this is something i originally posted on my blog on the site that should not be named, but a few people have asked to see it who aren’t on that site. so here it is

tonight i fell asleep early because i had nothing cool to do. when i woke up at like 11:30 pm i was bored and was looking in my closet for something. i looked upwards at my top shelves and was like “you know what, i have fucking ton of photo albums.” the funny thing is that like 90 percent of that is old skating photos. so i just felt like taking some time while listening to iron maiden and inside out (i was on the “i” section of my itunes) to really sit here and just scan a bunch of them. and the reason for that is because so much of this part of my life was documented by having really cool friends who shared that passion with me. not just skating, but photographing every freaking trick we could pull out of our asses. we would literally bring film/video cameras with us every which way we went and i’ll guarantee that most of the people pictured in these shots have closets exactly like mine.

these were the dudes i spent every minute with for most of my young life, and most of them i hardly see now. some of them i haven’t officially seen in years. and when i flip through these pages i miss them a whole hell of a lot, because these were the years that really shaped my life. hanging out with a pack of great dudes at all times, having fun, pushing ourselves was the coolest shit ever. i miss skating that much as well, like… skating always. and if you scroll through through these shots, in tons of them you’ll see a stack of bikes chilling on the side because that’s how we did it. we all met up, rode to the first spot and skated til we were thrown out, moved to the next spot and so on until it got dark. that was just the process.

i haven’t done anything to these shots in “post” obviously, but it’s really cool to see all the differing qualities of each shot. half the time i don’t even remember who took what shot. i mean, obviously there are some that i’m like “damn that was such a great shot, i can remember it so distinctly.” but in a lot there is a good chance that any of the people pictured could have taken the other. some of them were taken with a fun saver, some with a kodak instant shot 35mm (with the little charging flash), some (the really off color ones) were with my old yashica. and some of them are still really beautiful shots.

some of these scanned were strictly for “holy fucking shit, look at that gear”‘s sake. like, the shit we wore and rode on is fucking classic. just check out the grind plates and knee pads and everything. and some of the shots included are just for the spot, to remember how many times we ventured to whatever random location for whatever crappy thing there was to session.

this was a fun couple hours of a night. i hope you other dudes enjoy this, because i am doing this to share with you. i encourage you to do the same thing if you have 3 and a half hours to kill, and to add any comments, or whatever. i miss you guys. i hate to be one of those nostalgia dudes, but fuck… those really were the days… being a photographer, that’s kind of what i’m about i guess. anyway, thanks for having so, so, so many great times with me.

four nine two forever.

this is the most recent shot, i found in a pile of photos. from when bren and i lived in brooklyn

this was a big trick back then for us

this is a yashica shot, corey killed the sweatstances

i can still feel how amazing it felt riding those right off the edge, note the bags strewn about the lawn

board sports when it was widened

bk killing a sweaty at the ferry spot

i love this shot so much because of all the multiple actions happening, fucking perfect. and perfect example of stacks and stacks of bikes

mike g in the king 55’s, corey looking on

on one of the many city trainride trips where we’d skate all over the city and try to hit as many spots as humanly possible

early on of bk, corey and mike g at peconic

me and bren went to boston college to visit my sister and skated the entire campus

this was a cut day for me and bk, note the dude taking advantage of the “xtreme” moment in new york city! we cut and went skating all day and then saw pennywise, perfect day. this rail was amazing and now it’s gone

bren and i went to woodward twice, the third time bk came. that place is heaven on earth. i can still remember all the various dudes in our cabin…

what the fuck are those wheels?

bk sporting the dirks, i remember being amazed when he got them. the were so different from everything out at the time

corey joined me on a trip to boston

bk fully decked out in senate gear. i would kill for that shit now

two of the rare photos of my “backyard” rail. we jacked this shit from the woods in la bonne vie, and dug it in the ground with cinderblocks. the worst runway/landing ever. mike g and matt d

i wish it was cool to do air tricks like this still

brendan with the sick ass striped senate pants, matt d looking on

bren used to kill this trick, note where he’s landing here and keep your eyes peeled ahead. mikle g has the sick low cut oxygens on

one of the few times we ran out of spots so we skated at our middle school, look at those soccer shin guards. i think that’s farrell in the back

corey had this shit dialed. this lui kang monkey plant worked into his run constantly be he always made it look amazing. check out the colored backyards (i think) because the yellow ones weren’t available to the public at the time

one of the few dudes who did a low negative mizou

it was so freaking hard to air at board sports

check the homemade fnt sticker planted directly on the shot. bk doing a alley oop makio

that’s a snapcase jersey and i think those are fr “shut the hell up” wheels

i think bk was the first to try this, we skated the shit out of those things be back then he could jump like nobody’s business

i love how tweaked this is, i think that’s a mute.. right?

