Sunset

I made a stop motion of the sunset a few nights ago. I used music by Herbert Grönemeyer from his score to the film The American.

Enjoy.

"Trick bikes and skateboards are just a fad that will be gone in a few years."

BMX and Skateboarding have always been something I have been a fan of. I was in grade school when my parents bought my brother and I our first freestyle bikes. We both got Mongoose FS-1 bikes, mine purple and his green. They were complete with forks that had drilled holes for pegs, rotors, mag wheels and standing platforms on the back axle. My brother excelled on his bike and went through plenty of different bikes. Once I broke my first brake cable going down a hill and ended up crashing in a creek bed I was pretty much over it. It didn't help that at the time we were in super small town America where the only bike repair man didn't know how to fix it.

After that I moved on to skateboards. My first skateboard was a Veriflex from a chain toy store and it wore out rather quickly. I will never forget my mom taking me to The Slope in Wichita to get my first professional custom board built. My parents went all out on it too, the deck was a Vision Psycho Stick, which I still ride once in a while, with Tracker Trucks and green Rat Bones wheels. I even got the Swiss bearings and tail guard and rails. To me that skateboard was as immaculate as a 1967 Shelby GT350 is to others.

I never really was that great at skateboarding when it came to doing tricks. But I had a group of friends who were about having a good time enjoying the company and encouraging everyone. So in high school, that is what we did. We parked our cars at the recreation center and spent the evening shredding. It wasn't the coolest thing kids in a small farming community could do, but we had a lot of fun and are all still great friends. We had our run ins with the police and took our problems to the city council to get a skate park constructed. This was in the early 1990's. The decision was made and they were wrong, dead wrong. They turned us down stating, "Trick bikes and skateboards are just a fad that will be gone in a few years." following the decision with banning bikes and skateboards from sidewalks down town and recreation center. That city now has a small skate park.

I have some friends from the Wichita area who skate every day. One of the beat towns up there converted their old city swimming pool into a rad skate park. After years of lost contact I was able to find my friend Seth on youTUBE. A few weeks ago we met up at the Derby Skate Park and I photographed him and his friends. Well basically everyone who was there and rode in front of my camera lens was photographed.

So now without further ado, here are Pat, Taylor, Wes, Sam, Charlie, Logan, and my homeboy Seth.