Empire Skate Night 14th December

Just three from this weeks Skate night at Empire Skatepark.

Next week (21st) will be the last Skate Night before Christmas and the park will be open til midnight. Bring your skate and prepare to party in your Christmas jumper!

Mark Munson

Jordan Thackeray

Latest Photos From Skate Night At Empire

Jordan Thackeray - b/s 360 stale

Another Wednesday, another Skate Night at Empire!

With the addition of a new 8mm fisheye to work out I spent the entire evening behind my camera. I had a little trouble with my remote triggers, so these are all single flash shots.

Munson went all out for foot plants and Andrew thew the trick of the night with a gnarly b/s plant off the wall above the bowl corner. Jordan ended the night with a b/s 50-50 on a freezer transferring it down the rail. Wild!

Mark Munson - wall plant transfer

Andrew Houghton with the trick of the night

Jordan Thackeray - 360 shov

Jordan Thackeray - b/s 50-50 freezer transfer

Mark Munson - wall plant transfer (angle #2)

Mark Munson - foot plant board varial

#fourwheelfools #uk #skateboarding #empireskatepark #essex #colchester #tripleswordstore #hardcorehobbies

Empire Skatepark Skate Night Menagerie

Taken at the last couple of Skate Night sessions at Empire, these photos are a mix of naturally lit and flash aided shots. The naturally lit one is the photo above of Mark, the others are the result of yet more experimenting with longer exposures using a simple camera top or remote flashes to bring a greater sense of movement to the shot. 

Jordan Thackeray - b/s nose blunt slide (check the video below to see the shlomo)

Filmed by Mark Munson & Cerven Cotter

Toby Gozzute - f/s air

Carl Wilson - Hurricane

Mark Munson - f/s boneless

Toby Gozzett - b/s over crook

Rick Clark went in hard for a couple of hours to get this b/s tail slide biggy. 

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Empire Skate Night

A few from the first wet Wednesday night in what seems like ages. Only a few people came out, but they pushed it and made shapes.

Skate Night at Empire Skatepark in Colchester is Wednesday nights, 7-10. We have fun.

Harley Miller - f/s ollie

Harley Miller - b/s nose pick shuv out

Toby Gozzett - ollie

Tom Horspool - wallride b/s smith re-entry

#FourWheelFools #Empireskatepark #essex #HardcoreHobbies #SkateNight #uk #Skateboarding #hellyeahson #skatepark 

Lords Of The Swords 2016 Awards Night

Andrew Houghton - slob

The party that is The Awards Night. What can I say? It rules. Loads of skating, just as much drinking and a bunch of skaters getting rowdy. Along with everyone getting proper stoked on the results, whoever wins what.

Once everyone had skated, chatted and drunk a load, we all gathered to watch the winning edits and crown the winners of Lords Of The Swords 2016!

Only Fools - 3rd Place

Easy Money - 2nd Place

Michael Barrymore's Skateboarding Dream - 1st Place

Spirit Of The Sword Award - Team Dean

We (Triple Sword Skate Store) were named winners of the Pro/Friends section and Warren Munson received the Best Edit Award for his TS video! 

Pro/Friends winners - Triple Sword Skate Store (Empire Skatepark)

Warren Munson - Best Edit Award

RIP Harambe picked up their award from Luke on Sunday as none of the team could make it on the night. Thanks for the pic Luke.

Team R.I.P. Harambe - Highest Points Award

Awards given, I took to getting a bit weird with a slow shutter and the guys not yet too drunk to skate.

Thanks as always to Luke Pearce for putting together such a RAD comp, Empire for hosting the Awards Night once again and to everyone who took part. YOU are RAD.

Harvey Thompson - f/s tail slide

Harvey Thompson ollieing up to smith

Harvey Thompson - landing to smith after the ollie up

Jordan Thackeray - f/s nose grind tail grab

Tariq Abdel-Rahim - f/s boneless

#LordsOfTheSwords2016 #fourwheelfools #blog #new #tripleswordstore #triplesword #empireskatepark #essex #uk #skateboarding #awards #awardsnight

Lords Of The Swords 2016 With Triple Sword Skate Store - Part Six :Empire Out Back DIY

This week, Four Wheel Fools will be releasing photos from time spent with the Triple Sword Skate Store boys on this years Lords Of The Swords road trip competition. A spot each day until the awards night at Empire Skatepark on Saturday 1st October. Scroll down to see previous posts.

Each competing team is required to produce a short film of their weekend. This edit should document the tasks completed and have now been submitted for voting online at www.lordsoftheswords.com so get voting Triple Sword!

