Notebook. No photographer should be without one! - Ansel Adams

You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either. - Galen Rowell

This is a photo of Scott Just, who is a fellow photographer and friend from high school and this was taken on a class photo trip to nyc. Check back later for a story.

és game of skate

Yesterday the és game of skate took place in Frederick and was held by Pitcrew. Allen Beers ended up taking the whole thing. He's pretty much always been up in the top 3 every year since I've been going and its good that he finally won one. All that I can say is sometimes you get stuck with some kid who does all the ollie norths every which way the first round. 

This is a photo of me doing a frontside flip from last year that I found on the transworld website, it didn't say my name or anything but I was still hyped it was up there. 

Food for thought...

Artscape Ramp

This past weekend was the weekend of the largest free arts festival in the nation, "Artscape," in downtown Baltimore. A few local artists/skateboarders/architects got together and put together an awesome wave inspired structure for everyone to skate on for the weekend. The sun was scorching, and the heat blistering, but that didn't stop us from skating or 350,000 other people from walking around, enjoying music, being weird, looking at art and enjoying themselves. Overall a great weekend, lots of sweating done, and I only wish I had taken the time to take more pictures and switched it up a bit, but for now there's no such this as too much skating and thats what I did instead. Nothing like carefree skating and not having to worry about your cameras on the side where hundreds of people walk by every 5 minutes. Anyways, until next year. 

Here's one of the builders...ripping.

Frontside ollies were a fun trick on the oververt...
Zach skates Zoo
High fives
Doubles were nothing compared to other sessions of 4 to 5...
Don't know what's going on here...
Zach was about as hyped on this photo he took as the dude in it... a true P.A.T.T'er
Zach and Colin getting friendly

A week in Aruba

Youtube wouldn't allow some of the songs so I had to upload to vimeo.

Went to Aruba for a week with my family and got the chance to go out and skate a couple times. Some with my brother Sam Munk and some by myself, setting up the camera and skating. There were some cool spots and it was a lot of fun. Just wish there was someone to skate the spots with. Anyways, hope you enjoy.

A week in Aruba from James Munk on Vimeo.

ArubaTVing

LATER THIS WEEK: VIDEO FROM ARUBA WILL BE POSTED...

The view from the top of this rock formation we were on could see 30% of the island; its a very small island.

Some steep stairs to go down, a little intimidating with some wind.
Some cool rocks...
I always have found stands, whether in the city, or like this one out of a truck on a cliff off of the desert and overlooking the ocean, one of the most interesting things to photograph while somewhere new.
Baren...
la costa
A wider look at things...
The islands natural pool is in that cove surrounded by huge rocks. This was a nice place to cool off after riding in the hot sun for an hour or so. 
Pretty obvious what these are.
The natural bridge. Pretty cool, pretty cool.
Zoom.

"Oh my god, its a double complete rainbow"

Dude must be on something...seriously laughed out loud at this one

Some Aruba Randoms

Taking siege...

Some deserted chairs
blahh
blahhhh

Not good for swimming... better for skateboarding

First of all, check out Spencer Brown's rip clip, congradulations man...  http://theskateboardmag.com/watch/spencer-brown/

This place is right around the corner from the hotel we are staying in; An abandoned water park! I didn't even see it the first couple of ways because of the routes we were taking on the roads, but when i saw it I knew we had to check it out. We drove over yesterday and found out that it was even easier than expected to get in. No fences. No, No Trespassing Signs. No guards. Nothing. We just walked right in the front gate, even though there was no gate, just an open walkway. Even though we could get in so easy my adrenaline was still rushing the whole time. 

Probably one of the most exciting sites for a skateboarder to see... 
Have to go back at least once... the photos posted are a little out of order of what we hit. This was the last place on the property we went to. I was starting to get sketched out when construction workers from the other building saw us and eventually a few stopped to watch. So once we got some stuff on film we got out and tried not to overstay our welcome too much after an hour and a half haha. 
Didn't know what to expect when we climbed up the tunnel to this thing but I wish i had a picture of my face.
ADRENALINE RUSH!!!
So fun. Thats about all that can be said.

First couple days in Aruba

Talkin' shit about a pretty sunset - its true: Modest Mouse

huh?
The local saturday/sunday market is pretty cool other than the people working will do everything and anything to try to get you to by something. I guess you can't blame them; I obtained a nice Hawaiian shirt
A stand
In the shade...
Baby Beach...
Is awesome... its pretty much like a huge baby pool where you can walk out hundreds of feet and still have the water only come up to your waist. Then if you go around one part with a snorkle mask there's a cove that goes on for a couple hundred feet with all of the most colorful fish and coral you could imagine. You can get as close as you want. I happened to be an idiot and not put sunscreen on my back, and while facing up all day I got a nice burn going...
Far out man... the water is awesome
As far as i could get, those rocks killed your feet. To the left is where it gets deeper and where the fish and coral are.

In Aruba for the week...

posts could get kind of slow...

Pot Springs Ditch

To my knowledge this ditch has been skated since the 80's. Today it was a little bit overgrown, but if it was cleaned up and some effort was put in to build some transition, bank to walls, etc. this spot could be amazing. Regardless, it's an awesome place to go hang out; getting kicked out is a rarity. 

The view from above

the ditch...
Anyone who is down is welcome...
Some weird grafiti for sure...
haha
An essential cruizer board spot...
Hughbot was bustin out wallies to fakie all day, definitely impressed...

Hugh has seriously gotten away with this, it's pretty insane haha...
Hugh don't give a F*@%

If you haven't checked out telegraph skateboards yet, you should!

http://www.telegraphskateboards.com/

They have a good thing going.