ISSUE NO.9 SEATTLE

We got so lucky with our time in Seattle, only a handful of rainy days in a city notorious for its grey and wet weather. We had sun nearly every day and it was never really hotter than 30°C / 85°F. Security was harsh but we prevailed and came through with a good amount of footage. Check out some of Seattle’s heaviest hitters skate around downtown and its outlying neighborhoods. Here is montage number two from our two months of summer in Seattle.

City skateboarding is hard. It takes a special breed of skater to purposefully skate spots with shitty ground, cracks in the ground, huge security guards, or any of the other obstacles that might stand in the way. Joel and Ryan personify street skateboarding with an appetite for the weird, wild and photogenic. While some prefer perfect concrete, designated areas and obstacles that were meant to be skated, these two are prime examples of the guys that keep street skating where it started: IN THE STREETS!

Seattle is a freak show. Never before have we been to a city with more characters walking around than the Emerald City. Bohemians and bankers, nannies and trannies, feens with dreams and some of the most eccentric people you have ever seen. The heroin addicted teenagers of Westlake, the crackheads of Pioneer Square, the transvestites of Capitol Hill and the Suits of South Lake Union.

When you are traveling on a skateboarders budget, you have got to know how to cook for yourself and save money from eating out. For this Skaters Cookbook, our head filmmaker Matt Phipps cooks his breakfast that has kept him going on constant filming missions. Weather veggie or carnie, you can appreciate this simple dish ready to pack your body with protein to handle a day of skating through the city.

Street photography and skateboarding are much alike in many ways. You move around the streets and try and find arrangements of people and things that catch your eye, state your opinion, make you laugh, make you cringe, and make you think. Will Shields is a skater who has been experimenting with cameras ever since a family friend left a digital camera at his New Hampshire home nearly 15 years ago. He is quick on the shutter and has been developing his style and perspective over time.

We spent the last two months crawling the streets of Seattle, Washington (USA) and we are proud to bring you the trailer for ISSUE No. 9. The Emerald city is among the fastest growing ones in America, which also means there is an insane amount of new concrete and spots being poured. Seattle has a rich history both in skateboarding and subculture dating back more than 25 years from vert skaters to grunge rockers.