Photographer Interview by Marcus Waldron and Noah Halpern-McManus

MW: So we’re from basically the same area, can you describe the town in skateboarding terms?

We’re from central motherfucking Jersey. The epicenter of East Coast crust. Right outside of Trenton, an hour from Philly, and two from New York. A dope spot to come up skateboarding for sure.

MW: If someone was to ask you pros from the area, who comes to mind?

Fucking Uncle Freddy man. First and foremost. That’s definitely the dude that I can remember seeing clips of and being stoked on from the beginning. He’s just always been out there ripping. When you think Trenton you think of James Pitonyak for sure. Also Ishod, from the next town over. It’s so sick to see dudes like that, that have been hometown heroes, and now are just killing it. Onward and upward the whole fucking time. 

MW: When did you start going out to New York and Philly from where we grew up?

Fuck New York. (Everyone laughs) But I mean from the beginning we were a couple minutes from the bus stop, and few minutes from the train. So by the time we were thirteen or fourteen it was like, “alright what are we doing this weekend?” We’d either hop on the bus and go to downtown Trenton, or hop on the train to downtown Philly. Skip fares, skate all day, just getting in the streets man.

N: How often did you skate Love when you were a teenager?

Honestly we didn’t skate Love all that much because City Hall was so fucking sick. The only reason we’d go across the street was when we’d get kicked out.

N: When did you start taking pictures?

Fuck, almost exactly the same time I started skating. I don’t know how long it was from when I stepped on a board to when I found out you could actually flip that shit and do things with it, you know? Watching people kickflip, or hit jump ramps was really what got me into shooting photos because of how this shit looks. I was able to see my homies doing it, but I wanted to see how I looked. So here’s the point and shoot, you take a photo of me, I’ll take a photo of you, then just drop that roll off at CVS and get the prints back with doubles to give to the homies. So that’s what got me into taking pictures, but I probably didn’t shoot a good skate photo for another decade or something. 

MW: But you just kept shooting and got better eventually?

Yeah I mean point and shoot shit, drop it off at the drugstore, it wasn’t even like really trying to make a good photo, it was more just fucking around, and always having a camera around. I think probably the first photo I shot was on the homie Darin’s rig. He had a Sony that shot to minidisc as it’s storage media, and he had a fisheye electrical taped to the front of it, literally. I shot a photo of the homie Chris Davis and Dean Innocenzi, tre flip on the Trenton banks from up top and it was just the one that struck me, like “this is a different way than I’m used to looking at skating.” Just a different angle and shit, kind of making a photo, and that was just the spark to try and make another one. So I just kept hitting the button and trying to make ‘em better. 

N: So you’re saying this Chris Davis photo is the first skate photo you really took?

First photo that I tried to make. 

MW: How long ago did you start getting in the darkroom?

That was early 2000’s, so probably close to twenty years now. I got to the point where I had taken the same classes multiple times with the same instructor, because it wasn’t like I was learning the same thing over and over again, I was just getting more experience with the thing. So Mercer County Community College had a good relationship with the University of Arts here in Philadelphia so all my credits transferred no bullshit. So then I did two years at UArts to complete my BFA in photo. While I was there one of my instructors kinda saw the aesthetic that my photography was going for and she told me to check out Peter’s Valley Craft School, which is out in North Jersey. They had an assistance program that I got on and I was just the darkroom assistant, extra hands for the teachers while they do the teaching, but I was also a student at the same time. So that’s where I learned the real hands on type of photos, where it’s not just black and white darkroom. The tintypes, platinum palladium printing, cyanotypes, salt printing, that type of stuff I learned there.

N: What are tintypes exactly?

They’re like 19th century Polaroids. You know when you have a Polaroid camera it spits out the photo and you gotta shake it a little bit? Tintype is kinda the same way except you’re making the thing from start to finish, you don’t just have a cartridge. The images that come out are in-camera positives, and they’re one of a kind. The object itself is probably the most archival form of photography because it gets a varnish over top that seals it and there’s no paper support to deteriorate because it’s on metal. It’s made up of just silver and cotton. So the ones from the Civil War that they did still look just like the ones that I make today. The images basically don’t age. I still use the same recipe they did in the Civil War, all the same chemistry and it’s like making a photograph by hand, one at a time.

N: Tell me about the Halide Project.

