Skateboarding in Texas
I think the first thing I pursued outside the norm of traditional career paths was Photographing/Filming, and mostly having to do with skateboarding after some time. I believed in what I was doing so much, I even stopped going to photo school eventually because of it. I sold a house and took a camper van out to California because I thought that’s where I needed to be for it. I felt I was learning more in my real life than in class, and no one there seemed to be involved in the world I loved. My photographs started to feel more personal and I didn’t like hearing instruction to “not print in black and white” or to always have some political pursuit behind a project.
I had been skateboarding since I was 8 or 9 years old, but I also was filming it early on as well. I loved the culture. I found most of my music through skate videos, and experienced more of the real world as a kid doing this than most things I see adults doing now. As a kid it was freedom, to take trains to Downtown Dallas or Fort Worth and just huck yourself down concrete trying to make it look cool. But it taught me a lot of discipline, and patience in ways I don’t think anything else could have. It’s different than team sports or school activities. It tests your mental a lot more intensely. There’s more real world consequence in my mind. I miss that, and the way it gave me the best times of my early life. And I’m grateful I did it all, no ragrets.
