The coldest I’ve ever been has to be…Wyoming. Prior to this most recent trip, wind chill and cold temperatures combined to make a few snowboarding trips – extremely brisk. However, Wyoming in December at 3am has to take the prize for the coldest I’ve experienced. -16 degrees will make you want to curl up and quit. When temperatures hit positive later in the day – it felt insanely warm!

This was my first trip to Jackson, WY and I really loved it. Compared to the mining towns of Colorado – Jackson had a very cowboy western feel. This motel, the four winds caught my eye as its the title of a Bright Eyes song I dig.

The town also has a thing for antlers which make up arches, lamps, and furniture randomly around Jackson.

We setup a time lapse inside of our rental car to capture this epic sunrise.

Having stayed two nights at the Rustic Inn, I highly recommend it! Awesome breakfast and friendly folks.

The Tetons are actually very grand.

Team Honey Badger, my sound recordist Justin has been through snow and cold with us in the past. Here we wait in between takes just inside of Yellowstone.

AHHH. REAL Mountains.

We then headed to Idaho.

Stanley, Idaho – not many people live there, but the ones that do are amazingly nice and make excellent food. Niceness and Yuminess per capita is high.

DC reps our Motel. Jerry’s Motel.

Friends of mine think the mountain roads are fun to drive in Southern California. The roads outside of Boise, are nothing short of a motorcyclist or driver’s dream. So many sweeping curves and switchbacks.

We ended up getting our last shots at sunset outside of Boise, Idaho.

Magic hour, get it right, get it tight.

Until next time. Keep em turning.

After leaving Tucumcari, New Mexico we headed further west to Albuquerque – home of the second longest tramway in the world. We rode the tram up to the top, which provided spectacular views of the state and city. We didn’t stay long because the winds at the top were blowing and it was very chilly.

These tubes marked different points on the horizon – the national laboratories, the city of Santa Fe, and the airport. We were there at a perfect time of day and the light was amazing – as the sun was setting to the west.

I had to hold Tailyr’s hair back from blowing around just to take this photo. We look cold!

The ride down was even more fun than the ascent. The tower in the foreground is the higher of the two towers. Underneath the tram car is a massive drop at this point over the last canyon before the top station.

The two tram cars pass at the mid point of the tram way. On the way down, I got a hold of my friend Dan who met us for dinner with his roommate Tyler.

All of us pose with Dan’s daily driver s13 and Westy. White kids.

Next day, we rolled into Arizona. Here is Westy at the Flinestones campground outside of the Grand Canyon.

“I DO DECLARE, this CANYON IS GRAND!”

Back on the highway, we played tag with a long train.

Until we pulled off for gas in one of my favorite Route 66 towns in California – Ludlow. It has a few abandoned buildings – a diner, gas station, and a few houses.

Westy takes a break under the canopy of an old gas station. I really like the decay and old hand painted signage.

The window frames of the nearby burnt out diner provide a good frame for Westy. After 6 days, 2,600+ miles, and lots of fun stops – we had made it back to California and Los Angeles.

Keep the wheels turning.

Chicago, Illinois November 2011. The leaves were golden and hanging on like the last warmth of summer on a fall afternoon. It was time to bring my 1974 Volkswagen Westfalia Van back out to California from the midwest. The van, known as Westy – short for the Westfalia camper conversion it sports, had been at my parents house since the end of Keep Drifting Fun’s road trip. Westy had been through two motors. The replacement motor had lasted for less than 2,000 miles – before total failure. The carburetors were missing adjustment screws and in need of a freshening up. Luckily, the van broke down in Minneapolis, Minnesota – the home of VW shop Further Performance. They set Westy up with new Weber Carbs and installed a new motor.

A criticism of modern cars is that they have no soul. Westy is all soul. The VW van is a toaster on wheels – tall and narrow. It drives like a truck, with the power of an overweight VW Beetle, and has all the quirks of a a hippie that has had one too many trips.