The Halide Project is a 501c3 non-profit and I’m one of the board members. We’re an all volunteer board, at this point nobody gets paid and we do everything. So again, it’s all for the love and all for the community, which is what it always should be about. We started out as a wannabe gallery, doing pop up shows at different places around our neighborhood and then eventually we got our own space in Kensington and the first thing we did was make one half the space into a gallery so we could continue having shows. At this point we’re the only gallery in Philadelphia that strictly shows handmade photography, but probably one of the few in the whole country, which is pretty rad. Our whole thing is to educate, promote, and break down doors for those types of photos. So we continued our gallery programming while we were fundraising to build a darkroom. It took about two years to make that happen, but now it’s fully open and people can come in to develop their own film, get in the black and white darkroom, or get into the 19th century darkroom to do more of that printmaking stuff. We also have workshops where people can come in and learn new processes. We’re just trying to foster a photo community in that space.

MW: So you’ve been around since the start of the magazine, what were the best and worst apartments you’ve seen me live in over the years?

Oh fuck. I mean the warehouse was obviously the sickest, but Jefferson street. was a close second. I don’t know anyone who’s going to upvote Piss Palace at all. Spring Garden was fun though too! The warehouse could also be the answer to both questions. 

MW: So that kind of overlaps with the filming of Bruns and skating with Kevin Winters every weekend. What do you remember about the Bruns days?

Man, it was just nonstop pretty much. Every time we were out skating, Kev was there and it was always just “Kev, where the spots at?”

N: Now you’re out in the streets with a whole new crew of people that have moved to Philly. How is it skating with all the brokebois and them?

I mean the last days (of Love Park) were a turning point, a straw that broke the camel’s back sorta shit. After Love was done a lot of people were done with Philly. Whether that was the specific reason or not, there was just a general decline in the scene a little bit. A lot of people moved up to New York and that shit popped off. Meanwhile I had already put down some deep roots here in Philly. East Coast is all tight enough that if I want to skate with the homies I can. But I ended up linking with the younger cats coming through and those dudes are so fucking great to skate with. They’re all the best homies. That’s the reason I go out. I’m never trying to make that shit a job. I’m never trying to have a quota to meet, or deadlines, fuck that. But when the homies got some shit that’s going down I feel blessed to get the phone call. You want me to be out there when you’re putting it on the line? I’m hyped, let’s go. 

MW: You also seem to love anything DIY. Why do you think it’s important to know how to do things for yourself?

Dude, it’s so fucking hard to find somebody to do something for you the right way and care about it half as much as you do. That’s the biggest thing for me, like who the fuck else is going to care about this thing that I need more than me? Let me figure out how to do that shit, and how I want it done, that’s never gonna be a loss. Just something to add to the bag of tricks.

MW: You’ve been friends with Sloan for a long time, you ever help 5th Pocket on any projects?

For sure, I mean I’m happy to be on the B squad whenever they need anything. Definitely worked on some fun projects with them over the years. I poured my first bags with Sloan in Ewing at that old skate ditch with the barrier. I definitely remember being really fucking stoked on that. Not that it was some crazy DIY spot or whatever, but in our town that spot had a ton of history. Anybody that skated in that town knew about the drainage ditch, that was the degenerate skate rat hang out spot. And we were stoked cause we were able to make it a little bigger and a little faster and a lot more fun. 

MW: Aight, I gotta go back to this whole “fuck New York” thing. This is an OG question anyway. Why is Philly better than New York?

It’s just so much fucking easier! That’s all it is. It’s so much simpler to navigate and maybe there’s not as much cool shit quantity-wise, but compared to the amount of bullshit you have to deal with to do what you’re trying to do, it’s more chill. It’s just not as overrun and blown the fuck out. I’m a simple man, I got what I need. 

MW: Most stairs you ever ollied?

I used to like to jump. I think at least 13.

MW: Which 13?!

I mean Trenton I did the 12. James used to skate that fucking thing, we’d just jump down it. The 9 to the 12 there, that’s just classic.

N: Alright what’s something you’d like to see more of in the world? Or less of?

Easy answer to both of those. More community, less cops. 

MW: Aight anyone you trying to thank or shout out? 

I mean, thank you two dudes the most forever. Keeping this fucking Skate Jawn thing going is just the sickest, most important thing for so many reasons. So primarily thank y’all. Thanks to everyone else that contributes and makes it happen because it’s fucking everybody. Shoutout the whole world, minus all the racists, cops, and other such dickheads.