Jon McGrath.

One of the McGrath brothers, hurt his back skateboarding, picked up a camera, works in the archive department at Magnum. Great.

Taliban.

I'm super into this photo right now. It's from Thomas Dworzak's collection of discarded Taliban portraits that were taken in a studio in Afghanistan by an unknown(?) photographer. It has a real interesting side story and it makes me want to do two things:
1. Wear a turban (strange, I know)
2. start hand-coloring all my black and white prints.
The story behind this photo can be viewed here

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Ari Marcopoulos. From Andy Warhol to Art to Hip Hop to Skateboarding to documenting everything. I've always liked Ari's stuff. The opening line of this article, which was my introduction to Ari has always stuck with me...."Beauty comes in 7,469,248 different forms....." Ari's work has always had an aesthetic which appealed to me. Not necessarily a "skate photographer" but his skate photos are every bit as iconic as Tobin Yelland's (at least to me). His use of black and white (and even his color photographs) and natural light led me to what I like to see in my own photos. I would have to say that Ari probably has the biggest influence on my own work (with the exception of maybe Joe Brook) and is probably the reason that I have recently abandoned my backpack full of lights (i.e. the ghetto studio) and shot mainly Tri-X in natural light. Anyway, back to Ari....check out the photos of Ryan Hickey and the late great Harold Hunter, as well as the photo of Julien Stranger reading a Bukowski novel. Ari is an "outsider" to skateboarding but is a great example of someone who became an "insider". And every photographer secretly wants to be involved in the situation like that. It's called intimacy. Look it up.

JOE BROOK!

I can't think of any other photographer who has had the influence on me that Joe Brook has had.  Sorry to all my friends but Joe is an amazing fotogoon and a stand-up dude.  I don't know Joe that well (I've loved his work for years before I ever met the guy) but he still texts me on holidays to tell me happy whatevs.  Dude gave me a bunch of t-shirts when I went to visit him and has bought me dinner on a few occasions.  From Transworld Skateboarding (not Slap?) 1998. More Joe soon......

Gaberman.

"The whole time, the magazines acted like I didn't exist."

Gaberman did the traditional route and shot everything on film, printed everything (including color) in his own darkroom, shot with Civil War Era lenses, and overall killed it. Skateboard photography is a formula these days and we need more Gabermans and less rich kids from Arizona (check flickr.com's skateboard groups and you'll see what I mean)

This is from Gaberman's first "feature" in Transworld Skateboarding from 2002.

And from Gaberman's Skateboarder years:


And now for the nerdy art teachery shit....Gaberman uses composition to draw your eyes to the action (i.e. skateboarding) in his carefully exposed landscape photographs. Recognize (had to end on a gangsterish note).

More Tobin and a camera.

Mic-E Reyes. 1988 I think. This is the BART station at 24th and Mission(?). I met Mic-E once in Vegas with Jason Jesse. Epic Dude.

Ray Barbee. This one has great color.

An absolute classic. John Cardiel in front of the Slayer poster. This totally sums up how rad Cardiel is. This is more than a photo, it's an icon.

The Nikon FM2. Tobin's camera of choice and the camera that taught me more about photography than any other instrument. I just bought my second one (my original died years ago). Nothing feels the same (apologies to my wonderful Leica M6).  Load some Tri-X in this baby and you're set for life.  This machine shoots people.

Why?

I don't know why I'm starting this blog.  I was thinking the other night about who inspired me initially to pick up a camera.  Really, I just didn't want to be another kid with a video camera at the skatepark. So, I'm the kid with the still camera instead.  So, this is a blog to post works by my favorite photographers and maybe even write about them a little. So, let's start with a photo of Ethan Fowler from 1993 or so by Tobin Yelland: