behind, in 33rd was Shawn Maffenbeier. Not bad for a guy from Swift Current. I think my driveway is taller than anything in his hometown.

Dusty relives his front flip crash to World Championship Silver Medalist and fellow islander, Steve Smith

Covered with mud but a big smile on his face, Shawn Greenaway came through in 82nd

Dusty(l) and Shawn(r) with Steve Smith

Dusty's head plant into the rocks did a number on his lid

With weather like this, lots of people needed newspaper

Ahh, time to relax with a post race brew

Shawn Greenaway, after the post race shower.

Old school gondola at the Garibaldi Lift Co.

Todd Schumlick and DK, always so serious

Always the Saskatchewan boy, Shawn was quick to spot the Roughrider's jacket

A Weekend of Two Wheeled Adventure at Klatt's

2010-09-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

Dusty Klatt and his magical floating helmet

Just returned from a great weekend up in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Dusty Klatt holds an annual BMX jam at his place in CR and I always try and make a point to come out for it. It's a fun time and a chance to shoot something else other than just the usual moto stuff. Klatt can hold his own in the BMX scene so it's fun to try and come up with some new images. This year I had more than just good BMX riding to get me on the ferry as with Dusty just clinching the 2010 Canadian Motocross National Championship we set it up to do some moto shooting as well with the new Number One plate.

So, Thursday I took the 2 hour ferry ride over from Tswassen and DK met me at the ferry terminal for another 2 hour commute to his place in Campbell River. Every time I come over there I'm always amazed with how beautiful the place is. I can see why Dusty continues to live there despite it's isolation from the moto scene. We spent the afternoon getting the new graphics all stickered up on his bike and did a little work on his BMX jumps and just kicked back from there. The rest of the weekend was a blur as we were wide-open, shooting moto on friday and saturday morning at the Campbell River track and then shooting Dusty's jam on Saturday afternoon which was a blast. To cap it all off we headed to another sick BMX jump spot in Courtenay on the way back to the ferry on Sunday morning and shot for another few hours. It was an awesome weekend with great weather and though summer is coming to an end soon it was a great way to wind things down.

Here's some photos from the weekend.

Dusty gets his bike ready for it's makeover

His pit bike is left over from the Holeshot Honda days. Still rocking the old school 144.

The last time a bike of Dusty's will adorn a number 2 for this year.(OK, maybe not. Montreal SX is coming up)

Klatt applies his new digit

The Klatt pug farm.

The bike is all stickered up with the new graphics and ready to shoot.

Off to Dusty's jumps to do a little maintenance before the big jam.

Clearing some trees

The newest pug

Off to the track to shoot some moto photos. Stylish as always.

Getting flat for the camera.

He's got all the latest freestyle moves down.....not

Now it was time for the jam.

Getting stylie with a three in the trees.

Hitting the main line

Off to Courtenay on Sunday morning for some more BMX dirt action.

DK sends it on the wallride.

This place had power so I was able to set up my Elinchrom flash head. Threw some serious light at Dusty's one-footed table over the step up. Then it was time to head home.

Trip into the Mountains

2010-08-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

A loan camper enjoys the solitude of the northern end of Harrison Lake

Just got back from a cool trip this weekend. My friend Sev and I decided to pack up his truck and set out on a bit of an adventure to do a little camping and see what kind of photos we could come back with. I knew that the forest service road that heads up the side of Harrison Lake goes all the way to Pemberton if you follow it the whole way and had always wanted to check it out. The map showed a few hot springs up north of the lake so we thought those would be cool the check out as well.

Despite almost having to turn back about 2 hours into our trek as we came across a huge washout in the road, we managed to persevere and I'm glad we did as it was an amazing drive through the heart of the wilderness. The funny thing was, once we got past the washout and past the end of Harrison Lake we came across a forestry campground that was full. This was despite not seeing a single human in hours. Everyone had driven down the road for hours from the Pemberton end, it was fittingly ironic. We weren't the only ones in search of the out in the wild experience. We found a nice isolated spot to camp for the night high up an old, deactivated logging road and with plenty of signs of bear activity around us we figured it was probably safest to camp in the bed of Sev's truck. Good thing he's got a canopy!

