Larry showed us the “counter fit” markets. They were filled with knock off: watches, glasses, bags, and clothes. Skylar does his best german rocket scientist pose. SCIENCE!

After the markets we all jumped into Tuk Tuk like three wheeled motorcycle carts and raced off to Westlake. The cultural area that surrounds the lake. Its known for its pagodas and temples. About time to get some culture in the mix after all that racing.

Through the trees and fog was a wonderful sight.

A fully rebuilt Pagoda. Check out that lightning rod of a roof. Amazing.

Monastery across the way from the pagoda.

Old meets new. The fog makes this shot.

The roof of the pagoda was gold and immaculately detailed.

Small pond and garden outside of the pagoda.

By the end of the 6 days in China, we were all running on empty. Here Skylar and Linhbergh wait to check in for our flight back to Los Angeles. China, what a trip.

Until New Zealand, up next.

- Will

Our hotel was within walking distance to the stadium. It made the morning commute easy for World Drift Series and it also made our world in China very small. Unless you wanted to grab a taxi the few blocks around the hotel was the world’s map of the day. Up the street, was a small park on a hill side – which we ventured to on the 2nd or 3rd day. Filled with a bamboo forest and a cave.

I really like asian architecture. Seeing a pagoda later in the week really made me excited. The architecture has so much character.

This path led to the entrance to the park and the stairs up through the forest.

Trees. There was a security camera right above this sign – which was an excellent theft prevention device.

When you don’t know the meaning of the characters in a foreign language – you tend to study the typography and composition instead. I really dig these previous two photos.

Andy gets down on some McCafe. Which became a the morning habit in Hangzhou, China. Much better than in the US.

Linhbergh takes a break from shooting qualifying to enjoy the spectacle. Danger.

The roof of the Yellow Dragon Stadium.

Andy and Jacob chill underneath the cat walk we were exploring earlier. Way up there.

In Part III. We adventure into the knock off markets and Westlake.

January was a busy month for me, however so was last January – when I did the same thing: Dubai 24 hour race & the Sundance film festival. As someone who goes from project to project this type of routine is uncommon – but welcomed. Team Need for Speed, which I was following in Dubai won the race. Sundance, did a record number of live streams including a partnered stream with YouTube for the Life In a Day premiere. It felt awesome to be a part of two successful teams. I even got to spend a day shredding some Utah pow pow at the Sundance resort – thanks to Joe!

After snapping the tail on my longtime snowboard, a 2008 Burton Custom 158, I picked up a new Rome Agent Rocker 153. It rides like a beast. I was hesitant about switching from traditional camber to rocker camber, however this board has made me a believer. Small turns, big carves, and high speed bombs without jitter – it does it all, better than traditional.

I ordered a copy of Justin Shreeve’s 2010 DVD, which showed up with a funny label. Thanks Justin! Get a copy and support him.

I spent some time recently in Vancouver with some pea coat wearing ARTPANTs shooting photographers: Linhbergh and Larry Chen. 2011 should be an even better year for automotive photography – thanks to these two.

We got some “good stuff?” and explored Stanley Park’s closed miniature railroad. Should be releasing some new videos in the next few weeks, until then… Keep the Wheels Rolling.

Stayed in San Francisco for an extra day after Formula Drift. Explored the city and show off some of my favorite places in the city. The Golden Gate bridge was a morning stop, as the previous trips across it was covered in thick San Francisco fog.

Check out ARTPANTS, my 365 photo blog for images from the trip over the next week.

- Will

JOB, Jumping On Beds in London, England. Photos by Linhbergh. Added a pillow into the mix to do some snow & skate tricks. This was my first time doing a proper Jumping On Beds shoot in a few months.

Sundance increasingly becomes more and more like summer camp each year. This could be because of all of the fun people that surround you and all the different activities happening at once. It might also be because its a break from reality. It’s a festival dedicated to the unique voice, the untold story, and the artist.

The last few days of the festival, we experienced power problems and were forced to move to festival headquarters in order to keep editing.

Icicles get to a point where they aren’t cute and decorative, but legitimate menacing killers.

They are not as scary as this face. Mid-edit face.

Calvin from the Sundance Insider team whipped up this Bacon explosion – sausage wrapped in a woven blanket of bacon – topped with BBQ sauce. Legendary.