So if speed, safety, and comfort are none of your concerns – its the perfect road trip machine. It’s like turtle. It has a massive shell that can house all of its occupants comfortably. It can easily sleep 2, if not 4 adults who are willing to get close. It has a fold up table, plenty of storage, and originally came equipped with a stove, refrigerator, and sink. Westy has been modified with solar panels providing the van with power, a modern stereo system head unit, and new speakers.

My girfriend was adventurous enough to come with me on the cross country trek. From Chicago, we headed past St.Louis and the Arch. Chugging along at 55mph.

In the past few years, after criss crossing the United States at least 10 times – I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of Route 66. The interstate highway system is the worst way to see the US – its vanilla and all the same. Route 66 is the US at its best: entrepreneurial, unique, and filled with personality. Here is the World’s largest Rocking Chair outside of Cuba, Missouri.

Back onto the highway, we zipped past Tulsa, Oklahoma.

We wanted to stop off in Oklahoma City, to check out the bombing memorial and downtown area. Oklahoma was sleepy and quiet on a midweek afternoon.

The memorial was beautifully done and modern. It remembers all of those who were killed, injured, and survived the Oklahoma City Federal building bombings. The reflecting pool was low and shallow – book ended on both sides by arch walls that commemorate the time of the attack. It really made me think about how violence is pointless. Its awful to think about how many innocent people lost their lives because of a few men’s hate of the government.

Chairs commemorate those who were killed. The smaller chairs represent children.

After grabbing a couple cupcakes and coffees we were back on the road. The van’s speedometer is off at higher speeds – I used the GPS to help keep the speed in check. Cruising around at 55/60 is frightening when trucks fly past at 70/75 in the southwest.

Next spot for photos was Tucumcari, New Mexico. Another Route 66 stop bypassed by the modern highways. Check out the Westy Camper can in the mural!

Legendary mural. This is the second time I’ve stopped in Tucumcari to take photos by the town’s murals.

Until part two. Here is one for the road.

Rhys uses his hands to explain car positioning for a video we shot in New Zealand on his family’s property. We ended up mowing sections of the long grass down to make a golf course like setup for his rally car.

Some of the other residents were curious about our project. Rod Millen has a few sheep and cows on the property. They help to keep the property’s grass in check.

These rolling green hills were our set location for the day. Not a bad view in any direction.

Even downwards. The cliffs were not for those with a fear of heights! Doesn’t bother me, so it provided some awesome views.

Apparently, Disney’s the Chronicles of Narnia did some of their shooting on this outcropping for one of their films. I can imagine a castle or battle staged one one of those bluffs.

More than meets the eye, the bushes by the cliffs conceal several natural blowholes – sea arches that connect to the land side. The previous owners even build stairway to access the bottom of this one on the property.

Inland the property feels more like a farm. A ridge hides the ocean from sight and grassy fields fill your view.

That and awesome race machines – like Rod’s record setting Pikes Peak Toyota Celica and RX7 rally cars.

I’m happy with the picture quality from my Canon 300 HS. Great pocket sized point n shoot. Thanks Dad!

Until next time, keep the wheels turning.

After Formula Drift Irwindale, Rhys Millen asked me to travel to New Zealand to work on promotional content for the 2012 Leadfoot Festival. Having never been to NZ, I immediately re-arranged my schedule to make the trip down south work out. After a 14 hour flight, Rhys and I arrived back in his homeland. It was as beautiful as I’d heard, NZ is lush and green and the people are incredible. Rhys’ father, Rod Millen, has a stunning 160+ acre property along the coast – near Hahei Beach. Rod has built an incredibly challenging driveway (over 1 mile long) and is hosting his own hill climb & historic automobile festival on the property annually. Similar to the UK’s Goodwood Festival, the event takes place over three days and is nothing short of a race enthusiasts dream!

Rhys shipped his Global Rally Cross and X-Games car – the Hyundai Veloster down from the US for the media day event. Also parked out on the lawn is Rod’s Porsche Cayenne Rally SUV and his Pontiac Cheiftan station wagon.

