Just cuz.

Of course for my first post I pick a lengthy documentary, but if you have time to sit back and watch this, you won’t be disappointed. William Klein is probably one of the most influential street photographers as well as one of the great early fashion photographers of the 20th century.  He’s one bad ass old man to boot….he does whatever he wants.  The stories this man must have!!!

Speaking of Bobby Simmons, shut up and click below to check out his Defgrip edit from 2011. Still one of my favorites ever.

Continue reading Print Ad: Cult →

We’re happy to announce that Chicago based photographer & rider Timothy Burkhart will be joining us here at Defgrip.

We happened to come in contact with Timothy one day, and one thing lead to another. We found that we had similar interests and bringing him on board worked out naturally. Timothy has been a fan of the site for some time, has a BFA in photography/studio art, is currently handling photo duties for The Bakery and carries too many cameras. He knows what we’re about and we look forward to having his posts in the mix.

Follow Timothy on Tumblr and  Instagram.

We posted our interview with Dennis Enarson.

I wanna hang with Jared Washington.

From Navaz:
The Animal team is by far one of my favorite teams to film and travel with, thanks to them I’ve been all over the world. We went to Buenos Aires, Argentina back in March to finish up filming for their upcoming QSS#5 video. In between clocking clips we did a few signings and rode street with hundreds of kids. The scene in Buenos Aires is one of a kind and we were lucky enough to be welcomed into it with enthusiasm. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to travel with the Animal crew, this video is a little taste of the hilarity and good times. Look for the best riding footage from the trip in QSS#5 team video parts.” -Ryan Navazio

QSS#5 features full parts from Tom White, Dave Belcher, Jared Washington, and Steven Hamilton. With appearances from the rest of the Animal squad. Watch it for free, online May 17, 2013.

New location, new setup, Andrew Brady is back in the mix. Feels like the Bakery of old. I Like. I also want a donut now.

Chad Kerley sets it off. Go HERE.

The DIG logo. Anyone who has eyeballed the magazine over the years is familiar with it. A chainring and interlocking hands; it’s pretty classic in my opinion.

Out of nowhere, I glanced at the logo one day (after looking at it for many many years) and all these questions popped into my head about it. What did I do next? You guessed it… harassed DIG Magazine’s Editor-in-Cheif Will Smyth about it.

Click below to learn about the history of the DIG logo.

Continue reading The History of The DIG Logo →

I always have a hard time posting about my self, but this is a project that I’m super proud of and very happy to finally be able to share it with everyone. Over a year ago I was at home browsing Netflix and I came across a documentary by Ken Burns about the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn’t have anything else to watch that night, so I threw it on and ended up getting super inspired.

I think the two main things that really got me thinking was that I ride/walk/drive over the bridge all the time and never really take the time to look around and really think about the bridge it self… and also that I grew up on the west coast (in Seattle) in such a new area that there wasn’t really anything that old, or historic… and the fact that I now live really close to this massive structure that was basically hand made in the 1800′s and I didn’t even really think twice about is kind of crazy. For everyone who lives outside of the states and is reading this… yes, I know you have buildings that you probably live in that were built in the 1300′s and that is just nuts… but back to the topic… Essentially, I watched a documentary about the Brooklyn Bridge, woke up the next day, grabbed my camera and went and shot a bunch of footage.

I didn’t really have a plan for what I was going to do with the footage, but a few weeks after I shot it, I ended up scanning through the clips and throwing a rough edit together. The first cut I used Pink Floyd’s “Cluster” and some voiceover’s from the Ken Burn’s doc… I ended up throwing it up on my Vimeo and sending it to a few people… I had done a project for Nowness before and they were one of the people I sent it to. They hit me back saying they loved it and really wanted to use it… But that I’d need to get clearance for the voiceover and music. This is where I got caught up and essentially had “writers block”. A few months had actually passed from the time I put it together and sent it to Nowness and by this time I was really attached to the piece in it’s current form. It was super hard for me to take it apart and figure out new music and a new voiceover…

Months went by and I kept trying different royalty free tracks and trying to figure out what I could do for a voiceover. I ended up working on a project with Fisher Steven’s who I got connected to through my friend Zach Sky and while we were at my place editing, I showed Fisher The Bridge piece… I told him how I was trying to figure out what to do with it and he offered to do the voiceover… Crazy. Now that I somehow ended up with an Oscar winner narrating my piece, I knew I needed to do something more than just finding some bad royalty free music. Luckily I grew up in a family of very talented people and happen to have a brother who’s an amazing musician. I sent him the video and he wrote an original track that he recorded with his band Song Sparrow Research and I finally had all the pieces in place.

The film went online this past Monday and I couldn’t be more blown away by the amount of great response I gotten. Huge thank you to everyone who’s watched it and even bigger thank you to everyone who help me in any way.