Yet after the apologetic warning of a possible abundance of indoor shots in my last post, this latest collection of shots were taken in London on Sunday, and they were all taken outside.
Saturday was spent frantically trying to lift the cough from my chest so as to be fit for Sunday's mission and at around 10pm on Saturday, I wasn't hopeful. I hit the sack around midnight after a prolonged fit of coughing.
The morning gave me hope. This was the first time in over a week that I hadn't woken myself coughing profusely.
By 1pm I was in the Milk wagon along with Dan, Fuller and Jasper (yep, Mr. Pegg was in attendance).
It quickly becomes apparent to all who travel on these skate missions in this particular vehicle that the conversation subject matter is not of the highest intellectual level, and often spirals into long periods of regularly sickening, fantastically debouched and unrepeatable material concerning each other, pedestrians outside the car, fellow drivers alike, with no discrimination. By this I mean we are horribly judgemental to all inside and outside the vehicle. Jasper, who has not travelled with us for some time, appeared to find all of this a little disturbing. Sorry mate, great to see you!
On passing Highbury (Arsenal FC's old ground) the traffic ground to a halt and after a slow, steady crawl for a number of miles (and a close call between Fuller and the driver of a police lorry full of horses which I won't go into any further) we found a fluke of a parking spot 5 minutes from the agreed meeting place.
Sam, Radman, Charlie, Luke, Harley and Nathen were already at the spot when we arrived. Radman was filming Sam & Harley.
I am unreliably informed that Euston is the sixth busiest train station in London. We found this statement to be pretty precise. The streets were awash with wheelie suit case dragging lost souls.
I recognised the spot from an old Death Skateboards video in which Horsey tail drops the sign into a tiny bank in front of a bunch of yoofs and slams straight to his face.
The spot has been skate stopped at the top of the marble bank, but Harley, Sam and Charlie proved quite adequately that stops won't stop us. Even the two Metropolitan coppers who were presumably scrambled from the train station were more worried about how an ambulance was going to get to us 'when you hurt yourselves' than stopping us from skating. They stopped and watch from a sensible position for some time, which was novel.
As I set up my lights, I watched the crew trying things and worked out a position to shoot from for Sam's trick.
As I sat myself on the corner of the road, leaning against a traffic light post with streams of people passing and crossing in front of me, I thought for a moment that I had chosen the worst position possible, but then a gap in the crowds and a well timed run from Sam made a pretty cool shot.
In all honesty, I should have got Sam to repeat it as the initial photo, which looked mint on the camera screen but doesn't look as hot focus wise now I've seen it on a bigger screen. I learn quickly from my mistakes and I hope I won't be so hasty in the future. Sorry Sam.
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| Sam Hayter - b/s kickflip |
Harley eventually rolled away from a crazy b/s crook sess-slide down the bank to fakie after numerous attempts and we moved on. The look of surprise on his face as he rolled away was a classic. This was shot for video not stills so no photos.
During our skate to the next spot, Fuller and I found ourselves lagging behind and lost the group for a while. but with Google Maps action and a very helpful passerby who told me where everyone was without me even asking him we were reunited with the crew. Thanks blue kagool man!
It was now getting quite dark and as we arrived we could see Charlie trying a flip manual pad combo dropping down five feet into the street. Jasper had somehow lost his kingpin nut and top cap on the skate over, so with little hope of finding them Jasper, Fuller and Nate left to retrace their route. After a few attempts, Charlie also got a switch flip manual on tape.
The three searching for the missing parts meanwhile, returned with both bits in hand. Nate noticed them just as they were giving up. After a skate tool was located we left for a bank spot at SOAS, University of London just off Russell Square.
I discovered on my again late arrival (my bag is quite heavy with camera and all the lights etc. I'm sticking to that one for a bit!), I was met by a beautiful 60's (??) concrete structure which deserved some special treatment in the dark!
This spot turned into a great session with some bangers going down from Sam, Charlie, Jasper and Harley.
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| Charlie Munro - b/s tail slide |
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| Jasper Pegg - f/s 5-0 |
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| Harley Miller - no comply f/s 5-0 |
Smooth granite blocks and banks with great potential nestled in a Santander bank building complex. Just as Sam was getting a line with a nollie tre and a wally into the road we were ejected politely.
End of Mission....
