The first time I met Chonan – I got to take his photo with Mayhem, Hans, and Joey Beltran.

One of the most star struck and surreal times i’ve ever experienced in the MMA/UFC game was when Ryan Loco and I met up with Chonan in San Diego during the Strikeforce fight where Shinya Aoki fought Lyle Beerbohn. Loco and I became friends with Chonan-san while he was training with Mayhem at Mark Munoz’ Reign training center in Southern California.

Somehow, around the same time that I was playing around with new studio techniques, we managed to get the legendary Aoki-san in the studio, to shoot him in the new Jaco technical training shorts, but to also auction off a signed 1 of 1 Jaco Japan hat. Loco had the idea to get them to sign the hat and he set up an auction to benefit the Tsunami Relief program after the big earthquake off the coast of Japan in 2010.

(Dean stands in for a light test)

After the shoot we got to hang out with Aoki, Chonan and Dean for a bit at the studio and then went back to the hotel – turns out it was the same night that I met Rich Chou who was matchmaking and doing various executive things with Strikeforce. Anyway – after Loco and I said our good-byes, not 10 minutes after we left Aoki tweeted us…. and Loco and I both immediately saved that tweet in our twitter favorites. Aoki was a really quiet guy, but very cool and welcoming to us.

We later auctioned off the hat for about 560$ and sent it off. Not really a lot to contribute, but happy that we got the MMA community involved. Big up to Loco for getting that auction going.

Naturally, after the shoot wrapped up – knowing that Aoki was the biggest star that I got to shoot in a studio setting at the time. I hit up my very good bud Jeff Stevens, who makes movie posters for big Hollywood flicks. He put a great finish on the Aoki selects and I promptly put them up on my blog. Over the last 2.5 years, a guy used my shot to mock up a “PRIDE” Light Weight Grand Prix poster and won some accolades online.

Aoki seemed to dig it, too. He posted it up on his facebook.

Around the same time, Pete Ulatan did a pretty sick photoshop perspective with the Chonan and Aoki shot:

So after all this fun, the shot sort of took a little nap until I got a call from Bellator – It seems they wanted to use the shot to promote their fight with Eddie Alverez. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the message in time because I was out in Japan with Heavy and not paying any attention to my email.

I got a facebook message just the other day from Mr. Loco that my Aoki shot had resurfaced. Turns out that Metamoris – one of the worlds most elite grappling tournaments wanted to use the Aoki shot to make a billboard and to promote their marquee fight. I can’t wait to see how the billboard would look – It would be up in Los Angeles and only the 3rd time one of shots would be on a billboard. The event is on June 9th and should be one hell of a bout. My buddy Scott Hirano is actually the #1 photog for the press tour and fight week. So, here is the final poster promo that is everywhere. And again – Feeling so blessed to work with the Gracie’s and contribute to this movement.

Peep out the several bonus shots from the Triumph United party where we met Chonan.

I finally got to see the Virus clothing advertisement that I shot in print, and hooked up with the Ryan and Jeremy to get my hands on the .PDF from the final mock up.

Virus makes some really great technical training gear; I actually wear the long tights and their compression tops when I train. It might sound funny for a guy to wear tights, but they are awesome and the construction is badass; that said my go to set up for the summer will probably be the compression pants and a tank top. Lately I’ve been doing some intense kick boxing training with AJ Matthews from Blackline Gym. He fights with another big organization and is a really talented person and one of the coolest guys I’ve come across is a while.

Here are the other 2 print ads that Virus is running:

CLICK EM!

Do it, justly.

Shooting on location in Salvador, Bahia Brazil in October, I got this shot of Junior Dos Santos warming up as he was starting his training.

Hours before this I cracked my wisdom tooth eating a late breakfast and didn’t tell anyone. It got infected and I had to have an emergency 4 wisdom tooth extraction. The balance of opposites was in full effect that day.

Got to shoot with the guys over at the Mendes Brother’s Art of JiuJitsu academy late one night and my buddy Rich decided to make one of the shots into an advertisement for RVCA. What an honor! This is coming not but 5 days after Ryan Loco‘s shot of Vitor Belfort was put on a shirt for the brand.

Here’s a shot of the ad along with the some of my shots from the day.

Took a nice lil vacation to Jamaica with Lindsey last week. It was the first time in a long while that I got to kick back for more than 2 days without working. House on the beach, awesome weather and easy living.

I took along my Fuji X100S, Contax T3, GoPro Hero 3 and my trusty D3. All the shots here are from the Fuji – im getting a lot better with it as it’s the first non Nikon camera i’ve used outside of the Contax, which is a point and shoot film camera.

