Tony Hawk at Mount Trashmore '86
I was a little 15 year old skate rat in Virginia Beach back in 1986. It was a humid as balls summer day. My friends and I were at Mount Trashmore watching the practice for the upcoming NSA skateboarding contest from up against the fence. We snuck in a few times but kept getting kicked out by an ad-hoc security force. I snapped this shot through the fence after we were finally banned for good. It was the first time I had seen a pro skater in real life and it was a religious experience. It’s the same contest that Mike Valleley joined the Bones Brigade and local boy Sergie Ventura won the amateur contest. The ramp was super slick and everyone had problems with it except the Texan crew. They were used to skating the notoriously slipperey and janky Clown Ramp of Dallas. Jeff Phillips, who eventually took his own life years later won that contest. That week in the summer of 1986 was a turning point for me. It’s when I really decided to become a skater and photographer. Watching Mofo and J. Grant Brittain up on the ramps clicking away at the photos that would be on my wall in a month was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. That and a McTwist!
Jeff Phillips at the Clown Ramp
I ended up meeting Jeff and the Zorlac crew a few years later when my Mom moved to Plano Texas. It was my 16th birthday and my Mom had just bought me my first 35mm SLR. A shiny new Pentax K-1000. She drove me to a Zorlac demo that afternoon and a photo from my very first roll of 35mm film on my very first SLR was in Transworld Skateboarding several months later. I had been writing letters to J. Grant Brittain asking for advice for a while at this point and his tips and the fact that he wrote back at ALL was encouragement enough to keep me motivated. When I sent him my first photo and he published it in the April ‘87 issue of Transworld I was hooked! Talk about a super cool guy. Thanks man!
Craig Johnson at a Zorlac demo in Dallas
Unfortunately like most childhood dreams my photography got shoved by the wayside years later when I developed an unfortunate allergy to darkroom chemicals. It got me into digital imaging which got me into desktop publishing which got me into web development and the rest is history. I still shoot obviously but I haven’t shot a single skateboarder in as long as I can remember but the lessons of those old days stick with me. Everything I learned about timing and the decisive moment I honed day after day taking pics of my friends on the streets and ramps of the midwest.
I still have a chunk of the Clown Ramp (R.I.P.) somewhere. They were falling off all the time so it was easy pickings for souvenir hunters. I have a similar piece of the Berlin Wall stuffed in the same envelope but that piece of the Blue Ramp means a world more to me.
