Ruben Alcantara

The name Ruben Alcantara is legendary in the BMX world.  He's always been innovative and original with his riding, and is a modest and all around good person.  He's had some bad back problems for the last five years that were being misdiagnosed  and have kept him off his bike for most of that time.  This video explains how his symptoms were finally diagnosed and he expresses in his own honest way how it feels to be able to do what he loves again - ride his bike.

The second part of the video also includes some of the riding style that originally gained him so much popularity in the BMX community.  Ruben is BMX.  Watching him ride again in this video is really inspiring.  No tricks or grinds.  Just flowing around fast with style.  Nothing feels the same.


Catching up with Ruben from joe rich on Vimeo.

Ol' dirty bastards

Derek Brower

Over labor day weekend the guys running the legendary BMX trails Catty Woods held a jam including some fun contests, a steady supply of grilled delicacies and a good turnout of riders and spectators.  It's really impressive how committed these guys are to these trails.  Each piece is like a work of art, carefully crafted and shaped to be both functionally superior and aesthetically admirable.  Hours upon hours of shovel time have went into building this empire in the woods.  They've also worked hard to make this spot a legitimate, insured place to ride that is known around the world as some of the best trails on the planet.

Click through after the jump for a few more shots from the day.  Other than a few mixups with photographers swapping Pocket Wizard channels, I felt very lucky to be there shooting.  I can't wait to go back.

The Last People

The online design/art/BMX magazine The Last People posted a feature with a few of my photos and some ramblings I wrote to go along with them.  Go check out the site and if you look at some of my photos while you're there then so be it.  They work hard on the site and have a lot of great, regularly updated content there.  It's worth a spot on your bookmarks list.

Construction Life

As a contrast to the Corporate Life series I posted the other day, here's a series from the other side of the tracks.  Thanks for looking.  More after the jump.

Corporate Life

I shot a lil' photo series recently.  Without including people in the images, I tried to photograph objects and settings that conveyed the feeling of working in a cubicle city.  I usually like shooting portraits or at least photos with a human element present, but I think these inanimate objects are so telling of the environment and the people within it that it's still almost a portrait of those people.

Enjoy.  Or don't.  Thanks for looking either way.  Have a good day.

PDN "Faces" contest

I was fortunate enough to be chosen as a finalist in Photo District News' annual "Faces" portrait contest in the Self Portrait category.  The photographers and the work submitted for PDN's contests is generally of such high caliber that I was really surprised and honored to be printed alongside those images(I sandbagged my way in with the Self Portrait entry; I would have had no shot against the editorial entries - amazing work).

The image to the left was the photo chosen.  More info and a list of all of the finalists can be found here.  PDN will post all of the winning entries online later this month and they can currently be seen in the July issue of the print magazine.

Sidewalk Studio

Last Saturday I wanted to shoot portraits. Well, I always want to shoot portraits. But, this time I had no one to shoot. I cherish a free Saturday, so I wanted to come up with something a little different. After some thinking I cut off a piece of seamless paper, grabbed my camera and headed out the door to Philadelphia. I stopped on a corner near the Italian Market that was in the shade and had some decent light coming in from one side. Wall. Tape. Paper.

I stood on that corner for about an hour with my camera in my hand and talked to people that walked by.

"Hi, I'm Ryan. I'm a photographer..."
"No."

"Hi, I'm Ryan. I'm a portrait photographer. May I take your photo?"
"Of me? No, thanks."

And then someone said yes. Then someone else. And another.