Archive for May, 2008:
Blackpool Seaside Session 2008 videos
May 30th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Here’s some video footage fro mthe Blackpool Seaside Session 2008 with both A and B groups. Footage of the A-Group comp from Seaside Sessions at Blackpool ‘Ramp City’. Sam Beckett, Sam Bosworth, Sean Goff, Wingy, Jim the Skin. And a great choice of songs in there – Naked Raygun with “Treason” and Pegboy with “Strong Reaction”
And more vert fun with the B-group ripping the vert ramp!
And here are the results of this skill-packed vert contest:
A-Group Vert
1st Sam Becket 247 points
2nd Sam Bosworth 239 points
3rd Alex Halford 235 points
4th Sean Goff 229 points
5th Jim the Skin 218 points
6th Jacob Anderson 214 points
7th Wingy 211 points
8th Jim Langran 206 points
B-Group Vert
1st Reece Douglas 214 points
2nd Mike Day 208 points
3rd Nick Hansen 200 points
4th Rob Fuller 193 points
5th Chris Spencer 178 points
6th Rob Ayton 169 points
7th Zac Kutz 159 points
8th Batfink 158 points
Keep up to date with the contests over on the UK Vert Series MySpace page
Q & A with Kingpin Magazine editor David Luther
May 30th, 2008 / 2 Comments » / by Jonathan Young
David Luther is a busy guy when it come to the European skateboarding agenda. After making him wait for several weeks I finally got him a set of questions sent over and here’s what he has to say:
Who are you? Tell us a little bit about yourself (age, what you do in life, where you live)
David Luther, I’m turning 35 this summer, I live in Hamburg, Germany, and I try to do whatever I feel like doing the most at that very moment. I think it’s called ADD. If I focus enough, I sometimes manage to be responsible for the German version of the Kingpin Skateboarding Europa Magazine, meaning I translate most of the text in there from English to German (sometimes I have a little help from my man Ralf, thanks buddy!), and I write articles, or chase down writers to have articles written for the mag. I’m also the contact for the contributing photographers from the German speaking areas.
When I’m not doing stuff for Kingpin, I run a website called Skateboardgeruechte.de (with the help of a fabulous network of jolly good folks inside the industry), shoot photos of skaters and musicians, mcee at skateboarding competitions, or rap along some German rap music. Basically, if something interests me, I inhale it, and try to make it somehow contribute to paying my rent. Can’t be bothered with anything else than hobbies, really. Didn’t study, no apprenticeship, all learning by doing and gut feeling. There’s a few other translations and random media stuff like Titus TV for MTV in my history as well, but that has come and gone. What do I do in life? I’m living it, I guess.
How did you get into photography, especially skateboard photography?
My father had – or, actually, still has, and he just won’t fuckin’ give it up – an old Minolta SLR, which had my full attention as soon as I could grab stuff. A solid, completely manual camera, he had three lenses for it, and the very first appeal was the technical side of it. The metal body and the sound when you press the shutter or wind the film, the changing of the lenses, it just seemed like a really cool thing to handle, it felt good. You know how most dads are, they don’t want their sons near their stereos, cameras, cars, or anything like that, and mine was no exception. So he got me some cheap camera for my sixth birthday. For a short while, I was a really expensive kid, going through film like Lagerfeld through Woolworth – really fast. I went back to that habit when I started working for Monster in Münster years later, but that’s another story. Skateboard photography was just the logical consequence once skateboarding, and skatemags entered my life. It’s strange though: I hate writing, and I love photography, yet I’ve always been a better writer, and as soon as photography had to work as a job – that was in between Monster Magazine and Kingpin – I quickly learned to hate that as well. So, when Niall called to offer me Dirk Vogel’s position in 2006, I was more than happy to let photography go back to being a mere semi-professional (at best) hobby, that brings in a bit of pocket money here and there and lets me work with my favourite artists, or upcoming, interesting acts. That’s one of the dangers here: if you make your hobby your profession, and it turns out to be a pain in the ass on a professional level, you’re fucked. Can’t let that happen, so there always have to be a few other fields for me to dabble in. I couldn’t work as skateboarding photographer only, not anymore. It’d kill both skateboarding, and photography for me.