Brandon Joseph Baker, showed off his bartender skills and made some tasty bloody marys. The left-over feast Saturday and Sunday nights at Sundance is quite a scene. Dave Drusky and I made pizza, omelets, sandwiches, and soup for our feast. Note for 2011 – one person buy peanut butter.

2009-2010 Snowboard season, count = 7 days. Got to double that amount.

Less than 24 hours from the first official day of the Sundance Film Festival and the snow is still coming down. This is my third year working at the festival. Which makes me feel more relaxed and comfortable with the event. Plus that I have more great Sundance friends than the previous years. The light at the end of the Sundance tunnel is two days of snowboarding in Utah powder.

I’m stoked. Here are some images from around Park City and day 0 of the festival.

Our offices are in the same place as last year – which is the silver star lift base of the Park City Mountain Resort. Silver star used to be a silver mine.

Look familiar?

Because the sky is blue… because I LOVE clouds.

Banksy is in town. Dropping some new pieces.

Fire hydrant knuckle deep in the pow pow gnar gnar.

Joe producing and locking down a location for a future shoot.

Stay posted for Day #1

January 2010, the Dubai 24H race brought me to the UAE. To document the Need For Speed team’s 997 GT III cup car with the Speedhunters team. Dubai is an juxtaposition of eastern and western cultures. As a center of tourism, Dubai is a playground for western tourists. While also being rooted in its arabic traditions.

Half completed buildings are everywhere. This view was from outside of my hotel window.

Getting to Dubai was a mess, I flew through London Heathrow. London does not know how to deal with a little bit of snow. The inch of snow delayed my flight to Dubai by half a day.

The race was held at the Dubai Autodrome. Which was still under construction in parts.

The Petronas BMW Z4′s laid down impressive lap times all weekend.

The Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world. Directly located across from the Address hotel – where we stayed.

Looks similar to a spaceship huh?

The view from the top of the Burj Khalifa.

Did I mention that the world’s largest fountain show is underneath the Burj Khalifa.

I also happened to find the world famous Wendy of the Dave Thomas fame. She was rocking the picked out look.

Good times in Dubai. Stay posted for my edit from the Dubai 24H race.

Down the bike path from me is Playa Del Rey. Playa Del Rey is situated on the beach just north of LAX. Its a chill and relaxed little town. Dive bars and coffee shops. Plus a washed up sail boat that is now fenced off with snow fence – like a monument or tombstone to the tides.

I brought my pin hole camera and Panasonic LX2 to snap a few photos of the boat. The LX2 is great for wide images with its native 16×9 sensor.

Easy does it.

As a Christmas present, my sister Lindy gave me a Pin Hole camera kit. The kit includes a home made camera photography book and the pieces to assemble your own 35mm pin hole camera. Using the heavy paper, dowel rods, pre punched pin holes, and take up canister – you can build your own pin hole camera like min pictured above. The shutter and view finder are one piece that you manually lift to take an image. Then advance the film and repeat. Exposure times vary based on the available light. My experience has been 1-2 seconds for direct sunlight and daylight. Increasing all the way to a few minutes for night time and tungsten indoor lighting.

Keeping the pin hole camera steady is important. A nice feature of the kit is an included tripod mount. With 5 minute long exposures this is a must.

Here are some images from the pin hole camera taken with Kodak 200.

Thanks Lindy!

I’ll admit, most of the work I do allows me to travel. In the past couple of years, I’ve been able to visit some amazing places with jobs. When my schedule started to ease up towards the end of 2009 I decided to take a break, and… gasp, go on a vacation.

My friend Katie proved to be a good adventure buddy and we decided to travel to Costa Rica for 6 days.

Prior to departing, I got food poisoning from El Tarasco – which was devastating. Not only because I was puking my internals out, but because Tarasco is one of my favorite spots to grub. It felt like being cheated on… by a carne asada plate.

Our first flight got cancelled and pushed back our travel plans by 12 hours.

Once we finally made it to San Jose, Costa Rica, we stayed at the Adventure Inn – which was a great place to stay. The staff made it easy for us to pick up our rental car and get started on the trip to Jaco. This duck caught my eye at the park at the end of the street.

Hotel Canciones Del Mar was right on Jaco Beach.

Rental Car – Suzuki Alto, as the Japanese call it – a Kei car. Little car.

Ricing out cars is still big in Costa Rica. Like this Sentra with 16 inch wheels and a muffler. Made me laugh.

