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Skateboarding => USELESS WOODEN TOY BANTER => Topic started by: Tear Up a Trick on May 24, 2023, 08:55:27 AM
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PG-13
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/ed-templetons-unsparing-photographic-diary-of-skateboarding-life (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/ed-templetons-unsparing-photographic-diary-of-skateboarding-life)
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dope, always loved his photography
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He deserves all the credit and praise he gets...and possibly all of the criticism too, although his stuff doesn't trigger me in the least. But other stuff does so I'm not mocking with that statement.
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Apparently I've run out of free articles.
Bummer, I'd like to check it out but not enough to pay $6 for it.
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The fabled Laconia trip, where supposedly the cover for Jump Off a Building was shot. I remember the guy who owned the shop there had photos from that trip in the shop as a kid.
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Apparently I've run out of free articles.
Bummer, I'd like to check it out but not enough to pay $6 for it.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fphoto-booth%2Fed-templetons-unsparing-photographic-diary-of-skateboarding-life
Ed Templeton has spent a big chunk of his life as a travelling salesman. He became a professional skateboarder in 1990, just before the end of his senior year in high school, and a few years later he started his own skateboard company, Toy Machine. The process was pretty simple and pretty gruelling: he signed up some of his fellow-skaters as endorsers, got some boards printed up, and then embarked on an endless series of cross-country promotional tours. The itinerary was determined by the location of skateboard shops, which hosted get-togethers where Templeton and his friends showed fans what they could do. “The shop might pay us eight hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars, for the demo,” he told me. “That would pay for hotels and gas to get to the next stop.” Often, Templeton was not just skating but also driving the van, and acting as de-facto tour manager. He was at least a few years older than everyone else, and he was also sober and married—an anomaly even within his own tight-knit group.
Clockwise from top left: Skaters, Memphis, Tennessee, 2002; Billy Marks with burnt hands, Cologne, 2003; Matt Bennett, Barcelona, 2005; Diego Bucchieri, New York City, 2003; Andrew Reynolds, Chicago, 2006; Barry Zaritsky mending Trevor Dunnett’s split chin, Vancouver, 2003; Donny Barley with a “swellbow,” Tampa, Florida, 1999; Josh Harmony with a hurt hip, Salt Lake City, 2012; Andrew Reynolds with a bloody hand, Irvine, California, 1999; Arto Saari after heart surgery, Helsinki, 1998.
For Templeton, one of the upsides of being the owner was that he could put whatever he liked on the boards: Toy Machine became known for decks emblazoned with cartoonish monsters and ads full of sardonic corporate-speak. (The brand’s official name is Toy Machine Bloodsucking Skateboard Company.) When he wasn’t skating, Templeton was often painting, and even when he was skating he was taking photographs; soon he fell in with a cohort of like-minded skater-artists, including the director Mike Mills, who in 2000 made Templeton the star of one of his first films, “Deformer,” a short documentary. “A lot of people I know had a fucked-up family, you know—and it deforms you,” Templeton says, in the film. “But I got maybe deformed in a better way.” He grew up in Huntington Beach, California, with a mother whose life had been changed by childhood brain damage, and two grandparents who were in no position to exercise much control over a rangy teen-ager who didn’t want to do much of anything besides skate.
Andrew Reynolds skateboarding, surrounded by a crowd of fans, Vancouver, 2009.
Matt Bennett signs a fan’s breasts, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007.
Templeton has never really stopped skateboarding, but he more or less retired in 2012, at the age of forty, after breaking his right tibia and fibula. (Video cameras captured the fall, and Templeton’s gritted-teeth reaction as fellow-skaters gathered around him. “I know I snapped it—it’s gone, it’s broke,” he said.) His new book of photographs, “Ed Templeton: Wires Crossed,” published by Aperture, re-creates the years from 1995 to 2012, when he was skating and shooting obsessively. The photographs, many with lovingly handwritten captions, depict the intimacy and aimlessness of touring life: a van full of young people who feel as if they know everything important about one another, all of them always looking for something fun to do, and often finding it. Sources of entertainment include roadkill, swimming holes, pornographic magazines, feckless security guards, and a quantity of alcohol that would seem quite incompatible with riding a wooden board attached to four little wheels. Often, the joy and business of skateboarding itself is somewhere just out of frame. On one page, beneath a photograph of the pro skater Nate Broussard looking exhausted, Templeton adds an explanation. “The pressure on skaters to perform is immense,” he writes. “Some days no matter how hard you try, your body physically gives up, your brain melts, and you end up lying bloody on the asphalt in tears and defeat.” This comes near the end, and it colors all the other pictures in the book, making it possible to see the hard work that enables—and, perhaps, necessitates—all this goofing around.
