interview by Larry Davis

Usually I’m able to do some research before interviews, but I couldn’t find much about you so I’m going in pretty blind here…
I’m pretty low key I guess. I grew up just outside of Long Beach, and I’ve been living here for the past 20 years or so. Been shooting photos for a good 25 years. I lucked out and Furnace Skateshop opened up on the other side of the parking lot of my high school. So I grew up getting to know all the guys that worked and rode for Furnace and then I worked there for a good ten years or so too.

When did you start skating?
I started skating like 1996 as well. That Christmas I got a board and then it was crazy timing that this new skateshop was opening up.

What do you miss the most from those early days at the shop?
I miss just seeing all the different types of skaters come by. I always loved being the guy behind the counter and actually helping people, setting up boards for kids, but the social aspect was my favorite part. It was just full community vibes. I definitely miss working there.

Did you hook anyone up with their first board and then watch their rise?
I remember Kevin Romar landing his first kickflip in front of the shop. Nick Garcia was another one who was a treat to see grow up in the shop and watch become a ripping pro skater. So that’s happened a couple times. It’s really awesome to see.

Did you ever want to get sponsored?
I remember I was there the day that Scott Kane brought a sponsor me video in, and it quickly went from “I want to ride for Furnace” to “I want to work at Furnace.”

We like to do the pretty stupid question of asking photographers how many stairs have you ollied?
Eight was the biggest I ever did. And then yeah, skating with Kevin Romar and Darrell Stanton, dudes that would huck, I realized I should just shoot photos of those guys. My ollie down the eight stair probably isn’t going to make our homie video because you just nollie back heeled it.

When did you really start shooting?
We had a photography class in high school, and from there it was pretty organic. Me and some friends had a website growing up called shredlove.com. It was Don Luong and my friend Chad Drummond that would make video edits, and I would upload photos. It was fun to have that. So that was kind of how we got started, then with Kevin Romar, Nick Garcia, Julian Davidson, I really lucked out and had a bunch of talented dudes that I got to learn shooting photos by skating with.

Do you have any good Lewis Marnell stories?
I mean, he taught me how to roll spliffs, which is pretty amazing. And at the time, I was like, “ehh, reggae, I don’t really like Bob Marley” and then by the end of that summer I was like, “holy shit, Studio One might be the best record label ever.” He definitely left a lasting impression.

Do you remember some notable trips that you’ve gone on?
Randomly the first skate trip I ever got to go on was Bummer High Skateboards, Ethan Fowler’s short-lived company. My first international trip was with this company called Insight that was mostly an Australian surf company, but they had a skate team. I got to go out to Indonesia, I didn’t even know where Jakarta was. I was flown out there by myself to meet up with some Australian people and then Shimizu came from Portland. That was all because Justin Reynolds was the team manager and he’s another Furnace guy, so it all kind of ties back to the Furnace crew.

Skateshops are pretty important in building that connection and community right?
Fully. My advice to anyone aspiring to be a skate photographer is definitely get a job at a skateshop. You get to know all the local skaters and you’re the guy hooking ‘em up, so they’re definitely going to remember you and be nice to you as well. That’s definitely something that’s gone a long way to help my photography career. You also already have a leg up from knowing the good skaters, and the people working at the warehouse, or the office, where you can plug in stuff a little easier.

Photographers have always been the unsung connective tissue of getting people paid for ads and so on.
Yeah, you wear two hats of being able to hang in the van and keep up with the people skating, but then you also have to be professional enough to be able to talk to the people at the companies, or be in the corporate setting. Don Luong was also from my high school and I worked at Furnace at the same time as him. So when he started filming for Tum Yeto, I went on a lot of Foundation and Toy Machine trips.

Is there anyone that’s been special to work with, or has stood out to you? 
I feel like Myles Willard is my favorite skateboarder. I remember going on a five week trip with him and he was still just on flow. Me and him had the back seat in the van the whole time. By the end of the trip it was just like, holy shit, this guy’s the best. It’s been a real treat to shoot the bulk of his career. Also Jon Dickson was my neighbor for the longest time and he’s another good friend. I feel like looking at my career, what I’m most proud of has been being able to shoot a good chunk of Myles and Dickson’s careers.

What about Georgia Martin? What’s it like going out with her?
She’s so sick. Just a total skate rat. It’s not like just going out to get a trick and then going home. It’s refreshing to be around people still wanting to skate all day and just having fun and skating flat and finding her own spots. It’s been rad to see her come into her own and start to really shine.

You also got this photo of Jim Greco in here, which is a different era, different ilk of skater. Any interesting stories?
Yeah he was going out with David Broach to shoot but David had to bail one day and was just like, “Oh, my friend Ben could meet up” and what’s hilarious is I’m pretty sure Jim figured I was Ben Colen. But he got a really good trick that day and felt like I was good luck, I guess. I’ve actually been skating with him a bit recently. He’s sitting on, I’d say, one of his best parts to date right now. 

Oh, actually my favorite one is when they were filming for the Deathwish video, he was trying to do a 360 flip darkslide on this bank to bench. He went back probably five or six times and every time we’d get kicked out. He tried this trick for 12 hours one day and you could tell he is losing it, and I’ve gone through every battery I have, I’m just like, holy shit, it’s almost dark. So his girlfriend texts him and somehow that’s what kind of threw him over the edge where he is just like, “What the fuck? What do wives do when their husbands are at war? They fucking wait!” I always just loved that quote.

