Curated by Dave Swift
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Tails Of… Photographers
Introduction
From 1989 to 2016, I was employed as a writer, editor, photographer, videographer, publisher, and owner at two magazines: Transworld Skateboarding (1989-2003) and The Skateboard Mag (2004-2016). In that time period, skateboard magazines were the heart and soul of the skate culture and delivered skate content to shredders all over the world on a monthly basis. As the calendar turned to a new century, change was on the horizon, and the glory days of print were coming to a quick end. It was a time when skate magazines were becoming a thing of the past (in 2004, there were six skateboard magazines being published in California), and the internet and social media were taking over the landscape. In November 2016, The Skateboard Mag was quickly dying, and I was laid off from the job I loved most.
At first, I thought I’d move on to other things, but after such a long time, it wasn’t easy to just flip a switch and reinvent myself. I might have applied to a few industry jobs but after hearing a few “You’re just not a good fit for the team” from marketing folks that had never set foot on a skateboard, I pretty much threw in the towel and began to take the photography aspect of my career to another level. I was retained by a skate website, and that lasted until mid-2020. Suddenly a name appeared on my phone from someone at the company who I hadn’t talked to in over a year, never a good sign. I knew I was getting cut. The person on the other end of the call stated that “Everyone is suffering during Covid,” and that was that.
In the years since, I’ve continued to shoot photographs of skateboarding, and I’m grateful to have gotten work from several different brands, but I still missed the days of making a monthly magazine. It’s hard work, but when you have the right mix of people working on it from start to finish, the end result is more than worth it.
When the opportunity came up to lead this issue of Tails Of, I knew right away that I wanted the theme to be photography. And since I’m a photographer and continue to shoot skateboarding on a semi-regular basis, I find that I have quite a few photographs that MUST be published in print! Yeah, Too Hot For Instagram is what I like to call them. When you get deep into this article, you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about because they shouldn’t be looked at on a tiny screen. Hope you dig them.
Dave Swift
Table of Contents
Tails Of… is a print magazine and we’d love for you to experience it in that form if possible. We also understand that we can’t reach everyone in that way so we’ll publish some of the articles online. These could get released over time, eventually… if we get around to it.
6 : Dave Swift: Too Hot for Instagram
30 : Geoff Graham
34 : Jon Humphries
40 : Lance Dawes
44 : Tobin Yelland
50 : Pete Thompson
56 : Mike O’Meally
62 : Ryan Gee
68 : Luke Ogden
72 : Wig Worland
82 : Postcards from our friends, Featuring: Ed Templeton, Mark Whiteley, Chad Foreman, Kurt Hodge, Ivory Serra, Jai Tanju, Fernando Menezes Jr., Adam Wallacavage,
Wig Worland, Nam-Chi Van, Sean Cronan, Will Owens
98 : J. Grant Brittain
Contributors
Editor
John Freeborn
The Core Counsel
Rich Jacobs, Jai Tanju, Jim Houser, Ben Horton
Contributing Photographers
Geoff Graham, Jon Humphries, Lance Dawes, Tobin Yelland, Mike O’Meally, Pete Thompson, Ryan Gee, Luke Ogden, Wig Worland, Ed Templeton, Mark Whiteley, Chad Foreman, Kurt Hodge, Ivory Serra, Jai Tanju, Fernando Menezes Jr., Adam Wallacavage, Nam-Chi Van, Sean Cronan, Will Owens,
and J. Grant Brittain
Huge Thank You to all the Interview Subjects
All artwork are the copyright of the artists and are in use here to showcase their talents. We encourage you to go out and find their work, share, and support the artists. Tails Of makes no claim to any of these individual’s works