Heavy duty Street Fighter style fiberglass wing on an Eclipse in Jaco, Costa Rica.

The chef from a local bar and grill catches up with a friend.

Complimentary colors, green wall and red dress – make for a cool shot. My travel buddy Katie ponders what to order for dinner.

End of day #1.

A Day with Will is the post category that came out of ‘A Day in the Life of…” challenge. Which was a single day photo exchange between myself and KD almost a year ago. It has since evolved into being a day in my life. Any day that I pick and have my camera around to document with photography. This post is a preview of my trip to Costa Rica. I’m going to cut the characters and let the pixels do the talking.

Dropping in on some Jaco mush. Photo by Katie DeWolfe.

Until the end of the trip.

Moo Goo Gai Pan week 2009. The week when Brian Steele and Jason Buckley are the same age for the year. Better known as the week between their respective birthdays. This year, a bunch of us went to Ocean Seafood in LA’s Chinatown. I brought the 7D and my 50mm f1.4 to document the celebration. Here is a day with me…Moo Goo Gai Pan week style.

Happy Birthday B-Steele! Cleaned out Ocean Seafood.

Linhbergh and I had been talking about doing a 365 photo challenge for a couple of months now.

What is a 365 photo challenge? Its simple, take a photograph a day – for an entire year.

ARTPANTS.com or RODCHONGSPANTS.com is that challenge blog site. Linhbergh and I will each post an image a day of our own shooting. By the end of the year – November 2010, we will have developed creatively and pushed ourselves to a new level. Currently, we are on the eighth day of the challenge.

We want viewer feedback and suggestions for daily themes and inspirations. Subjects, topics, themes, styles, photographers, or images to emulate.

So whatcha want?

The Scion Gallery on Helms Ave, Culver City. Not to be mistaken for the Helms Bakery off Venice. Different spot. Both hip, in their own respect.

As a pre-SEMA show, Scion displayed a few of it’s project cars at the Scion Gallery. Scion really has a good sense of whats good. The Kogi truck has popped up at a few of their events, plus the venue being their own art gallery, and inviting some really fine folks to check out the latest builds.

Gotta love a Scion Xd – turned mobile Kogi truck. Suede seats? “I noticed that you’re a gangsta…I’m pretty gangsta myself” – Gangsta approved.

Cartel Racing’s Scion Tc – on 22′s with an insane motorized trunk that contains a clean speaker setup.

The scene outside by the Kogi truck. Was able to test out more than just the amazing short rib tacos – that I’ve come to love. Smashed some kimchi quesadillas and some short rib sliders. Verdict = you can’t go wrong with any Kogi menu item.

This piece in the Scion gallery really caught my attention. The strands of yarn are tied in the middle and connect on both ends to square mirrors. The gallery was a fitting backdrop for beuatifully designed SEMA show cars.

Nice work Scion! Can’t wait to see all of the cars at SEMA 2009.

Parting shot, good friends: left to right, Joey Redmond, Jason Small, and Peter Tarach.

This story starts in Richmond, Virginia and ends back in Los Angeles, California. It takes place in the places in between. The states along highway 80 ranging from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah. Then on to highway 15 through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California.

The places in between. The places like Lima, Ohio, where I saw this Ford Thunderbird camped out and waiting for its owner at a closed Ford dealership. A sign in its window with the owner’s phone number and name. California plates long expired on it’s bumper. Was it an omen? I picked up Joey Redmond in Lima, Ohio after driving down from Buffalo, New York. In Buffalo I met up with Dax and Elissa. Whom I had not seen since graduating from Bowling Green State University back in 2006.

Joey is a great road trip partner. He drives fast, travels frequently, and has good taste in music.

The car for the adventure is 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart Sportback. That is the longest name for an automobile I’ve heard in a while. All jokes aside, the Ralliart is a great platform. It has the same 4B11 motor and all wheel drive as the more expensive Lancer Evolution – with a smaller turbo and flex piping instead of hard innercooler piping. On WORKS motorsports dyna packs the lil blue shoe made 220hp. Not bad for dyna packs and all wheel drive.

Always representing Medium Monster – Ricky Chu and I’s production company.

When we hit Iowa, the temperatures were very low for October – close to freezing. The next day, we found that there was a dusting of snow on the ground. Word on the weather channel was that points ahead on our drive had recieved more snow.

Nebraska’s state police were a bit bored and decided to pull over us while Joey was behind the wheel. The officer ended up letting Joey shoot the radar gun and check out some of the equipment in his squad car.

