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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”.

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Engage your brain and eyes and get reading below to see what shots Smashers has picked out from the last twelve months, then head on back tomorrow for more!

Javier Mendizabal, backside ollie, Gateshead.
This was shot on Cliché’s “Bullseye” UK tour back in April. I remember some of the guys were trying to do some pretty tech stuff at a manny pad spot just down the road from these banks and we were kind of getting stuck there. It wasn’t long before Javier and Jeremie Daclin wanted to check something else out, so we just kind of snuck off to take a look at these banks. They’re located in the middle of pretty sketchy estate and it wasn’t long before we were getting stress from the residents nearby: “I work nights, I’m trying to sleep!” etc. Luckily when it comes to transition stuff Javier is one of the very best, no matter how tight or how gravelly the run up.

Chewy Cannon, 50-50 up, NYC.
This photo is from the first Palace trip to NYC at the end of last year and published in January. I think everyone else on the trip had got tired and headed back to Brooklyn for the evening leaving myself, Lev and Chewy to rat about the streets by ourselves. If you want to skate a lot of the spots in Manhattan, night time is often your only option. Even though New York is like Disneyland these days it still felt pretty sketchy hanging out in this super dark Lower East
Side park at midnight, luckily most of the lurkers passing through didn’t really pay us much attention, in fact the most dangerous thing about the spot was the cars trying to run Chewy over as he cut across the main road for run up. Besides all that, Chewy came through with a new line at a classic NYC spot, never an easy task. Oh, that’s the Empire State in the background there too.

Steve Malet, 50-50, Paris.
I remember it was freezing, but that did not in anyway influence me to shoot this from the warmth of the Cafe, I am an artist damn it. The run up for this thing is awful cobble that dips down at the top too; you kind of have to pop pretty early to avoid it. Steve’s definitely not lacking in the pop department so it wasn’t too long before he was getting up on this thing. He eventually landed one clean, but I think maybe he wanted to do another where he ground it further or something, I’m not sure, I was in the Cafe. Anyway next go, he got up on it but his board slipped off the other side leaving Steve to fall backwards onto his head/neck, pretty nasty. He was pretty shaken but just about OK. I don’t think he’ll be going back anytime soon though.

Korahn Gayle, switch ollie, Sicily.
I knew that Korahn was an absolute beast but even I was surprised how easily he did this switch ollie during a Nike SB trip to Sicily earlier in the year. What you can’t see to the right of me is an assortment of cars/scooters who had decided that they wanted to watch and simply stopped driving, blocking a couple of lanes on this busy Catania road at rush hour.

Ben Raemers, pivot fakie, Gran Canaria.
This was shot the end of a long day skating around Las Palmas looking for stuff to skate. These banks are a classic GC spot but far from easy to skate. I remember that the radios that trigger my flashes were getting some interference or something, they weren’t playing nice anyway. Luckily for me this took Ben a little while to do, not only giving me time to figure out how to make these fucking flashes fire, but also watch the daylight fall exactly where I wanted it.