there'll be time

im struggling to start writing this rant, not because i've got a busy brain, its because i've got stoke block.  Today we skated the same hill that we did yesterday.  It's a hill i figured i could happily move on from after 1 day but after 2 day of runs I was still down for more, we shared about 14.  I shot two runs today, yesterday I shot 3 and i'm getting excited for fots!!  i just can keep on framing the wrong side of the road...

I dont know if i've already properly outlined what I'm doing in New Zealand so to get myself out of the explanatory demise i've just recently doomed myself with i'll tell you right now.   There's this rad dude called Speedy (not for skating) who likes hills, skating them, crew and frothing them..  he also knows how to ferry people across a country skating hills and provide maximum glory.  He's so motivated by stoke that he preached pure glory and ended up with a tour called n-tenze d-centz which allowed him to rent a luxury van to accomodate for 11 of us.  We're cruising around the north island for 2 weeks lurking and skating.  

I'm here for glory! namely stoking, skating and foting.  The amount of runs that go down is so exorbitant that I can shoot what I want and still get runs.  Today I got 12 on a 4.5 minute run and I'm struggling to deal with the stoke.  It's like being at the snow but not in the sense of it being great, in the sense of it being the best thing i've ever done before.

Tomorrow morning we skate the same hill again YEEEOWOOW and then we head to a place called Testicle Facility and it's apparently freeride heaven.  From what i've heard from the guys who did this last year, we're hopping from heaven to heaven (and a little bit of hell.)  Hell yes, we're going to Mordor, the real Mordor, the place where i'll ascend to the pit of fire and use it to warm my bottom while i fot skaybod.

The crew is tight and it's about 85% of stoke causation.  Matt Kienzle, The Chad, Gabe Gwynne, Gavin Rutherford, Adam Yates, Api Ihaia, Craig Bond, Speedy, Jordan Hau, Cam Kite and myself.   I'm comfy, NZ is really really rad!!  I'm going to get this done since Yates is farting furiously and it's combining with the drowsiness to make bed my only option

yatedawg

a corner on the hill 1.  we shot plenty of gopro, it'll be on here soon.

mobbing, we had a tailwind today.

this is speedy

api! the only nzer on the trip

ive skated to this song more than i have any other song combined, gimme max tranq mobbing.

mean times bru!

in complete contrast to the potentially derogatory title, I am finding New Zealand to be extremely nice, to which I would compare a combination of Brisbane and Melbourne (street aesthetic of Melbourne but general layout/busyness of Bris) except better than both individually/combined.  It's so chilled plus EPIC inner-city skate potential but mainly it's the people and I guess thus the gloriously relaxed vibes.  Everything is relatively cheap, apart from fuel which is $2+ year round.. 

I hadn't organised anything for when I was landed in NZ, mainly because I was unsure of my flight so I kept it spontaneous.  Luckily I got onto the first one and was into Auckland pronto..  To my delight, as I walked out the gauntlet of people waiting for other people, I ran into Bob, who was waiting for Gabe, who was landing from Sydney but at the exact same time as me.  I was stoked!  Doubly stoked by the news we'd be staying at Sam Dalton's house, an epic NZ grom who is more my age than I am.   

Since the rendezvous we've been lurking around Ponsonby for the last 1.5 days, skating, eating, preparing for the trip, generally relaxing but mainly partaking in the most epic skatepark plus yesterday Api landed and today we got to hook up with the Chad so the crew is accruing and the final accrusition will be at 7:30 tomorrow when the tour properly starts.

I've not shot much at all over these 2 days, about 25% of that has been digital, but I'm not at all bugged as I know the mindset will come when I leave this city because, although shooting cities can be fun (for the most part i dont think so) I have a much better time out on the road..   We head 4 hours north tomorrow to an epic surfy sport and I've heard we'll be at it for a few days, which sounded strange to me but I keep forgetting we're on this bus for 2 weeks.  

I'm excited for this trip as I really want to take sick shots, not sick shots in the sense of going nice places and getting sick visuals but I want to explore more, I want to take my thinking to level 2. I feel like my photo-mind has been stagnating somewhat and the mind is more important than anything else to my phototaking.  I've got a luda film body that I borrowed off a pal as well as a decent stash of film so that is also exciting.  

once again, film (and it's delayed gratification) related apologies

bobbie lurking at the Museum

dachad

gabe

bobby K

here's a suprise fot from Big Sur.  It's obviously unrelated but this is my apology to you for the previous bunch of photo's lack of excitement.  This is an exercise in reclaiming my blog for it's diaristic values

and in other sick news, I was selected as a finalist for the Lord Mayor photo competition which I am quite stoked about, this is the shot below. 

