Eric Nakamura
Bryce Kanights
Matt Irving
Andy Jenkins
Mark Whiteley
Sean Cliver
I went to visit my friend, Todd Francis a few weeks ago while he was in town working on a mural for the Oakley store on Market Street in San Francisco. Needless to say, Todd is an amazing artist and has been named in the current TOP TEN SKATEBOARD ARTISTS‘ list of workhorses in skateboarding (Todd is Number 5)! Check out all available artwork from Todd Francis at his site and at the Equal Dist. shop.
Last post of the year…Been working very hard on my drawings, I just posted some new work on the site. See y’all in 2012.
Last May California announced plans to close one quarter of their 278 parks, a devastating move that is intended to save the state a mere $22 million per year. The closure list includes thousands of acres of park land, recreation areas, wildlife reserves, and 50% of the State’s historical parks. By July 2012 Californians will be bereft of 70 magnificent natural parks.
The First 70 is a short film about Californians banding together to enact change and develop solutions in the face of a glaring bureaucratic oversight. Money raised via Kickstarter will help Lauren Valentino, Jarratt Moody and Corey Brown finish the documentary about the National Parks to help bring awareness.
Visit heathhenfilms.com to find out more and donate. Every little bit counts and we only have 29 days left to pledge.
I’ll be exhibiting at SCOPE for the second time this year where I have new work to be shown for the first time. The event takes place from November 29th until December 4th and celebrates 11 years of SCOPE, running concurrently this year with Art Basel Miami.
There are a few more images here on Flickr.
The Quiet Life is having a Black Friday sale, 15% off if you enter the code BLACK15. The code is good all weekend in their online store.
EZ Ryder (Jef Hartsel and Jay Adams‘ Skateboard Company) and DISSIZIT (SLICK) got together to release these gems for their new collaboration.
Photos of Sean Reilly and Jef Hartsel at Baby-Zones in Salt Lake, Hawaii…
For complete photo-sets from this session, visit EZ RYDER x DISSIZIT and EZ RYDER x DISSIZIT 2.
Big bro Julian lives down the street on the Venice side of Dogtown. He’s usually flying all over the world speaking at some something-or-nother conference, but lately, I’ve been seeing him check in on Foursquare at skateparks all over the country. Wasn’t he just at the Venice Skate Park yesterday? There he is, documenting the variety of life that is living and breathing down by our oceanside, outdoor, skatepark capturing everybody: locals, tourists, old pros, next gen’s top skater and their families. He’s even shot us a few times, hanging out.
Julian’s always got some awesome project happening and when he told me about Hello, Skater Girl I got really excited. I’ve always been a fan of the sport. Silvio was the lead artist for the blockbuster videogame, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Lulu’s godfather is a former pro-skater, and much of our community including the one reading this post are life long friends and family from the sport.
It’s no secret that I would love for Lulu to be an astronaut-pro-skater someday. She’s got her first deck, so really, nothing can stop her, right?! I think the Hello, Skater Girl book would be a great addition to Lulu’s bookshelf. I hope you enjoy this interview I put together with my photographer pal:
Tell me, what’s this photo book you’re working on?
I’m doing a photography book project. The subject is girl skateboarders. I told myself I was doing a book project because that was the easiest thing to wrap my head around. What I really wanted to do was understand skateboarding culture more than I already did, and I basically didn’t really understand it at all — so the project was a way get to know what skateboarding was all about.
Why focus on girl skateboarder?
At first I naively convinced myself that no one else was trying to capture and document girl skaters through some sort of visual medium. That was stupid to assume, because of course it’s not true. But — if you look at much of the core skateboarding communities and magazines and the big brands, you don’t see much photography of girl skaters at all. That’s just the way it is and I understand the systemic issues as to why, even if I don’t understand why not — the lost opportunities.
That’s what drew me to the project because I love creative projects that go against the grain — that do something that “no one” else is doing. And, of course I know that’s just a creative start. As soon as you think no one else is doing something you immediately start finding all the people who are doing that thing. The creativity comes in finding a way to do what other people are doing in a unique, individual way. That’s much more fun to be amongst a community of similarly motivated folks and find your own style and technique.
Okay, so..how would you describe your style?
It’s easier to “see” than describe but — what I’m trying to do is a bit photo-geeky and technical but I try to set up portrait-like photos of this very dynamic, very kinetic sport. I’m shooting for a look that is studio-like — something with big, curated light and the background fall-off you might see in a portrait shoot. I think this is atypical in the canon of skateboarding photography where you often have very big compositions: the big skater/ultra-wide/fisheye look; or the landscape shot with a small skater amidst a big street/urban-concrete setting. I guess I was going for something different just to be different — a wide-ish lens with little distortion; no motion blur; strong visual separation between the skater and the background. That’s geeky.
How’d you get into skateboard photography, anyway?
I moved to Venice Beach awhile ago. The town got a skatepark right on the beach a couple of years ago. Going there and shooting was a better way to learn about the history and culture of this place I’m now living in than reading about it or going to town council meetings.
If you’re keen to see Hello, Skater Girl get made, check out Julian’s Kickstarter or Facebook fan pages! And thanks for your support. Sincerely!
This is the trailer for “Eden”, a short-film that captures the story of Element’s women’s apparel brand and the family behind it.
I co-directed the film with my husband, Kirk Dianda. Together, we shot and edited the piece over the course of two years, as we documented all the products and personalities behind the brand. To string the story along, I created a set of handmade stop-motion animations, that not only help tell the story of Eden, but also represent the brand’s quirky personality, while detailing creativity and fashion.
Short film launches on December 1st.
Directed by:
Amber B Dianda
Kirk Dianda
Music by:
Loren Humphrey
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