When Tom said he wanted to check this volcano spot out I'm pretty sure I shut him down straight away. "It's shit". "It's harder than it looks to skate". "I'm not going", etc etc. I've been there so many times and nothing ever goes down, the deadline for issue 28 was approaching fast and I didn't want to waste any time.
He threw out the idea of trying a kickflip. I instantly changed my mind about the spot and we headed over to check it out.
My process for the last few years has been to get someone to film slow mo on their iphone so I can check back to see when the flash goes off. This can provide a general idea of what the photo might look like but more importantly to check if you got that catch! I try to do this is much as possible for flip tricks, it really helps reduce film wastage. If you're on a solo mission you can just set the phone up on your camera bag or the ground next to you.
I tend to go for a low angle when shooting but thought I'd try to shoot his kickflip a little differently. Here's how the original shot of the Kickflip turned out.
I wanted to show a little bit more of the spot and was actually pretty hyped on how it tuned out. That was until I referenced it to the screen grab that I shot on my iphone on the ground next to me!
As soon as I got the film back I knew that we had to back and shoot it from a lower angle. I spoke to Tom and told him that I thought I could make it look a lot better and to entice him into doing it again I said that it definitely had cover potential. Haha!
Two weeks later on a damp December afternoon, we managed to dry the spot with a full bag of cat litter and Tom went for it again.
Shout out to Tom who landed this four of five times while I tried to do this amazing kickflip justice. It was definitely worth lying on the freezing concrete all afternoon for.