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For the most part, trying to shoot photos and work on interviews in the cold, damp winter of our domestic setting can definitely have its limitations; the terrible weather and the fact that it gets dark in the mid to late afternoon being the main ones. Back in January, Kris Vile, who can usually be found somewhere in Europe, on a tour or filming a video part, called me up to tell me that he was back in his hometown of Birmingham for a few days and wanted to shoot some photos. Faced with either sitting in a pub pretending that I’m interested in football or taking one the best skaters in Europe to some of the lesser seen spots that the Midlands has to offer, I obviously opted for the latter.

The reason that this photo stands out as one of my favorites from this year is as much to do with the setting and circumstances around it and what it went on to kick start just as much as the fact that it’s a switch front board down a total bust of a rail on a freezing Sunday morning. Kris shot this and six other photos before the sun went down in the late afternoon, and that day was the beginning of what turned into a gnarly interview and a solid video part.

Friends of mine who used to skate have in the past asked me if, as a skateboard photographer, there’s a small aspect of living vicariously through the people in front of the lens. I do know that there is a certain level of coaching, sometimes manipulating, that goes on behind the scenes and I guess there’s a side of you that wants somebody to do what you were never able to.

I’ve been lucky enough over the years to meet and shoot photos of some of my favorite skaters whom span most of the incarnations of popular skateboarding and this has been a great privilege. But, there’s something about shooting locally with someone who’s just breaking out into the wider skate world that’s unique. Also, you get to take someone to all the spots you were too much of a pussy to skate and help to make stuff happen. So yeah, in answer to the initial question, I guess there is some level of self-fulfillment at times.

I’ve seen Luke around for over ten years but he seemed to just do his own thing and from time to time you’d hear via word of mouth that he’d jumped onto some rail or other. Having spent a week on the road with A Third Foot earlier in the year and seeing what he was now up for throwing himself at, I was more than keen to get him over to check out the one of the larger rails in Coventry.

Luke is not someone who’s going to spend hours slow-moing the latest video part or worrying too much about the brand of his jeans. He’s just a fucking lunatic whose blatant disregard for his own wellbeing is what gets him to the other side. I guess the fact that he still watches a worn out bootlegged compilation video of the gnarliest sections from ‘Welcome To Hell’and ‘Fulfill The Dream’ before going out skating may have a hand in it as well.

With just a few kickflips on the flat and with dragging some plywood to the top of the stairs to cover the blind bumps as his warm up, a backside 5050 was put down within a few tries. At that point I began to head back over all stoked to show him the photo. Before I’d even got halfway he jumped straight onto a back lip giving me just about enough time to get back to my vantage point before he was rolling one away fourth try.

Whilst the rest of the UK skateboard industry crammed themselves into various hired vehicles and headed all over the country fulfilling Big Push duties, Gav and myself spent the week concentrating on wrapping up his interview. Having been given a rental car with a questionable top speed and limited seating or boot space following an incident on route to the Flip Demo the week before, we tried to fit as many bodies in the car as possible in an attempt to keep the already injured Irishman ticking over.

After five days in the blistering sun and the steady diet of Haribo and fizzy pop that he’s now famous for, my good friend Gav was lookin’ a bit worse for wear. With elasticated supports just about holding him together at the seams, we hit up a last minute spot before he made his way down to London and I headed off to Downtown Showdown. Gav seemed optimistic but after a warm up ollie over the stairs he looked to have given himself a hernia. At one point Gav couldn’t even bend down to pop his board let alone clear the awkwardly narrow gap to rail. With threats of the caretaker turning up, he battled through, managing the gap to 5-0 before collapsing in a heap by the car.

For anyone into skateboarding and growing up in the 1980’s like myself, there’s pretty much no real need to explain the significance of this photo on both a personal and profession level. To be honest, for anyone who’s had any real interest in skateboarding as a whole for the past thirty odd years, there’s again no real need to explain it.

Back in July, a cross section of the Flip team headed over to the UK as part of their European tour. With the weather being typically terrible during The XC demo and having gone to bed thinking “don’t rain’ don’t rain, please stop raining now and don’t rain tomorrow”, we were all pretty stoked to wake up to one of the only scorchers of this past summer.

With the rain forecast once again for the afternoon, we wasted no time, gathered everyone into the vans and headed over to Romford. This was a special occasion for everyone involved as Romford is definitely one of our longest standing proving grounds and with Lance and Rune as well as the new generation including Greyson Fletcher and Curren Caples, we were all in for a treat. This visit proved to be even more special for Lance as the last time he was at Romford was thirty three years ago in 1979 and he was reunited with Seth Gittians who he’d skated with all those years ago.

