Scenic Route Fuel TV

Last November (2008) Steve Olpin and Tim Irwin (Solpin Films) and myself went on a week long road trip all over southern Utah and then up to Northern California. The purpose? Filming a commercial for fuel TV. Awesome. I was way stoked to go and had an amazing time. Steve and Tim rule, they taught me so much on that trip, especially about photography. It was work though, seriously. They had me pushing uphill on the chunkiest ground you've ever rode on... -over and over and over again to get the right shot. Haha it was awesome, I got to skate through the most epic scenery in the west, 4 or 5 national parks in Southern Utah, dense fog in the hills above San Francisco (Muir Forest), all over the Pacific Coast Highway (Big Sur, Pt Reyes), the salt flats, and tons of other amazing places like Battle Mountain NV (hahaha). Steve sent me link to the final cut of the commercial So I'm posting it. I don't know the real legit way of posting stuff I'm still learning...

scenic route fuel tv from oi documentary services on Vimeo.

Here are some highlights from the trip. Steve can ride in a headstand better than anyone I've ever seen. The b&w shots are scanned negatives and the color ones Steve shot. The scans are super low res because I didn't know how at the time.

Hung out by the ocean and learned about camera stuff.

Checked out some salt.

Got some awesome street tacos in Wendover.

And these are some of the first prints I ever made. And they are terrible. I made a darkroom, poured some chemicals and started playing around. I eventually called Sam Milianta for advice because the stop bath was hissing at me and all my prints were yellow. Yeah... Apparently you are supposed to dilute the chemicals... Haha lesson learned. I'm still bad in the darkroom but I know basics at least. This isn't my finest work. Except the shot of the skateboard in the road. I'm especially proud of it because i learned how to burn and dodge from this negative. Thanks to everyone who has helped me learn. Still have far to go.

Tim takes photos of bugs. And he's good at it. He wins awards and stuff. I think Steve took this one though. We saw it walking across some highway so we had to turn around and chase it. Just another one of the fun adventures we had on this trip.

Thanks Steve and Tim!