I really wanted to get a shot of the tire hitting the fisheye lens. I knew that would look cool but it was also pretty scary. I made a few attempts, I even tried bonking the lens on Chase’s tires while he was airing but I nearly knocked him off balance in the air so I pulled back from that. One day while shooting up in SF we went to this park in Palo Alto and I managed to get close with this shot.

That’s a photographer’s worst nightmare really, especially since this was my first time shooting the  BMX team. I’d been shooting their skate team for years and over time had become friends with John Povah, the BMX team manager. I’d corner him around the office and bug him to let me come out with him and the guys to shoot some photos. At the time I knew two things about the BMX world: one, what an actual bike was and two, it was gnarly, really gnarly. So one day John called and asked if I wanted to go to Austin to shoot the  team and a few weeks later, I was sitting in Aaron Ross’s living room watching Chase Hawk’s part in the Empire ‘Bad Idea’ video. Chase had just signed a contract and was about to join the  team and Aaron was laughing as he tried to explain how BMX worked to this idiot who was clearly in over his head. — I didn’t realize just how far in over my head until that first trip to Austin. I watched Tommy Dugan scale up a three-storey building and ride off two tiers of roofs to an overhead high drop. I was blowing every photo so I started reading Dig and watching videos instead. 

But still, I sucked. So eventually I swallowed my pride and straight up asked the dudes for help. It became like a bit of a joke with the crew, before each photo they’d almost explain what the trick was and when and where to shoot it. It felt pathetic, but in a weird way, it was also really fun. I just wanted to get one usable photo, ideally on the first attempt. After a while I stopped blowing it, Chase stopped making fun of me and towards the end I even managed to pull off a few shots on my own. -SM

ABOVE: I got to know Chase pretty well and one of my favorite pastimes over years of travelling together was proving him wrong. This spot in El Paso was covered in 10 inches of water and mud and Chase was saying how bad he wanted to ride it. I said we’d clean it out if he promised to ride it and he laughed and agreed. So me, Mike Manzoori and John Povah spent six hours completely cleaning this ditch. And Chase always made good on his promises.