Steve Claar, Münster, Germany, 1990
02. Images 1989-1992
Mark Scott, Portland, OR, 1992
Rawls, La Jolla, CA, 1998
The week leading up to shoot this trick I could not sleep. The rail was constantly on my mind because I had never slid a rail this big and I had no idea what might happen. All I knew was that I was committed and there was no going back.
Alphonzo
Alphonzo Rawls
04. Jeremy Klein and Ron Chatman
I first met these characters in 1989 when my roommate Terrence Stukey was working as a team manager at Airwalk shoes. Both Jeremy Klein and Ron Chatman were exceptional street skaters and
were sponsored by Airwalk. They
also spent a lot of time at the apartment and we ended up becoming great friends.
Ron was a street skater that also skated vert and he’d oftentimes come skate at Mike McGill’s ramp with me. Primarily the only skate terrain I shot in 1989 was vert, Ron was the first of the two I shot. None of those photos ever ended up in a magazine but if you ask me, Ron’s skills on the vert ramp were not too shabby. Jeremy was street only and often made fun of Ron for skating vert, but Ron couldn’t care less, he skated when and where he wanted
When it came time to finally get out in the streets with Jeremy, we shot at a few of his favorite San Diego spots including the Sorrento Valley ditch and the Big Bear Bump in Encinitas, California. I was pleased to get an image from each in Jeremy’s Transworld Skateboarding Pro Spotlight in 1991.
I want to say that Jeremy was the first skater I shot at a schoolyard, but I’m not actually sure. He loved schoolyard spots and over the years we climbed a lot of fences to find virtually un-skateable bank-to-rails and the steepest, roughest bank walls imaginable. He loved that shit. On one mission, he ended up riding a bank of dirt just because it looked skateable (to him at least). I’ve always had a good time shooting with Jeremy—never a dull moment.
In 1992, I got the chance to shoot a Pro Spotlight with Ron. It was my baby from start to finish and over the course of a few months I put a shitload of miles on the car driving back and forth on the I-5 freeway. Back then it only took 45 minutes to get from Carlsbad to Long Beach if you left at the right time and avoided rush hour where nowadays you couldn’t drive that distance that quickly at 2:00 a.m. We hit spots from Huntington Beach to downtown Los Angeles and most of those missions ended with success one way or another. The resulting interview in Transworld Skateboarding was the culmination of all that hard work. Most of the photos of Ron in this chapter are from this time.
Dave Swift
Jeremy Klein, Gardena,
Jeremy Klein, Lomita, CA, 1991
Anderson, La Jolla, CA,
Brian
Steve Alba, Upland, CA, 2002
Danny Way, 50-50, Encinitas, CA, 1999
After Del Mar [Skate Ranch] closed in 1987 there wasn’t a lot of accessibility to vert ramps. My friends from Vista, (Matt) Hensley, Steve Ortega, and Mario (Rubalcaba), all just started street skating a lot more. I got sucked into that and started progressing with the whole street movement of the time. I owe it all to how much of a pain in the ass it was to get a vert session going in those days.
Danny Way
10. Danny Way
John Cardiel, Phoenix, AZ, 2001
A night mission Jimmy Moore pool link with lots of vert. I saw a line, headed up through the corner and snapping into a back Smith that felt like a walk the plank moment as the bottom just drops out from the wall. Being dark made for a total trust fall all the way back in. Arizona rules.
John Cardiel
12. Pool Glory
Christian Hosoi, Huntington Beach, CA, 2017
What we had in the ’80s was like the greatest rivalry of any sport. I say that because there were different camps or cultural divides. There were sponsor and magazine divides like Indy/ Thrasher vs Tracker/Transworld. Skatepark localism rivalry with me being from Los Angeles and Tony from San Diego. This had been happening since we were really young, it was motivation for both of us and definitely pushed us to progress way faster.
Christian Hosoi
14. Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi
Ace Pelka, Oceanside, CA, 2022
Images 2020–2023