The next morning we got up nice and early and completed the rest of the journey to Pemberton. After a stop off at the Mount Currie Coffee Company to grab a good coffee(if you're ever in Pemberton, make sure to stop in - lots of cool art and photography on the walls) we capped off the rest of our trip with a drive across the Duffey Lake Road to Lillooet, one of my personal favorite drives. It was a great trip and I've already got a map book open, planning the next adventure. Here's a few shots

I got a new lens before this trip, a 10-24mm so as you can imagine there's a lot of superwide shots that I took with the new purchase. I love that perspective.
James

I had never been past Harrison's 20 mile bay so this was my first view of the scenic north end of the lake.

It's been extremely dry lately and a lot of forest fires are burning so there's a province wide fire ban.

An all too common sight up in the bush.

A lot of nice waterfalls like these can be found along the drive.

The other thing about being off in the backwoods - every sign is riddled with bullet holes.

Well, this almost stopped us in our tracks. The road is almost entirely washed out up close to the north end of the lake.

We didn't want to turn back after hours of driving and people had piled a lot of lumber in the hole so we figured we might as well take the chance of trying to go through. I'm smart enough to be outside of the vehicle so I can get shots of Sev tumbling for a hundred feet if it doesn't work out.

Once we were past the end of the lake we came across our first hot springs, and first sign of civilization at the Sloquet Hot Springs. We made the short hike down to the water.

This kid was enjoying a leisurely float in the warm waters of the spring.

We made camp high up an old logging road. I decided to a do a little light painting while we were there. I painted Sev in two different spots to make it appear like a double exposure.

After a refreshing sleep in the box of the truck, I woke up and walked 10ft to get a shot of this flower framed against the evergreen behind it.

We stopped on the side of the road to take some pictures of a natural hotspring that was steaming when I noticed to black ears pop up about 30 ft away. We had disturbed this black bear's breakfast of blackberries but he decided it was time to move along and took off down the hill.

Just past the bear we came to the Skookumchuck Hot Springs.

The skookumchuck springs feature several different tubs to soak in and enjoy the hot waters.

The bear that stands guard over the springs wasn't nearly as active as our friend we'd just run into.

Along the drive were several of these family graveyards. This one dated back to the turn of the century.

Finally, we made it to Lillooet Lake. The normally blue lake is currently dark brown due to the massive landslide that occured upstream at Meager Creek last month.

After a quick pit stop in Pemberton, we hit the Duffey Lake Rd from Pemberton to Lillooet. Our first stop was a short hike to the always scenic Lower Joffre lake.

While waiting for the clouds to (hopefully) clear on the mountains above the lake I observed this goose enjoying a lazy float around the lake.

As you aproach the east side of the mountains on your way to Lillooet, the climate changes from wet, west coast rainforest to dry interior desert.

One last stop was the historic Alexandria bridge in the Fraser Canyon, north of Yale on the Trans Canada Highway.

Road Tripping Through the East

2010-08-10T19:53:00.000-07:00

Another week on the road and we spent a ton of time traveling this week to some cool spots I've always wanted to check out. After leaving my cousin's place in Fredricton we headed straight up north to the French Canadian part of New Brunswick called Acadia. It's a really neat area with it's own distinct culture and we made our way all the way to the far north eastern point, Miscou Island where we set up camp next to a lighthouse on the beach. It was super cool.

From there we headed up to the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec and headed to the town of Matane where we caught a ferry across the Gulf of St Lawrence which took about two and a half hours to make the crossing to Godbout on the north coast. The area was beautiful and we made our way along the water before heading inland to Saguenay and then south into Jacques Cartier park. The weather turned super awful through there with some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen so we pressed on to Quebec City. It was a fun couple days and I wish I had more time to explore this beautiful area. I will definitely be back some time.

