Leeds resident skate photography enthusiast Reece Leung is next in line for our “Photographers Stories” series, so read on below as Reece tells you about a selection of hanpicked shots from across 2011…

Lee Rozee, Frontside Air, Leeds.
Roz tried to do this gap previously on Christmas Day 2010 whilst on a skate by himself. He nearly managing to clear it, he unfortunately didn’t manage to stick it. He told me he was sick twice due to trying the gap for so long that he wore himself down so much! Anyway, about a month or so later we were out skating and decided to get out of the trap that is Hyde Park and head out for a street mission with plenty of keen people. We ended up skating in the Uni and just after shooting a photo of Guy Jones doing backside wallride down a set, I remember Rozee saying something along the lines of “I could maybe try this trick on the banks, it’s nothing special but I’ve tried it before and got close, if you’re keen to shoot a photo of it?”.
I was hyped to see what he had in store and so was everyone else; anything that Roz does is usually raw as fuck and not usually something that anyone else will have attempted. Roz showed us the gap; we were all hyping him up to try it as he told us that he nearly did it back on Christmas Day. We watched him have a couple of attempts and every go he was going flat out towards it, I set my stuff up straight away because I knew he’d easily clear it. Roz continued to try it for about fifteen minutes almost landing into the bank perfectly but he just kept shooting out from the awkward landing. Roz managed to stick one, there was a big crew of us watching and everyone went mental. Probably one of the most gnar tricks I’ve seen go down in Leeds since being here, for sure!

Jason Brown, Blunt Backside Flip, Leeds.
When shooting Jase doing this blunt backside flip, I remember us trekking down to Needleside hungover and not really hyped for skating. Jase got down there and was just chilling while chain smoking in an attempt to nurse or his hangover, eventually trying to skate and pretty much going straight for the trick. After trying it for about half an hour Jase was pretty set for giving up, but we made him try a few more before and he ended up landing it out of the blue! After Jase landed it he went straight to a rollie to reward himself. Sick guy!

Guy Jones, Slappy Tailslide, Leeds.
Guy and me attempted to shoot this slappy front tail photo on a few occasions but every time we went there no matter what day it was, security always kicked us off. The next time we went down there it was the final spot of the day and when we arrived, I managed to set up quickly so that we could shoot the photo straight away. Guy gave it a handful of attempts only for the security team to show up. We pretended to pack away and leave and the security headed back into the main office so we made Guy give is a few more goes. We thought we were gonna be kicked off again but Guy gave it a few last attempts and rolled away from it luckily. Glad we don’t have to go back to that spot again, for a while at least! Also I can’t believe Guy actually wanted to attempt this, the drop on the one side is treach!

James ‘Foz’ Foster, Frontside Feeble Grind Backside 180, Leeds.
About a week before this I think Foz skated Tech Ten for the first time, landing a front board and ollieing over the rail to get a feel for it. A few days later he ambiguously said that he wanted to try a frontside feeble backside 180 out, so obviously I was keen to shoot it.
After the standard warm up session at Hyde, a bunch of us walked down to the rail and Foz wasted no time getting stuck in. After getting a front board fakie and front feeble down, he begun trying the backside 180 out.
He was trying it for a good half hour when he we realised we had picked one of the worst days there for moshers and a general overload of after work pavement traffic. So he managed to get a go once every five minutes, with the passing hoards watching it was freaking him right out so he’d have the odd war cry at them and tell them to stop watching, ha ha. After an hour of interruption from every idiot walking past and a couple of nasty slams, he decided to put a beanie on and block the crowds out which actually worked because he landed straight afterwards.

Brenna Harrap, Ollie to Backside Wallride, Leeds.
When I got told about Brenna attempting this ollie to wallride before. I thought I heard it wrongly. Leeds local Vince and myself were with Brenna and we managed to find a piece of metal for the sketchy run up. Brenna was getting into this trick surprisingly easy, it was just figuring a way of getting off the wall that was sticking out and then landing into the steep bank, oh, and then landing into a hill bomb straight after that was the next problem. He was giving it a good go for a while and Vince was pretty confident he could do it but Brenna wasn’t so hyped and was a bit over it. But every time he tried it, he’d end up almost landing it. He was on his last attempt when he managed to get off the wall and into the bank. Stoked, another Leeds NBD!