One of the cars I had the pleasure of driving was this RHD Toyota Land Cruiser. The four speed was entertaining to drive around the bay to Hot Water Beach and is the perfect NZ ranch vehicle. I haven’t had the chance to drive a right hand drive car since visiting England last year. Always takes a minute to get the left hand used to shifting gears again – since all my manuals are LHD in the US.

Both Rod and Rhys have fond memories of growing up in New Zealand – there is something magical about the island. Its not the jet lag, that wakes you up in the morning yearning for adventure that you really can’t get anywhere else.

Plus it seems like the country hasn’t been lost on Facebook, the internet, and addicted to crappy television. There is so much to do outside and friendly people everywhere. We found cruising the Land Cruiser at 40MPH acceptable at all times (well below the posted maximum) and a rush to get nowhere. It was like a working vacation.

The final day in NZ, we fished at sunrise then surfed the break at Hot Water beach. There was a fun swell coming in and no one minded sharing the waves with the small 5 person (total) surfer crowd. This type of wave and crowd is unheard of in Southern California. This was on a weekend too! Thanks to Rhys, Rod, Shelly, Eddie, and Mike for their hospitality!

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.

Larry Chen asked me if I wanted to come to China to shoot the World Drift Series this year and at the time I was not sure if it would work with my schedule. When the end of October came around, Larry asked again and having just finished the Nissan social media project I was in need of a break – so I accepted his offer! After a 14 hour flight, I was in Asia for the first time and in the company of friends from Formula Drift.

Currently, I’ve traveled to 5/7 of the world’s continents. Which is astounding to me, because growing up I never imagined being a world traveler. Its something neat that has come with the many jobs I’ve done in the past 5 years!

China has not been as foreign to me as I expected – because I’m in the company of friends. English speaking friends who could make anywhere different feel familiar. Bicycles and scooters are easy means of transportation in the city.

Yellow Dragon stadium is an impressive place. Suspended between two towers. Its an unlikely place for a drift event as there is no pavement inside of the stadium. All of the asphalt had to be laid down over top of plywood.

More updates coming soon.

Linhbergh and I drove my 1995 Nissan 240sx across the US from Ohio to California – read about the trip and check out Linhbergh’s fine photography from the adventure on Speedhunters.

End of February, beginning of March 2011 and I found myself deep in a production on the east coast. Working with friends on a small crew, we shot 8 days in a row – for a client in Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Rig shots, chase cars, POV cameras, and plenty of interviews. Here is a quick behind the scenes look at some of my favorite images and still photos. It was an awesome project to direct/dp.

Vermont was still freezing and got hit by the largest March snow storm in state history while we were there. Check out all that pow.

Finally got to shoot some more rally. Tim ONeil’s driving school was prime with plenty of new Ford Fiesta rally cars. Nice sideways shot from the slalom course.

Everyone on our team was good behind the lens – here out DIT/DAT Colby takes a break from transferring and logging to snap some stills.

Wyatt Knox & Verena Mei, in-car screen grab from ONeil’s. Looks like fun in a FWD Rally Mazdaspeed 3.

Art director, Dave Spoonman Padgers explores the powder.

Sunrise in Burlington, Vermont over the green mountains.

Tag team partner DC Chavez is ready to operate, produce, rig, whatevers clever – he wears many hats and they all look good.

Car prep at Vermont Sports Car was neat to see production Subaru WRXs get transformed into Rally America machines.

Sound recordist guru of LA sound gypsies – Justin Gay leans back in VA. We were in search of some BBQ – which we found on the last night.

2011 Mustang rips through some leaves on a country road.

Excited to post up the final product in the next few weeks. Thanks to all the crew and agency homies who made the project fun. Thanks to cheese for the snaps of the crew. All other stills are screen grabs from the video itself.

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.

Steve Powers, the artist behind the Love Letter murals, speaks to a conference about the origins of the Love Letters mural project in West Philadelphia.

Had the pleasure of visiting SUMO Power in Rye, England this month and to shoot in their impressive facilities. Both R35 GT1 cars were present and about to be loaded up for a test session in Spain. Having seen the GTRs race around Silverstone, Paul Ricard, and Algarve – seeing them in the same garage bays as street cars was a trip. I have a hard time imagining one of these monsters driving down the street. Traveling Budai also got a closer look at the Rays One Lug GT1 wheels.