Here's a few shots.

Loaded up and ready to roll out from Fredricton

Next stop Acadia. The people of this distinct region are really patriotic and everyone was flying some version of the Acadian flag.

These tractors were vacuuming up all the soil near Shippigan.

We stopped at the lighthouse on the very tip of Isle Miscou and decided to make camp

My cousin Dave found a bunch of jellyfish floating in the water.

We made camp right by the lighthouse.

These fishing boats were all colorful and lined up near Shippigan.

We left Acadia and headed for Quebec.

Next stop, the Gaspe Peninsula.

We found this boat just floating alongside this river in Quebec.

Dave decided to kick back and relax for a minute.

Here's the ferry we took up to the Godbout on the north side of the Gulf of St Lawrence.

This little guy was trying to poach my snacks.

The scenery between Godbout and Baie-Comeau was beautiful.

Rare photo of me, up in northern Quebec. I tried to fit in by sporting the Nordiques hat I found a few days before.

My cousin gave me one of his army ration packs to try out. It was interesting to say the least. Definitely lots of stuff is packed in there and it didn't taste that bad. I could live off of them if I had to.

Planes Ferries and Automobiles

2010-08-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

Took a quick day trip to Vancouver Island last Wednesday

It's been quite the month. So far after coming back from the July break I've: Flown to Toronto, drove to Southern Ontario, drove to Montreal, flown back to Abbotsford, took a ferry to Vancouver Island for the day and now have flown all the way to Moncton, New Brunswick on the east coast and now I'm sitting at my cousin's place near Fredricton. Then, tomorrow we're making our way to Quebec and on to Ottawa for this weekend's race at Sand Del Lee. So basically I've done a complete circumnavigation of the country in the past 2 and a half weeks, literally going from standing on the Pacific to standing on the Atlantic in 2 days time.

So, like I said, I've been staying at my cousin's for the past two days and he's a solider here at CFB Gagetown and I had the chance tonight to fire a few of his guns from his private collection. Now I'm not a big gun guy by any means but there's something pretty cool about firing off a few rounds from an assault rifle. All those usual boyhood dreams about being Rambo and playing soldiers probably have a lot to do with it. They sure pack a lot more punch than you'd expect, especially a pistol grip shot gun loaded with slugs. Wow, now that is a kick!

So now that I've got the GI Joe out of my system we're getting ready to head out and do a bit of a road trip tomorrow. We're going to head for rural Quebec and hopefully see some new things. I'll be sure to take a lot of pics.

Here's a few shots from the last couple days.

This is Pandora, one of my cousin's rabbits

My cousin's nice little spread in Scotchtown, New Brunswick.

He has beach front access to Grand Lake. The sunsets are awesome here.

My cousin Dave, an infantry soldier, gave me the run down on the correct way to fire the AR-15 assault rifle

Then it was my turn. At least most of my rounds hit the target

Also had the chance to shoot his shotgun, which was loaded with a solid

slug round. That thing had some kick.

The rifle rounds had no problem cutting right through this tree.

It's Been a Busy Week on the Road

2010-07-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

On the beach at the Moore's house on Long Point in Southern Ontario

I've been in Ontario for the past week and it's been hectic to say the least, but in a good way. I've been bouncing around all over the place and it's been a great time. I started off on the shores of Lake Erie at my friend Pam Moore's parents place on Long Point. It was amazing there, the house opened right onto the sandy beach and had an indoor pool. It was heaven and I didn't want to leave. But there was plenty more to do this week and after attending the Ricky Carmichael ride day at Gopher Dunes on Monday I headed up to the Barrie area to stay with Ryan Gauld before heading to Kyle Carruther's track on Tuesday for the MXP ride day.

