On the Scene
4ts Review of Books: Photograffiti
I’m not just a washed art critic, you know; I’m a washed book critic too. But sometimes the knife calls, so welcome, literary sluts, to the 4ts Review of Books ...
It’s tough, like really fucking tough, to not flip there first, to find those couple pages towards the back end of the Bible and devour and dream and be split between what if? and if only, but I’ve been looking for chances to delay gratification for a few years now, which has lined up nicely with my subscription. And that’s because there is nothing that so fully encapsulates skating as Photograffiti does, beyond the very act itself, and so nothing which feels better to see.
(Btw, for the rest of this essay, the magazine dept will be referred to as Photo-G; when we summon and slant the whole thing, Photograffiti, we’re talking about the book. Trying to keep the confusion to a minimum, bb.)
If Thrasher is our foundational text, than Photo-G is its most crucial component — beyond the interviews and invasions and ads, beyond the photo features and 5 Greats, above the Heads and well past the Lunatic Fringe. It’s a constellation and distillation both; it spans the globe but encompasses everything which matters into that single precious space. Spots never before seen, scenes never before spotted, unknowns and formerly knowns and soon-to-be knowns all road graded into the same beautiful thing.
There are two immutable and interrelated truths contained in Photograffiti, a collection of photos, follow ups with former lucky ducks who have been featured, and myth put out by Thrasher. One in words and the other in images: that this thing, this silly fucking skin flaying body weeping bone cracking marrow eating beauty blooming thing is for us all, and that for one frame all of us can be It.
Only one year in.
Photo-G debuts in January 1982, and immediately set upon by skaters from all walks. The early versions go well beyond the straight shots we get now; there’s entire paragraphs of text detailing their provenance and scenes, there’s invitations and exultations and evangelizations from across the country and globe, a nascent community coagulating (often times literally). There’s Cali, of course, but also Smyrna, TN and Toledo, North Dakota and New Jersey, Europe and South America. Local heroes and lore builders are shot throughout it, an era of named ramps predominantly of the people, not municipalities.
A variety of tricks and skill levels are already present — from lofted airs to car hood cavemen, inverts and worm burners and armor and architecture all accompanied by missives from the streets. These early iterations show a scene sprouting, and Photo-G the irrigation system; the point is to ‘open the floodgates to every skater — no matter where they’re at or how good they are,’ as the introduction reads. Seems like a simple idea, pollyannaish and practical both, b/c growing a scene and growing a subscriber base are basically the same thing (and no shade, one can want to love, thrive, and survive).
But more than that, Photo-G was a form of radical inclusiveness — one that superseded skating’s reality, up until, oh, roughly the last few years, although we’ve always got to grind that long arc of the universe (good thing ride ons are so hot right now!) — that could provide that one person who looked like you, or skated like you, or lived near you, the entrée or inspiration needed to start skating or keep pushing on. That representation extended to different scenes, cutting down on some coastal bias and giving shine to ramps, whether mini, full, or jump; banks; makeshift rails; homemade boxes; flat walls and flat ground.
And never mind the knowledge bestowed! I’ve learned a lot of more obscure trick names in those captions, Photo-G a field guide to some of the stranger plants especially, caught up in captions from Phelps himself that opened and explained this thing like butterfly pins. They could be irreverent or even insulting but were mostly rakish — that guy on the deck.
All of which speaks to the second Truth here: that any trick, any skill level, is not only deserving of props, but can contain a moment of absolute fucking beatuy.
Have you ever seen Niagara Falls in February? An exoskeleton of ice containing a current?
A single scene can capture it, that perfect angle, that resemblance to the geometry of stoke, one shining moment where any skater can appear as dynamic and exciting as a pro. Look, even a push shot by the right person in the right place can be enthralling, right?, can capture the essence of the Thing better than [sry] 1k words or even the most admired auteur could ever hope to do, even Greg or Spike or Bill, because plucking a moment, making a still, is catching action, is freezing passion.
I’ve long maintained that everyone needs their portrait shot by a capital-p Photographer at some point in their lives; that being handled with grace and knowledge and skill will present a different view of you to you, one driven by your best qualities, looking your most attractive, yes, but with your personality present too.
Something alchemical happens in a single image. At some point, in some sort of Trafaldorian weird way, some sort of housefly vision or Alpha 3 shadow combo, there’s a moment where any skater becomes beautiful. Limbs are oriented just so; spots are lovingly laid; compositions are framed — some sort of spell is cast, séance succeeds, and whatever Spirit animates skating flows through you.
In that one scene, all of it just fucking works.
You look incredible.
At its best, Photo-G — and Photograffiti — make this real. Hundreds of snaps, the vast majority from those who will never know their name on a board or a box in their trunk or a break from a shop, and the vast majority of them fucking rule. They capture someone at something like their best, a moment they’re proud of and wanted to share, and the great laity gets their chance at canonization. That goes for the shooters-cum-saints as well; their name is right there too, chapter and verse.
What Photograffiti does is take these truths and makes them evident, celebrates them for the defining (yet sometimes forgotten or fucked) elements of skating they are. The exposition and invitations fall away, the hating rises and recedes, wheel and pant sizes shift, the copy quips and praises, the images become sharper, the subjects more diverse, the selections — of spot, skill level, trick — stay kaleidoscopic and the chance of immortality remains. We’re nothing without a scene, even one experienced remotely; we’re something within a scene, even if no one’s a pro; and we deserve to be seen, a seem in the stained glass.
The Bible is written in our blood.
