Interview by Seu Trinh
Photography by Blair
Portrait by Andrew Arthur
Let’s start off with the basics, how did you get into photography?
I always had like an Instamatic, point and shoot to shoot my friends. But the game changer was in high school when you could take photography as an elective class. It was black and white, developing your own film and making your own prints. I was a sophomore and the older skaters were juniors and seniors in that class and I remember seeing their prints of the other skaters, and it looked like something you’d see in TransWorld. I was tripping on that, like, they did that, you can do that. If you get the right camera you can shoot your friends and get a photo that looks like the ones in skate mags. That was a lightbulb moment. You couldn’t take those classes until you were a junior or senior so I knew I’d be taking those classes. That’s kinda the start I guess of figuring out photography, and this was the early 90s, so it was on film. Making my own prints in the darkroom was a whole new process that I’ve always liked.
How did you get the job at TransWorld?
A buddy of mine, my next-door neighbour, his girlfriend was going to San Diego State University and there was an ad in their school newspaper in the back in the job section. It was for an Assistant Editor for TransWorld Media and it was for the Skateboarding Business mag, remember those big, bi-monthly magazines? It was a part-time, assistant editor position for that mag and the contact email was Miki Vuckovich, and of course I knew his name from the magazines.
At the time I had an internship for a music magazine in San Diego, so I emailed Miki and got an interview and went up to the office in Oceanside and interviewed with him. Probably within a week he called me back and said I got the job. He said that my experience working at the music mag is what put me ahead of the other applicants.
When did you work at the music magazine, in high school?
No, it was after college, so it would’ve been 2001, 2002. I think I was only there for a year or two.
And what kind of stuff did you do at the music magazine?
I started off like updating their directory of music venues, so I’d call people. I had my art degree from college and I could write, so I would review CDs, I would go to shows and write reviews on the concerts. Since I could shoot photos, the magazine would get me photo passes for the concerts so I could shoot them. I shot some artists, I shot a cover—one of the artists came by the office and we went out in the courtyard of the office building and I shot a photo of the guy and they used it for the cover. I interviewed Guru from Gang Starr, I interviewed one of the guys from that San Diego band Pinback. So it progressed from intern to doing that stuff.
Adam Arunski - Crook
What’s the difference between interviewing a musician versus a skater?
(Laughs) A lot! Oh you know I also interviewed the singer of that band The Shins too. They had a lot of songs in TransWorld videos. Most musicians when you interview them are super professional at answering questions, they do a ton of press. They have answers ready, they’re promoting an album or a tour you know. Skaters though, it’s just your homie or a guy who skates and he’s never been interviewed in his life. It’s like night and day.
When you shot magazine interviews and Pro Spotlights, did you do the interview or did you hand it off to the magazine editor?
Um, it was a mixture. Sometimes I was asked to do the interview and sometimes I handed it off. As the filmer or photographer in skateboarding, we hang out with the skater the most. I think we have the best understanding of the athlete, as opposed to the TM even, or the company designer or someone in the office. We’re the guys that they ride with and they tell us all their secrets. We’re almost like the counsellors too, their therapists.
Yeah if the TM isn’t there or isn’t doing it, there’s definitely a therapist level that makes you a good person on trips. So what was your first job at TransWorld, what kind of stuff were you doing?
I was part time assistant editor at the Business Mag so I’d only go in the office three days a week and help put those issues together with Miki. I’d update our skateshop directory, I’d call shops and do shop surveys for each issue. We’d do a different product review for each issue, this was 2002, so we’d send out faxes to every company like, “We’re reviewing wheels next issue, so send your wheels down.” And companies would email us photos or send boxes of wheels down.
I would do stories too, I’d get with the editors and figure out what stories we’re going to do, like “Bootleg Footwear out of Asia,” we’d interview industry people for that mag. You’d interview the marketing guy.
Is that when you started shooting photos for TransWorld SKATEboarding Business?
