How has your day-to-day work schedule changed since Ride went online?
When I first started working for Ride full time in 2001, my title was Associate Editor and my job consisted of shooting photos, writing articles, conducting interviews, and generally producing content and coming up with ideas for RideBMX magazine. That was pretty much all I did for the first few years, along with occasionally contributing some work to “the site”—typically in the form of a photo gallery or an archive piece. Nowadays, most of my days are spent editing footage, filming, shooting photos, blogging, and the obligatory feeding of the insatiable social media monster. When I go on trips I’m usually lucky enough to still focus on shooting photos for the most part, with all of those other things mixed in there as well. As for when I’m home, I still make an effort to get out and shoot photos as much as possible. Even though the “need” for photos in the BMX industry has diminished quite a bit—and so have my preferred mediums to display them—shooting BMX photos (and riding) are still my favorite things to do—hands down.
Do you have to hustle for more work outside of what you do with Ride?
Yes, I do, but I think the hustle is just part of being a photographer. I’m actually a full time salaried employee at Ride, so thankfully I don’t have to hustle check to check, but Southern California is an insanely expensive place to live and I have a wife and daughter to support, so I’m always trying to bring in more money whenever I can. As long is it doesn’t interfere or conflict with my Ride work, I’ll take any opportunity that comes my way. Within BMX, I work for a lot of brands shooting action stuff, products, complete bikes, and some commercial stuff as well. I’ve also been moonlighting as a wedding photographer for the past few years. When I was younger I never would’ve imagined I’d be shooting weddings, but ultimately, I’m still shooting photos, and even though the subject matter isn’t as exciting to me as BMX, I still feel like I can express myself with my own style while documenting a wedding, and I think that’s pretty cool.