my heads been battling this song for my thoughts for too long now

TTC

im off to new zealand on thursday morning which is pretty exciting.  i want to make it a time of self-guided glory within the realms of a guided skate tour bus and i think it will be easy because having everything sorted, form what i can tell, everything (apart form sleeping bag-note to self)  so i plan to just tranq it bigtime by shooting only bangers and skateboarding whenever the scenery is not so banging + i've not filmed anything in a while and i believe the plan is to make some rad video stuff too..  Gabe is coming and we've shot some stuff before and bobby will be lurking with us.   tomorrow i pack. wed i work.  thurs i go.  stoked

here are some fots, they're mostly representing the 2 avenues of life I am currently living; stoke and skateboarding.  The others are relating to entirely different things.

the dawg, he's also coming to NZ!

the chad

a shredder from byron/outskirts/notatall

casj times in the haunted shed

spids are tears

i need to find more music before i go

1. 
   

cerebral preaching

There's this legend (Kurt) on the Goldcoast and he stokes out hard... i've never seen a man froth like i've seen this man froth so it's no wonder he runs a magazine, obviously because he had a huge need to exert his stoke somewhere, thankfully with a magazine many people get to benefit from it :D

It's a longboarding mag and I've helped/been helped out in regards to photos etc for a while now and im stoked to be a part of it..  im extra stoked that my first cover photo has recently appeared on the front of the aforementioned publication and i'm triply stoked that it's a fot of chaddy!  

Things seem to be getting pretty ideal with the photoing of downhill skateboarding but making money is tricky, as with making money from anything fun, but i'm in no rush for the full-time skatephotoman as i know this sport will give back somewhat equal to what i've/i'll put into it but right now it's more in than out.. Obviously i cant be sure of equality in this sense but it feels nice to type it and one must have dreams in order to live the dream.  

here's the photo, i've definitely taken better but im still stoked, looks nice in print too which is ideal.  This location is fittingly called paradise and it's everything is extremely delectable although it's guarded by a haunting figure named Crazy Eyes aka the road is private and home to roughly 6 houses but he's the shitty resident that is not at all accepting of our needs.

two more sneaky ones from issue 9, the first is yatedawg from a little evening lurk session we had a little while back

and this one is from a race in noosa just before i went over to usa.  I got so so so stoked from skateboarding and taking fots at the same time

here's my buddy Sam, he's been sampled on this blog many times before and usually smiling ridiculously like in this photo... he's a happy dude, people can learn from such happiness and luckily for  me i've had 4 years to bask in his glory, it's wonderful, he's really stoked.

a rat thing

this is my favourite skaybod ever

everything can be rad all of the time

Time has recently robbed me of my thoughts once again.  Not in any specific manner, I'm not qualmed by it or regretting the way its been spent, it's just demanding attention and it's sick.   Last year was a struggle against time being something that is more than clock-related and it qualmed me deep, it qualmed everything I did and thought and I was worrying because felt like I could be spending it poorly yet I lacked the motivation to do anything about it so i wallowed.  I was stabilised by the return of a friend at the very beginning of this year, I then went on a trip to america for the most part of Jan and now i feel like lamb again, i need a new shepherd..
 Time is casj/people die from fridges regularly and life is now nice because I'm happily oblivious to it's tears once again and it's this progression that's currently bringing me back.  

There's plenty of time for glory and little time for not glory and this notion has been motivating me lately.. obviously not in the sense of this blog as I managed to go an entire 3 week photo trip in which I made one misc post...   I felt like I'd lost my blog and it comes from this blog being the only representation of my photos and I'd come to this stupid conclusion that this was somehow important which directly affected my feels towards this blog.  But i forgot those tears,  It's time to glory.  My website is being made [for max pro], i'm stoked, mostly i am excited and i get to go overseas again in a couple of weeks.

Everything is rad and i'd somehow forgotten that, just sometimes I need to remind myself to chase it when it runs to the hills.

Here are some phots that I uploaded to my flickr a while back, I intended to use them in posts that were time-relevant but we've discuss this so no need to dwell.

I recall that the town down there is Santa Barbara, we hung there for 2 days on the drive up to SanFran..  Mostly lurking but also shooting James on a few hills that were delicately mind-blowing.  I may have mentioned last post about this leg but it was a 4 day journey from skatehouse up to norcal (Petaluma) with 2 dgm brethren (OSL + thomas trnka) james kelly and his car; the American Dream.

atop ECC we shared some views and i lost my shit due to the ridiculous landscape, the hill below and the acceptance of dream-attainment.... this stoke didn't wear off until what feels like perhaps not even yet....  It was cold up there, the puddles were straddled by ice and the wind was intense.. we bailed quickly in order to bask in bitumen's body-warming properties + to play skateboards.

trnka + osl

mid-lurk, hanging out for tyler and a chap whose name i've now forget, got some more shots here, it was fun.  The tiny part of california that i saw confirms my ideals.

here's my buddy bob k.  he's 100% rad dude.  get to fury with him again in few weeks, NZ this time. yeeeow!

turns out NZ is in 6 days. yeeeow.  I feel in control and now im relaxed again, it's nice.  bone deep depths.

this one is old, it's from the keira/bathurst trip in april last year...  i post this as a reminder, i'm 95% done and i need to rid myself of them all, i might e-book that scenario but we'll see.  i just want them gone.