With the remaining residue from the down-pour of the previous day hindering the session slightly, the pool was kindly pumped out by Romford legend Dion. Having shot a backside crail block and an invert within five minutes of the pool being dry enough to skate, Lance began trying to get the line for a frontside air. I managed to get four or five photos of this whilst he was trying to get the line to go higher and before too long he reached terminal velocity with this particular frame. F*cking stoked – a Lance Mountain photo and it made its way onto the cover of the Buyer’s Guide a few months later.

First off, that’s a waist high bench with a typically British tarmac run up. Secondly, that’s a Pop shuvit. And thirdly, that could be one of the cast of Made In Chelsea in the background.

Anyway, one of the rad sides to being a skate photographer in Britain is that it’s pretty unplanned and you can never really predict the outcome of your travels until they unfold. Despite only being a few hours away and one of the easier places to get to by car within our motorway network, I never seem to get into London as much as I’d like.

I headed down to London for a few days with Kris Vile in order to wrap up his WORD interview away from our home setting of the West Midlands. Our time spent in London was pretty much centered around handrails and stair sets but after a pretty heavy day of watching Kris and others throw themselves down various drops, we decided to go take in a spot across town that Karim wanted to skate. Although we’d met before, I’d never really seen Karim skate in person let alone shot any photos with him. I’d heard the rumors and seen the footage but f*cking hell this dude has got serious pop!

Like I said earlier, you can never really predict the outcome of your travels as there are so many chance meetings along the way. A trip down to London with Mr. Vile opened up the door for me to shoot one of my favorite photos from the past year with one of the raddest people I’ve met along the way.

There’s more to follow yet – stay tuned…

Joe Marks, 360 nollie, Paris.

This nollie 360 might not hit the standards of kids expectations today but I couldn’t care less as it got me a small amount of cash in my wallet to help pay the electric bill. More importantly, it’s of one of my favorite people; Joe Marks. Anyway, this was shot whilst I was having one of my small panic attacks worrying about whether my camera or bag was going to get stolen thanks to my paranoia of being in foreign territories. Although we were skating the ramp to a disabled school whilst being told to f*ck off in French many times and been at risk of getting a bag of piss thrown at us from above, Joe still landed the nollie cab and went on to handle more business in Paris that week.

Ben Devine, frontside carve, Marseille.

I’m going to be negative about this because it’s obvious unless you’re just being nice to me by not saying it. Yes, he does get lost in the photo but what the hell could I do in a place that was covered in graffiti that I don’t appreciate. I like doing this trick myself mainly because it looks like I’m confident at skating vert when I’m actually too shit scared to hit the coping. I took the photo not realising how good it actually was, I just thought it might look nice and I’ve always wanted to shoot one somehow. I think this is what prompted the Ben Devine and the Heathen “Kickturn Formula” wheel.
This was shot after getting a lift to and then hiking up a mountain somewhere in Marseille on the hottest day ever. Whilst out on the booze the night before, we had met some locals who’d told us of this place in the hills. Pretty much up to the point where we actually saw the spot, we spent a few hours in transit and wondering whether we were going to get to a skate spot or be mutilated by the seemingly sketchy locals…

Eric Thomas, nosegrind, Derby.

I love and hate Eric. This nosegrind was a pisstake. I personally love this photo and was so hyped that I actually took a photo I was stoked on for once. But the only problem was that he wouldn’t even land on the board so it couldn’t get used. We went back three times for him to finally just do it so I could put it to rest, but he kept grinding it and not landing on his board because he was being an absolute pussy. To be fair, the spot is horrible and everything is wrong with it but it looks rad. Anyway, the third time we went back after him stressing out and leaving the spot in absolute denial that he was being a wuss and hating myself for comforting him, he finally did it.
Nice one Eric.

Joshua “Manhead” Young, 180 fakie 5-0, Derby.

The Big Push was amazing. I finally got to go on one after so many years of being envious as a youngster. Only thing was my f*cking equipment wasn’t working. So gutted, I spent half of the trip being depressed and disappointed not understanding why all my photos looked shit, then half way through we got to Derby and I realised that my LCD brightness was turned down loads and that I just needed to change some settings around. Once it was sorted I was so happy with all the photos I got, like this one of Josh. I’ve wanted to shoot something with him for a while and I don’t normally get to be a bit different with how I shoot photos. This time I could get that much sort after “from above” angle and get something I was stoked on and which stood out from the standard angle at those banks.