Thanks to Andy and James for their hospitality. Excited to share more information about my current project(s) as soon as they get declassified. :p Stay posted and there will be plenty more behind the scenes.

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

Its been almost a week since the 84th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and normalcy still escapes me. Waking for 4 days in a row, hours before dawn to ascend a 14 thousand foot mountain left quite an impression (as it did the year before). As the sun separated the horizon line and the lifeless gray shapes around me formed the spectacular landscape of Colorado Springs – I found myself wondering ‘ why did you sleep in all these years?’

I’m working on a follow up to 2009′s Climb Attack. New driver, new car, and same class – Time Attack 2WD. Its my hopes that the film leaves your mind with the same sense of wonder – that mine experiences being on the edge of Bottomless Pit.

Bonjour, from France. It will be strange to see Porsche 911 GT3 cars in their natural environment at Paul Ricard this weekend.

While in Philadelphia on Keep Drifting Fun, I went and explored West Philadelphia with Andy, Jacob Chills, and Linhbergh. I brought along my Canon 7D to do some ARTPANTS‘ing, but ended up shooting some video as well. When I downloaded the clips, I really liked their feel. Dark skies, off and on rain, really nice lighting to show off the Love Letter murals; so I cut them together with a new Roots track. The Roots – “Dear God 2.o” works well because it feature the Monsters of Folk who I am hooked on and the Roots who are Philly born musicians. It was important to me that the music add to the message of the art and not just be something to cut with or be a background to the image. The track adds another layer of meaning to the overall composition.

I was stunned when I did a quick search of YouTube and found little to no coverage or video of the Love Letter murals. They are significant and important pieces of art. They help to define and inspire a community with a rich heritage of hand illustrated graphical art. Hopefully, this edit will expose more people to Stephen Power’s murals – Love Letter For You. Enjoy!

On YouTube too

Happy birthday and Happy Father’s day Dad. This is for you.

Linhbergh and I rode the express to Paddington station and then hopped on the Underground to explore downtown London. We had a few hours to kill before our flight to Atlanta for Formula Drift. Linhbergh is a solid photographer and being able to travel around the city and take photos with him is a blast.

As part of Keep Drifting Fun, Hobo Herron and I have been growing out our beards since Long Beach. So this is about 2 and half weeks of beard’age for me.

So much bokeh, you would never know that I’m in Paddington station. London was chilly during the entire week I was there.

It also means that I can try out some of Linhbergh’s arsenal of Canon glass. Pristine “L” Glass. Running around the bank holiday deserted streets.

On the banks of the Thames by the London Eye.

Then we swung by NERO coffee for some breakfast outside of Big Ben and Westminster. Looking rather homeless on the steps.

Praying or getting a puddle reflection shot with my Canon 7D.

There is an indoor ski and snowboard hill inside the mall of the Emirates in Dubai. It’s incredibly cheezy. Fake snow in a gigantic refrigerator. I personally enjoy the snowmen and penguins – oh and the ski lift.

The Address Hotel in Dubai is a nice place to stay. Plus it looks like a gigantic future sail ship space craft.

This is a few moments after the fountain show at the Dubai Fountain.

On ARTPANTS, I posted  shot looking up from a different location at the Burj tower. Here is another angle.

Here is the view from the observation deck of the Burj tower. If you look in the lower left hand corner of the image you can see the undeveloped and construction areas around the tower. Dubai is still young.

Same view after the sunset.

That’s it, that’s all. Deuces Dubai.

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

Chris Adams shot and cut together this quickie edit from our recent trip to Bittersweet Ski Resort in Otsego, Michigan. I eat it on a small method grab within the first minute, but redeem myself with a clean gap over an iced tree. Thanks Chris for cutting this together. All shot on a Go Pro HD in 720/60p.

Mustaches, cherry doughnuts, and method grabs.