by Marcus Waldron

How did you get into photography?
I was always really into memories. I guess my parents had always taken photos a lot back in the day when I was growing up. I took a photography course in high school where I realized that I liked photography, but I didn’t take it very seriously until college. My first year of college I ended up moving to New York City. I lived in Brooklyn in 2005 when I went to FIT (The Fashion Institute of Technology) and I took a bunch of different arts related courses. That’s where I got my first real introduction to photography. We used to shoot photos on color film, send them somewhere to get developed and then we would have critiques in these classes, which I always thought was really interesting. Being able to look at your own artwork and other people’s artwork and talk about it, I think is super important. So that’s when I realized that I was into photography and started doing it myself.

Did you shoot much before that? Did you ever have disposables or point and shoots or anything?
When I was younger, I feel like disposable cameras were a big thing. You could get them at any drugstore or CVS and I always had something like that. Anytime I did something special, if it was a class trip or a family vacation or something like that, I was always into trying to document that stuff the best I could, but I never took it that seriously until later, just for memory’s sake.

When you were in school, what kind of cameras were you using? What was the first camera you remember using that got you excited about?
I know my parents always had different film cameras that I would dabble with. I don’t remember what any of those were, but the first time I got a camera and I was really stoked on it, I think it was the Canon Rebel 2, which was a film SLR camera. It had a manual, an auto, and a bunch of different settings. It was a very intro level camera, but you could do so much with it. It’s a beginner camera, but I actually still have that camera to this day. It’s not the tools that you have, it’s what you do with them that’s most important.

How do you think skateboarding and photography relate?
There are so many crossovers with skateboarding and photography, but for me personally, as far back as I could remember, I was always looking at skateboard magazines, whether it was photos of actual skateboard tricks or behind the scenes photos from skate sessions. I was always intrigued by those images. I feel like skateboarding has always been documented. I know in my own life I try to photograph people in places that are important to me, and I find myself surrounded by people that are important to me, and in places that are meaningful to me, when I’m out skating. So I’ve been inspired by the magazines and what past generations have done, but currently, I am doing my best to document my time while out skating, whether it’s a trick or just what’s going on around the session.

How often do you shoot?
I have a camera on me every day. Whether I shoot photos every day or not, that’s another story. But I would say since about 2009 or so, I’ve had a Yashica T4 in my bag every single day. I literally don’t leave home without the camera, so it really depends on how much I use it, but I always have it.

Do you develop all your film right away or do you tend to save stuff?
There were times in my life where I was dropping off multiple roles a week. I honestly moved down the street from a photo store at one point just to be closer to the photo store. I’ve since then chilled out a little bit. It takes me longer to get through a roll of film, but I still get just as excited each time I finish a role. I would say I usually drop off a role every few weeks, and I am actually weird about that process as well. I actually send my photos to a place called the Dark Room Lab in San Clemente, California to get developed, which I know a lot of my friends think is pretty wild.

What is it about them that you send your stuff there?
Honestly. I’ve tried a bunch of different places, but I’m super particular. I was going to this one spot in Jersey and every time I got the scans back I would examine them very closely and for a while I just kept getting a lot of dust and things like that back with the scans. So I’m very particular as to where I send things. When I was living in Jersey, I started going to a few different places in the city. I tried out a bunch of different labs. They did some great stuff, but I think it had more to do with timing and having to go back into the city and pick up the negatives was kind of a pain. So I ended up finding out from a few different friends that they used the Dark Room lab. I was a little hesitant at first to give them a try, but I’ve been using them for years now and things have been going well. I’m very happy with the results and I’m a firm believer that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Do you ever shoot color or are you pretty much just black and white?
What’s interesting is I started off shooting color and I shot so much color that I wanted to switch it up. I went quite a few years shooting black and white, and just recently I actually decided to go back to shooting color. I honestly do both, but I spent certain amounts of time focusing on one or the other. Back when I was in college, I took courses on black and white photography and courses on color photography. And what was really interesting in that color photography course is that they showed you how to use color to your advantage in a photograph, and they showed us different examples of how photographers use color to make the photo that much better. There are ways that color can be distracting or there’s ways that color can work for an image. When it comes to black and white, you just capture that entire image and there’s nothing that’s distracting. You’re more focused on the actual frame. So there’s pluses and minuses to both of them. It really just depends on what I’m feeling at the time, and right now I’m kind of hyped on color, hopefully you’ll see some more of that soon.

What do you do with your photos after you get them back?
I’m kind of crazy about that actually. I’m very organized when it comes to labeling them and deciding which ones are my favorites out of the batch. When I get a roll back, I look through it a bunch of different times, I decide which are my favorites and I put them into a folder. Once I put them into the folder, I label them, I basically give them a title, put the data on them and what kind of film and if they’re high res or low res. So I basically label and organize all the files and I have them organized on my computer, and then I’ll decide whether or not I want to post them on Instagram or save them for a later date. But my first thing is I basically go through them and organize them according to my favorites.

