It's always exciting to view the city from the airplane window as we approach JFK. Here you can see the three bridges spanning the East River from Brooklyn into Manhattan: Coming up from the Statue of Liberty, it's the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Williamsburg Bridge. Just remember BMW and you'll always get the names in the right order!
I love coming to New York City. For the past three years now, after meeting one of my best friends, Erik Olson, through our mutal interest in photography way back in the spring of 2014 in Los Angeles, I've been coming up to stay with him for about a week and a half... and taking in both Broadway Bomb and the huge Photo Expo+ at the Javits Convention Center.
Broadway Bomb is perhaps the largest skate gathering in the world, held annually on the third Saturday in October. This event started in 2002 with only 16 riders, but by 2010 had grown to over 1,000. These large numbers attracted the police who for years tried to shut it down, but this year there was very little police presence. The race starts way up on 116th Street and Riverside Ave by Columbia University, and then heads all the way down Broadway and ends at the statue of the Raging Bull in the Wall Street area. There are prizes for the fastest male and female skateboarders, but I've never yet tried to go all out and win. For me, it's been more of a social event. It's so much fun to be around so many other longboarders. By the way, the subtitle/motto for this event for as long as anyone can remember is "You could die!"
Experimenting with perspective at Bear Mountain, about an two hours north of the city. Can you guess how I took this picture?
After a lot of pushing through city traffic, I finally cross the finish line at the bottom end of Broadway near the "Charging Bull" statue. It's quite a sense of accomplishment, and everyone is cheering for you!
There's never a shortage of things to do when I visit the Big Apple. From photoshoots... to sampling the amazing variety of restaurants... to going out at night to see a show or visit a nightclub. This year Erik took me and another friend of his to see "Sleep No More," which is some kind of mashup between "Macbeth" and an an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. You're required to wear a mask as you walk around the incredibly vast space for the entirety of the show. If you've seen the movie "Eyes Wide Shut," you'll get the right idea! If you're in New York, you must see this show!
So many other things went on, but I suppose one of the things I most looked forward to – and it did not disappoint – was the Photo Expo. We had a blast there, and I made some important connections. Oh, I almost forgot... we escaped the city for a day and went camping in Harriman State Park. It's a popular spot for the local longboarding community!
Lots of pre-race excitement going on here! The Bomb is an amazing event that I've done three years in a row now! The guy in the orange shirt, Colby Cummings, is an old friend of mine from Oregon who's moved to the Big Apple to manage Velosolutions Pumptrack, one of the city's skate parks that's located near the East River.
The totally sick Fulton Center that has its own oculus (as does the other more touristy, more famous Calatrava-designed transportation hub that's named the Oculus located nearby at the World Trade Center). I was really stoked with how well this photo turned out!
I took this photo of Moonshine ambassador Guillermo Allase posing with his Hoedown at the Broadway Bomb pre-party held at Velosolutions Pumptrack on the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the night before the race. This night-before event has traditionally been thrown on the Hudson River by my friends at Uncle Funky's – well, at least for the previous two years I've been here for the Bomb.
My freind Glen from Sony loaned me a new tethered Alpha camera which I used it to shoot a couple of the models in their booth. Photo: Erik Olson
All trips eventually have to come to and end, so here I am trying to change my seat assignment at the American check-in desk at JFK. Photo: Erik Olson