Yeah, I got hired strictly as a writer/editor, and Miki probably didn’t know that I also shot photos, so I kind of raised my hand like, “I also shoot photos too.” Any chance where I could go shoot a photo to compliment the article I was writing, I’d do it. And then being in the office with Grant (Brittain), Dave Swift and Atiba, I was able to ask them for tips. I would take my photos into Grant’s office and ask him to critique them. Being in the office with those guys made my learning curve of shooting skating go up really fast.
Cordano Russell
How important are magazines and photo books nowadays to you?
Photo books are super important to me, obviously I collect a ton if you saw my SkateHoarders episode. I didn’t realize how many I had until we started filming that. Books are the high-quality preservation of our culture. Like Grant’s book is photos that never ran in TransWorld in the 80s because they didn’t have room. Blabac’s book—those photos might have all ran in interviews and DC ads, but who has those mags? And if you do, those magazines might be falling apart. Magazines aren’t made to stand the test of time. Nowadays with the internet and Instagram taking over, I think what Jaime (Owens) is doing with Closer and what Graham (Tait) does with North is the way to do it. Take your time, put out a magazine quarterly, make it high quality so you want to keep it and it will last for years. If you’re still pumping out a monthly mag that just gets lost or thrown away, I don’t think those are as important anymore. I co-own two skateshops so I see that the monthly mag just sits there in polybags. Kids don’t buy it, three months’ worth just pile up and nobody cracks them so that says to me that that’s not important to anyone these days.
Do you think a photo is not complete if it doesn’t go from print-to-wall, or in a magazine or in a book?
It used to be that getting your photo published in a magazine was the ultimate approval and validation. It meant you were as good as Mike O’Meally or Skin (Phillips). It was really a big milestone as a skate photographer. Now that’s gone and you can post anything to Instagram. Maybe you can judge it by the feedback you get on Instagram? I’ve posted photos to Instagram and people have commented “This should be in print!” So maybe that’s the validation now?
Especially for the young photographers.
For sure, I’m sure they pay way more attention and that’s more important for them.
Think about non-skateboarding magazines, how hard is it to get into a landscape magazine or a car magazine or fashion? Imagine how hard it would be if you were an aspiring young landscape photographer. What do you do? I guess you’d submit the same way you’d submit to a skateboard magazine and cross your fingers hoping they use your photo.
Yeah, but I imagine there’re way more people shooting landscapes than skateboarding.
Colin Giles - Fs Wallride
Yeah, the general public photography is a lot, you know, cars, sports—but skateboarding is so niche.
Yeah and as far as photo books, a lot of them are self-published, so—and I encourage everyone if you shoot a lot of photos to make a book. Make a zine annually with your photos. It’s a good thing to do, even if you don’t have a publisher and you self-publish. You need to Seu, when’s your book coming out?
I’m too lazy and shy Haha! I don’t want people criticising and I don’t want the failure of printing books and nobody buys them and I have to throw them in a landfill.
Yeah I had all those thoughts when I was making my book this year, so fuck it.
Some people don’t think you’re an established photographer if it didn’t mean anything, if it just goes on Instagram.
You can make prints too, I’ve sold a lot of prints in the last few years, maybe because there’re no more magazines. More people are buying prints because they’re not getting their monthly mag anymore. I’ve had photos in shows this year and people have bought prints off the walls, then whatever doesn’t sell I’ll put on my Instagram and I’ve sold a handful more off my Instagram.
From the book to the wall to the print, where do you see the future of photography going because of social media?
I think more interactive stuff, you know how you can get your photo printed on a T-shirt or an alarm clock or a necktie? And they make it easy for the hobby photographer, like iPhones already take really good photos, imagine how much better they’re going to get. And you can have an app where it prints out a Polaroid. Have you seen those Camp Snap cameras that everyone has right now? That’s one of the new waves, it’s still digital but it takes away being able to see your photo and keeps you in the moment.
Jaime Owens
Do you see where people shoot their photos and then use their photos on a gift like a coaster, and item, to complete it?
Yeah, I’ve already been seeing that happening and I think there’s going to be more opportunities for integration. I think people like seeing their photos like that in different contexts.