Here's our edit. Filmed by Wazza Munson and some of the crew and pieced together by Wazza. 

VOTE TRIPLE SWORD HERE

As I said before, we returned to the park a little behind the others and the sight that met us made me well up and I stood at the gate watching a bunch of skateboarders taking turns to fly around the virgin concrete of Empire Skatepark's latest and most eagerly anticipated redesign to date. The Out Back DIY. Three years in the making, this cozy back yard concrete bowl is testament to the continuing colossal enthusiasm and energy the owners and locals of the park have in ensuring it's longevity and at the same time build and skate something really RAD.

I am proud to say that I took a small part in mixing concrete and shifting sand when I had the time to give to it, but the bulk of the work has been done by Jack, Harry and Wazza with help from a number of others including some vital skills and advice from Delside's Paul Carroll and some of the people behind The Spot in Tottenham Hale during the final push. Enough gushing over it.

All Lords 2016 teams were invited to the lock-in party. Some of the usual suspects turned up too. The temptation of a freshy too much to resist. 
Both Potter & Munson joined Jordan in an assault of the biggest 1/4 and few others took up the challenge.
The sun set and the makeshift floodlights came to life, so the skating continued into the early hours of Sunday morning with sporadic shouting of the name "DAN!" from Toby in homage to Alan Partridge cutting through the night.... all night. I managed to sink a few tinnies as I shot the action around the bowl so I did worry about the quality of some of my photos! 

Oh, and Jarvis was out cold on the platform by the time we arrived. His position didn't change until the lights went out around 4am.

Carl Wilson - f/s lein tail

Carl Wilson - f/s air

Carl Wilson - f/s ollie

Jordan Thackeray - f/s feeble

Jordan Thackeray - f/s ollie

Jordan Thackeray - one foot transfer

Mark Munson - egg plant

Carl Wilson - f/s crail air

Carl Wilson - f/s invert

Jordan Thackeray - stale (1)

Jordan Thackeray - stale (2)

Jake Bolt - b/s disaster

Jake Bolt

Jordan Thackeray - f/s 5-0 transfer

Fin MacBrayne - f/s smith

Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s nosepick 

Luke Pearce - up to f/s 5-0

Philippe Da Rosa - f/s 5-0 transfer

Philippe Da Rosa - f/s 50-50 all the way round

Quite a sizeable group stayed at the park overnight. And as I assumed this wouldn't be a conducive atmosphere for sleep, I chose to relax in my car for a few hours not expecting to sleep. 
Surprised to find myself waking up around 8, I chilled out in the sun for a couple of hours  and took some photos until I was able to complete my morning ritual at Tesco.

Jason Goodwin - Boneless

Jason Goodwin - hip to f/s 5-0 grab

Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s ollie

Lewis Fitzpatrick - f/s stale

Mark Radden - Boneless

Chief Filmer and Editor Warren Munson

Mark Munson - b/s carve round the jacuzzi 

Mark Munson - b/s tail slide revert

On exiting the supermarket's customer toilet, I found that it had rained very hard and stopped again in the five minutes I was inside. I drove back to the park hoping the clouds would clear and skating outside would be possible on the final day.
A very dejected crew were sitting out back contemplating their next move when I crept through the back gate. Talk of staying put and skating the indoor park or Better Extreme in Barking was being banded about but seeing as no rain had fallen since I returned and the sky seemed safe enough I had a go at convincing everyone that it would be a good idea to dry the Out Back section as best we could and see what happened before making the choice to leave Colchester and chance running into further rain. The reaction was positive enough for me to pick up a broom and sweep as much of the standing water towards the drain or the gate. whichever was closest and with help from some others 
, the bowl was dry enough to skate within an hour including a short shower midway through drying and another round of sweeping. We got a strong couple of hours in before the night before started catching up proper.

Jack Keyword - hip to f/s tail slide

Jay Sable - f/s rock

Mark Radden - Clunk-Click R&R

Mark Radden tucking up over the hip and bump

And so by 4pm Lords Of The Swords 2016 was at a physical end for me but the work had only just begun for me. Not really work, I love going back through cards packed with photos reliving the weekend over and over. I packed my gear up and helped tidy up the Out Back before sinking into my seat and closing my door on the world. 
 Lords had, once again been a very entertaining and productive three days spent with a great bunch of friends.

VOTE TRIPLE SWORD HERE

VOTE TRIPLE SWORD HERE

 #fourwheelfools #lordsoftheswords2016 #empireskatepark #uk #skateboarding #competition #roadtrip #vote #blog #new