Trent Riley Forever — Photo Essay

Trent Riley went missing in April 2021. He went out fishing alone on his little boat in Moreton Bay and was never seen again, leaving a massive hole in Australian skateboarding. Trent’s close friend and photographer, Curtis Hay, shares some of his last unpublished photos of T-Buns, and the stories behind them.

As it often goes in a local scene, I knew the name Trent Riley and his accolades years before we met. Stories of Buns and his brother Louis ripping at comps and catching the train to skate Brisbane CBD were passed along by various hyped skatepark locals, spanning the Sunshine Coast to the Gold Coast and back.

Around 2010, Skatesauce bought Skatebase, Morayfield’s beloved core skate shop. I moved from Alexandria Headlands to North Brisbane to manage the store and subsequently inherited a team of wild grommies who’d hang in the store daily, playing games of skate on the carpet, dreaming about which shoe they’d skate next and heckling each other to the soundtrack of skate vids playing in the background. With the help of filmmaker John Green, those same groms became the infamous Hype Squad, mobbing street spots and partying at the Dungeon, aka the Rileys’ house, after every weekend. Louis was already getting boards from Holiday and so I jumped at the chance to start flowing boxes of Herstwood—the skateboard company I ran from 2008 to 2016—to a young and prolific Buns. Aided by his father Freddy’s Qantas hook up, Trent was the only guy on the team to make it on every skate trip and to every event. I’ve been thinking back to those days more and more lately, and I’m so grateful I was able to watch him grow into his abilities on a board and into the unanimously respected community man we all know and love.

I know this will sound corny, but fuck me it’s the truth: Every session and opportunity to hang with Trent was an absolute treat. I was privileged to have more than my fair share of time with the legend, so I hope you enjoy these stories to accompany the last of our unpublished photos together.

WORDS & PHOTOS – CURTIS HAY ILLUSTRATIONS – MARTY BAPTIST

WALLRIDE YANK

MELBOURNE It was early 2019 and I was living in Melbourne. Trent and Kyia were visiting for a long weekend. It’d been a hot second since we’d caught up and I remember being in total awe of the person Trent was becoming. No longer the shy ripper sitting in the back of my van, he’d finished his carpentry apprenticeship, been welcomed to Element Skateboards, just returned from a modelling trip in Japan, and was proudly introducing me to his beautiful new partner Kyia.

Buns was keen for a mellow roll at Fitzy [Fitzroy Bowl] but after seeing a slightly banked wall in my spot book, his inner skate rat was squirming and his arm was twisted. Fellow Queenslander Mashy had recently moved to Melbourne too and came out on the session. Not long after we removed an annoying cat’s eye road marker from the landing, flashing lights parked up and Preston’s finest attempted to remove a crew of annoying skateboarders. Somehow Trent smooth-talked the pair of officers to the point where they were apologising for ruining our fun and suggesting we apply for a permit next time. The police bailed and Trent yanked a frontside wallride into the street. He Lizzard King’d the gutter but rolled away with speed. Reluctant to push our luck with the law and keen to get back to Kyia, we left it, thinking we might go back one day with a filmer to get a landing with all four wheels in the street.

KICKFLIP OVER RAIL INTO BANK

BRISSY It was mid-2019 and between visiting family in Brisbane, I linked up with Trent and Patty G [Gemzik], who were filming for the VX1000 project ParliAMent. The sketchy, uneven, sloped footpath run up and the rough, pebblecrete driveway landing weren’t enough to deter our guy from flipping this kicky over the Sandgate Rail. Then it was off to the next spot.

Shortly after the kickflip and a coffee, Pat, Buns and I remembered this bank spot was just around the corner. I’d been flirting with the idea of attaching bike lights to a board and shooting a long exposure for some time and Trent was always trusting and supportive of my crackpot ideas. He was curious to see a final image because my explanation certainly wasn’t painting a clear picture. As a photographer coming up, homies who trust your creativity and are willing to experiment along the way are so essential and it means the world to me that Trent focused my bike lights rolling away from this no comply crailslide.

NO COMPLY CRAILSLIDE

BRISSY

OLLIE INTO BANK

BRISSY

It was early in 2021 and Brisbane had just announced a three-day lockdown. Trent was the first to admit he wasn’t good at sitting indoors at the best of times. Now, with the streets near empty, he was jumping out of his skin with spots he wanted to skate. We shot four photos on this day: a frontside ollie over a banked stone channel (not a skateable spot in the eyes of most), a ride-on nosegrind (recently published), a ride on fifty with an empty story bridge in the background (which became the flier for Harry Pascoe’s Treasury video), and this ollie! Trent was about to be the first person to land into the bank rolling fakie but wasn’t feeling it. That’s another thing I really respect about him – his ability to recognise his limitations. Not to say he couldn’t do it, just not that day after already skating three spots. Never one to let down the media crew, Buns swiftly removed the top bar and effortlessly popped over the remaining rail and into New Farm’s notorious James Street bank.

Here’s a photo of Trent feelin’ himself, a candid moment between a full day on the tools and an evening in my studio. This is an image I didn’t think anything of at the time but one that has come to mean a lot to me. Trent looks tired and ready to go home to Kyia and dinner but is pushing though for a friend’s project. Thanks for everything. Beyond the pain, I feel honoured to have memories with you. I love you Buns.