So it might not even be photos to magazines or wall, but photos to everyday use, like a T-shirt?
Like those photo frames where you can upload like 100 photos in them and you can rotate them. Or when you turn on your TV, your home screen can be a photo you took, like the background of your phone.
What new camera advancements do you see happening in the near future?
As far as what digital can do, I’m not really that interested. I have a Canon R5 and the photo quality is incredible, but some people don’t like mirrorless or want a certain megapixel amount. I actually try and shoot film as much as I can. I ideally want to shoot skating with a Hasselblad if the situation allows. When I go out to events, I usually take a film point and shoot if I don’t have to shoot a gallery for TransWorld or anything. I think film point and shoot photos are rad.
What about in the digital world, where do you see it going? Like with virtual reality and goggles and stuff?
They’ve tried Google Glass and that Apple Vision Pro and none of it caught on. But what I do think is going to go crazy is AI. I’ve already seen how easy it is to fix your photos or add a fake background or create a fake photo in seconds. But I feel like with most photographers that’s exactly what you don’t want. You don’t want fake shit.
Tyson Peterson
Well how do you feel about editing subjects and items out or adding stuff into your photos with Photoshop?
I don’t think I’ve added anything in, other than compositing. Taking stuff out, that’s always been part of skate photography. They’ve always taken out the filmer, a pole behind the guy, the light stands. Ever since I peeked behind the curtain at TransWorld, they’ve always been doing that. Or even putting a skater’s arms from another frame on him.
You don’t think that’s bad?
For the cover of a magazine, I see why they do it. You want the cover photo to look fucking good and you want to sell magazines and you want the skater to be stoked and you want all his sponsors to be stoked. So I know there’s been a frame where the kickflip catch is best but in this frame, his arms look the best, so boop! And I’ve seen art directors do it seamlessly.
In every other genre of photography they do that. In skateboarding, we have this thing where we can’t fake it.
You shouldn’t fake how high the skater is Ollieing you know. But I think photoshopping out a filmer is fine. I’d rather see a cleaner photo, right? Don’t you do that?
Yeah I definitely take stuff out. It seems so weird that in every other genre of photography that’s just normal.
Skateboarding is its own thing. In skating, you can go to that spot and see how gnarly it is, see how they fixed it.
Marky McCoy - Bs Tailslide
In my years of photography I was never good at Photoshop, so I never knew how to take a filmer out, so I would have to wait for the guy to do his trick and then shoot a couple of photos. Or shoot it while the skater was warming up.
Yeah I was never good enough to clone someone out, but then when I started working at TransWorld I had the best art directors to do that stuff, so I still never learned. I still send photos to my buddy who’s a retoucher for a fashion photographer and ask him to take filmers out.
I tortured so many skaters by making them do the tricks again after they landed them on video.
Yeah, a lot of photographers and skaters have had to do that. That’s the job. It’s a fine line, hopefully it’s not a death-defying trick, but you gotta ask them to do it again and hopefully they don’t get smoked. You gotta get the best photo you can.
What is your go-to camera equipment? What’s always in your bag when you go on a shoot?
My main backpack has my Canon R5 with a 24-70mm lens, a 70-200mm long lens and the 8-15mm fisheye. I have three small strobes in there and some gels that I never use. I have a dust cloth, an air blower, a handkerchief to keep the sun off my neck, sunscreen, shoelaces to tie a strobe to a fence. A pen for writing stuff down.
I have another backpack that has two Flashpoint 360 Streaklight strobes. I have a Flashpoint 600 which is in its own briefcase. I have a sausage bag with three light stands in it. I also have a Pelican case that has my Hasselblad that has the fisheye on it and a 120mm long lens. If I have my car in San Diego, I take all that stuff.
Wow. How many bags is that in your car?
Five I guess.
Wes Kremer
How do you get around skating with all that and jump a fence, do skaters help you with that?
Yeah, you hand all that stuff over the fence.
And what about when you’re traveling and mobile?
