untouched.

this photo is from several years ago.  probably 3 if i had to guess.  oh, 2.5 according to the meta data.  i got a call from gary saying that he'd found a backhoe parked next to a ledge so that you could skate the front bucket and was instantly intrigued.  i'm trying to think back to the exact details, but i know matt ballard and i drove out to the spot and had to wait in the cold for what seemed like forever.  it was definitely cold, i remember that.  why we had to wait, i'm not quite sure.  either gary was late or ended up talking to his girlfriend on the phone for a long time or something.  either way, it was cold.

the spot was so damn photogenic, i knew there was no way that it wasn't going to be a good photo.  bright yellow backhoe, crazy background machinery, middle of the night, skateboarding on the front bucket...all things that should have made for a winning photograph.  then gary took his sweatshirt off and had a green shirt on...BINGO.  yellow backhoe, blue machinery, green shirt.  it was all coming together.

and then this photo came out.  i shot probably 20 photos of him doing the tailslide, further frustrating ballard because he wanted to film it fisheye and i wouldn't let him film it until i had the shot i wanted.  if you haven't picked it up by now, i'm trying to say that i blew the photo.  absolutely hate this one.  and the other 19 i shot too.  i couldn't even spruce it up in post, which says a great deal about how poorly shot the photo was.  so here's gary's ridiculously gnarly tailslide on the front bucket of a backhoe without a touch of color correction from the RAW file. 

think it wasn't gnarly?  think about your foot going over the back of the bucket.  think about how sharp the edges of those buckets are.  think about the fact that it was well below freezing and he's in a tee shirt.  trust me, it was gnarly.

gary hall.