One of the coolest videos I’ve seen in a while, very creative:

Ever wonder what goes into filming a food commercial? How about screwing the pizza down to the table . . .







A short on the brutal reality of the oil spill on a small community:

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Inspirational

1. A photographer was fed up with seeing lower quality images of the volcano and so took it upon himself to go get some good images of the eruption in Iceland. That’s the kind of personal project I admire. This guy wasn’t getting paid to do this, he just wanted to do it for himself.

2. A protestor is arrested for blowing bubbles at a G20 protest.

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Funny

1. Love this one. This guy is having too much fun. Imagine being this happy about your job (although I’m sure this isn’t his real job).

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Film/Animation

1. A cool little animation using motion matching software boujou to track in the old Mario Brothers Game into a real time scene.

2. Great little animation that transitions between different movies, see if you notice which ones they reference.

You can find and download a copy of these photos at flickr: HERE.

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Steve’s picture deserves to stand alone because, after hearing about Dan Lyons from my blog a few days ago, he cut and donated his hair to Locks for Love.

Steve cut his hair for Locks of Love.

I’m really enjoying my experience with the new lens. I’ve never had a telephoto zoom so I am learning where I need to position myself (usually pretty far away) to the subject to get the shots I’m looking for. It is pretty heavy but I also have a Manfrotto monopod that I’ll use for it on any wedding jobs, etc. to take the weight off of my arms.

The flight from yesterday was incredible. My best climb was at 6:30pm! Everyone launched after about 5pm. It’s crazy how late in the day it was. I was cruising at cloud base (6,000′) towards Chattanooga for several miles before I turned back and did some aerobatics. It was enough that I could hardly lift my head up when I landed, my neck was so tired from holding my head up during the aerobatics because of the G’s I was pulling. I did wingovers all the way down from about 4,500′.

Well, yesterday I was driving to the bank and saw a guy who wasn’t hitch hiking, he looked like he was up to something, on a mission, walking on down the shoulder of the country road. I thought, if he’s still on this road on my way back from the bank, I’m giving him a ride, even though he’s not sticking his thumb out. I’ll just offer it.

He had made it a ways down the road by the time I was on my way back and stopped to ask him if he needed a ride some where. He looked relieved as it was already incredibly hot and humid and said, ‘yes please.’ It didn’t take but a few minutes to realize my hunch, that this guy was on a mission, was correct. Dan Lyons has been walking across the country since February for Locks of Love, which is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis (you can donate HERE).

Dan Lyons (photo by Lucas Ridley).

Dan is an incredible guy, he’s taking the longest way possible, it seems, across the country: diagonally starting from Washington state down to Florida, so he’s ‘almost’ done. I invited him to stay at my house last night and he was great company, a real inspiration, and got me thinking about a similar trip I’ve been brainstorming about for some time. He had plenty of stories! One thing he pressed upon me was, if you want something bad enough you can do it. Every one told him he couldn’t do this trip, it was crazy, but he said, “See you in August” and is on his way to accomplishing his goal despite people’s pessimism.

Dan is 56 years old, a retired school teacher, and has been doing the trip entirely solo. He did say he’s stayed and been invited into 31 homes since he started, and he tries to stay in a motel once a week to get a good nights sleep. He’ll start walking as early as 4:30am with his 30 lb backpack to beat the heat, and try and be done for the day before noon or 1pm. He started by doing 30 miles a day and said he’s only taken 3 days off from walking since February! When he left this morning he was going another 8 miles up the road to another hang glider pilots house who I connected him up, Claire, thanks Claire for keeping the chain going!

I asked him if he trained for the trip before he started and he replied “Nah, it’s just walking.” Ha! This guy is great and it was an honor to meet someone like him. He doesn’t have a blog but he tries to meet with local newspapers along the way to spread the word. He is doing this trip in honor of his daughter who passed away from breast cancer at the age of 17. He said she was always interested in traveling and they had even talked about doing a trip like this together when she got better, so he’s doing the trip by himself in her honor. You’re an inspiration Dan, keep it up, you’re almost there!