Photo: Alex Schärfe, backside smith, Wilhelmsburg
You are the man representing Kingpin Skateboard magazine in Germany and you are known for owning the mic for many skate contests and events. How did you get to be in this position?
If only I knew… It’s a really long story, I’ve been working for skatemags for 15 years by now. I was at the right place at the right time (that goes for magazine work), I didn’t mind doing it (that goes for the mceeing), and I had a giant shitload of luck, and a supportive environment, too. Aw, whatever, I’ll just tell it, the second part at least: I never was a good skateboarder, but I love it, so whatever else I could do with skateboarding, I wanted to do it. When the COS series started over ten years ago, it was always like: “Okay, who’s hosting?” Same picture at every local contest – no one really wanted to do it. It always ended with some poor idiot who couldn’t talk straight, or some giant idiot screaming non-stop…neither of which was able to properly identify the tricks being done, let alone pronounce the names, or read a watch. Back then, I was already working for Monster Magazine, covering contests left and right, writing about the COS Cup series, and that meant I had to be there. Hang out at the park for the weekend, watch what’s going on, take notes, maybe film a bit… To put it in one word: boring. I wasn’t gonna battle those lunatics on the course for a go at the obstacles, because I love my ankles and I’m the only one who’s allowed to wreck them. But I felt like I could find this really thin path between being boring, and being a nuisance on the microphone, while providing mostly accurate trickery knowledge, so I volunteered. Worked out allright I guess, I’ve seen at least three generations grow up in “the game”. During the last five years or so I’ve felt like Uncle David on the microphone. Sometimes I’m barking at twens I’ve known since they were 8 or 9 years old. Amazing.
Photo: Thomas Gentsch, Pole Jam No Comply and Michael von Fintel, Kickflip
What type of equipment do you use for your photos? (outside shots, night shots, indoor shots)
My equipment consists of Nikon bodies (D2x, F5) and different Nikkor lenses (10.5mm 2.8, 17-55mm 2.8, 80-200mm 2.8, 55mm Micro 2.8), two Sunpak 544 flashes, a Nikon SB 28, a Nikon SB 800, a couple PocketWizard Plus II Transceivers…and that’s it, pretty much. A small Canon point-and-shoot digi, and a Rollei 35 that’s older than my ass (and healthier, too). My neighbour, David Böttger, who’s currently very actively involved in the building of the Flora Bowl, has built me a nice ring light for portraits, and I’m pretty stoked on that. But there’s too many factors that matter, to tell exactly what I’d use in a certain situation. It’d be a gun, probably, most of the time. Something automatic.
Do you have any special “tricks” which you like to use for certain types of pictures?
Yes.
If you could get any new equipment for free, what would you love to have?
A 32 megapixel, full frame, 12 frames per second shooting 100 terabyte mp3 player with built-in Harman Kardon speakers and interchangeable lenses from fish to spot-the-pimple-over-a-mile built into my left eye. I’ll swap the cellphone camera for it. I don’t want a celly with a cam, I want a celly with a built-in lighter. Thanks. You’re laughing now… But I’m telling you, one day someone is going to finally built a cellphone with a built-in lighter.
Photo: Dennis Klüssendorf, switch heelflip
What is your opinion on post-processing, especially enhancing pictures?
It’s a blessing. I’ve apruptly ended conversations with purists, or “artists” before, because I can’t really stand the discussion, it’s just pointless. I can see where they’re coming from of course, I’d prefer seeing kids going through 10.000 rolls of film on their way to photography stardom as well, but it’s not gonna happen anymore. You can be jealous all you like – they won’t have to spend the money on film that the older generations had to cough up. So, here’s a choice to be made: stay “true” (and behind in the dust in the process), or get familiar with the possibilities the new technologies have to offer, and use those to your advantage. And “enhancing” really is a relative thing anyway, because a shitty photo is a shitty photo. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
What are you currently working on and do you have any projects planned?
