(Brian Blyther by Jared)

Some interviews work out perfectly. For instance, I was really happy with the questions I came up with for Jared, even more happy with his in depth answers and additionally happy about all the great photos he sent through. I consider this interview a must-read for anyone interested in the future of BMX media or just BMX in general.

What’s your name, where are you from and how did you get into BMX?

Jared Souney. I grew up outside of Boston, and lived in New England until 1999 when I moved to California to work at Ride. These days I’m in Portland, Oregon. Previous to that I spent four years out in State College, PA shooting with all the dudes that live at and pass through Woodward. I’ve been in Portland for about a year.

I got into riding in 1983 or ’84 when a friend in the neighborhood got a bike and brought home some magazines. We lived in the next town over from Joe Johnson (who since became a legend). His whole crew of guys had ramps and were starting to get really good. It sort of just evolved from there. I went to an AFA Masters contest in Fitchburg, MA in 1985, and just never really stopped from there. Back then it was probably one of the most uncool things you could be doing (from an everyday kid’s standpoint) and it was totally against the norm… that’s what was great about it.

I kept riding and from that point on most of what I’ve done and have in my life is related to BMX. I’ve always ridden a bit of everything from flat to street to ramps. Growing up in the 80s, everyone did that and I always liked all the aspects, so whatever’s fun I’ll ride.

Probably the biggest role you have played in BMX history was your brief time spent working at Ride. Can you fill us in a little on how you got that job and why you chose to leave after a few years?

I got the job in 1999 when Ride was starting to change from bi-monthly to monthly. I was art directing a Boston fashion/lifestyle magazine at the time, and helping Kevin Robinson with his skatepark, Impact. Brian Tunney and I put out a small magazine/zine called Nine-ninety, and the Ride guys saw it and called me. I flew out to California and interviewed for the job and got it. Part of the deal was that I wasn’t going to be able to do Nine-ninety anymore, which was a bummer, partly because I was a designer but I was taking an editorial and photo position. But I always wanted to work at a BMX magazine, so I did it. It definitely helped me learn more about photography and for that I’m grateful.

(One of Jared’s most legendary cover shots from his time spent at Ride)

The main reason left was that it changed a lot, and wasn’t headed in a direction I agreed with. When I started at Ride I was the eighth or ninth employee. When I left there were probably 20 in our office. As things get bigger they can tend to get more restrictive. I felt like I didn’t have enough of a say in the direction of the magazine. In my opinion, magazines, and today websites are extensions of the people who make them, and if it wasn’t something I’d read, or liked, then there was no point in staying there. I butted heads a lot with some of the other people in the office on things I thought we should and shouldn’t do, and it just got to a point where I didn’t want my name on it as one of the editors. They had also recently converted the racing magazine, Snap, into Transworld BMX, which was essentially doing the same kind of stuff Ride was doing, plus racing. To me, it seemed ridiculous to do two magazines under the same roof that were essentially the same thing. Why not just make one really great magazine? More ad pages under one roof is why, but I wanted something different so I left.

How much photo work have you done in BMX since leaving Ride in 2001, are you still really active in BMX photography?

I shoot a lot of BMX. After leaving Ride I did a lot of stuff for Dig and Ride UK for several years, and was also the staff photographer for Etnies for several years… so from when I quit Ride in 2001 to sometime in 2003, I shot all their ads and catalogs, in addition to a lot of magazine editorial. I didn’t, however, shoot anything for Ride US again for four years after I quit. I’ve shot a lot of stuff for BMX Plus too since then, and just about every BMX magazine off and on. I shoot a lot of BMX ad photos, which is the only way you make money. I still shoot BMX regularly, and I’m on a trip to California shooting it right now. My stuff is pretty much all over the place from ads to BMX mags, to some of the more mainstream mags like ESPN the Magazine.

