The archives vs. the stash.

Usually when I dig in to the archives I comb through binders full of old negatives. When I have a bit more time on my hands, I dive right in to the stash. I usually start of looking for something specific, but it quickly turns in to a different kind of adventure all together.

The stash refers to two separate locations of disorganized chaos. One of the locations is a drawer full of negatives. In said drawer there are 35mm negatives and slides as well as sleeves of medium format and 4x5" film. Since I've been enjoying my Mamiya so much lately I've been tuned in to finding old stuff shot on a Yashica way back when.

Today's find is Mr. Tualla circa 1990

That's not all I found...when more time becomes available...more archives will surface as always. I have mentioned before that it is an endless supply right?

Sons of Mayhem

The other day we posted a photo of Will Power entitled "Still Life". It's rare to find Will actually sitting still. It's usually something a little more like this...

Air fakie!

It's always impressive watching Will with his live life/taste death style of skateboarding.

Being impressed didn't end there. Number one asked me to grab a photo of his front side ollie transfer. I was stoked to hear that's what he was up to, but had no idea he was going for broke!

I thought being impressed twice yesterday evening was good enough for me and then the corner of my eye catches something The Karl had with him...

...an O.G. t-shirt from the kings of Canadian speed metal... Razor!

That's that!

I see dead people

"Festival" wrapped up today for 2012. It was extremely cold out, but we returned to watch what we missed last week... French and English people pretending to kill each other.

Hats off to these guys (and girls). Doing war reenactments when it's colder than twenty degrees below zero takes a lot of passion!

Still Life

I find it odd that "still life" refers to paintings or photographs of inanimate objects, when they can be void of life all together. Then there's "portrait", which can refer to a "likeness of a person" by painting or photograph. I believe a photograph to be less of a likeness and more of an exactness.

Long story short... tonight's "Portrait" of Will Power entitled "Still Life" shot at The Angry Ramp

Art break.

There's always time for making art!

When it's art break time it's Zakk time. P&S Zine Issue III is well under way, so Zakk came over to brainstorm and sketch so we can keep on doing what we do, do, do until we're done, done, done!

Fabulous!

These friends were formerly two of my favourite college radio hosts back when they graced the air waves on weekday mornings. Now they're two of my favourite photos subjects, because they're fabulous!

Chelsea and Ali

Here we go again.

I mentioned a few years ago that I hadn't attended "Festival" since I was a kid and now that I was raising a kid of my own it was time to return. We've been going every year since then. Here are the highlights from our first day at Festival 2012

The weather was AMAZING this past weekend and the fort was packed! We came to get down...or maybe upside down?

Denmark got a bit crazy with this years ice sculpture entry The Dialogue – Birth of Democracy.

Yes, she's giving birth to the letters that spell "democracy" while her man watches over. It was bold...I approve.

We learned about the revolution and all things old school musket related delivered with an appropriate thick French accent.

Portrait time...

Two Cams are better than one.

Get it? Her name is Cam, my name is Cam. I know... it's genius.

The bonus round...

It's was so warm and wet out that this happened...

...problem solved.

Well sort of. Better warm and wet than cold and wet? Who knows for sure, but it did the trick!

Don't call it a comeback.

Thanks to our friends at Photo Central the trusty Nikon DSLR was put back in to action this weekend. I kept all three of the cameras I keep in my bag busy over the past two days while working on various projects. I took a break from skateboarding this weekend (more on that later), but we were back at The Angry Ramp regardless.

Grady Kuly with a nose extension on a make shift extension to 180 out.

Number one coming out of a cab.

Obviously we were up to more than one quick session of skateboarding this weekend. We'll be back with more on that sooner than later.

No time for skate videos.

From the Bones Brigade videos to Fully Flared I could probably estimate the number of skate videos I've watched in the last twenty five years to be less than fifteen. For whatever the reasons were throughout time I just spent more time doing other things than taking the time to watch others do amazing things in these videos.

I don't regret not prioritizing my time to include endless hours of watching skate videos, but I am aware that I missed some great inspirational moments along the away.

