John Bird has been photographing the things going on around him since he was 13 years old, it just happens that he has been around skateboarding since that time as well. He takes photographs not because he wants to but because he has to. It’s not out of a necessity to remember, but he appreciates perfection found in chaos and the cameras ability to capture the height of a moment’s chaotic order forever. When he’s not skateboarding he is playing with fire, collecting creepy masks or talking shit. John lives in San Francisco, CA and can be found lurking on or around 24th Street.
Ryan Parsons, wallie to noseslide, SFCA, 2008. Most skateboarders know Ryan as frontside bluntslide guy. I met him in Sacramento and could tell stories that make problem child look like the second coming of Christ compared to him. I only run into him now out of chance in SF. I see him and he lurks around for a solid week, always finding his way back to my apartment, down to go skate twenty-four hours a day. Then one day he’ll disappear and I’ll hear stories about dangerous people looking for him, never quite getting the full story. This time I ran into him at Potrero skatepark, he was talking about how he was rich and had all new gear on. He wanted to get a tattoo from Grime of snake-dragons criss-crossing up onto his neck. “Tattoos are sick because when you go to jail they can’t take them from you.” Wise words. He didn’t get the tattoos, but signed up on the three-month waiting list. That was when we found this spot. He landed this Wallride to noseslide in three or four tries, only putting his foot through the window once. Most recently I heard he was spotted pushing a shopping cart of bottles and cans to a recycling center in Oakland. Life, it kind of has its ups and downs.
Rasmus Saand, Backside Hurricane grind, Oakland, CA, 2011. Rasmus came out here from Copenhagen, Denmark for a few months, staying at the Thrasher Park in Double Rock the entire time. I forget that place even has a shower. Rasmus is backed by Skate Mental and killed it every time he stepped on his board. I later found out his nickname in Denmark is ‘the head’ because his head is disproportionately bigger than his body. I wish I knew that when he was out here because that nickname rules.
Tom Shattuck, Ollie up to backside lipslide, Oakland, CA, 2010. I’ve known Tom for a long time and he progresses at an insane rate, every time I skate with him he has some new trick I never even thought was possible. One time, I saw him hold a backside invert for like five seconds till he did the Neil Blender walk away from it. He’s also the nicest person you’ve ever met. He once told me “skateboarding is a paradigm, it colors the things you see.” T-nice gets mean on board.
Taylor Bingaman, Battleground, WA 2008. We went up to Oregon and Washington in 2008 for the Trifecta contests.Taylor learned backside inverts during the contest and was generally killing it all the way up to the finals. It was looking like he was going to take the contest when he and another kid did simultaneous frontside airs on opposite corners into the same pipe. Luckily for the other kid, or maybe for both of them, he had a helmet on. Taylor took the helmet to the face and spun in the air into the other wall. The music stopped and the rain started. Nobody could find the paramedics and Taylor looked dead at the bottom of the bowl. Not moving, face down, with blood pouring out of his face. Turned out he only broke his right cheek bone, nose and ripped his left eyebrow in half. Helmets: not as safe as people think.