Again, it was another great time and lots of people came out to ride the track and other than a nice sunburn I had a great time. Next, I headed off with the Maffenbeier's to Joe Skidd's place up near Trenton and again I was blown away with how nice it was and how hospitable everyone has been. Joe designed his place himself and it's a beautiful spread. Throw in an incredible track and he's got quite the place up there in the woods.

Now today I headed off to Montreal with Billy Rainford and Brett Lee and it was fun to bench race with the guys as we made the drive into Quebec. It's now time for another race and to do it all over again. I can't wait!

Baker the dog enjoys the beach

Liam and Pam enjoy a lazy day at the beach

Liam had to test out his freshly rebuilt bike so we went out to a nice sand track at the Bezo's

Pam tries to steal my thunder

Next up was the Ricky Carmichael ride day. Ricky was gratious all day and made sure

no one went home empty handed.

From here we headed off to Kyle Carruther's track for the MXP ride day

Carruther's track is very picturesque

Kuli brings the party

Gauldy spins some laps at Carruther's

The SSS suspension world headquarters was in full effect

Shawn Maffenbeier spins some laps on Joe Skidd's track

Relaxing on the hammock with the Allison's

Joe recently installed this solar panel setup at his place to produce some nice clean power

Just before leaving I did a quick photoshoot with Tye Sidd on his BMX bike. Hopefully these help him get some new sponsors.

Back from the Break

2010-07-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've blogged. I had all these great ideas for the three week break we just finished up in the Canadian Nationals but my computer had other ideas. A piece broke off inside my USB port so when I plugged my mouse in I saw a spark and poof, the computer went black. What a horrible feeling when something like that happens....doh!

Luckily it was repairable and I got it back on Weds afternoon so I could make the Thursday flight out Toronto. Now I'm sitting on the beach here in Long Point on Lake Erie and it's almost time to get back to the grind. Can't wait!

Mt. Baker from the air just after takeoff in Abbotsford. Mt. Rainier sits off on the horizon

to the right.

Here is an aerial view of the valley we were in on my last blog post. Quite the sight when

it's not overcast.

The Cascade mountains with Mt. Rainier on the horizon

Portraits in the Wild

2010-06-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

Sev sits for a portrait in the clouds

Found myself with a spare afternoon yesterday after finishing up all my Edmonton work so I set out into the mountains with my friend and fellow photographer, Sev. It was an overcast, drizzly day so I figured the odds of getting any sweeping panorama landscapes were probably pretty slim but hey, it's always worth a shot to go do some exploring. You never know what you'll find.

We decided to head deep into the Chilliwack River valley south of Chilliwack. A rugged peak filled valley that juts south across the boarder into the North Cascades of Washington State. We decided to try our luck at a random forest access road and found ourselves deep in the mountains, on a road so overgrown that the truck would barely make its way through. Needless to say, Sev's paint job is no longer pristine.

Knowing that the weather wasn't optimal, I had decided to bring my lighting kit with me. The cloudy, drizzly weather makes for great soft light that is perfect for portraits so I wanted to take advantage of the lush, green alpine conditions to create some environmental portraits that sum up what I love about living in this area. We also found some remnants of some old logging equipment that worked pretty well as a backdrop to photograph against. Here's a few of my favorite shots, I can't wait to go back to this area.

James

Somewhere up in the clouds were some majestic, snowcapped peaks

Fresh bear poo was a reminder that we weren't in the city

Here's a set up shot for the lead in photo. It was a simple shoot, one flash into an umbrella

We found these old boiler pipes on the side of the road. I used my small Lumiquest Soft Box III

to illuminate Sev as he stood in the shadows

This is my favorite photo of the day. Sev stuck his head out of this hole, it was actually so tight he had to hand me his hat, stick his head through and then put it back on

Admiring the trees of the Coastal Rainforest

Dusty Klatt T-Shirt

2010-06-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

DK just hooked me up with one of his new T's he had made. It is super sick, I can't wait to wear it this weekend! Features photo by me and design by Dawn McClintock .

