If you would like to use one of my photos for a commercial project please contact me with the understanding that I do not obtain model or property releases for any of my photographs. My pictures have been used in seemingly countless regional publications, national magazines, books, advertisements, at major amusement parks themselves, on official park websites and by amusement parks for advertising, promotional and commercial purposes. I'm able to offer photos in a variety of formats, feel free to contact me for more information. I have the original negatives and/or digital files of all my photos on file and will aggressively pursue my rights as owner of the photographs.

I've also contributed information and done interviews for various forms of print media as well as radio & television and in addition to my photography may also be able to contribute to your project in other ways. As with my photography, contact me for more information.

In other words: "Just ask"

I also respectfully request that you do not "hardlink" or "deeplink" to our photos. (This is linking directly to photos on my server from your site) If you wish to use any of my pics and I've granted permission, please store the photo(s) on your server.

Using my images without permission is a bad idea as I have more than enough backup to prove I am the owner of the images and I do pursue my rights as owner very agressively. It gets ugly and I don't like ugly. Play nice and I tend to play nice too.

The process for older photos (2001-2003) - After scanning, cropping, resizing, etc., I then set about using the optimal compression for each image. They goal here is to keep the file size of the photos as small as possible (smaller file size means it loads faster to your computer) while maintaining as much of the integrity of the original photo as possible. I can't lie, the photos on this site pale in comparison to the original scans I do, however they're about 1/50 of the original file size. Usually I aim for around 100kb per photo. Depending on the photo this could land anywhere between 50kb and 150kb. This means most of the photos on this site load in a few seconds for visitors on even the slowest of modem connections.

The process for newer photos (2003-2004) - Since going digital, processing becomes less of an issue. The focus changes to resizing and compression. Again, every effort is made to maintain the quality of the original photos, the processing just becomes much less and the turnaround from camera to website is much quicker.

The workflow using my current camera (2005-present) is focused more on bringing file size down than anything. My newest camera captures a ton of detail and results in huge file sizes. I prefer to be cautious on the side of quality rather than file size most of the time. The idea is for the pictures to look good first and foremost. You may have noticed the file sizes of the images on the site have risen while the physical size has remained the same. This is due to that increased detail. More detail = more information = larger files sizes. With broadband becoming more of the norm than the exception, this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Current photos are kept under 200kb a vast majority of the time. With my current setup, I am able to maximize both speed/turnaround and quality.

I size the images so that they should fill your screen if your using most of today's standard screen resolutions. This size still works very well for visitors using slightly different resolutions. For the small percentage of visitors using a much higher or lower screen resolution than these, our photos may seem too big or too small. Sorry, but the large majority of internet users (and our visitors) use a handful of screen resolutions. I do understand that monitors (and thus screen resolutions) are getting larger and we fully intend to change our approach as trends dictate. Right now over 90% of internet users fall into one of the above categories and will have no problems with image size on our site. We'll change as those statistics do.

If your question or comment about image quality isn't answered above please write us and we'll do our best to answer your concern ...and maybe even add the info to our FAQ!

2001 - I used a Pentax ZX-30 for 99% of my photos. I also had an Olympus D-360L digital camera and a small Pentax point and shoot (EZY-R) that were used for some of the pictures.

2002 - My still photo set-up stayed the same. I began grabbing video with an older model Sony camcorder (TRV-68).

2003 - I kept with that set-up until June when I bought an Olympus C-740UZ digital camera. At this point my photos went from 95% film/5% digital to 90% digital/10% film.

2004 - I got a new Sony MiniDV camcorder (TRV-22) and my photo set-up has stayed the same. However, I rarely use the film cameras - I'm 99% digital at this point!

2005 - Video set-up stayed the same. Picked up a Canon Rebel XT for photos. Consider this the year I made the full switch to digital.

2006 - Same set-up, but added a Fuji Finepix Z1 because it's a cute little camera that will be nice for dropping in my pocket and easily carrying around for shots where the big camera isn't necessary or logical.

2007 - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Same set-up as 2006. Looking at the possibility of a new camera purchase sometime next year.

2008 - Updated my camera to a Canon Rebel XSI and picked up a couple of new lenses as well. For now everything else remains the same.

This is just what works for me. I always tell people that simply buying the same equipment will not give the same results. I could go buy all the same paints and supplies the great french artists use, but my paintings will not be fine art. Some of the photos on this site were taken with a disposable camera. It just proves that a good picture is a good picture regardless of how you got it. Find what works for you and run with it. That's all I did.

