Interview by Graham Tait
Photography by Dakota
Was there a single incident or moment that made you want to start shooting skateboarding photos?
I was living in Columbus, Ohio and was out with Justin Henry and a group of friends. He wanted to nollie over a rail into the top of this hubba that was downtown. The filmer at the time also had a digital set up with flashes and, since I was standing around not doing anything, we decided to set up a long lens angle and I shot the photo, and from then on that's all I wanted to do. I had 35mm film camera and was shooting portraits and lifestyle before then but never really took it seriously.
Corey Glick - Bs Nosegrind revert
What year would that have been?
Justin is wearing Vox shoes which meant he was still getting 5Boro at the time so probably around 2010-2011? Focus Skate Mag wanted to run the photo but I never shot a plate to clone stamp out the filmer so it fell through the cracks. It would have been nice to have in print but I had no idea what I was doing at the time.
Joey O'Brien & Sammy Montano
What was the timeline from shooting that photo to getting your own gear?
Maybe a few weeks. After that I went into a Best Buy, applied for a credit card and maxed it out on a Canon 6d and a 50mm 1.4 lens. I ran that camera body into the ground. No flashes, no fisheye, just the 50mm lens.
Chow - Heelflip
What was your first published photo?
My first published photo in a bigger mag was an ad of the HUF Boyd shoe. It was a photo of Jake Anderson pushing through a tennis court, a photo of the shoes, and I think a kickflip on flat all laid out together. I had been working at HUF in the main office as the ECOMM photo assistant under Ryan Lusteg for a year or two. Slowly over time I kept hinting to the marketing team that I could also shoot photos.
After a few weekends of shooting product for Instagram they gave me a chance to shoot something bigger but still product related. That was the first time meeting Jake and being involved with anyone from the team. Because of that shoot I was invited to go on a three-day trip to Vegas. That was definitely a test to see if I could hang out.
Christian Maalouf & Jake Braun
What's your current camera set up and does it differ when you're travelling?
Canon 5d Mark IV body and I always have a 70-200mm and 8-15mm fisheye. For lifestyle I carry a Fuji 645 ZI and a random point and shoot 35mm. Flashes are two Godox 600s and one 350. I carry the same things on trips as I do at home. Sometimes if I only want to have a backpack for the day I’ll leave the flashes at home.
Silas Baxter-Neal - Ollie
You worked with HUF for a while, right?
I was in the office for about two years then in the van for about two as well. I found that job through Linkedin. Ryan Allan posted on there saying his friend Ryan Lusteg needed an Ecomm photo assistant and it felt like I just emailed Ryan Lusteg every day until I was the last man standing in his emails. I never went to school for photography so I had no clue what I was doing at the time. I YouTubed how to edit flay lays on Photoshop. Haha!
That was my intro into HUF. I learned a lot there being in the office seeing how the marketing team worked with assets given to them by other photographers, how far in advanced everything is planned out, and just overall information on how photos could be useful for a company. A lot of that info I still use today in pitches to other brands to get work.
I can't tell you how much HUF helped me, it was my schooling pretty much. I’m forever grateful for those times.
Connor Noll & Sammy
How did it work with shooting all that product on location and then trying to get skate photos?
So this is something that kind of formed later on from what I have heard from older photographers. Back in the day you would just go on skate trips and shoot skating and random lifestyle for print articles. But as social media and the internet is now so relevant in our lives, clothing and shoe brands are trying to get photos of product while on trips to have more to post. And it makes sense to do it with their skaters.
There were many times going on a trip where a giant box of clothes or shoes would show up at the hotel or Airbnb. So you would just split it up and ask everyone what they would like to wear, then figure out the other not so popular bits that you still had to get photos of.
In the beginning it’s kind of intimidating to take people out of the zone who are enjoying the trip to shoot a random portrait in a graphic t-shirt they hate. Haha! But over time you learn to work around it by going to some random tourist spot or trying last minute to shoot something in the backyard of the Airbnb. The more van time you have with everyone the more everyone is down to just throw something on real quick. In those situations I try to make it as painless as possible.
Dick Rizzo - 5050 to 5.0
Do you have any standout trips from that time?
Japan was a good one. I had been out of the country a few times before but going to any Asian country has always been a culture shock, especially growing up in Ohio farmland. When you get dropped in a place like that and it's so dialled culturally and architecturally. I shot one of my favourite photos of Justin Drysen there as well. It was his welcome to HUF ad. It was a double set outledge over a small round bar that he did front nose on at night. We had been kicked out of it during the day and we came back a few hours later after the sun had set, the security had already taken screen shots of us from the security cam and printed them out. They were in a plastic holder and tacked to the wall! The top of the print just said, ‘we are watching you’ or something. Japan is a hard place to skate but I'm always trying to go back.
Justin Henry
Have you ever found yourself in any sketchy situations?
