We kickstart the week by bringing you our main man in the south, Sam Ashley’s photographic picks from 2011 in the next installment of our “Photographers Stories”.
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.