Austin Stephens, Las Vegas, 2010.
Templeton’s book is unsparing but nonjudgmental. The damage accumulates slowly, as what seems at first like youthful fun grows more uneasy. Young female fans lift up their shirts to get their torsos autographed; a skater chops lines of cocaine; just about everyone bleeds, especially Templeton, who says he has suffered six serious concussions over the years, not all of which he remembers. (In this world, helmets are not merely optional—they are effectively banned.) One page of Polaroids captures Jake Phelps, the beloved editor of the skate magazine Thrasher, who died from a fentanyl overdose, in 2019. And even people who have never watched a skate video may recognize a 1999 photograph of Bam Margera, who became a celebrity on the skate-adjacent MTV show “Jackass,” and who is lately known for his chaotic life, and for his trips to and from various rehabilitation centers.
Donny Barley, location unknown, 1998.
Ed Templeton with a bruised hip, 1995; photograph by Deanna Templeton.
Kerry Getz and Satva Leung making out, Laconia, New Hampshire, 1998.
“Wires Crossed” is in large part a book about survival. It includes interviews, at the end, with a handful of its subjects, including Elissa Steamer, who often found herself the only woman skater in a van full of guys, and who found it bittersweet to see photographic evidence of “how fucked up I was back then.” (She says she has been sober for fourteen years.) Another skater, Brian Anderson, talks about how he felt that he couldn’t let any of his friends or fans know that he was gay—it turns out, of course, that the comrades in the van didn’t really know everything important about one another.
Josh Harmony tackled by Russian police, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007.
Caswell Berry with contest prize money, Barcelona, 2002.
When I talked to Templeton, he was in the Netherlands for the opening of an exhibition of his photographs at the Bonnefanten Museum, in Maastricht. He hadn’t brought his skateboard—in fact, it had been nearly two months since he’d been on one. “We had a ramp set up at the museum, and I guess I was tempted, a little bit, to maybe skate it,” he told me. “But I didn’t.”
Skaters rally on Go Skateboarding Day, Vancouver, 2009.
Elissa Steamer, New Haven, Connecticut, 2001.
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The asthetic you can only curate by spending years candidly birddogging bikini chicks from the pier.
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Damn, the pics don't show up in that link.
Thanks for trying tho, jgonzalez!
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I always have and I always will love ed Templeton.
but it does bum me though he always struck, at least since 2009ish, as unmotivated towards wanting to go out and skate.
like, he just gave it up and never tries to get a little sesh going just for fun.
as if the act itself was this other life he reminisces but no longer partakes in.
ex skater, full time artist.
maybe im fried but that broken leg wouldn't happened if he skated more often and not every other blue moon.
love u ed.
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I always have and I always will love ed Templeton.
but it does bum me though he always struck, at least since 2009ish, as unmotivated towards wanting to go out and skate.
like, he just gave it up and never tries to get a little sesh going just for fun.
as if the act itself was this other life he reminisces but no longer partakes in.
ex skater, full time artist.
maybe im fried but that broken leg wouldn't happened if he skated more often and not every other blue moon.
love u ed.
Damn finally someone who has the secret to preventing broken legs. And you’re just giving this info away for free?
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The fabled Laconia trip, where supposedly the cover for Jump Off a Building was shot. I remember the guy who owned the shop there had photos from that trip in the shop as a kid.
laconia... ha ha ha nasty ass bikers and shit
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I always have and I always will love ed Templeton.
but it does bum me though he always struck, at least since 2009ish, as unmotivated towards wanting to go out and skate.
like, he just gave it up and never tries to get a little sesh going just for fun.
as if the act itself was this other life he reminisces but no longer partakes in.
ex skater, full time artist.
maybe im fried but that broken leg wouldn't happened if he skated more often and not every other blue moon.
love u ed.