Will Golding, frontside crooks, Nottinghamshire.

Sometimes Will decides that the time is right and he’ll get an amazing trick on a handrail. Here it was for his ender for his explosive Get Lesta part. Earlier in the day we had been in another part of Nottingham shooting Kell’s video part ender and everyone was hyped after that so we headed over to this rail. Will knew that it was now or never as far as the last few tricks for his part were concerned. He was straight on the rail with no messing around. With some serious hype and abuse from our crew it wasn’t long before he rode the perfect one away. It’s shot long and I know that kind of shortens the rail but it was the best way to show off the steez element to the trick. Really stoked on this Will, let’s see some more rail antics in the future.

Lee Rozee, frontside noseslide, Leeds.

During a one-off sunny weekday in the early spring, Lee Rozee, Vince Orr and myself met up and decided to go for a dedicated spot search around Leeds in a quest for something new. We ended up trekking through the sketchy back streets of Hyde, climbing into abandoned schools and eyeing up potential spots where you would get your head kicked in if you attempted to skate it. We continued into Burley Park but again couldn’t find anything. The fun part about it was the cruising around between unskateable spots. We eventually found this grim ledge near the city centre, which we’d never seen so we thought we’d skate it instead of hitting up the same old spots in town.

It was a perfect Rozee spot; untouched, rough and would make a rad photo. He then caked it in wax and we finally got the first skate of the day started. Roz got a few front noseslides on it and I managed to shoot one where it had some Roz steez and a shit load of traffic in the background to make the spot look more rad. I was hyped we got something on a non-rinsed spot and it was a photo I was stoked on. Yes Roz!

Jerome Campbell, 360 flip, Sheffield.

Myself and the Jones Brothers (Guy and Vaughan) decided to go through to Sheffield one day and hook up with Baines, Beall, Jerome and Burrell. I hadn’t been through to Sheffield many times so I had no idea where we were going. We went passed the spot in the car and it looked sick but when we got up close we realised how awkward and short the run up was. You had to run down a steep grassy hill and then instantly throwing your board down onto a small bit of flat before hitting the bank. Another problem was the staff from the nearby car dealership who aren’t the most understanding people. They didn’t want us to skate the spot so they decided to threaten us by driving a 4X4 towards my flashes and stopping a few inches in front of them. Yeah, nice one…but anyway, their issues got resolved and we ended up getting everything we needed. Jerome managed to effortlessly land this 360 flip over the gap and roll away as buttery as you like. The photo was used for a contents page and I was fully stoked on it.

Tom Harrison, backside 50-50, Leeds.

Myself and Tom were on a deadline to get as many photos for his Yin-Yang interview as we could. We had about a week left and the weather had been a nuisance along with work hours getting in the way. One Sunday we were both free and it looked like it could be dry somewhere in Leeds.

We live in opposite ends of town so it was going to be hard to meet up quickly as the light was fading, so Tom suggested getting a taxi to the spot we wanted to skate as neither of us had cars. Thankfully the spot was just about dry enough to skate.

After about ten minutes of warming up, the inevitable happened and it started raining. Tom kept at it and managed to stick it in the rain. On the attempt he landed, two crazy dudes showed up and they were stoked. They wouldn’t stop talking to us, so we ended up just walking off, I managed to get out of most of the conversation by packing up my equipment which was somehow OK even though it was drenched. In the end the risky trip worked out somehow and it shows that the expensive taxi was worthwhile.

Dave Snaddon, 50-50 up, Dublin.

This was shot during my first time on the Big Push with DC Shoes. The week was going well except for the weather, which was frustrating everyone because we were competing against every other team at the same time. I know the weather looks banging in the photo but this was one small glimpse of sun which we had during that whole week. More annoyingly, we kept checking on weather updates which showed amazing weather for everywhere in UK except for Ireland.

On the last day we were all hoping for some freak weather so we could just smash it and get as much stuff as we could. One of the first spots we hit was looking good and then surprise surprise the rain hit once again. After an hour of waiting in a coffee shop the sun came back out and we hit a few more spots. Snaddon was keen and starting trying to session a spot that we’d seen earlier in the week and he ended up getting this rad 50-50 up it. I was stoked when he was trying it ’cause I knew it would make a sick photo. This was a rad trip and was great to meet everyone on it and along the way. Despite the terrible weather we managed to get what we went to Ireland for. Cheers DC.