You can buy it through our website, so pick one up and help Dusty buy some more bacon snacks for the pugs.

http://store.directmotocross.com/shirts/dk-grunge-tee

Flowing Water

2010-06-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

It's spring time on the west coast(at least for a few more days) and that means rain. Lots and lots of rain. I don't usually get too bummed out with it because that's why everything is so green and lush here, plus it leads to the photos below. I actually shot these photos last week but I was so busy with the first national of the year that I finally had a chance to look at them today.

Knowing that I had to head up to Kamloops on Wednesday to do a shoot, I managed to get out last Monday and Tuesday to get a bit of landscape photography in. All the recent rain has led to a lot of run off from the mountains so I knew that a couple local waterfalls would be flowing pretty heavy. Flowing water and long exposures are one of my favorite photo subjects.

Cascade Falls

Sev admires the view

Bridal Falls

Flowing stream below Bridal Falls

Enjoying the calm and peace on Deer lake.

Pat is Training Hard

2010-06-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Look out Teddy, you're mechanic is training hard while you were still in bed!

Sumas Mountain

2010-05-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

Managed to get out yesterday to do a bit of landscape photography. Since it was the last weekend before the National series kicks off next week I figured it was a good time to get out, get some fresh air and shoot something other than a dirt bike since that's going to be occupying the majority of my time over the next few months.

I called up my friend, Sev, who's into photography and after grabbing a bite we headed for the local mountains. Luckily for me, he's got a 4x4 since my truck isn't the best for exploring the local logging roads. We managed to find a couple cool spots and scout some places that will be good to come back to. It was an overcast day, which pretty much sucks for grand, sweeping scenics but the soft, even light is great for closesups - the light gets in and opens everything up so that's what I pretty much stuck to.

After the hectic pace of the last month's photo shoots it's nice to just get out and wander around with a camera and shoot what you see. No shot list or agenda that you have to stick to. I noticed that a lot of the local wildflowers are starting to bloom as well so I'm going to try and get in another day or two of landscape shooting this week if I can. I've got to leave Thursday morning for Kamloops to do a shoot with the Leading Edge team so time is running out. I know I'll blink and September will be here.....

Flowers and city. This was supposed to be a multi-exposure HDR image but the wind made lining them up impossible. Instead I just made a pseudo-HDR image in Photomatix using one image. The quality is not quite as good but it gets pretty close to saving all the detail.

Sev on top of a graffiti covered rock, high on Sumas Mountain

Blooming wildflowers

Overcast conditions really make greens stand out

Exploring for photo spots up on Sumas Mountain

Agassiz Photos

2010-05-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

The weather forecast looked pretty iffy but it ended up being a pretty good day at Agassiz on Sunday. I'm glad I went out there, had a few new pieces of equipment to test out before the big show gets started up at Kamloops in two weeks. Just one more weekend off before I'm practically gone till the beginning of September.

Here's my photos from the day....

Agassiz May 23, 2010 - Images by James Lissimore

Location Portraits

2010-05-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been having a lot of fun doing location portraits. It's amazing what kind of light you can create with a handful of small flashes and some modifiers. I've got this little bag that carries a couple lightstands, umbrellas, mini softbox and some grids and stuff and it gives me almost all that I need. There's still sometimes when I need the power that my Elinchrom equipment provides but it's a lot of work to carry and set up the big stuff so I find I'm setting up a lot more shots these days just because I have my small light kit with me. It literally takes only a couple minutes and I've got a mini studio set up. It's definitely the part of photography I'm most excited about right now.

I just finished up a feature on some of my favorite motocross location portraits, check it out at www.directmotocross.com

Here's the link http://www.directmotocross.com/news/features/2010/05/behind-lens-portraits

Day Three in Georgia - That's a Wrap

2010-04-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

Tyler tries to see if Red Bull gives your golf ball wings.

