And Away We Go

I've been lugging bins full of "archived" slides and negatives around for the past 8 or 9 years. They almost went the way of all the other crap I had been dragging around with them relating to BMX Action/ Faction. I guess to someone who hadn't been burdened with the thankless task, there was probably a treasure trove of BMX bullshit piled up. The only thing I truly regret unloading was the entire body of digital files, you know, the ones we sent to the printers. Every page, every Ad...tossed carelessly, without regard into a South Philly dumpster. Oops. I was relieved at the time, though. I think the term is cathartic. I haven't looked lately, but I'm pretty sure I still have almost half the printed catalog of 22 issues.

Today I got a new scanner with the sole purpose of digging through what appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 negs and slides, and posting them online. If I can remember who, what, when, where or why, I'll try to relate at least a bit of info on each photo. I grabbed the first few files laying on top of one of the crammed bins, figuring it was as good a starting point as any. I don't have a light table or loupe, so, even if its quality is turdy, I'll more than likely post it anyway.

This kid was wondering around (or maybe he was just wandering around) at the Backyard Jam in Hastings, England held in the beginning of July 2002. He has lots of ice cream on his face. Grammar and spelling and words and typing and stuff isn't my strong suit.

This here slide is full of filth and grit, literally, not just 'cause it's a shot of Stricker. I tried for 3 minutes to figure out the dust and scratch fixer upper mode on the scanner, then gave up. I like this shot because a magazine photo snob dude wouldn't bother ever showing it in public. It's not sharp by any means. I dig it for its rawnesss, which is how non-magazine quality photographers describe their poorly lit and sub quality photos, edgy will suffice as well. A fastplant booster is always good in my book. Dusseldorf, Germany on the same trip as the ice cream face kid above.

It's mildly difficult piecing the timeline of this together. I'm 51% positive the Backyard Jam was the first thing we attended on this particular trip before we darted over to Europe. Regardless, we (there were 8 or 9 or 10 of us on a loosely organized, completely unorganized trip all crammed into one van) ended up adopting Ryan Barrett for about a week, even though none of us had ever met the dude. Good guy, good rider as you can see. This journey reinforced my disdain for Marvin Loeterlle, and Crazy Little Scary Derek Devil Adams carried a ginormous suitcase with him the whole trip, stuffed with folded t-shirts, he lint rolled every one before he wore them. Fuckin' hell.

Well, yeah. I have a fair amount of shots like this, half nude or fully nude women (and the occasional dude, Leland Thurman) in random unplanned nakedness. April of 2001, on my birthday at the original Mesh Skatepark in Florida about 5 miles from where I grew up and not too far from the high school I graduated from. For some reason my dad is convinced I didn't graduate from high school, which is weird. I lived with him the two times I dropped out of college. Chad DeGroot was the conduit for this night. This lady and her friend at the beginning of the party announced "When we drink Jager, anything happens," and sure as shit, Jager started raining from the skies and by the end of the night this lady was totally nude and covered in red tribal inspired house paint.

If anything can make a lady look more kooked than standing in front of a barrel fire covered in red tribal inspired house paint, I'd venture to say this "grind box" scenario is it. Oddly enough this happened towards the beginning of the night well before the barrel fire tribal ceremony. Everything in between was equally as un-lady like. More soon.