For two years I also helped John Parker out with a magazine called Sophisticated Rider. I had a lot of magazine experience, and he’s a good friend, so I helped him out with a concept he’d had for a while. The idea was to do something for an older audience, combining action sports stuff like motocross and skateboarding with BMX… I think all those things are cool in there own way. It definitely was NOT a BMX magazine, nor was it intended to be. It was a magazine about stuff we liked. Of course a lot of the “hardcore” kids talked shit on it, but it wasn’t for them. It wasn’t for profit. It was to make something we wanted. I had wanted to put a portrait on the cover of an action sports magazine for a while — similar to magazines like Details, Complex, etc. — and we did that with the Kevin Robinson cover. Some people thought it was silly… others loved it. But you know what? People remember that issue. People talked about it. If you don’t make people talk about something, what the fuck is the point? We were doing a magazine essentially out of our own pockets that we gave away to anyone who wanted it for free. We did seven issues and then put it on hiatus do to lack of time and energy to keep doing it quarterly. We did a lot of things with that magazine that I’m pretty happy with, and things I never would have been able to do with other magazines. I always thought if someone won’t let you do something, or you don’t like something, then do it the way you want to yourself. Kids can talk all the trash they want about the magazines or websites that are out there, but if you don’t like them, do your own thing. Make a magazine… or zine. Or a website. That is what BMX is all about anyway… doing your own thing. Anyway, that was fun to do for a bit.

(Jared at his studio… or at least a studio)

I know you’re a photographer/graphic designer, how did starting your own studio in Portland come about?

I had a studio space out of my house in Pennsylvania, but in 2007 I decided to move out of PA. I’ve always liked Portland, and knew enough people there that I thought I’d try it out for a while. When I got there I needed a place to work out of, so I was looking for studio space, and it happened that my friend was opening a bakery at the same time. There was a perfect space right above the bakery, so I jumped on it. I already had a lot of existing clients both design and photo wise… I just needed a place to work and create. At any given point I’m working with anything from paintings to photography to design, to screen printing. I need a place where I can plaster stuff on the walls, and the floor, and look at it. Where other people can collaborate as well.

I moved into that space in January of 2008 and it has worked out awesome. It’s literally inside the bakery and up a set of stairs. You know how people like to meet up at coffee shops? We’re inside one! It’s awesome. Basically we can handle design, photography and all sorts of marketing projects in house from the ground up. My background is in Graphic Design, and I wanted a space where I could do both design and photography and not be restricted. If I need to shoot something in a studio, it’s right there. If I need to drink coffee I walk down the stairs to Sweetpea Baking Co. It’s ideal. We’re pretty central in town to a lot of the Snowboard industry, skateparks, Goods BMX, etc. If our friends need a place to shoot stuff, we’ve got a space to do it. It’s a “commercial” studio that smells like cake all the time. It’s a place to get shit done.

How much of the work you do these days is related to BMX or other action sports?

Probably 80% is related to Action Sports. Of that 80% maybe 50% is strictly BMX. The rest is across the action sports board from Skateboarding to Motocross. I’ve shot photos for some of the skate mags and some of the moto mags. Woodward is one of my bigger clients. I do a lot of print design for them, and loads of other projects. Between all the things happening in the Woodward brand I stay pretty busy. We just shot some skate ads in the studio for Dakine. YoBeat.com, the snowboard site happens out of my studio and I help them out with a lot of graphic stuff, and general brainstorming. I do some web consulting for action sports event brands and shoot all the LG Action Sports Contests throughout the year. I shoot advertising stuff for BMX companies, and then some non-endemic brands like Amp Energy, Right Guard, and more. Then there’s magazine editorial stuff, so I do quite a bit of stuff in the Action Sports.

I’m really busy at the moment, and I like it that way.

(Snotty, shot by Jared)

Give me one good Snotty story.

I’ve heard several, but the best one that pertains directly to me is when he got my stolen bike back from a crack-head. Snotty works at Foyer, which is a BMX run clothing brand and screen printing shop that’s about two blocks from my office. One night I left my car parked outside the office over night with my bike in it. I realized in the middle of the night it wasn’t going to be there when I got there the next morning, as there is a park full of homeless people a few blocks away, and I’m sure they creep around there at night. I got there the next morning and my window was broken and the bike was gone.

I got a new one, but several weeks later Snotty calls me and he’s like “Yo, I think I found your bike.” He was in a park you don’t really go in, and there were a bunch of crackheads chillin’, one of which had a nicer bike than he should. I hear Snotty on the phone yelling “Yo, that’s my boy’s bike and I’m taking it back.” I was like “Dude, I’ve got a new one, so don’t get yourself hurt over it.” He yelled some shit back and forth — mind you he had one dude with him vs. an army of crackheads — and after some yelling he says he’ll call me back. About ten minutes later I get a call from Snotty, and he puts the crackhead on the phone to apologize for stealing my bike.