We're all done in Georgia. Today was a pretty casual day on the photo front, since we got all the action and static shots we had to get done on tues and weds so today was just about filling out the coverage while the boys did some testing. It was a good oppurtunity for me to set up some creative lighting situations and try and get some cool, lit photos so that was my main focus. Part of that was finding some creative uses for Red Bull so that was pretty much the theme of the day. The track was actually the least busiest I'd seen it all week so I tried some different stuff that I could do now that I wasn't worried about getting the perfect poster shot.

We had a full day of work and then, since myself, Dusty, Joe Skidd and Jason Mitchell were leaving to head back to Orlando, Jason took the whole team out to this nice Italian place in Thomasville. It was neat, it was part of an old train station so we sat out under the cover of the old loading platform. After the meal, we bid our farewells, jumped in the minivan and made the four and a half hour drive back to Orlando. Now I'm sitting here at 1 am typing this and I've got a shuttle in a few hours to the airport so I'm going to hit the hay.

James

Medaglia puts in a 30 minute moto

Dusty feels the burn

Colt received a special delivery

Beets motos

Colt give away the secret to Blackfoot horsepower

Beets uses a secret ingredient to get his helmet shined up. On second thought, that's Dusty's helmet.

The crew gets in a group shot at the end of a successful week.

Day 2 in Georgia

2010-04-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Dusty Klatt skies it out for the camera in Georgia.

Day two was a success here at GPF. After yesterday's cloudy weather, we were greeted with sunny skies and warm, but not too hot temps. It was pretty much perfect. After getting all the static shots out of the way yesterday we were free to concentrate on the action stuff so we spent a lot of time hitting different jumps and corners working on getting the right angles and right light.

After a long day of shooting and testing for the guys, we hit a great Mexican place on the way back and downed some enchiladas. I'm always down for some good Mexican....yum. Just one day left now before we start driving back to Orlando tomorrow evening. Time sure flies when you you're having fun.

Here's a couple shots from today.

Beets and Colton survey the track.

Tyler Medaglia gets diiirty.

Colt and Kyle have a pointing contest.

Jarrod preps a practice bike.

Ruts

Uhhh.....yeah

Day One in Georgia

2010-04-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Beets flexes for the camera

Well, I made it to Georgia. Yesterday, after about 2 hours of sleep, I caught an early AM flight out of Vancouver. After meeting up with Dusty in Denver we flew to Orlando where we were supposed to meet Blackfoot's Jason Mitchell and Joe Skidd. Once we landed I got a text from Joe saying they were delayed an hour and a half on their flight from Toronto so we grabbed a bite at this nice Italian place in the airport and waited for the guys. They finally made it and we loaded up the rental van for the 5 hour drive up to Georgia.

This morning we were up bright eyed and bushy tailed and headed out to GPF to get started. The new bikes look sweet and it's great to see the first ever all Canadian lineup for the Blackfoot crew. Everyone looks really fast on their bikes and it made the photo shoot got easily. Now I'm just back at the hotel editing the days take and getting ready for tomorrow. Now if I could only do something about this lumpy bed.....

Here's a couple quick shots. More to come....

Klatt tries to jumpstart his jetlag with some epic Hotel coffee

I guess Tyler figures he doesn't need a helmet now with his new hairdo

Guess who's number one

Back to Nature

2010-04-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

Sunrise over Mt. Baker

Abbotsford, BC

I've had a bit of free time lately and it's allowed me to get back to a part of photography that really drives my passion. I've had the chance to get back out in the wild and shoot a bunch of landscape stuff. Landscapes are what initially fueled my photography passion but as motocross took over as the subject that paid my bills, time to get out and shoot the nature around me became preciously short.

Not to say I haven't enjoyed doing the full time moto thing, not at all. It's allowed me to see so many parts of the world and meet so many great people that I never would have met otherwise and I hope to be a part of it for the rest of my life. The great thing about returning to shooting landscapes has been how it has rejuvinated my passion for photography as a whole. I'm excited to get out and explore with my camera see what I come back with. I hope to combine both, the landscapes and motocross stuff, as I travel across the country this summer following the Motocross nationals. We live in one of the most picturesque countries on Earth and I want to use my camera to explore as much of it as possible.