Neil Smith, wallride, Basildon.

Later in the summer I was invited to go on a trip to photograph Neil Smith on his very own Big Push. We met in London and went in search of dry spots from there. This time I thought the weather wouldn’t be as annoying as it was in Ireland but I was wrong. When we were in London it would rain just as we’d arrive at a spot so we were stoked to get out to Southend where the sun was blazing. On our way out of Southend we hit a spot Basildon, Essex. This hip looks rad but the run-up isn’t the greatest but that didn’t slow Smithy down. He sessioned it like a normal hip whilst having to ignore kids performing backflips right next to him, then he stepped it up and got this gnarly backside wallride. The Smithy Big Push was so rad and we got to hit up loads on spots I’d never been to before, even if we were constantly fighting the weather conditions as things continued to worsen after Southend…

Read on below – more stories soon…

Benson, frontside grind, Nottingham.

This is from the 2012 Adidas Big Push. We’d met up with Horse in Nottingham and he’d taken us to that new plaza place. It’s a really good spot and everyone loved it, everyone except for Benson, it’s not really his thing. Anyway, as is usual for those kind of spots, we got stuck there for a while. I knew that if we went to another ledge type spot after the Plaza, Benson would start going mental.

I’d last been Maple Street a few years ago, I remembered the vert wall being pretty crazy but maybe Benson could do something there. I asked Andy to lead the way. Pretty much as soon as we got into the park Benson was flying up this thing, we all knew it was on.

From a photography point of view it was a bit of a nightmare:Lots of deep shadow but also little areas lit by full sunshine. The quarter is so big that you can’t really put lights where you want them, you’d need a 15-foot lightstand or something, you just have to compromise in these situations. All the foreground stuff in the way was kind of limiting my options too (I got lucky that his arm and body cleared that leaf).

Before I’d had much chance to ponder or stress over these environmental concerns Benson had worked his way up to a legit grind on the rounded lip (no one was even sure whether it was even grindable) and was surfing all the way back down the transition again. Whoa!

Nick Jensen, frontside blunt, London.

Nick and myself had been to the top of St. Paul’s a few years ago; I think I was shooting some cityscapes for Nick so he could use them for reference in his paintings. Of course as soon as we got outside the first thing we checked out was how cool Chalky Ledges looked from up there… We made tentative plans to return at some point so I could shoot Nick skating the ledges from the same viewpoint. As is often the case with the best laid plans they often take a while to implement, and this one was no exception.

Anyway we finally returned on the last day of deadline for Nick’s ‘Word’ interview. I paid my £15 and then once again climbed the stairs to the top; it’s actually quite a lot of steps, especially if you’re carrying a load of camera gear. Mark Jackson actually helped a lot on this, not only manning the mobile phone link with Nick, but also donating his shirt so Nick would stand out better against the flowerbed. I had Nick do loads and loads of these, I was just waiting to get some interesting things going on with all the people walking in and out of the frame. As soon as I saw this one I knew we had it.

Download Nick’s frontside blunt as a Wallpaper here.

Torey Goodall, heelflip, Copenhagen.

This was shot on the Palace and Polar trip to Scandinavia earlier in the year. I remember it took him ages to land it and I was deeply regretting my “lie down on the floor” angle as the temperature slowly dropped. Not too much to say about this one, I think I like it because it’s kind of retro – all fisheye, flashes, and heelflips.

Jerome Campbell, backside tailslide, Cyprus.

This was Jerome’s last trip for Blueprint as he left for Polar not long after this was taken. I was actually pretty surprised (and stoked) that this made it into the article. The spot is pretty amazing; a perfect concrete wedge thing in front of an epic rock face with caves and stuff. You’d have to be a pretty shit photographer to not come out with something cool from this one. I hid in a bush (I had to, Ches was pissed I’d made him and his 6 camera angles move) and Jerome skidded full speed back tails across this thing. I really like how that bit of rock has the same outline as his leg.

Joshua ‘Manhead’ Young, ollie, Malta.

This was a beacon of light on a pretty hellish trip to Malta. Josh had already fucked his ankle by this point and we’d had more than our fair share of non-existent spots and shitty weather. We’d passed this a few times in the van and we weren’t really sure if was doable, I was really surprised when Josh just started jumping over it straight away, especially considering the crappy run up at the top. I was stoked on those pillars with the faces, the white wall behind him and the writing on the hill:  ”I saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness”.