Earlier tonight I happened to be viewing an old episode of Epicly Later'd featuring John Cardiel. If you asked me earlier in the day who John Cardiel was I would have admitted that I had no idea. That's how I spent the early 90's... Doing my own thing while being completely unaware of what was going on elsewhere. Worrying about hitting a skate spot without being beaten down by thugs with 2x4's or baseball bats was far more pressing that who was on the cover of Thrasher Magazine that month etc...

After watching the episode I was inspired to dig up some Kodak negatives shot on my roommate's Hasselblad. A day in the life back at 785 Nassau St. South circa 1991.

Mr. Big Pants/Small Wheels himself Mike D.

The roommate and fellow skateboarder... Billie-Jo

A few of the other roommates.

In hindsight, what I missed the first time around...

Thanks to the power of the internet and Netflix...now I know.

It's a cover up!

If you look back through this week you'll notice it started with a smashed camera and we've been posting B&W photos of ladies since then. Today is no exception. Call it a cover up, call it filler, call it whatever you'd like...this is what he have to offer.

The Nikon DSLR is very close to being fixed (we hope). We'll get back to shooting skateboarding related photos and maybe a pancake breakfast or two soon. In the meantime we're still working from the last batch of film rolls that were processed.

This was from one of the older rolls shot. Sydney and her newborn at 10 days old.

Hotel California

Dear Amanda (and Jordy), We hope you enjoyed your trip to California. Your chinchillas were fed and your dragon was watered. Welcome back to Winnipeg!

Those eyes.

Yesterday I mentioned Chelsea's eyes, today I'm pointing out our friend Cam's beautiful eyes. What can I say... I appreciate a nice set of green eyes!

One could even call it a soft spot.

My hands smell like fixer!

My hand often do smell like fixer, but more than anything it's my favourite line from the Shit Photographers Say video a friend shared with me the other day. It's also a perfect lead in to post some photos from the last few rolls of film that I finally processed from the pile.

You'll notice in this photo that there's a giant obstruction in the upper left corner. That's what happens when you're not paying attention when ripping the tape off of medium format film and a piece of paper falls inside your camera. The obstruction was in every frame of the roll of course.

Moving forward... There's a chance you wouldn't have noticed the obstruction period if I hadn't mentioned it as it's easy to be pulled in by Chelsea's eyes!

That's all you get for now! We'll be posting more from the new batch tomorrow!

Whether it was with your skateboard, your significant other or a box of chocolates, we hope you all had a swell Valentine's day.

Damage Inc.

When someone makes the decision to put their camera equipment between flying skateboards and their own face, one has to take in to account that sooner or later either your face, hands or camera could be damaged while "getting the shot". This is something I have known since day one and I've had my fair share of close calls. Yesterday was one of those days.

The first time I met our friend Brock Anderson he was hucking himself down a set of stairs. So it makes perfect sense to me to see him doing just that for over an hour at our Edge Skatepark rental yesterday. He's well know for his technical ability when it comes to skateboarding and pulling off as many switch tricks as possible it seems. Seriously...he's crazy good.

Here's Brock "warming up".

Here's the split second right before the board shot out on this nose blunt heading straight for my face!

Here's the amazing thing... My camera protected my face! After wiping the paint off of the lens from the skateboard itself I noticed it had separated further than during a previous incident of a similar nature. I looked through the view finder and my heart sank. It was all distorted and messed up. I accepted losing this battle. Upon further investigation I found the inside of my camera body was full of loose parts. My heart sunk further, but it was all part of the job.

Before throwing in the towel I thought it would be worth a trip to the local camera repair shop. A pleasant surprise to me...my Nikon is like a Timex ...I hope! When the loose parts fell out of my camera I never noticed the focus screen fell out on to the floor. Thanks to detective Cliff Heide at the skate park he called with the good news that he found the missing piece! Tonight I go to pick it up and see if we can get ol' faithful back up and running again! Stay tuned!

What do you fink?

We went analog for a few days, but we're back on the internet's nuts. Film is hanging to dry, Every Second Sunday session tomorrow so stay tuned. In the meantime...

I am a Bobcat Goldthwait fan!

I have been a Bobcat Goldthwait fan since the Police Academy days. I have enjoyed his live stand up comedy twice, I was jealous when I heard my friend Jennifer took in some up close and personal laughs while being fortunate enough to be at his dinner table during a film festival down south and now I just can't wait to see his new movie God Bless America

Since his "Eddie Jackson" character on the U.S. version of Shameless committed suicide in the first season it only makes sense that Joel Murray shows up in something crazy like this!