guess who’s brake that is? worm’s. that’s right, worm has rollerbladed

remember when ryan gave us all those basketball jerseys, bren? i still have it and it still fits

i think farrell took this. the funsaver had this on there automatically

rudy’s meat market shirt! classic. cds detroit burgundy plates

i wish i still had that toy machine shirt

cement clothing didn’t last long. we used to skate ryder everyday. it was pretty much the warm up/meeting spot.

board sports pre-expansion. i used to love when they had the broken boards on the wall

this is truly “old school” – back when you had to make aggressive inline skates from scratch. i remember brendan and i like sawing and drilling parts onto our first skates. back when we would skate a two foot rail hanging out of a cinderblock

photographic proof of worm in skates wearing bmx shinguards. i think what i’m doing is some kind of crazy sidewalk. that was a dope senate hat

sick kind grind. sick 976 ringer. i had it in grey and maroon

corey doing the monkey plant when board sports was shorter and the desk was on the other side

worm busting a makio at my la bonne vie curb. “you like TALKIN SHIT!?” said the passerby thug

an interesting cast of characters. crazy tom in bottom left, chachi, dave, matt lentini, and i think timmy k. i got the pawn gloves on

worm busting a smith grind at la bonne vie ledges. i was put in handcuffs once when i was skating by myself. they kept me in the office for an hour because i couldn’t get in touch with my mom or dad

bren 540ing off the side of the ramp at board sports

corey um.. stale grab?

yep, that’s worm again attempting a backslide. (edit) dan fugina(!) watching from the right

mikey lent with the praise unity in the purple senate shirt. i broke my pinky playing basketball so my splint showed up in like 60 pictures unbeknownst to me

a very rare shot of brendan with bleached hair

even more rare… a shot of zach kelly skating, rocking the unity

matt dowsey unity up the ledge at ryder

classic shot of matt d with the burger king crown. i don’t even remember going there that day, i think he just wore that shit all day and brought it from home for extra credit

training wheel with the senate shirt and hat that i wish i still had

mike lent soul on the box near those trails

matt d airing over me, i love the panning. i have no idea who took these shots

you could barely do a trick on this coping because it was so small at the time

this i believe is the very first day we hung out and skated with briankim. i remember in the seventh or eighth grade i saw him in the halls and saw him wearing a skating shirt. he was new and it was so rare for anyone to rollerblade i had to go talk to him. we invited him out skating and he was so awesome. no one could backslide better at the time. he skated fast, too. i remember being like wow, this dude is fucking sick

solo roll wearing a huge nofx shirt

corey used to aim as high as possible on the vert wall and try to kick the power box thing

rail in bayshore with the off white salomons when they came out

bk wearing the king 55s. i bought those things and the literally destroyed my feet

this is from when we used to go to some office building near the sunshine mall and stack picnic tables in a way that we could jump on and then air off. mike g busting the 180 with bren up on the ledge watching. i think we tried putting the tables up to the ledge and it didn’t end well

corey doing another amazing sweaty

bk had top acids so dialed at this point. he made them look so good

and brendan could literally sweatstance anything

i find it funny that he’s wearing gloves but no sweatshirt. church of skatin’ shirt

corey coming off a sweat at the rails on 23rd on the east side. me and mike g watching in the back

brendan 180 while mike, tim and i bust a pose

someone’s filming back there…

treacherous sayville rails. those things were steep

this was possibly the biggest trick i had seen any of us do at the time. bk with the top acid while mike lent filmed. this shit was huge! we all rejoiced when he landed

bk at stony brook while tim filmed

my friends look out for me like “family”

i used this shot for the box cover of one of our videos. i love this shot by brendan. schwinn shirt i got from a cheerios box

and there you go, so much more speed and more height. he used to spring the hell off this thing. riding razors at the time

this rail lasted for like two seconds

what was this, the bell building or something. midtown somewhere

north ocean gap

this was that weird spot in babylon

i always loved this shot of mike g. this is the most representative of my current photography haha

that $2 sweter is still in my closet

me, mikey and brendan in the creature (rip) at wendy’s. i have no idea who took this photo

fatty pros. i loved those skates so much, it was so amazing when i got them

board sports. this was the only one i fucked with in photoshop. back when i got a fisheye extension for my camera the on-camera flash would cast a shadow on every picture from the lens. it’s not well done, just cleaned a bit

last shot of the crew by mike g. picture is me, bk, mike lent, brendan and corey. the funny thing about this is this is like 100 pictures, but yet i still have hundreds and hundreds more. skating was so much fun and it’s nuts to think that some of these are 13 years old or so. hope you enjoyed looking a segment of mine/our life/lives.

maybe i’ll do another one in the future