Author: Prashant Gopal

24 Sep

Posted at 08:50h in archive by

fall photo contest

It’s autumn right now so what better reason to have a contest. The rules are simple, send us your best fall themed BMX photo before November 1st, 2013 and we will give one lucky winner an Embassy X MacNeil Pivotal seat of their choice from our private stock. Fall BMX photo is a broad theme that we will leave open to interpretation, and photos will be scored from our panel of judges. Images must be your own original material, a minimum of 700 pixels wide, and sent to northernembassy@gmail.com before November 1st in order to qualify (don’t just tag us on Instagram and expect to be entered). Get creative and start shooting!

16 Sep

Posted at 08:13h in archive by

This is one way to start your Monday morning. Autumn brings changes like the drop in temperature and colour of the leaves, and young groms from the skatepark to the streets it seems. Rayden Wickdrop filmed and edited this solid new video of Nathan Hines. That last move doe.

09 Sep

Posted at 09:03h in archive by

BG4130rtg

Calgary’s BMX Gallery 4130 wrapped up their Ride To Glory contest earlier this summer, and we finally got our act together to put together an announcement of the winning videos and challenges. If you aren’t familiar with it, you can read the event details here and a copy of the task sheet here. It sounds like the contest got a lot of riders and crews involved from across the country, and hopefully next year will be even bigger. Check out the breakdown of the top seven winners with their videos, and some of the contest challenges after the jump, and you can check out a lot of videos and photos from during the filming of the contest with the #bg4130r2g hashtag. Big thank you to BMX Gallery 4130 for putting on a fun contest like this and opening it up to riders all across the country.

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06 Sep

Posted at 09:28h in archive by

Ryan Antle sent over this trailer for the upcoming St. John’s scene video The Stranded Video, and I’m a sucker for a strong local scene production. This is the first full length video from their area since Hiatus in 2005, and it’s great to see such a range of ages and talent in this trailer alone. The video will be premiering at Turndown this fall and then online shortly after. We’ll post more details about the premiere party when we have them.

06 Sep

Posted at 09:07h in archive by

I will disclose that I was on this trip and did the bulk of the filming (aim your comments about shakey camera work towards me), but will say that the few days we spent on the road were extremely productive, frustrating, and fun. We were constantly avoiding the rain, spent a day at a shop jam at D-Structure (that video is coming soon), and spent just about an entire day at the hospital after Dillon Lloyd crashed hard on what was the scariest attempt that I have ever witnessed. Despite all of that, our crew of Greg Henry, Chris Silva, and Chijioke Okafo were incredibly motivated to ride just about anything and I had a blast cruising around Montreal again and showing spots in my hometown (Ottawa). We drove, we searched, we rode, we partied, and we swam. Everything that a good trip should have. You can find a few photos from the trip here too.

05 Sep

Posted at 08:41h in archive by

cardin-fiz-crop
Mike Fiz – tire slide

Mike Cardin is always producing quality images, and I usually figure that they are coming from one of his several film cameras. He has been posting a number of photos to Instagram lately that I assumed were scanned and cropped from negatives, but this past weekend I had seen him pulling out his iPhone on several occasions to get a quick digital shot too. He would then edit the photos directly on his phone and I was curious as to how he would achieve the desired results. To deny that Instagram and camera phone photos are not going to be effective would be dumb in 2013. I hit up Mike to ask what apps he prefers and what his general process is with making and sharing digital photos. Have a read.

I shoot with iPhone’s camera then use a few apps. Aviary (free), kind like Photoshop. Good to add sharpness, crop the format you want, etc. Then I use PicFX ($1.99) for filter/film emulation. And last I use Afterlight (free) to add white bands so my photos keep their format instead of a crappy square close up of the photo. Sounds kinda geeky, but I have a lot of fun shooting iPhone photos now.

Follow Mike on Instagram at @mikaelcardin, and you can follow us at @northernembassy.

04 Sep

Posted at 10:03h in archive by

If you can get over the voice over on the intro and the length, this edit from Toronto’s Micheal Baker is really good. At only 18 he rides a pretty wide selection of spots throughout the video. Also, when you have the co-sign of Chris Silva you know that you’re probably doing something right.