Basically, these were dudes you probably shouldn’t fuck with. Snotty got the bike back from the dudes. I pretty much said, “Well, you got it back, I just want the pedals, so you can have whatever you want otherwise.” So he rode that frame for a while.

Basically, I don’t think Snotty really gives a fuck.

What are your thoughts on the whole “print is dead” argument/discussion that seems to pop up online more and more lately? How does the BMX magazine business look from your perspective?

I love print magazines as much as anyone. I still buy a lot of them, but I think Action Sports magazines have been a bit slow to balance the web/print model. There is still the “it’s just for the web” mentality and that’s very old-world at this point. In my opinion, they need to be producing top-notch original content for the Internet. While they do some, the bulk of it is re-hashed, print magazine leftovers. Or stuff that wasn’t “good enough for print.” That’s a very 90s way of thinking.

The print magaziners argue that their websites aren’t profitable. Of course they aren’t. B-grade content and advertising packages that are coupled with the print magazines aren’t going to produce an online profit. They take the approach of “If you advertise with us we’ll put your ad on the web site too.”

The other print argument against web content is that once it’s off the main page of a site it falls into oblivion. That’s a sign of under-using the ability to link back to old stories, and promote old content. If you have a story that mentions “Rider X” and you previously profiled “Rider X” six months ago, hyperlink to that interview. It reinvigorates that content. Web content doesn’t just disappear. I started doing my web site in 1999 and everything I’ve posted is still on there. It comes up in searches and I often refer back to it.

Magazines that are doing well right now are doing a good job of balancing online content with print content. Nylon is a good example of one that I think bridged the gap nicely. The website can’t be a magazine waste bin. Action Sports print magazines should have the best web content in their sports hands down. They have all the resources behind them. Yet that’s not the case.

(Anthony Napolitan by Jared)

I want print magazines to live. I love seeing my photos in print and I love designing for print. But magazines full of three-months-old news aren’t going to fly. If it were my decision, I’d cut back to four or six print mags a year filled with timeless feature content. Not flavor of the week shit, or news that is already out of date. Four good issues that I will want to hold onto forever, then take the rest of the resources and focus them online. Transworld Skateboarding, Ride, Transworld Snowboarding etc. should be hands down the online content leaders, in addition to a print mag. Instead they just “also have a web site.”

I’m not trying to hate on those guys… making a magazine is fucking hard work and so is doing a web site. But things are changing and some things need to evolve. Essentially they’re following the same model as when I quit eight years ago. Does it still work? Sort of. Will it always work? No. I would love to see those guys kick ass and totally change the game for all of us. In 2009, if you’re not evolving what you do on a very regular basis, you better start rethinking your strategy.

For all these reasons I’ve been experimenting more lately with posting a lot of my “good stuff” on my on personal web site. Looking at traffic patterns, and how many people are looking at the images. I can post stuff I like and anyone can see it, often the day I shoot it. I do like seeing my images in print, and for that reason I might just keep doing this and then put out my own print piece once a year or so just for fun. I’m still toying with that concept. We’ll see. The world changes daily now. It’s awesome.

I wrote something a while back about how more and more companies seem to be doing all their advertising on their own in the form of DVDs, web videos, interviews on their website, etc as opposed to print or web advertising. Why do you think that’s become so common? People always point towards skateboarding and note how most skate companies still advertise in print, but it seems like a much smaller percentage do so in BMX.

As progressive as these sports tend to be, they’re often very set in their ways. There’s not a whole lot of risk taking. It really takes someone to take a leap, and occasionally people will follow. These sports have been so driven and influenced by print over the years, it’s tough to break away from that. And that’s not saying they should break away from it entirely, but it’s taken a lot for people running the brands to see the value of new media. Now that they’re catching on, they’re seeing the potential. There’s so much opportunity in new media. You can reach more people, more quickly. Brands can even target specific regions through geo-targeting, so if they’re doing a tour to Florida, they can show their advertisements to only users in Florida.
Part of what’s taken so long is general education. Many of the agencies and media outlets have been slow to educate the brands on exactly what’s possible, mostly because they’re so print driven. Here in my office, we try to educate the brands we work with about what the possibilities online are. I had some head-butting with Brad McDonald when I worked at Ride, but I think he and Todd Toth at Vital were for a while the only ones in the industry actually educating brands on the possibilities with online advertising. They ran rich media ads before anyone else, and they instituted a number of “sponsored by” content. If people don’t understand what’s possible, they’re just going to keep doing what works.