Right this very second I should be translating pull-quotes and captions for Kingpin, also I’m getting ready for the adidas Clash in Berlin this upcoming weekend, and the COS Cup in Dresden the weekend after that. One project that I’d like to see done this summer is a relaunch of my photo website. I’ve already talked to my boys at Menschlabor.info about it, and they’ll take good care of that. Also, I’d really like to see/work on a proper skateboarding format on TV, but that needs the right folks (no problem there), and a good amount of time (which is the one problem I really have, beside doing my taxes). Julian Furones has been in Hamburg for quite some time now, but he leaves on Saturday and I hope he returns soon, because shooting with him is always a pleasure, and we already have a few things that should look good on Kingpin’s pages. Up to this point in my life, nothing has been planned. Everything just fell into place, somehow. So, I don’t plan. Life’s what happens while you’re planning something else, and I’m just too busy enjoying life, and trying to share all the luck I’ve had. Wait, that sounds a bit too perfect…there has to be a catch…I got it: do like I do, and you’ll worry about money more than what’s healthy. It’s good fun, but there’s not much money to be made in what I do. Just be careful what you wish for. This could have been the way shorter answer: More money, and more money – but an answer like that might be misconcieved if left alone.
A big thanks to David for this great Q&A. Make sure you check out his sites/sites he contributes to.
http://davidluther.com
http://shootingatwhoever.com
http://kingpinskateboarding.com
http://skateboardgeruechte.de
Adidas Skateboard Clash IV live webcast May 31st
May 30th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Straight out of Berlin, Germany the Adidas Skateboard Clash IV will be taking place this coming weekend (May 31st – June 1st) with a bunch of top skaters, check out the list at the bottom of this post.
Street Qualification Sa 10:00 Uhr: (Alle aus DE)
Konrad Waldmann, Philip Ueberfuhr, Farid Ulrich, Max Ritter, Hannes Schütte, schubi, Christopher Schübel, Nepomuk Herok, André Gerlich, Patrick Rogalski, Sandro Eiselt, Ralf Reich, Moritz Rech, Sebastian Witt, Denis Klüssendorf, Henning Hüttepohl, Tom Kleinschmidt, Piere Schneider, Fabian Semrau
Street Sa 12:00 Uhr:
Christoph Voglbauer (AT), Jo Lorenz (DE), Sascha Biehaule (AT), Christian Krause (DE), Ruben Rodrigues (ES), Julien Bachelier (FR), Norbert Szombati (DE); Andy Welter (DE), Stephan Günther (DE), Vladic Scholz (DE), Patrick Streiter (DE), Simon Jadczak (DE), Patrick Vetter (DE), Manuel Bogner (DE), Dimitri Stathis (DE), Mika Edin (SE), Lukas Danek (PL), Honza Minol (CZ), Marek Zaprazny (SK), Peter Molec (SK), Ondro Leskoviansky (SK), Collin Mclean (DE), Petr Horvat (CZ), Lem Villemin (DE), Jeremy Reinhard (DE), David Lee Young (DE), Axel Cruysbergh (BE), Marc Achmueller (DE), Jan Kliewer (DE), MackMcKelton (DE), Julien Dykmanns (BE), Alex Mizurov (DE), Louis Taubert (DE), Kevin Tshala (BE), Youness Amrani (BE), Mmax Beinhofer (DE), Paco Elles (DE), Lennie Burmeister (DE), Florian Bodenhammer (DE), Daniel Pannemann (DE), Christoph Radtke (DE), Gregor Blisse (DE), Yannick Schall (DE), Jovani (DE), Till Kemner (DE), Maxim Rosenbauer (DE), Jürgen Horrwarth (DE), Nino Ullmann (DE), Vincent Golly (DE), Dan Skrobol (DE), Helda Lima (Potugal), Maxim Genin (FR), Fato Veseli (DE), Carsten Beneker (DE), Anthony Lopez (FR), Danny Pham, Simo Makela (FI), Pete Ruikka (FI), Klaus Dieter Span (DE) , Michael Mackroth (DE), Richi Löffler (DE)
Girls Jam:
Sabrina Göggels (DE)
Jürgen Horrwarths Bowl Jam
Christoph Voglbauer (AT), Moritz Rech (DE), Ralf Reich (DE), Anders Tellen (DE), Julien Bachelier (FR),
Martin Jurasek (CZ), Jürgen Horrwarth (DE), Kevin Wentzke (DE), Seb Daurel (FR), Guillaume Moquin (FR), Ivan Rivado (ES), Alain Goikotxea (ES), Johan Borchert (Columbia), Johann Diens (DE)
Vans Roll With Us European Tour
May 28th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Keeping it simple here are all of the dates for the Vans Roll With Us European Tour 2008. Keep up to date over on the Vans Europe website for the latest news.