So, as I gear up for a week straight of motocross shooting here are some of my favorite outdoor shots I've taken in the past month. I can't wait to explore and find some more when I return from my trip.

You can check out the rest on my website, I just added a Landscape section here:

Lissimore Photo Landscapes

St Louis

2010-04-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Had a quick in and out trip to St. Louis this weekend. I got in at midnight on Friday, shot the supercross all day on Saturday and flew back out at 7 am on Sunday so there wasn't much time to see the sights. So, I resorted to being the drive-by tourist and snapped a few shots from the car window.

It looks like a cool city so I'll have to come back again some time and check things out. As for the racing, wow what a crazy night. With all the momentum in Villopoto's court coming into the race, it looked like he was in for another win once he got out front during the race. Who would have guessed he would crash soon after and break his leg? That's how it goes in this sport though, you just never know.

Funny story with the hotel we were staying at, a Ramada right by the airport. Our first clue that it wasn't the nicest place was when rooms were only 45 bucks a night but hey, it was decent and close. Then our second clue was when I went to go to my room on Saturday night after the race and 3 cops were dragging a guy kicking and screaming out of the room across the hall. Good times...

I'm actually going 2 for 2 this week as I'll be attending my second straight supercross, this time close to home in Seattle. It's a bummer that Villopoto won't be there to race for his hometown fans but with the way things have been going this season, I'm sure the unexpected will happen. I'm off to Georgia right after Seattle to shoot photos with the Blackfoot Yamaha guys, who've been down at GPF training all winter so it's a busy couple of weeks. I can't wait.

James

Welcome to St Louis

Really crappy window shot photo of the home of the Bigfoot Monster Trucks

Suprised this street sign hasn't been vandalized

I'm told this isn't the nicest part of town

The St Louis arch

Where the races were held: The Edward Jones dome

A Fun Day with the Nephews

2010-03-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

Had a nice relaxing day on Saturday. The dreaded rain held off so I got to spend some time with my nephews at my place. My nephew, Wyatt, just got his first dirtbike for his fifth birthday a couple weeks ago so my sister-in-law, Jenny, brought him and his brother, Mason, over so I could try and help Wyatt learn to ride his PW50. I got quite the workout as I held the handlebars as he worked the throttle and I worked hard to keep him upright. Being a 5 year old, he got bored after 10 minutes so we went for a hike up the hill behind my house that heads to my water supply. After spending so much time on the road it was really nice to just spend some time with my family and I got to take some cool pics. I can't wait to do it again.

James

Wyatt found a calf's skull up where we were riding. He had fun trying to put the pieces back together.

Mason can't wait to be old enough to get his own bike.

About as good a family portrait as you can get when dealing with these guys.

Mason wasn't a big fan of walking.

Bald Eagles

2010-03-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a whirlwind trip to Toronto this past weekend for the Toronto Supercross. I'll blog about that shortly but there's actually a couple quick photos I want to share from my own backyard. I noticed a Bald Eagle out next to the road the other day when I was driving home. I rushed up my driveway to grab my camera but by the time I got back it was gone. Sort of bummed and wishing I had my camera with me when I saw it I proceeded to drive up the driveway. I was in the house for a while when I happened to look out the window and noticed that the tree behind my place was full of Eagles.

I grabbed my camera again and went outside and it turns out I've got around 20 Eagles camped out at my house right now. Yet again, I'm amazed with where I live. One of my favorite travel shows is "Departures" on OLN and I remember an episode when they drive the Alaska Hwy to the Yukon and are so excited when the see a Bald Eagle so it's pretty cool to have an entire flock of them 50 feet from my back door.

James

4 Eagles hang out together in this tree. Not all are mature enough yet to have the white, "Bald" head that makes them so famous.

