Front row Seat Photography by Bob Scerbo (2000 —2002) There’s a constant need to document what’s going on in riding. If the world collapsed and future generations found the remnants of what BMX once was, you could probably piece it back together and work out what we’ve done and what we’ve been through from the myriad of photos, articles and videos that have covered our craft from every angle. We’ve had the zeitgeist covered since day one. Rarely has some monumental feat gone undocumented. Taking a less dreary outlook on the future, there’s a desire to document what’s going on around us simply because we’re capturing a moment or a time that’s personal. More often than not, the physical act of BMX doesn’t even come into it, there’s a much more humane and basic desire to hold onto something that we hold dear, which is spending time with friends, growing up and not getting old. Better known for his talents on a bike and behind the video camera, Bob Scerbo has a huge archive of old negatives, transparencies and prints that span the majority of his time riding. Not only do they show how BMX can be a catalyst to expand upon peripheral interest and talents, they also highlight how valuable it can be to accumulate a physical document of our times on our bikes. Years pass quick and, sadly, friends come and go, but looking back over these photos you get a sense that every roadtrip and every session was seized and savoured. “The stuff I actually did back then that I’m proud about most are more the photos I took. I loved all that stuff. Being with friends and documenting what was going on, like all those old photos of Wiz [Brian Wizmerski],Van [Homan], [Mike] Tag and Corey [Martinez]… They were so far ahead of everyone else at the time and I felt like I had this front row seat to it all. It seemed almost natural to want to document it. I was in the right place at the right time for a lot of things.When I was growing up I never imagined I’d be hanging out with these people.” – Bob Scerbo
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