Have you ever done a zine or a photo show or anything like that?
I actually made a zine or a small book back in 2014. So 10 years ago. I went through a really gnarly breakup and I kind of blamed it on the fact that I was skating all the time. I know now that wasn’t the case and that had nothing to do with it, but during that time I almost blamed it on skating. I wanted to look at different things that made me happy and I was like, you know what? I love shooting photos and I don’t really do that much anymore. So that’s when I ended up getting my Yashica T4. I wanted to have a camera on me at all times. I wanted to be able to take photos at parties or just out with friends, and I didn’t want a big camera on me. I decided that I was going to start a Tumblr, and on that Tumblr, I was going to post a new fi lm photo every single day for a year. I don’t know why I made up this imaginary goal for myself, but I said, you know what? I think I can do it. I’m going to make this happen. So I posted from, I think it was October, 2013 to October, 2014. I posted a new fi lm photo every single day on Tumblr. Back then Tumblr was a thing. It’s not so much a thing anymore, but I kind of just did it as a place to showcase my work. At the end of that year, I decided that I was going to put out a book of my favorite images. I had a release party at NJ Skate Shop, had a bunch of friends out, as many people from the community as I could get out. And it was honestly just an amazing time where I told myself I was going to shoot photos for a year, and I did. After that year, I was thinking about the fact that I always wanted to put out a book or a zine, and I made that happen as well. And that is something that I still look at to this day. And even though it was one of the hardest times in my life, I feel like it was such a rad time and such a big time for growth. I ended up creating a bunch of amazing memories during that time that are beautiful to me, but I also hope they’re beautiful to others just because of how I documented them.

Do you have any favorite people, places, or things you like to shoot photos of?
It’s really hard to be able to pinpoint any of that. You kind of just know when it happens. I find when I put myself in a different situation or if I’m hanging out around people I really enjoy, a lot of those things kind of present themselves. Sometimes someone will be like, Hey, you should take a picture of that, and honestly, that’s not something that gets me psyched. I have a hard time deciding what or when. I know it when I see it.

Any favorite photos that you’ve shot?
It’s funny. As we’re doing this interview, I’m looking on the screen and I have a photo hanging above me, and it’s a photo of Yaje Popson that I took probably in 2007 where he just looks super young. He looks way younger than he actually is in the photo. I was still in college when I shot this photo, and I remember the teacher would give us different assignments and this one was to go and shoot photos of something you’re passionate about. So I loaded up the camera with a fresh roll of black and white and I just went skating with my friends that day. I remember JP Blair was on the session, Yaje was obviously on the session and there were a few others, but we skated around Manhattan and we ended up over by the water and just as skaters do, we were chilling, just having a good time fooling around and Yaje ended up putting these three cigarettes in his mouth. He didn’t smoke or anything like that, but for some reason, he just put these cigarettes in his mouth and I was standing above him looking downward, and I was able to just take the photograph at the perfect moment. JP Blair is actually in the top left of the photo and Yaje is in the bottom right with three cigarettes in his mouth looking super young. It was just an interesting time and for some reason that photo is, and will always be one of my favorites. That’s one photo that every time I move, I always make sure there’s a place in my apartment where I can hang that photo.

Do you have any friends or other photographers you like to talk about your photos with?
For sure. I have a ton of inspirational photographers that I look up to. One person that stands out in particular is Jared Sherbert. Jared is such an interesting person who I just love hanging out with. When we hang out, we don’t skate or anything like that. We usually just kick it and talk about life. Jared is someone who I really respect and has done a lot of amazing things in terms of just creative fi elds in general, and his photography is top notch. So a lot of times I like to send photos I get back to Jared and see what his thoughts are. If I need help deciding what I want to use for something or not, I’ll often run it by someone like Jared to see what he thinks. Obviously I have my own opinion a lot of times, but it’s always nice to get a second opinion, especially from someone who is a master of the craft, like Jared.

Are there any other photographers whose work you fi nd infl uential, and is there anything about their work that draws you to them?
I was always very inspired by Ricky Powell’s work. He used to shoot a lot of musicians. I loved his black and white photography. I actually have two Hopps x Ricky Powell boards hanging in the crib right now. Those are two pieces that I make sure to hang every time I find myself moving to a different apartment. So Ricky Powell is and was a huge. inspiration. Current photographers, like Mike Heikkila is an amazing photographer and it seems like he’s always shooting incredible skate photos. Obviously Jonathan Mehring is super inspirational. I actually have a Jonathan Mehring photo hanging above my couch in my living room. It’s a big photo of TNT doing this crazy grab off of this launch ramp in front of the old KCDC. What’s really rad about that photo is I’ve talked to Mehring about this a few different times. I love picking his brain about photography when I see him, and he was telling me that he shot that photo with the T4 using Tri-X 400, which is the exact setup that I would use all the time.