We had an Airbnb in Austin, Texas for a HUF trip but we had been in Dallas skating all day before driving back there at night. When we showed up, the front door of the house was open so everyone went in together trying to check out what was going on but no one was in there. The next morning, we left to go skate and came back later to the house unlocked again, but this time someone had shit in the downstairs bathroom and left it, so everyone was like, ‘who did it?’ No one said anything but I’m sure everyone in their head was like, ‘who fucked up the bathroom?’
That night we had people over. Everything was mellow and I was standing on the front porch with Dick Rizzo just talking, then the entire house came walking out the front door and someone says, ‘there's a random guy flashing a gun in the kitchen’. So Rizzo and I walked in to make sure everyone was alright but the TM had already kicked him out. We came to find out that this guy was the son of the neighbours who lived in their back house and had been dealing drugs out of there and sleeping there whenever he wanted. I’m pretty sure someone had to talk to his parents. That's probably the sketchiest thing but ended up being more funny than sketchy.
This isn't sketchy but something that always sticks out in my head for a story. On a trip to Portugal with Former we ended up driving up to Bilbao, Spain to skate this spot where Silas Baxter-Neal had the cover of Transworld for his pro spotlight. Everyone got to watch his Origin part!
Anyway, Jake Anderson wanted to kickflip bs grind it. So we get there and it's siesta and everyone from this tiny town is hanging out in the park. The locals get mad and call the police over to talk to us and now the police are saying they’re going to have our passports seized from us if we don't leave.
So we stood around for a bit talking about staying an extra night and then taking a train to Paris because that's where we had to go next. We couldn’t really figure it out then Jake just says ‘fuck it’ goes back to the beginning of the run up, throws down and does it first go. We just grabbed all our shit and took off running so fired up. Good times! We definitely drank some beers after that.
Tyler Dietterich - Fs Nollie
Do you have a different approach to shooting on a trip than you do when shooting back home?
Not really. I try to keep it as mellow as possible. If I know someone who is trying to hop out of the van and get straight to it, I’ll set up lights and start to plan where I’m going to be. I don’t really skate with anyone that is trying to rush unless security or some outside factor forces it.
Christian Maalouf
Who are some of the photographers past and present that you look up too or get inspiration from?
Mike O'Meally is the guy that when I first started to really try and shoot, I would email him once or twice a week with photos and ask him to tell me what was wrong with them. No positive notes helped me a lot. Not only that but his photos from Alien Workshop mind field era and when he was shooting a lot in NYC early 2000s are so good. The photo of Omar bombing into that ditch beside a building with AVE following him is an all-time favourite of mine.
Presently I would say Cameron Strand’s commercial/lifestyle work hits every time. He shot a Transworld cover of Tom Karangelov that I love. His transition from skating into his current commercial work is something I really look up to, he did it right. It also helps that I like that he is from Michigan!
Jordan Taylor - Bs Flip
Skateboard media is in a bit of a weird place right now. How hard is it being freelance with so many photographers competing for work?
Personally it's not really hard I guess, I try not to pay attention to the overall of skateboarding and where it is at. I'm fortunate to have been around long enough and have friends that want to go out and shoot, so I just focus on them and whatever ideas they have and vice versa. And maybe I can come up with an idea that works out. Competing for something with someone would probably put me somewhere I wouldn't want to be and possibly doing something I personally wouldn't want to do.
The nice thing about freelance and working in skateboarding is you can do whatever you want and make your own path. I kinda just follow these things – support your friends, be comfortable with being uncomfortable, listen to everyone's ideas and be on the road. I don't really know how to answer that question. Haha! Someone will say that's corny, but it can be simple if you want it to be, is what I’m trying to say.
Jordan Taylor
Do you think there's anything missing from skate mags at the moment?
One thing I have noticed is less highlights on up-and-coming kids. I miss the check outs that Transworld would run. There are a lot more people nowadays in that middle ground area before being fully introduced to a team, that would be nice to see. I knew quite a few people that had something like that and the energy would be so high seeing your first photo in a bigger mag with a small write up. I also really liked how The Skateboard Mag would let a photographer pick a random group of people, pick a random place to go and shoot an article. It would line up guys you wouldn't really see together also it would change up the photo style if it was a rotating photographer and not the same person all the time.
Greg Dehart - Pop Shuv Noseslide
If you were to shoot your own original article now, who would you take and where would you go?
I really want to take a houseboat down the Ohio river starting in Pittsburgh and stop along all the port cities along the way. I tried to get Jenkem to drop a mini ramp at the gathering of the Juggalos once, that would be nice to follow up on. Kind of like an ode to early 2000s Vans warped tours but worse.
If anyone has a houseboat or a media contact at the gathering of the Juggalos let me know. I don't know how big this boat would be so I’ll have to come back to that list of who is going!
Joey Marrone - Bs Smith
What are your plans for the summer? Do you have any trips lined up or anything you're trying to pitch?
Try to ride my bike as far as possible or go fly fishing if I have the time. When your hobby turns into work you gotta find new hobbies to stay sane. As far as trips go I would like to go to Paris and visit friends. I’ve been shooting snowboarding so there is a trip planned to Mammoth next month for RIDE. That's as far as I have gotten.
Published in North 43