2. Arto Saari

Arto Saari – undoubtedly one of the most powerful and influential European skaters to make it in America. He’s conquered some of the gnarliest spots around and showed the world that he had no fear, especially when it came to rails. Having gotten past trying to go bigger and bigger with his skating, he’s seemed to have mellowed out a bit in the past few years, building a pool to skate in his back garden seems to have been a good start and his output now is a lot less to do with a stair count and more to do with a naturally great style. His portraits and skate photos are of an equally high standard – he seems to have a natural eye for a good photo. Check out his website here for his photos, including an insanely rad shot of Lance Mountain airing an Alva board amid flames. Here are two of his responses towards skating and photography from his recent interview on the the Leica blog:

How did you first get into photography?

My 7th grade art teacher was super cool and would let us borrow a 35mm camera with a few rolls of film. We would take off from class and go shoot skateboarding around town. Later as a pro skater, I was around photographers all the time and became interested in it again. One of them sold me a camera and gave me a little cheat sheet to help me learn. I’ve been hooked ever since.

3. Vincent Coupeau

Vincent Coupeau – a Parisian local and Witchcraft skateboards rider, Vincent’s photos don’t exactly reflect what you might have expected them to look like from watching him skate. On a board he has quite a aggressive, I guess you could say ‘hesh’ style of skating: punk rock, pulled up socks and slappies. However his photos are quite gentle and reflective, demonstrating great examples of black and white skate photos, among a Parisian setting. Here are some of Vincent’s responses in his interview from our photo issue (no.118):

You still do film photography, why this choice?

Because the final result is definitely better on film for black & white in my opinion. It’s also a different way of approaching photography. With film, you really concentrate; you look for the right angle with your eyes first instead of shooting 20 picture and checking the result on your small screen. i feel like it’s closer to reality, less mechanical…But you should know that recently I started digital and colour, mainly because I had no other choice; the pictures had to be sent off rapidly. And moreover, the cost of film is getting hard to bare…

4. Jerome Campbell

Jerome Campbell – Sheffield local, smooth operator on a board and a very talented photographer; things have been picking up pace for his photography in the last year or so, with exhibitions, shows and zines galore. The Polar Skate Co. pro seems to have an effortless style in both of his chosen fields. His photos have a grittiness to them, that perhaps reflect his northern roots. His collection called “Sheffield Now” boldly portray the city’s inhabitants going about their daily business, managing to capture candid portraits of these strangers and describing their physical personalities perfectly. All of his chosen subjects – from buildings, to nature and skaters – are made into really great photos, that either look timeless, or give a snapshot for the future to look back on. In his CafeCreme interview last year, he was asked:

What are some of your upcoming projects?
A lot of my time is spent shooting photographs and working on other creative advertising projects, it’s keeping me nice and busy. I think its really important to have a few things going on to keep your mind moving, I have a few small exhibitions coming up in the near future as well as a couple of collaborations with shops and friends.

6. Jerry Hsu

Jerry Hsu – is undoubtedly one of the most talented skaters of all time. His abilities as a tech skater, with every kind of flip trick you could imagine were demonstrated early in his career. His fearless ability to tackle some of the scariest spots was demonstrated in his “Bag Of Suck” part, with seven and a half minutes of non-stop destruction. And his dedication to filming his “Stay Gold” part nearly entirely in switch is a testament to the lengths he has gone as a professional. Besides all this Jerry has been a great photographer alongside his pro career for a number of years and has published some of his work and displayed it in exhibitions. His work is very raw and almost like the work of war correspondents: he is very involved with the situation and manages to depict what he is capturing in an honest way. A lot of his work is also pretty tongue in cheek and his blog “N A Z I G O L D” will show you that. In his interview with Vice Magazine, he discussed skateboarding and his photography, including some of the books he’s released and shows that he’s done:

Tell me about your zine, Our Moment Together?
It’s photos I took of kids taking photos of me with their cellphone cameras. That’s what kids do now; they just stick phones in your face. So I decided to start taking photos of it and I had lots of them so I made a whole ‘zine out of it. They’re pretty funny because it’s not just the kid with the cell phone covering his face but it’s their friends in the background and they’re pointing at you and smiling. It’s a weird thing that happens. What you don’t see is that these kids are taking photos of their friends with me, so there’s this nervous kid’s hands on me as I’m trying to take a photo, which is kind of funny.

Tell me about The Killing Season photo book from your Vietnam trip.
That trip was fucked, but in the best way imaginable. It happened in February 2012 and it was a Jonathan Mehring trip. His whole thing is to do wild shit and throw skating into a situation where it doesn’t belong. I couldn’t go on his last trip to the Amazon because I just read a book about how they have fish that jump into your pee hole and they have to chop off your dick when that happens. Luckily no one’s dick got chopped of on that trip, thank goodness. I was like, “I’ll go on the next one,” and the next one happened to be this Vietnam one where the idea was to fly into Hanoi in the north and we all buy motorcycles and drive those motorcycles 1100 miles to Saigon, skating stuff along the way. Then we would sell the motorcycles when we got to Saigon and fly home. I said, “I can’t do that. That sounds insane.” But he kept calling me about it and eventually I went because I knew no one would ever invite me on a trip like that again and I could probably get some really cool photos. The funny part was I wasn’t very good at riding a motorcycle. I learned to ride one before, but you kind of want to have some actual road experience before you go to a country with absolutely no rules. It was like Mad Max on the roads and on the freeways. It was the most scared I had ever been in my life. I really thought I was going to die all the time. The reason the book is called The Killing Season is because it was during the Asian New Year and everybody was riding around wasted. We couldn’t have picked a more dangerous time to do it.

Jerry’s ability to make social commentaries with his photos, whether from his encounters with overly-brave young fans, or his photos while travelling the world (like the barbecued dogs) displays a witty intelligence that matches the honesty of his work.