Leeds resident Reece Leung is next up in our Photographers Stories series – have a scroll below to see which five shots Reece has handpicked from the last twelve months and keep an eye out for the next Photographers Stories interview dropping soon…
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…