So you were saying that the original owner of Furnace also had a record store. Do you also DJ?
Yeah originally there was a sliding glass door between Furnace and Bionic records, so I definitely spent a lot of time in the record store and would pick up shifts occasionally. So now I pretty much have a room full of records just from working there for so long. That’s another good side hustle for a skate photographer, playing records out of bars, because it’s quick money and you can still go skate every day.

So what do you do for a nine to five?
I’m working in the photo studio at Skechers. It sounds super harsh on paper, but I swear it’s actually a pretty sweet gig. Lance Dawes is the one that runs the whole studio and he’s been hiring skate photographers to shoot all the e-comm for them. So it’s mundane work, but I’m at least working with a bunch of good guys and we all get to bullshit about skateboarding all day so it’s pretty fun. I have to give some billionaire 40 hours a week so I can go to the dentist, it sucks no matter what, but this definitely makes it a lot better. 

It’s blowing my mind that it’s you, Lance Dawes, and before the interview you said Gabe Morford, and Dennis McGrath also? That’s a fucking dream team.
I trip out every day when we’re going to lunch or something. I always say it’s like the Twilight Zone, but instead of bringing Slap back together, we’re shooting some bedazzled fucking Skecher.

Do you all still nerd out on skateboarding?
I do for sure. I feel like I kind of bug those guys a bit because Slap was the first magazine I ever saw when I was a kid. The other day somehow they brought up the “Bomb Hills Not Countries” shirt. And I was like, “wait, which of you two shot it?” knowing that it had to be either Lance or Gabe. And Lance chuckled and was like, “well, I thought of it, but then Gabe shot the photo.” Like, goddammit, this is so fucking cool.

You just made your first zine, how does it feel? Did you sell out of copies?
Yeah, it’s something that I always wanted to do. I guess working at Skechers is the first time I’ve had a secure job whereas the last 20 years was just hustling photos, having roommates or depending on girlfriends or something. Now I know when my next check is coming. Direct deposit is pretty sick. I made 200 copies, sold out pretty much right away. It felt really cool, like, whoa, I could do this. 

Any other projects or trips planned?
I’m still skating on the weekends. Ace Trucks moved their warehouse really close to Furnace, pretty much on the block I grew up on. So I’ve been doing a lot of work with them. I still go on trips, I still go skate with Myles and now I have paid time off and it’s a lot less stressful to go on a trip.

So you’ve been going to Baltimore pretty regularly to shoot with Myles?
Yeah, I love it there. Those spots are great. There’s such a cool skate scene out there. All the guys at Vu are awesome. It reminds me of Long Beach a lot. It’s a port city, with a good skate scene, all based around a good shop.

That’s interesting. I was going to ask you, coming from a SoCal world, how different is Baltimore? But it sounds like you feel like it’s kind of the same thing, or there’s similarities at least?
I mean they got Johnny Rads, We got the Goodbar. I don’t know too many other cities that legit have skate themed bars.

Have you gone to any other East Coast cities besides New York?
Still never been to Philly. I’ve done a lot of trips to Louisville, and Cincinnati. I don’t know if you’d really consider it the East Coast, but the Rust Belt. I would love to check out Philly. I think I wind up just getting stuck in New York because at this point there’s friends. I don’t want to say it’s easy, but I feel as far as a place to stay and people to skate with it is.

It’s kind of the epicenter, and it’s nice at least six months out of the year.
For sure. I kind of like it in the cold though. I think the cold’s kind of a novelty for me. So the past few years I have been making it a point to go back there on my birthday in January and just hang out with friends. It’s fun to get bundled up. I never had snow growing up.

Any younger heads coming up that everyone should know?
There’s some younger Furnace kids, Carew Ramos. I like skating with him, I think he’s only 15, so really young for me to be skating with, but he’s got a really good head on his shoulders and it doesn’t feel like you’re babysitting. Haesung Jang looks really good on a board too.

So you worked for RVCA for a few years?
Yeah, so the whole job was to shoot the Thrasher ad and then be available to go on trips for the catalog and more ads. Austin Stephens was the team manager and my friend Don was the filmer, so I was traveling the world with friends, and the whole team was amazing. Then throw in Andrew Reynolds, Suciu, and Evan Mock. Like, yeah, I’ll go to Paris to go skate with Evan or, we’re going to Jamaica this month? Sick. It was the best job ever.

Is RVCA even a thing anymore?
They were sold to a licensing company, so it’s technically still a thing.

Seems to be the way of a lot of these big multimillion dollar companies. They’re now just random shells of themselves.
It’s because they get bought and sold too many times. I feel like they get sold the first round and they’ll keep people on, and then when the company sells the second time, the people looking at the books are like, “how much do you guys spend on this stuff? No, we’re going to sell straight to this big box store.”

It sounds like you’ve been pretty lucky with Furnace being skater run and owned for a long time, and dealing with Deathwish and some of these other companies like Ace, with Joey and stuff like that.
I got to shoot a Joey Tershay Ace ad. Dude’s in his fifties still skating just as much as the guys on the team are. Still mashing through the streets with everyone. It’s so cool to see.

Sitting on the same curb, talking the same shit. It’s pretty special. You don’t find that in other industries really. What would be your advice to a 30-year-old photographer or a 20-year-old photographer in the skate industry now coming up? What would be the difference in what you’d tell them?
Well, you can’t shoot a good photo from your couch, so just be out skating. So I’d tell the 20-year-old to just go out as much as possible and just live it. And then sadly, it’s the same as a 30-year-old. You just kind of have to be out with the guys, skate yourself, and just be a part of it because the best shit always just happens. If you’re out skating every day, you’re going to get photos and you just got to keep doing it.