When I’m traveling, I take the camera bag and I have these two small light stands that I strap to the sides of it. And I take the second backpack that has the two Streaklight 360s. So I don’t take the Hasselblad on trips and I don’t take the big 600 light or big light stands.
The last year I’ve been photo assisting and learning lighting of non-skate photos, and I’m blown away by how much gear we use compared to skateboarding. In skating it seems like we don’t use any light modifiers, it’s just the strobe with the reflector on a stand. I realize that you have to be mobile and be able to carry it by yourself because there’re no assistants. Do you like that? Or do you want to see it more elevated where we as photographers have a whole crew and helpers and a budget to do all that?
I don’t know how much better it would make the photos. Think about the lighting you do or Oliver Barton or Jake Darwen, I know they still carry around the big strobes like Lumedynes, and they’re definitely having to climb fences with that stuff.
Other photographers wouldn’t be able to do that.
There’s no way a fashion photographer could do what we do. We have a whole studio in our backpacks and we climb a fence with it, and sometimes we have to pack it up quick and run too.
I’ve been working in the fashion world for a few years now too and their goal with lighting is the opposite of skating. They want the most diffused light possible and we want the punchiest. Dan Sturt used to bring reflectors to shoot sequences and stills. The guys would be all lit up but obviously he didn’t have high speed sync back then, it was because of these big reflectors. I do think there’s room to evolve skate photography but it’s got to bring a new look to it—most skate photographers don’t know anything outside of skate photography so it would take someone like you who’s worked in another world and to bring that into skating. My friend Andrew Arthur has done some interesting stuff, I don’t know if you saw the Brain Floss we did with him, he set up a big negative fill box and had the skater skating through it. He set it up in Tompkins Square Park in New York and we dragged obstacles inside this big negative fill box. That was a really interesting integration of fashion photography and skateboarding. There’s not many people that have done that. There’s such a small niche of people who know how to shoot fashion and skateboarding and want to mix the two.
Jonno Gaitan - Switch Flip Fs Boardslide
Especially a lot of the locations we don’t ever have permission.
Yeah we actually got rolled and kicked out of Tompkins before we even started shooting. Andrew had to talk to the Parks Department people and lie to them to stay there. But yeah, skateboarding doesn’t have those budgets: Who’s gonna pay the assistants and the equipment rental? Have you put thought into that? What would you do now that you know studio fashion photography?
On my shoots, when I can, when I don’t have to jump a fence, I’ve been shooting with massive soft boxes, like five-foot, six-foot soft boxes.
For action?
Yeah, it’s nice soft lighting, but it’s a whole different world because you have to have way beefier stands, you need sandbags, you have to pray there’s no wind. It’s a big hiccup, but it’s a different look. I noticed the skaters’ faces, when they’re sweating, it’s not hard lighting. It’s more appealing to me. The skaters don’t seem to mind but I couldn’t imagine doing that run-and-gun style.
Yeah that’s the same with the Hasselblad. So much of that is timing. You want to make sure you get the photo with your digital camera first, then are we going to get kicked out? Did the skater already get the trick on video and he doesn’t want to do it again? Is he over it? Does everyone want to go to the next spot? So sometimes the Hasselblad stays in the trunk, because the session’s over. But a lot of times you can goad the skater with it, like “I got the Hasselblad with me, let me load it up with a roll of film, it’ll look sick.”
I think all skaters are stoked, especially nowadays, it’s such a novelty to get a Hasselblad photo on film. Some of the young skaters have never had a photo of them shot on film and they’re stoked. But yeah, conditions are everything when you’re out there in the streets.
Let’s talk about gear. If you had to pick one camera, lens, and flash to use for the rest of your life, what would they be.
Heavy. I got a Leica Q2 digital camera, it’s wide angle, it’s got a 28mm lens and you can crop in to 35mm and 50mm because it’s got such a big sensor. Probably that camera because it’s such a good all-around street camera and that’s the type of photography I do a lot of and probably will do in the future. It has a hot shoe so I could throw a versatile Canon for Flashpoint flash on that that I could diffuse or bounce off the ceiling. And I could still shoot skate photos with that, 35mm style, 90s style. I think that’s the one I would keep.