Here's another one, enjoying the view of Mt. Baker from his perch.

The view of Mt. Baker from my yard.

Olympic Pandamonium

2010-03-01T20:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I had one of those once in a lifetime experiences last weekend so I thought I'd share it here on my blog. The 2010 Olympics just wrapped up last night here in Vancouver and I have to admit that when they were first announced I wasn't too excited about them. I figured it would just be a big inconvenience and a good time to get away.

As it got closer and the venues started to come together my opinion of the Olympics slowly started to change though it was still hard to imagine what it would actually be like once the cauldron was lit. Well, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was completely blown away with the games and what they did for our city. Last Sunday I decided to make the trip down town to check out all the goings on and the Olympic celebration. After catching the train from Mission I certainly wasn't prepared for how crazy it was downtown. Upon getting off the train all you saw were crowds. The entire city was shoulder to shoulder and there was so much patriotism, which for Canadians is fairly unusual. There were Maple Leafs every where and so much spirit. Plus, there were brightly colored people from all over the world celebrating their own country's as well. It was a kaleidoscope of color!

After soaking up the crazyness for the afternoon we made our way down to the Live City site by GM Place(sorry I mean Canada Hockey Place) and watched the big game. Canada was taking on the USA in men's hockey and there was no doubt what everyone was downtown to watch. Though Canada lost, it was a good game and I made my way back through the crowd to Waterfront station after the game. The train wasn't supposed to leave for an hour and a half but I knew I'd half to get there early to get a spot. Luckily, after only half an hour they decided to send the train as it was totally full so I got home an hour early. Definitely a bonus.

Though I wish I would have got some tickets for some of the events I'm still glad I went down and experienced the games. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience and I'll never forget it. I'm proud of how Canadians embraced the games and truly made them their own. Plus, winning the most gold medals ever certainly doesn't hurt and it's good to show the world what Canada is capable of.

Here's some shots from an epic day....

The train was full before we left the first station.

Ben gets his mits up in the crowd at Waterfront Station

Huge crowds by the Olympic Cauldron

The cauldron with everyone trying to get a look at it.

A rare shot of me in front of the camera with my coworker, Matt. He wore the other official outfit of downtown Vancouver - A Canucks' Luongo jersey.

Ben and Matt downtown

Matt gets in on the filming by some Swedish film crew

Slovak fans. These guys rival Canada for passion for Hockey.

Ben with an American fan.

The Olympic clock.

A British fan?

Canada flags everywhere

Zip-lining over Robson Square

CBC Newscaster

A Russian fan....hot

Huge Swedish contingent makes their way down Robson.

Even Robin came out to show his support

Patriotism was everwhere.

We watched the game from the side of the LiveCity site.

This guy was a "Shirtless Canuck"

Nothing is more Canadian than a Pilsner box hat.

I wasn't the only one taking photos.

This guy was selling these Canada Rocks cowboy hats. Lots of money to be made in hawking Canada merchandise.

These crazy Slovak performers would put on their show during the intermissions of the game.

Fans show their allegiances from the balconys of thier condos.

More crazy Slovak performers.

Canada scores!

A Month in Photos

2010-01-28T22:05:00.000-08:00

This time of year can be hard sometimes to stay motivated. As primarily a motocross photographer, the winter months aren't always the easiest time for me to pick up my camera and take photos so sometimes I need a bit of a kick. I decided to put myself up to a bit of a self assignment and go out and take at least one image every day. So, starting on Christmas day I went out and tried to find a photo every day and I'm glad I did. It remotivated me and got me excited about photography again. Now, they're not all the most epic images and some were taken around the yard but it taught me to look at everything photographically again and that's rekindled the fire.

So here they are, my slideshow of images from Dec 25 to Jan 25....enjoy!

James

ps. click the "Full Screen" button at the bottom of the slideshow for best results.

Month In Photos - Images by James Lissimore