Photographer interview by Jawn Dillinger.
Akeem Carby, noseslide fakie
Where are you from?
Bergen County, New Jersey. A super little town close to Hackensack and I grew up skating around there. After a little bit I started skating with some dudes over in Paterson until I got out of high school. Now I’m in New York. I go to school at Pace University. It’s right next to the Brooklyn Banks.
Did you get a chance to skate there when you first went?
By the time I got to school, it was closed off again. Back in 2017 people started going back there cause there was a hole in the fence, but then the cops were kicking people out. But I couldn’t really skate it, I just chilled there once or twice, but it was cool to just see everybody there. I think it was the second day that it was opened there was like 200 people. When I pulled up it was just a madhouse.
Bradley Culebro, drop in
You were one of the people that started that petition, right?
Me and my homie Dave saw that nobody was doing anything about it, so we started a change.org petition and sent it to as many people as we could. We had another homie John who used to work over at Kayo, so he sent it to a bunch of people over at DGK. They reposted it and after that it just started snowballing and everybody got wind of it.
Have you heard any news on that recently?
At first it was just us and we didn’t really have any contacts in the city or anything. We ended up reaching out to Steve Rodriguez and he’s been talking to the city because he’s been through this before so he already had the connections. There’s been some community board meetings for district one. One of the members contacted us and was fully on board with trying to get it back. So Steve took on the majority of the project, but I’ve still been trying to keep up with it as much as possible.
Michael Harger, 50-50
Are you studying photography in school?
I’m going for a bachelors of fine arts degree. I thought I was going to be geared towards graphic design, because that’s what I was doing out of high school, but I ended up taking an intro to photo class and I thought it was going to be digital, but it ended up being film. So I got a camera started shooting and I just got hooked. I couldn’t stop doing it.
What do you like about black and white?
I think I look at black and white for a split second more than a color photo. But also I just like the way I read expressions in black and white photos. There’s nothing wrong with color photos, but I get distracted with colors. You have to think about shadows and highlights, then you have to move around and mess with the composition to make them work.
Sullivan Richard, bs feeble
Have you always been developing all of your own photos?
Yeah in school they taught us developing and making prints . Once was done with the class, kept shooting but didn’t have access to the darkroom it got to the point where I had like thirty rolls stacked up in my house and I was just like, damn, I need to start doing it at my parents’ house. Now I just do it at my apartment. t’s pretty simple. I just go in the kitchen, do everything there, and then just hang it up in the bathroom.
Who are some of your favorite photographers or what are some of your favorite types of photos?
Dude, Blabac shoots my favorite photos. Mike Blabac.
Jermaine Whittaker, 180 nosegrind
What is it about his photos?
He just shoots my favorite dudes and everything that he shoots is my favorite kind of skate stuff. Every time he has new prints or something I always cop as many prints as I can because it’s just so sick. I have a few on my wall right now. I have an Ave and Dill one from ’99 just skitching on some car. I have a Scott Johnston one from San Francisco. And then another one of Josh Kalis doing the bump to can tre flip at Love Park. That photo is super sick.
Did you ever go to Love Park?
The second to last day before it closed. Somehow I convinced my mom to take me and a homie. She had no idea what Love was or what it meant, and it was like -1 degrees that day. But as soon as we parked, six dudes hop out the car in front of us in just flannels. I’m like, “hear that mom, I’m telling you, it’s crazy. People are coming from all over.” And then she understood the severity of the situation.
Mecca Morris, bs 50-50
You sent us some photos from North Carolina. You were skating with the 5301 crew, what’s up with them?
Yeah, the 5301 crew. Those are the homies. I met Jermaine up here like two years ago then he went back to North Carolina and we stayed in contact.I was like “yo, if you’re down I’d like to pull up and get some photos of you guys.” And he was like, “hell yeah, pull up.” I was down there for a week in January and met all the homies and got a bunch of photos and chilled down there. It’s super sick. I liked Charlotte a lot. They got some awesome stuff going down there.
Anything you’re working on, or got coming up?
Honestly, the only thing that I think about is just picking up a camera and going outside and shooting. That sounds cliche, but that’s honestly the truth. Just getting outside and shooting photos, especially over here on the East Coast, especially during the winter. You never know what’s going on, it could be raining for a week, it could be snowing for a wekk, I could be busy with work, but I just try to go out and shoot as much as possible. I try to develop and scan as fast as possible and just get things out.
Akeem Carby, 360 flip
