3D City: Launching off Jones « Mission Mission

3D City is a year long stereoscopic photography project by Doctor Popular

Noel and I had just finished shooting a video for my comic book project, God Hates Dinosaurs, when we first met Toby Allender. He introduced himself as a BMX rider visiting from Australia and said he was on the hunt for a giant San Francisco hill that he could bomb on his bike. He saw our camera gear and stopped us to see if we’d like to help.

A couple hours later we were in Toby’s rental car driving around Russian Hill looking for a nice steep street and picking up any spare traffic cones we could find. We ended up at Jones and Union, a nice steep street with a nice flat section that would work great as a ramp. We set up some cameras, put on some orange vests, and waited for Toby’s signal once he was ready at the top of the hill. When he gave us the thumbs up, we placed the cones down at the intersection and kept our eye out for any cars pulling out of their parking lots.

I’d guess Toby was going about 40mph when he launched off of the intersection at Union, and he traveled about 40 feet before hitting the ground again. 15 minutes later we set it all up again for an even faster ride. Since I was in charge of blocking the intersection, I didn’t get to take many shots during the jump itself, but here are a few more from just before.

Big thanks to Photoworks SF for supporting these 3D City columns. Ever since I’ve been shooting film, Photoworks has been my go to place for developing and scans.