Skateboarding has definitely caught on too… I mean, look at what Steve Berra and Eric Koston are doing with the Berrics. In a few months that site has grown into a site that’s getting more traffic than anyone else in skateboarding. And brands have taken notice. They went from no real advertising aside from DVS (who Berra skates for) to monetizing the shit out of that thing. If nothing else they’ve proven what quality original content can do: drive viewers, and advertisers like that. I think part of the reason there are more brands in skate doing traditional advertising is simply related to scale. Skateboarding is infinitely larger than BMX as an industry… there are just so many more brands. So when twenty brands pull out of a 100 page BMX print mag, you’re going to notice it a whole lot more than if 20 brands pull out of a 200 page skate mag.
Online advertising is a different beast than print. With print you stop and go “Holy shit, look at that epic photo. Oh, that’s an Etnies ad.” Online you’ve got a bunch of stuff flashing at you, and it’s incredibly easy to look past all those ads. As a brand you want people to do more than see your ad, you want them to interact with it. Click on it. Remember it. So you have much more of a challenge than you did with print. That’s where creativity comes into play. Engaging the viewer with something to remember. There are so many ways to do that now, and it goes way beyond banner ads. Whether it’s online video exclusives, or blogging daily, content that gets noticed has the ability to put brands over the top as much as advertising. An epic video is going to get linked around everywhere, and that’s generating brand recognition. Print doesn’t have that.

For videographers, even though there are less DVDs being made and the DVDs that are made sell less, it seems like they have been able to replace that lost income by finding more work filming web content. But that doesn’t really exist for photographers, as there are almost no outlets for a photographer to get paid for BMX photos. Are BMX photographers becoming an anachronism?

There are still viable options for photographers out there. Print as a whole is alive. Products get packaged, posters get produced, billboards are everywhere, point of purchase displays are in every store. Printed pieces are still there. Editorial has certainly changed dramatically. But the market has definitely changed. Photographers just need to grow with it.

It’s not just BMX. It’s everything really. Would I recommend someone go to school to be a BMX photographer? No. There are still outlets to get photos used, but there are a lot of people doing it and the licensing options to really make money are thinner and thinner.

Things have changed for a lot of people, not just photographers. The fact that DVD’s are disappearing in favor of online distribution is changing the way filmmakers are compensated. Music distribution has changed completely. It’s all changing.

(Jamie Bestwick by Jared)

I still do some pretty big licensing deals from BMX photos, but almost all of it is non-endemics… the Mountain Dew’s, the Right Guards, the Target’s. And to get those deals you’ve got to be shooting kick ass stuff of the big names… riders that are sponsored by the brands. So the money I do make is general from that type of stuff. That’s always been were the real money is anyway. If you’re smart about who you’re working with, and the ownership of your images, you can still make some money.

I think photographers that don’t evolve are going to see problems. There are still plenty of needs for photos, but the needs are changing. We’re in an age where anyone marketing a product has to be creative about it. So photographers need be more creative as well. Maybe that means diversifying what you do. Video/film is an extension of the photographic eye. I definitely think it’s important for photographers to understand video. Images don’t have to be static.

I guess I stand in a bit of a different place as I never looked at myself as a “photographer.” I was a graphic designer first, and I learned photography out of my love for design and producing things. Out of all that grew working with brands on other creative levels. If I was strictly a photographer, I’d be concerned but photography for me has always been more of a creative extension than a planned career direction.

Why do you Twitter? One of the main reasons I’m stoked on it is because it lets me keep tabs easily on someone like you that I’ve always known about, but probably never would have thought to interview if I didn’t see your Tweets every day.

Twitter is just one of the new tools we have that changes the game of everything from content delivery to marketing to social interaction. Since I started using Twitter last year my Internet patterns have changed completely. I get a lot of my news that way, now. It’s great for the simple reason that it’s immediate. I’ve met contacts through Twitter, reconnected with others, and been contacted by both design and photo clients as a result of work I’ve posted on there.