When we were young...

Tonight I took a trip back to the same roll of film I posted from earlier this week. It was shot on a Yaschica in September of 1990. Needless to say...we were young.

Christian

Euphoria

Where would I be without my archives? Thanks for the memories and the photos friends!

Skateboard everyday.

I WISH the above statement could be true, but this is Winnipeg so that's a challenge. However... Ever since the completion of The Angry Ramp it has been possible to do so and the only thing stopping us is our own hectic schedules. It's safe to say on a good week 5 out of 7 days are skateboard days so far this year. It's been amazing!

Sunday evening skateboarding with Mark. Lien to disaster.

David Seburn was there as well. As a matter of fact...he was the one who suggested we go in the first place. It took very little convincing.

Thanks to all of those who made The Angry Ramp possible!

Dead Beats - by Shawna Conner

When I showed up at the opening of Shawna Conner's Dead Beats show at Negative Space last Thursday evening something happened that would usually be considered a game-ender, but instead I treated it like a welcome surprise. I had opened up my camera bag only to realize that I had brought my digital camera with me as I usually would to an event like this, but I instantly noticed I left the battery at home in the charger. Instead of being disappointed I was excited as it forced me to grab my film camera. Not just because I prefer to shoot film and I more often than not choose the digital camera instead for convenient blogging purposes etc..., but becuase the lighting conditions were less than stellar which created another challenge that I was also prepared for. I broke out the Ilford 3200 speed film I had stashed away in my bag for quite some time. I had no idea why I even bought it as I moved away from using the higher speed films years ago. Now I knew why. It was for last Thursday night.

The only downside to shooting film last Thursday is that I wasn't in the mood for an all night developing party so you're only hearing about Shawna's show now and here it is...

A sample of the art...

My friend James that I dragged out with me.

Kristin and Jon

Mark

My friend Natalie and her friend...(the one that I asked her name enough times so I could introduce her to my own friend and just when I thought I had it memorized, I've drawn a blank)

The artist herself.

Great show, great space, great art, great friends and that's that!

Innovation

For some of us, skateboarding is about taking baby steps. Learn a trick on something small and gradually take that same trick and try it on something bigger. Innovation often kicks in when you're ready to take it to the next level and you're all out of "bigger".

That would explain why Daniel decided it was time to throw bomb drops off of the chair placed on top of the extension last night at The Angry Ramp.

For the other parents out there...Yes,my stomach tightens up each time a new trick is learned! It's a mixed bag of emotion witnessing your son reach new heights. No pun intended.

Suicidal Tendencies

If you saw our friend Brendon walking down the street some of the first thing that might come to mind could be here's a punk rocker, this guy likes The Misfits etc... Then if you watched him skateboard you might think...Suicidal Tendencies... cause Brendon is gnarly like that!

Skateboarding comes with it's good days and bad days as there will always be bails. This one's hard to watch.

Brendon shares his story of the day he broke his collar bone and fractured his skull!!

We're glad Brendon came out Brendon!

Sometimes I surprise myself

Lately I've been itching to shoot more often with my medium format camera and so I have been. Unfortunately that means I've been stock piling on film that needs to be developed. So with medium format on the mind I went back and hit up the archives for some of the classics shot on 120. That's when I found this...

Winnipeg's own pro skateboarding Jake Stewart...hanging out in the grass? What were we thinking? Who knows...but I actually really dig this photo!

What's in the box?

I was invited down to the 18+ Session at The Edge Skatepark tonight so I could witness to a special occasion. Geoff from the Edge called everyone in the park over to hand Cliff a mystery box and asked him to open it up.

Surprise! The crew that helps run the park thought it was due time to celebrate Cliff Heide's ten year mark of running the park by creating his "pro model". The Chief! Since 79'!

In Edge Skatepark years that's a long time. Cliff has been overseeing the park for half of it's existence. Impressive.

Meanwhile back at the bowl... Alex Doyle gets some footage of Austin Thomas landing an airwalk fakie.

Cliff's pro model and two more Edge Skatepark decks are now available at the pro shop at the park.

Goodnight!