I recently picked up a sweet Contax T3 from Hans Molenkamp of Triumph United // Osiris; he was nice enough to lend it to me while I work on some fun projects. The goal was to try something new and try to see the world of photos in a different light. The Contax is a point and shoot film camera from the 80′s and is outfitted with a Carl Zeiss f2.8 lens. Im going to love shooting this and my Fuji X100s when it comes in.

I sent 3 rolls to The Dark Room in San Onofre  on March 13th and still have received my images – pretty bummed but im giving them a chance since Randy seems to love them.

Here’s a selection of images from LA, SD, and the close of our latest issue of UFC 360.

Got a chance to see the Stanley Kubrick display at LACMA – everyone I know has been posting about it on Instagram, so instead of flooding my feed, I figured it’d be better to do it here. The day shook out nicely – I met up with Josh Barnett early and convinced Jeff  Stevens to meet us there. After a quick lunch at a great spanish place, we got on the road to begin out journey. Before embarking into the museum itself, we grabbed a few old fashioned cocktails to grease our wheels; order a vodka tonic around Barnett and expect some heat… (Jeff!).

Sidenote – What I love about L.A: There’s a dirty, unexplored charm about the city. I don’t get to venture out enough and the range of buildings out there are seemingly limitless and unique. The hardest part is deciding where to start. The first stop will be one of those vintage marquees perched high.

Here are the shots from the Kubrick exhibit. Cueing up “2001: A Space Odyssey”

Going through my archives and prepping for my new photo portfolios means I’m going through every folder and sub folder looking for images that I can include into my new body of work. Everyday Loco and I bounce ideas off of each other, keeping things fresh and generally pushing to do new things. 2 days ago I asked Loco to guest edit some images that I came across. Here’s the result – a slight change of pace and a look at how his style looks with my images.

Number one was Chuck Liddell looking down, between takes when I shot him for his signature line with Headrush Clothing. I always liked this shot, and Im pumped I got a chance to come across it. Shot in LA in an alley.

Number two is a shot of Junior Dos Santos that I shot in Brazil for UFC Magazine- after a 2 hour training session, he sits exhausted, near a mirror sporting the boxing gym’s name overtop. Salvador, Bahia Brazil.

Number three is a shot of a rad photographer named Embry Rucker. Cool dude, cool look and I think he loves to mountain bike. That’s cool, too. I shot this during his photoshoot of Dan Henderson in Temecula, CA.

Chuck Liddell between takes.

Junior Dos Santos after a grueling 2 hour workout.

Dan Hendersons photoshoot, I take a portrait of a photographer.

While out in Salvador, Bahia Brazil on assignment for UFC Magazine, I got to meet some genuinely great guys who fight as a way of expressing themselves and living, with dreams to be a famous scrapper like their teammate Junior Dos Santos.

I usually don’t like taking photos of fighters acting like stereotypical ‘fighters’ – but with the language barrier, I figured the best approach would be to take some shots, let them think I was done shooting and wait for their buddies to make fun of them – and get them off guard. It worked – Subtle but happy its not the hands up deal everyone does.

I flew over 6,000 miles to shoot JDS but had to take some time out to get some shots of these characters.

What I love about them is that they all look and act so different from one another, but they all grew up just kilometers apart. The deadliest one of the bunch is rocking the glasses – and I dont mean the ones meant for dimming the sun.

We out here//Grindin’ (Shout out to Facebook for being a great archive)

There was a time a while ago that Ryan Loco, one of my very best and dearest friends never had the inclination to pick up a camera for anything more than a selfie shot in the mirror. But somewhere within him, and what turns out to be not too far from the core of him, is a very talented and introspective and gifted photographer. Ryan is willing to take risks, willing to fail and always dreaming up ideas to make beautiful images. I laugh when other photographers say, ‘Wow! Ryan, you’ve getting so good!’ as if to pat him on the back as if to say ‘great work, kiddo.’ I laugh because his work and commitment to what he does beat them 10 times out of 10.

This dude is doing and doing it better than just about anyone in the MMA world – or even within a sporting organization.

When he lived here in San Diego – we would adventure all of these great states on embark on curious photo explorations. We tried new things and learned a lot from our fun. Finding these old photos is a treat and it turns out it wasn’t all that long ago. We’ve come a good way, and have a long road ahead…. but the thing I think we both realize is that it is not about getting to any specific destination, but more the see the beauty in the things we find normal and to appreciate what happens along the way. While we are tirelessly critical of ourselves and each other; setting short term and long term goals – I know that we’ve got what it takes to know that we’ve only got one ride on this rock hurdling through space, and we intend on making the very best of it.

See ya when I see ya. And until then – check out of a few (select) shots that he’s snapped of your truly over the years with his trusty T4.