The Club

On an early morning after a late night of work in the Madbury office, we groggily set out for Amsterdam Houses, home to an incredible light green 94-foot outdoor basketball sanctuary. As the rest of the Club started to show up, the pending wave of sleep that lingered above us was immediately expunged as our vision slowly became a reality.  The Asphalt Warriors were about to emerge.

You’ve seen the video. You’ve seen part one of the spread. Now click the image above to step behind the scenes and see how it was all brought to life.

The Amsterdam Houses on 61st Street were completed all the way back in 1948.  So it comes as no surprise that the towering government issued project structures played the perfect backdrop to the spread we were preparing to shoot.  Arriving from Brooklyn was another contingency of the Club. Demetri, Juice, and Quentin came walking from the subway decked head to toe in outfits that had every passing person stopping to double take while asking what had gone wrong with today’s generation.  Little did they know what was taking place.

Colin sits observing while Demetri and Juice lace up.

Fresh from black and silver boxes were an array of Jordan Brand’s latest summer offering.  Understand that it’s not an impossible thing to have shoes more or less fall into your lap these days.  Most of the time that free product flow ends up in simple blog posts.  Well, as you’ve come to see, here at Madbury the norm is far from good enough.  When we get our hands on product the outcome is this. Not that there is anything wrong with blog posts on product but…yeah.  That should be self explanatory.

Why is Optimus Prime’s head laying amongst newly laced Jordans and a pair of cooked Air Yeezys?  An incredibly great question.  The answer is somewhere in Demetri’s twisted mind, but rest assured that on a hard drive somewhere there is a picture of Optimus Prime throwing down a mean dunk.

Juice updates Ellington’s look before a shot.

No matter how serious a finished spread may appear at the end of the day, you should always know that it is nothing but the best of times amongst friends.  We wouldn’t be doing any of this work if it truly wasn’t something we enjoyed.  Something to keep in mind.

The fedora capped fellow above is the man who brought Asphalt Warriors to fruition.  Rog Walker not only scouted the location and brought the vision to life, but he did so without breaking a sweat while snapping away in suit jacket and hat on a blazing summer morning.  If that’s not dedication and mastery of craft, I’m not sure what is.

Original Spike Lee campaign advertisement.

Our updated 2010 version.

This should explain how page nine in the spread came to fruition.  Phil got an idea after Colin and Quentin had begun scaling the backboard and with a few camera tricks from Rog a bit of classic Jordan imagery was brought back to life.

A day to remember for sure.  A spread all about elevation.  Both literally and figuratively. Pushing the blog post, product recommendation, and presentation one step further every single time.  Walk with us.

The Club.