UK skaters wanted for Cliche and Stereo teams
May 28th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Picking through the sites as usual I’ve seen a couiple of companies currently on the lookout for new blood for their teams. Stereo Skateboards for one is searchign fro a young british skater who doesn’t ride for any other company. The new talent will be chosen by Chris Pastras himself so if you think you could fit into this team, get your footage together and send it in to “Out of Step Distribution” asap (wes@outofstep.ltd.uk).
And Cliche is also looking for a new UK rider which has sparked off a massive run on the forum entry over at Sidewalk Skateboards. It’s a who’s who of British skateboarding and lovely comments, sure got me laughing. Should be interesting to see who makes the race. John Tanner, Shaun Witherup, Daniel Clarke or somebody else? Stay tuned…
All of the Zoo York Europe tour dates 2008
May 28th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Just in case you missed any of the dates, here are ll of the Zoo York European Tour dates for the summer of 2008:
t’s been nearly two years since the team landed on European soil for a skateboarding tour, so needless to say the entire squad is extremely fired up and ready to shred. Along for the ride will be ZY Officials Zered Bassett, Donny Barley, Aaron Suski, Kevin Taylor, Forrest Kirby, Brandon Westgate, Matt Miller, Anthony Shetler, Lamare Hemmings, Ron Deily, and Eli Reed. Led by the hardest working TM in the industry, Seamus Deegan, the crew will host autograph signings and demos in fourteen cities spanning the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Czech Republic, and France.
ZY 2008 European Tour Schedule:
Manchester (UK)
6/11 – Signing – Note Skateshop – 4:30pm
6/11 – Demo – Mancunian Way Park – 6:00pm
Leicester (UK)
6/12 – Signing – Casino Skateshop – 4:30pm
Crawley (UK)
6/13 – Demo – Crawley Skatepark – 5:30pm
London (UK)
6/14 – Demo – Bay 66 Skatepark – 2:00pm
Malmo (Sweden)
6/17 – Demo – Bryggeriet Skatepark – 6:30pm
6/18 – Signing – Streetlab Skateshop – 4:00pm
Amsterdam (Holland)
6/19 – Signing – Tom’s Skateshop – 4:00pm
6/19 – Demo – Everlands Skatepark – 6:00pm
Munich (Germany)
6/21 – Demo/BBQ – Spot-Georg-Freundorfer-Platz – 6:00pm
Prague (Czech Republic)
6/23 – Demo – Mystic Park – 10:00am
6/23 – Demo – Stalin Park – 2:00pm
6/23 – Demo – Strasnice – 5:00pm
6/23 – BBQ – Mystic Park – 8:00pm
Karlovarsky (Czech Republic)
6/24 – Demo – Karlovy Vary – 2:00pm
Zurich (Switzerland)
6/26 – Signing – Beach Mountain Skateshop – 6:00pm
Paris (France)
6/28 – Signing – Nozbone – 6:30pm
6/29 – Demo – Bercy – 5:00pm
Lyon (France)
6/30 – Signing – Wall Street – 3:30pm
Nimes (France)
7/1 – Signing – Unlimited Skateshop – 2:00pm
7/1 – Demo – Skatepark of Nimes – 4:00pm
Aix En Provence (France)
7/2 – Signing – Select Skateshop – 3:30pm
An exclusive ZY podcast of the 2008 European Tour will be released this fall.
Featured Photographer – Allan Schmidt
May 27th, 2008 / 1 Comment » / by Jonathan Young
Allan kicks off the collected “Featured Photographers” effort here on Europeskate in which all photographers presented get their own profile page. Allan also started writing a guest column for Europeskate about skateboarding in Brazil. Enjoy!
Make sure you check out his Flickr gallery page to keep up with his work right here >>
Who are you? Tell us a little bit about yourself (age, what you do in life, where you live)
My name is Allan Di Pace Schmidt, I sign my work only as Allan Schmidt. I´m 26 years old, born in São Paulo, Brazil, but currently I live between Austria and São Sebastião in the north shore of São Paulo state.
