On this latest skateboarding shoot with my buddy Stacey, I learned a few things. First, I need a wider angle lens. Second: I don’t like staples… at least not in my head. And C: Gravity… it’s not just a theory any more. Let me explain. Well I guess the staple thing really doesn’t need an explanation does it?
As you may recall, a couple of months ago, Stacey and I went
street skating. Well, at least he was street skating, I haven’t set foot on a board for many many years. Anyhoo, when I got a message saying he wanted me to come down to the Picton Skate Park to shoot him skate I was all over it. I was pumped to see what he had up his sleeve this time around, since I know he’s been skating a lot and the park is a totally different environment than the street for tricks. I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed. Unfortunately, unlike last time, I cannot say that nobody ended up in the hospital.
To get going Stacey started out with some grinds, ollies, kickflips, that type of thing. I think there may have been a nosegrind, grab, frontside goofy or backside fakie grind heelflip or two in there too. OK, you got me, I have no idea what most of the tricks are called. But whatever they are he nailed them all. And then he nailed them again (and sometimes again).
I was trying to think of some different angles, so I tried talking Stacey into letting me lie down under one of the transitions to get a shot up at him, but he didn’t think that was a good idea in case he lost the board, so I took his advice and we moved on. After all, no need to get hurt right?
I was anxious to get Stacey into the bowl and on to the ramps to see what we could get, so that’s where we headed next. I tried shooting from a few different places, and this is where I learned my first lesson: I needed a wider lens for the shot I wanted to get. Or even better a fish eye lens. Oh well, sometimes you just gotta work with what you got right? So I found some angles that did work and off we went.
Now we’re talking. These are the kinds of shots that we did not get while street skating. But the whole time I was watching I kept thinking of a couple of shots that I really wanted to get.
“I know”, I thought to myself. “I’ll lie on my back in the middle of the bowl, while he skates over my head…. now that would be a great shot”. “Nawwwww, that’s probably not a good idea”, I told myself, “let’s move on.”. Besides, around that time one of Stacey’s friends had shown up and we get to chatting while Stacey continued to skate around us.
At some point Stacey reminded me that we were missing some great light for shooting, so I got my ass back in gear and started shooting again.
So far so good, but we were running out of areas to skate at the park, and I was itching to get some more shots over in the bowls. So I thought to myself “I’ll lie on my back in the middle of the bowl, while he skates over my head… now that would be a great shot”. Only this time I said it out loud. To my surprise, Stacey thought it would be cool. I personally thought lying under the transition seemed less hazardous, but Stacey was down with my stund idea so I was in. After a couple of practice runs, I got a feel for where I could situate myself and we were set.
I focused, gave the all clear and waited… waited…. waited. Since I was staring straight up I had no idea where he was so I just listened to the sound of the board approaching. When it entered the frame, I fired. Got it.
Looks like it’s all under control….but wait… something didn’t sound right near the end. Oh well, no biggie. So I started to sit up, but before I could I got bonked on the head by the skateboard. Weird. This is when I learned my second lesson: Although I’m no fancy big city physicist, it would appear that when you’re lying with your head in the middle of a bowl, all paths lead any skateboard that may be falling into that bowl directly to your head. Gravity, whatcha gonna do?
As I stood up, I remember somebody telling me I was bleeding. Huh? It didn’t hurt that bad, how could it be bleeding? So I felt my head and looked at my hand which was now covered in blood. When I took my hat off, the water works really started… yikes.
So now I’m freaking out… I might have gotten blood on my camera, or my clothes! As I stood there bent over as to not get blood on me, I hear Stacey say he’ll get me his shirt to put on my head. So I stood there checking to make sure my camera was OK while he ran to get his shirt for me…. now, did I mention how hot it was that day? Or how sweaty Stacey was? Notice how he had taken his shirt off because it was so drenched with sweat… yeah, he got that shirt.
According to the doctor, heads are “vascular” which is why they bleed so much. But it didn’t take long for blood to stop pouring out of my head so I tried to figure out if I wanted to hit the hospital for this or not. I almost decided against it, but I’d heard that wait times at Picton Hospital were reasonable and it was right next store, so I figured I’d at least get the triage nurse to have a look.
As I started to explain what had happened to the triage nurse, I (for some reason) felt incredibly stupid. So I told my story, in broad strokes (meaning I left out the part about lying on my back in the bowl), to which the nurse replied “Did you at least get the shot?”. This is when I became incredibly grateful to Stacey for that sweaty shirt that I used to stem the bleeding. Since it occurred to me that if he hadn’t sacrificed his shirt I would have had to use my own, and at that moment I would have not only been explaining to the nurse how I had gotten a skateboard to the head, I would have been doing it shirtless. And I would have been in the waiting room shirtless. And had to stop at the store for water shirtless. I never thought I’d say this but, thanks for that incredibly sweaty t-shirt buddy!
Skip ahead to the emergency room. and after listening to the staff discuss several options, I find myself watching the doctor pull out a single-use prepackaged staple gun…. to use on my head. Apparently they’re the best for head injuries. All I could think about was
The Wrestler‘s staple gun scene. So we discussed medication options and I was told the needle for anesthetic would hurt worse than the staples, so I let him just staple my head together.
As my sister in-law said I guess I’m just suffering for my art :-). What can I say, I really wanted to shoot that angle. And I’d do it again, but next time I’ll be a little quicker to get out of the way, or even wear a helmet. No risk, no reward after all.
And remember folks, I am willing to spill blood at a skate park near you. If you have some crazy ollie backflip nosegrind 360 fakie tailspin
triple lindy trick that you’d like a photo of, drop me a line (info@dannysheppard.com) and I’ll hook you up.
I just added a first aid kit to my list of camera gear I need to buy.
44.00862-77.139223