Chris Brunner - Noseslide
What would you like to see in skateboard photography that hasn’t been done yet?
I’m impressed when anyone goes to any lengths, like you shooting with soft boxes, I’d be real interested in seeing that. I’d be impressed with anyone pushing the limits and trying new stuff. Dave Chami did that a lot when he was at TransWorld, using different cameras—he shot that Walker Ryan cover where the camera was half underwater in a water housing. Your photo of Rodney Mullen Primo sliding on the water, that’s one of the most creative photos ever in the history of skateboarding.
Would you like to see drone photos being used?
They’re kinda cool. Funny enough, Oliver Barton shoots drone photos, I wouldn’t have expected him to do that but he did a bunch for Primitive. With a drone photo it’s all about composition, if a spot is going to look good overhead. You know Stephen Vanasco? He flies around in helicopters and actually shoots manually out of a helicopter and I asked him what he thought of drone photos, and he was like, “Nah that ain’t it,” because you’re not really taking the photo, you’re flying the drone and it’s like a video game.
What inspires you to shoot a photo?
I still like shooting skate photos. I still get stoked when I see a rad skate photo, and as long as I’m still around skaters who are good or sponsored or whatever, I still want to try and get rad photos. Sometimes I’ll be on a session and maybe the skater’s not trying anything too difficult—it’s a trick that’s never going to get run in print, but I always think, well I’m here, I have my camera here, why don’t I shoot this and try and make this guy look cool. If for nothing else just to text it to him and he’ll be stoked. I like that part too, maybe the skater has never seen themselves look that sick.
My brother told me, “Man if you weren’t getting paid to shoot skate photos, you wouldn’t do it,” and I said, no, that’s not true. I love shooting skateboarding and I love skateboarding. I was like, ah this guy doesn’t know me.
Yeah I rarely get paid for skate photos, maybe once or twice a year.
Zion Wright
The coolest part is when you talk to your friend that you shot a photo of ten or 20 years ago, and they bring it up in conversation like, “Hey remember when we shot that photo? I still have it.” They tell you all the memories that happened that day. I was like, wow, I guess that’s so special to that person. As a photographer you might not know how much impact and how much joy you brought to that person by taking a photo of them.
Yeah, sometimes a skater will post a photo that I shot of them like ten or 15 years ago on Instagram like “Blair shot this back in 2007.” I’ll be like “Damn! That’s so sick that you saved that photo!”
It’s funny being in and shooting skating as long as you and I have because we’ve seen skaters’ careers come and go. Now they’re in their life after skating but you and I are still in it. Maybe they had this little window where they were pro for five years and they’re looking back on that as a great part of their life and you were there to photograph it.
What advice do you have for up and coming skateboard photographers?
Be assertive, you gotta put yourself out there, obviously everyone does on Instagram. We didn’t have this direct line of contact where you can DM a skater or team manager and send them your photos, we used to have to package up our photos and put them in the mail. So do cool shit, make zines, make your own brand, make your own website, because that’s what’s going to attract the big brands. There’re kids out here in New York, the Late Nite Stars, who started their own brand, put out their own videos on their own website, and now Asics took notice and sponsors all of them and pays for all their trips and videos. That company Bronze did that. They started making their own videos, then clothes and bolts, they’ve collabed with everyone from HUF to Palace. They created their own future, that’s my advice.
Be proactive.
Be creative, do epic shit. What would your advice be?
I would say if you’re getting into it for money, good luck. If you just love creating and making art and cool photos and skateboard culture. I don’t know what to tell people, it’s hard, I don’t even know what to tell myself.
It’s changed so much since we’ve been shooting, going from shooting film and only getting your photos in magazines to now it’s all digital and it’s all online. Funny though that this is going to run in a print mag, and for that I’m very thankful. North Mag is one of the last ones doing it right.
Published in North 42