I´ve been working in the past years as an independent graphic designer but also did some side jobs to earn the bread.
How did you get into photography, especially skateboard photography?
Since I was a kid, my father always had cameras around, he wasn´t really a big fan of photography but knew how to handle a camera pretty well. When we moved from the countryside to this beautiful place on the coast, in 1996, I started to try my father´s cameras out and realized that I enjoyed that a lot. 3 years after that, I went to college in São Paulo city to study tourism and it didn´t take long till I bought my first analogic camera, gave up on college and started a technical photography course. After graduating I went for a 2 year photography course in a nice art´s school, which I made it to the end of the first year.
By this time I had a job as an apprentice in a photographic studio. We mostly shot still stuff like furniture with big format cameras. Man, that was crazy!!! Working under pressure, deadlines, massive production. The assistant and me would stay sometimes up to 60 hours awake working. We had like 2 hours to sleep while the films were in the lab and then back to work.
I´ve been into skateboarding since I´m 10 years old and i still do it in a almost daily-basis, of course had my ups and downs but I´ve always kept on skateboarding, so the transition from whatever the type of shots I was taking into skateboard photography was natural.
It was in 2006 when I decided I had either to go pro or give up on my lifestyle, settle down, and find a regular job. Well, I´ve decided to go pro. I´ve been trying hard since then to get as much in contact with photography and skateboard as I can so I can learn more and more. This is a never ending learning process!!
What type of equipment do you use for your photos? (outside shots, night shots, indoor shots)
Today my work platform is totally digital. I shoot most of my stuff with a Nikon D80, 2 Nikon SB-24 flash units, Tokina fisheye and Pocket Wizards. Although I also have an old analogic Canon FT with a couple of cool lenses and a Holga which produces some really artistic shots.
I almost don´t shoot indoors, but if I do, I tend to use a Manfrotto tripod for the camera and the almost mandatory softboxes for portraits. I´ve got a couple of homemade for that purpose.
Do you have any special “tricks” which you like to use for certain types of pictures?
No tricks, It´s clean game bro!! Just kidding.
No, I don´t really have tricks, but I am about to try a new technique, which is to use a polarizer filter while shooting under midday sun. The filter holds the light down in about 1 up to 2 stops, which sometimes is all you need to freeze that moment. And remember, you don´t need top shelf gear to get top shelf jobs done. The folks back in the day used to use their minds before to use a camera.
If you could get any new equipment for free, what would you love to have?
For how long can I keep on going here??? Man, there are so many things in my wishlist, that I don´t know where to start from.
Priorities now are to get an extra Nikon D300 body and the super famous 70-200mm 2.8 telezoom. Then I will be satisfied for the moment with my digital gear and I can start getting a Hasselblad, medium-format lenses, light meter, a couple extra strobes, battery packs, a couple extra pocket wizards, some softboxes…
What is your opinion on post-processing, especially enhancing pictures?
It helps, but it shouldn´t! We should be able to get what we want out of the camera.
What are you currently working on and do you have any projects planned?
Well, I have a photo to be published maybe this next month in this magazine www.switchskate.com.br, I gotta get my website´s design ready and launch it still this year, I´m writting some articles here on Europeskate and we´re talking about maybe getting my own column on the website or something. Besides that, riding pools as hell and shooting people (I´m talking about photos).
Allan Schmidt on the map >
Deathbowl To Downtown: New York’s skateboard documentary
May 27th, 2008 / No Comments » / by Jonathan Young
Some cities just don’t need an introduction. New York is known by all of us, either you’ve been there, seen parts of the city in movies or watched skaters rolling through the bouroughs. Skateboarding has deep roots in this incredible city and the Deathbowl To Downtown documentary chronicles the evolution of street skateboarding from a NYC perspective.
Beastie Boys, Minor Threat and Bad Brains all contributed tracks. Chloe Sevigny narrates. Lance Mountain, Mike Vallely, Keith Hufnagel, the Gonz and early Shut Skateboards imagery featured. Looking forward to it coming out. Let’s see when it hits Europe’s shores…
March 7, 2010: austin hughes
March 7, 2010: TNT Skateboarding
March 6, 2010: alex
March 2, 2010: adrianne conner