Damn finally someone who has the secret to preventing broken legs. And you’re just giving this info away for free?
Doctors hate him!
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
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The fabled Laconia trip, where supposedly the cover for Jump Off a Building was shot. I remember the guy who owned the shop there had photos from that trip in the shop as a kid.
laconia... ha ha ha nasty ass bikers and shit
And Funspot! Always have great memories of that place growing up, I have to get back up there sometime soon and play hours upon hours of pinball, particularly the Adams Family Values Williams machine.
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when I see old photos of Elissa Steamer I always think of Janis Joplin.
I know she skated to Joplin in Toy machine vid but theres a sweet analogy in there of
a female in a mans world trying to carve her path out. Glad she's still around - unlike Janis :(
I saw her at a skatepark in UK once. She didn't skate but she looked really
different in real life. Really beautiful I thought and also really enigmatic.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
That guy on Instagram who plays a snare drum while trying to eat it and people stand around staring at him just feeling lucky to be there to take all of this in.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
Puppetry
Was Being John Malkovich its moment in the sun?
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
Was Being John Malkovich its moment in the sun?
"DON'T EVER FUCK WITH YOUR AUDIENCE!
DON'T EVER FUCK WITH YOUR AUDIENCE!"
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(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad370a238d7d9fe8f9a/master/w_1600,c_limit/p85.jpg)
(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad377130a0079b3a7de/master/w_1600,c_limit/p94.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad82baf0f71783102fc/master/w_1600,c_limit/p212-213.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad58675e7ac08ac5856/master/w_1600,c_limit/p127.jpg)
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(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad6c91efd6c449e12c6/master/w_1600,c_limit/p172-173.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad59655eecc53f1dab0/master/w_1600,c_limit/p136.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad448c55341d9f10ef7/master/w_1600,c_limit/p104-105.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad22a1d703408e78427/master/w_1600,c_limit/p75.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad22a1d703408e78428/master/w_1600,c_limit/p83.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64653ad92baf0f71783102fe/master/w_1600,c_limit/p216.jpg)(https://media.newyorker.com/photos/64664c9bb7642d9e0771d5ff/master/w_1600,c_limit/Aperture_WiresCrossed_PressImages_012.jpg)
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
It’s quite possibly the laziest art form, and it doesn’t help that most professional photogs are pretentious and unlikable human beings.
Also, it would have made for a more interesting photo if Kerry and Satva were kissing each other. Or if Kerry just straight up tongue kissed Satva’s jacked teeth.
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A good photographer is the one who's there
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I always have and I always will love ed Templeton.
but it does bum me though he always struck, at least since 2009ish, as unmotivated towards wanting to go out and skate.
like, he just gave it up and never tries to get a little sesh going just for fun.
as if the act itself was this other life he reminisces but no longer partakes in.
ex skater, full time artist.
maybe im fried but that broken leg wouldn't happened if he skated more often and not every other blue moon.
love u ed.
Sometimes people stop skateboarding and that's ok.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
@SneakySecrets If you thought regular photography was overrated just wait until you see Richard Prince's stuff.
I'll always adore Ed's skating, his older graphics, and his outspoken opposition to the rampant homophobia of the early 90s.
As far as Ed's photography- at least when Larry Clark documented his subjects he never pretended to be a nice guy.
Also, Ed barging and snapping compromising photos and nudes of younger skaters, especially his team riders, is kind of fucked up. He was a powerful person in skateboarding and he used that leverage, knowingly or not, to get these kids to give him the goods (from which he continues to profit from financially.) I'm not saying that makes him a bad person per se because when you're 18 you're 18, etc... but I think the nature of certain photography is predatory and it should be addressed when we talk about Ed.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
I'll always adore Ed's skating, his older graphics, and his outspoken opposition to the rampant homophobia of the early 90s.
As far as Ed's photography- at least when Larry Clark documented his subjects he never pretended to be a nice guy.