SXSW has been going on, and despite the fact that I’m not there, I’ve gotten so much of what’s happening, as it’s happening, all through some of the people I follow on Twitter. When the plane crashed in the Hudson River recently, the info was on Twitter almost as soon as it hit the water. Twitter hasn’t quite replaced my RSS reader yet for web content, but I definitely do a very large percentage of my web surfing off of Twitter links these days. A lot of people have called Twitter the new Google. I’m not sure about that, but it’s an awesome tool.

I post photos on there and often some “stuff I should be saving for magazines.” But Twitter is immediate. And anyone can see it. I can drive people to things I post on my own site, or things I’ve seen that I liked. It’s much more than a “what are you doing this minute” machine.

One good example of how I use it is while I was at the old school BMX jam this weekend I was curious what was happening with some of my friends at the Tampa Pro Skate contests. The Skateboard Mag and a few others were literally posting play by play of what was going down to Twitter. It was like I was there, from my cell phone, while I was shooting photos of Wilkerson. Incredible, really. I don’t want to know what happened three days from now, I want to know now. Getting the whole story on the web site takes a bit of time and prep, but getting some tidbits out in 140 characters is instant. You aren’t ruining the surprise as print guys will tell you, you perpetuating the anticipation of seeing the photos in print or online if done correctly.

By this time next year from a technology standpoint Twitter could well be left in the dust by something new and more convenient. It happens to everything that doesn’t evolve daily now. But I think it’s important for someone doing the kind of work I do with brands to be on top of where things are going, not where they currently stand. Technology like Twitter is leading us to new places.

You seem pretty forward thinking in regards to technology in BMX, especially as someone who has made a living primarily from “old media”. Do you think BMX is too stubborn and anti-progress in general? I’ve always felt that that attitude, for better or for worse was a pretty consistent characteristic of BMX.

While I definitely like some things about old-media, a hefty percentage of the work I do lately is new media based. Whether it’s my personal site, consulting, design, or producing content. I started playing with building web sites back in 1993, and I started doing my personal web site in 1999. I’ve never considered myself strictly a photographer or strictly a designer, and though I like traditional process, I’ve always thought it was pretty important to be ahead of what’s happening and be a forward thinker. As I designer I work heavily in print, mostly because I really like the printing process and the tactile result, but I also do quite a bit of online work. I also do quite a bit of online content production as a photographer and writer, and even do some video.
I don’t resent the new stuff like many people. I respect the fact that there are always new mediums to work with and I think it’s just a new place to be creative. As far as I’m concerned as a creative person I should be able to adapt to whatever medium a project requires. As a designer, and producer of content and ideas, I definitely see a lot of shift to online media, and it makes perfect sense. I encourage clients in that direction.

From an editorial standpoint, probably 5% of my income since I left Ride has been from BMX editorial, so that doesn’t concern me too much. The print advertising side of photography has changed a bit, but like I said before there are still uses for photographs outside of magazine advertising and editorial. That being said, I’m glad I’m not “exclusively” a photographer. I’ve always been a don’t put all your eggs in one basket type person. I’m not content with only being good at one thing. If there’s something I like, I put everything into it, but I tend to like to be diverse. Things are moving so fast now, you can’t operate a business the same way you did as recently as last year. There’s new marketing, new technology, new directions. Push it.

Most of this interview has been about everything besides actually riding… what role in your life does riding your bike play in 2009?

At this point I ride my bike when I want to, or when time permits around traveling and general getting shit done. Either way I’m around it every day, which keeps it fun. I’m not out to film a video part. I don’t feel bad if I don’t ride my bike every day. I’m 33 and started riding BMX when I was 9, so that’s more than 2/3rds of my life I’ve been around BMX, and it doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. There’s a lot of stuff I like to do for the same reason I like bike riding — photography, design —it’s all creative, self-expression type stuff. I’m fortunate that I get to take the things I love and apply the knowledge and experience gained to pay my bills. Most of those things I get paid for where all directly inspired by BMX… design, photography, magazines, art in general. All that comes from my background in BMX, things I’ve seen along the way, and people I’ve met.

If I go out riding, I’m just as happy to be laying in a ditch with a camera getting a cool photo or video clip as I am riding my bike. As long as I’m doing stuff I like, I’m not going to force it. I’m keeping it fun. I still have some seat post showing, and I’m not scared to flaunt it.

You can visit Jared’s site here or check him out on Twitter here.