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Film/Animation

1. I really enjoy Patrick Bovin’s work, this one is no different.

For some reason the embedded video isn’t working, here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVYOCMpJRY

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Inspirational

1. I was introduced to what I think is the most famous street graffiti artist recently. I really enjoy all his work: Banksy.

2. This is being reblogged from Francesco Mugnai’s blog. I really love seeing photos like this that you just want to keep staring at them.

DENIS DARZACQ

IVO MAYR

JULIA FULLERTON-BATTEN

LI WEI

LISSY ELLE

NAM

ROMAIN LAURENT

MISS ANIELA

TOBY BURROWS

MOHAMMED AMINE NASSERI, MAGDA KLUKOWSKI

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Inspirational

1. Ok Go’s new music video, which they have become famous for with all their viral music videos. This one is no different and I think they did a great job. What I like about it so much is even though they did stop motion animation, which you would think would be you some room for error, and multiple takes, etc. but they crazy thing is they clearly had this thing choreographed just right and must have gotten most shots in the first take because when the camera follows the action (another well executed stop motion technique) you can see that the shadows aren’t moving very fast, which would indicated different takes. They pulled this off seamlessly, it’s so easy to mess up one little thing and then you have to start all over because you can’t allow for any little inconsistencies. The crowd scene at the end was a nice finish. Well done again.

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Funny

1. Head over to The Perry BIble Fellowship for some incredible and unique comic strips. They are pretty dark, but I enjoy his humor and graphic style. Below are some of my favorites.

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Film/Animation

1. Great behind the scenes on Toy Story 3 audio. I’m always fascinated by these glimpses into the big productions:

I’ve started to spin my glider, get a little more over the top on wingovers, and am really enjoying early morning speed runs very close to the treetops (watch my shadow in the video).

The video was made using my gorillapod on my keel with my Canon 7D, and another mount that I set up using a fisheye on my Canon HF100, see a picture of that mount on my other blog. I’m not too keen on fisheyes because they distort the image so much it makes trees that I’m inches away from look like they’re many feet away, so it’s hard to get a grasp on what is really happening when you watch things through a fisheye.

I will be moving soon so this may be my last hang gliding-related video for a while, hope you enjoy.

I just rotated this image from the video so you can see what it looks like if the horizon is oriented properly to my position.

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Inspirational

1. The guy from Police Academy movie, Michael Winslow, that did all those crazy sound effects recreates the aural history of the type-writter. One of the more wierd and cool things I’ve heard and seen in a while:

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Funny

1. This lady freaks out during a paragliding tandem, hilarious:

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Film/Animation

1. Funny animated short film mixing Mario and Pacman together:

So we decided to try for Mount Elbert which is the tallest mountain in Colorado at 14,433′. We spent the night close to the trailhead in the well established camping area of the San Isabel National Forest. We woke up early to start up the standard route, the Northeast Ridge.

It was beautiful hiking, up until we were postholing through snow near the treeline at 12,000′. It was really slow going through that area. Carson even resorted to ‘ninja rolling’ to get through the terrain, which means he looked like he was practicing the stop, drop, and roll. Punching through the snow with almost every step, up to your hip, was exhausting and felt like you were falling through a trap door every time because it happened so quickly.

The rest of the hike was gorgeous. We only saw two other people all day. On the way down I decided to try some glissading which you can see in the video was a ton of fun (and by my crazy laugh). I think it probably took about 9 hours of hiking roundtrip, including rests.

We also went and saw the Great Sand Dune National Park and we also headed over to Golden, CO and I got to check out the flying launch there, which is also named Lookout Mountain. Wish I had brought my gear for flying, next time I will. We also got to see JB Smoove in stand up in Denver, he’s probably most famous for THIS scene in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.

The crew with Elbert in the background

Follow the yellow br... I mean sign

Carson trying to get out of a posthole and Eric mocking him by walking away.

Just out of the treeline.

Carson.

Eric.

Summit.

Leaving the summit in our dust.

Shortly after this steeper section we started glissading

Watch your step.

BJ Herring climbing out.

Liftoff.

Great Sand Dunes National Park