AMD Athlon 2800+ (OC'd, of course)
1GB of PC2700 RAM
250GB, 160GB & 40GB Western Digital Hard Drives (photos take up a lot of space!)
256MB Sapphire Radeon 9600 Video Card
(2) LG DVD Burners
A bunch of other crap

On the software side, again you can find links on the links page. The key to the photos is Adobe's Photoshop. Best money I ever spent. I do video work with Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video. I do music work with Sony's Sound Forge & Acid and I also use Cakewalk for music production. The site itself is designed with Macromedia's Dreamweaver and then tweaked by hand. Sometimes I close my eyes and blindly pound my keyboard like an angry gorilla and then add whatever comes out of it to the site. Whatever works to get the job done!

As of October 6, 2007 I've ridden 303 coasters using my counting method (it comes out to 306 using this method) My current favorites include (in no particular order):

• Kraken
• The Voyage
• Superman Ride Of Steel
• Boulder Dash
• Phantom's Revenge
• Avalanche
• Maverick
• Shivering Timbers
• Talon
• Millennium Force

I've also decided to add my daughter's coaster count numbers as I feel it's pretty impressive and she's quite proud of it. My kiddo is just 9 years old and as of August 10, 2007 has ridden 221 coasters.

And finally I have reason to add a third count. My little man is 6 years old and as of October 19, 2007 has ridden 44 coasters. He's on his way!

...yeah, we have fun! My wife has no idea how many coasters she has ridden. She is clearly above us all.

The honest answer (not that the other answer isn't "honest", it's just spun nicely) is since February 2001. It was a trip to Busch Gardens Tampa that I first took my newly aquired "real" camera with intentions of photographing the rides as much as riding them. In some ways I still find those photos to be some of the best on this site.

Depending on your point of view I've been taking coaster photos for somehwere between 7 and 29 years.

You should also be aware that the numbers just correspond to photos in the galleries. There are also many, many photos in the special features area of the site and tons of pics just lurking in weird places all over coasterimage.com (for example, the pics on this page) - While we have thousands of photos in the galleries we have plenty more to be found if you just look around the site a bit.

I don't have any pics or videos in this style pretty much because I've never been in a situation where it's been allowed. What most people don't understand (or ignore) is the fact that a vast majority of parks don't allow the practice of photography while riding. Sure, it's easy enough to take a camera on the ride and 99.99% of the time it can be done without incident. However, I tend to have respect for the parks I visit and if they say no, then I don't do it. Safety has become quite an issue in the industry recently and now more than ever I feel I've always made the right decision. Sure, I've felt the pressure to deliver this sort of thing - I get e-mails almost constantly asking why I don't have POV stuff at coasterimage. Heck, I've even been tempted to snag a few shots at times (especially with hard to photograph coasters), but I just have too much respect for the parks and their wishes.

Secondly, I find POV material to be mind numbingly boring. In the case of photos I can at least see the allure in grabbing shots of a tucked away ride that you just can't get a clean shot of, but I've never understood the appeal of POV video. A few good photos or a nice off-ride video will give anyone a great idea of what a ride does. Rather than sit in front of my PC staring blindly at POV video of someone else's ride and daydreaming, I'd much rather get my ass to the park and ride that thing myself...ride it until the friggin' wheels fall off.

I'm sure you've seen POV stuff on plenty of sites - much of it legitimately obtained, much of it not. I don't want to hinder any possible or current park relationships over a few pics or a minute of video. If you need a POV fix that bad, I'm sorry, but you'll need to look elsewhere. Again, it comes down to respect. Respect the parks and receive the same treatment in return. If the opportunity to get POV ever arises, I'll do it. Until then...

All the music in our videos is original - meaning I make it myself. Music has always been a part of my life. I began playing at age 8 and by the time I was 13, I was jamming with a couple bands for fun. At 16 I began playing paying bar gigs. By 26 I was talking to major labels, but having just started a family had to seriously consider whether it was worth the time involved and never came to an agreement with anyone. I've been involved with making music on some level for over 20 years now. In addition to a few smaller things I do, this is one way to keep creating music as a part of my life.

You can download the tunes in MP3 format at the bottom of each video page.

They're older photos that don't really fit in anywhere else. I like them, wanted them here and so they are.

Photography is a lot like sex. At first, you do it because you like it. Then you find yourself doing it for a few close friends and people you like. But if you're any good at all, you end up doing it with total strangers for money.

Seriously, I got into photography right around the same time we started heavily pursuing the whole coaster thing. It kind of happened by accident. Before I knew it, the site had taken over and it just became part of taking trips to the parks.