On the second night, we made it to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Where there was already seven inches of snow.

The Ralliart’s AWC – Snow mode made it easier to drive in the icy conditions.

So did sunglasses. I let Joey borrow a pair I picked up on he trip – it really helped during the white outs. Check out the reflection of the road ahead and how white everything is around the car.

Taking a break in Wyoming -the amount of snow was impressive.

Descending into Laramie, the snow lightened up to a dusting again. The clouds were epic – white fluffy clouds pushing some of the dark storm clouds further east.

Utah.

Joey shooting some pics of the Ralliart off of an exit in California I-15.

Thanks BFGoodrich and Mitsubishi for giving me the chance to drive back from the east coast!

2009. This year, I’ve driven across the United States three times. Most recently from Buffalo, New York back to Los Angeles, California. The trip that landed me in Buffalo and back on the east coast was the BFGoorich Nation of GO tour. In June, I piloted an equipment van from Atlanta to Los Angeles for a film shoot that I worked on as a Camera Operator.

Why?

Because I love driving. The United States is a great country to drive across. It doesn’t matter if you spend 2 days or 20 days getting across it. Sea to shining sea, the US is a road trip friendly country. Our infastructure revolves around the highway system and in 2,500 miles you can see a lot of America.

For example, the image above is in a traffic jam as a result of sub-freezing temperatures, swirling white outs of snow, and over seven inches of snowfall that hit Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa at the beginning of October 2009. Days before, I was in 90+ degree heat in Austin, Texas. Followed by brisk fall nights in Cleveland, Ohio.

Here are a few of my favorite images from an upcoming post about my NY2LA (New York to Los Angeles) road trip. All shot with my trusty, Panasonic LX2 Point n Shoot.

Easter bunny blue skies and chocolate brown waters. The wind whips the surface of Lake Erie into a swirling pool out of Willy Wonka’s factory. Normally, the peaceful waters are an opaque green. Then the northern winds fetch over the calm freshwater and over mile and miles – create wind waves. The period between these waves is much shorter than the period between ocean waves. While the water being fresh, isn’t as buoyant as saltwater.

When you want to surf, none of that stuff matters, the waves matters. A wave can be a foot or twenty. You make the most with what you got and for 3 years after I learned to surf – I had Lake Erie.

When I come back to north east Ohio – I make a trip up to the lakeshore. To check out the waves. Especially if the winds are out of the north.

The first stop was the Columbia Street beach. Which I nicknamed the “rock beach”. Rock beach is great for skimboarding because it drops off rather quickly in depth and the waves tend to break right on the beach.

To get to the beach, you descend a couple sets of stairs. A path worn through fallen leaves – really caught my eye.

A small creek runs parallel to Columbia road and empties into the lake. Over a set of shale waterfalls.

After spotting these yellow leaves – I had to get a closer look.

From Columbia road it was onto Huntington Beach. Yes, Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach in Bay Village, Ohio.

Huntington Beach is a better surf break. The sand bottom and jetty help to build waves deeper into the water than Columbia Rd’s beach. If you are feeling lazy, you can jump off the jetty and be out right by the start of the break. Which is convenient. Huntington is at the base of a cliff, so part of the fun is hiking down the cliff face through a ravine to the beach.

Its days like these that I wish I had my fun shape in Cleveland instead of out in Los Angeles.

Virginia is a state filled with a fantastic amount of US history. During my time there, I drove around monument avenue and took in statues as they whizzed past. More importantly, I got to ride motorcycles – which is one of the most fantastic things – ever. While camped out South of Richmond, VA. Wrapping up the BFGoodrich Nation of GO tour I crashed with Eric – the writer from the tour and his family. They have a nice pad on a small lake.

The water was still and it made for some great reflections. Mirroring the changing leaves on the trees above.

Two hours northwest of Richmond is Harrisonburg, Virginia. Home of James Madison University and home of my friend Katie.

What’s up pups? Wet noses all around.

When Katie mentioned that there was a swimming hole nearby – I was immediately interested. October swimming, I’m down!

Hike in. Walking the dogs, lazy Saturday – just what I needed.

The source of the swimming hole is water running down from the mountains. It is pins in your pores and heavy breathing cold.

Then a ride down Skyline drive in the Shenandoah National park. Thanks Katie for the good times.

Next stop, Ohio.