Also, Ed barging and snapping compromising photos and nudes of younger skaters, especially his team riders, is kind of fucked up. He was a powerful person in skateboarding and he used that leverage, knowingly or not, to get these kids to give him the goods (from which he continues to profit from financially.) I'm not saying that makes him a bad person per se because when you're 18 you're 18, etc... but I think the nature of certain photography is predatory and it should be addressed when we talk about Ed.
This reminded me of that old photo that he took of Bam with his girlfriend in bed. Can't remember which thread it was in but it was definitely on the creepier side.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
I'll always adore Ed's skating, his older graphics, and his outspoken opposition to the rampant homophobia of the early 90s.
As far as Ed's photography- at least when Larry Clark documented his subjects he never pretended to be a nice guy.
Also, Ed barging and snapping compromising photos and nudes of younger skaters, especially his team riders, is kind of fucked up. He was a powerful person in skateboarding and he used that leverage, knowingly or not, to get these kids to give him the goods (from which he continues to profit from financially.) I'm not saying that makes him a bad person per se because when you're 18 you're 18, etc... but I think the nature of certain photography is predatory and it should be addressed when we talk about Ed.
This reminded me of that old photo that he took of Bam with his girlfriend in bed. Can't remember which thread it was in but it was definitely on the creepier side.
I feel so conflicted saying anything remotely negative about Ed btw.
Just to set the scene for any of the younger Slappers: the late 80s-the entire 90s were so incredibly homophobic that the USA was basically 2023 DeSantis Florida. Any of the LQBTQ+ folks on here please weigh in but I think it had a lot to do with the AIDS crisis (especially Reagan's behavior regarding it.) The wasn't much scientific information yet regarding HIV/AIDS in the 80s when people started getting sick and dying and Republicans/conservatives knew they could spin that fear into power. It was almost like there was government funded/state sanctioned homophobia.
In elementary school our homeroom teachers, science teachers, history teachers, etc told us and that if we interacted with any gay people we would get AIDS. That we could get it from using the toilet after them, from playing sports with them, or even touching the same objects right after them. So Ed was a fucking hero to me when he went against the grain by being an outspoken LGBTQ+ ally in the early 90s (check out his old TWS interview on Chromeball if you haven't already https://chromeballincident.blogspot.com/2011/03/chrome-ball-incident-606-shit-luck.html ) and he caught major shit for it. Because of this I'll always appreciate him in way I'm unable to express verbally.
TDLR:
Ed has done great things on and off the board. Transgressive and subversive artists and artworks are important and I'm not asking for them to go away. I just have criticisms about Ed's photographs and think the dialogue about his work should include the dynamics of his power/authority within skateboarding.
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Yeah I remember Big Brother always making fun of Ed and basically calling him queer. I didn't know what was up and wasn't old/smart enough to figure it out, so I actually thought Ed was gay for the longest time until I realized he was just being teased by the industry cool kids. I held Carnie in the highest regard as a 17/18 year-old when Big Brother came out...I was square in the target demographic. So I remember being confused by all of this stuff. I've always been kind-of amazed that he seemed to just roll with all of it and not care. Who knows if that's the case, but from what I could see he just let assholes do their thing while he did his thing.
I actually don't understand the reaction against him. Sexuality is a major part of the human experience...possibly the strongest driving force on the face of the planet. Ed was there for it then and continues to be, but his stuff has never felt exploitative to me beyond capturing what's going on in front of his lense. I've never gotten any kind of sense that he waves $5 bills in front of kids faces so he can take a look at their panties. I don't get all of the pushback beyond old time religion-esque pearl clutching.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
That guy on Instagram who plays a snare drum while trying to eat it and people stand around staring at him just feeling lucky to be there to take all of this in.
Woah, that sounds excellent!
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I always have and I always will love ed Templeton.
but it does bum me though he always struck, at least since 2009ish, as unmotivated towards wanting to go out and skate.
like, he just gave it up and never tries to get a little sesh going just for fun.
as if the act itself was this other life he reminisces but no longer partakes in.
ex skater, full time artist.
maybe im fried but that broken leg wouldn't happened if he skated more often and not every other blue moon.
love u ed.
Damn finally someone who has the secret to preventing broken legs. And you’re just giving this info away for free?
Doctors hate him!
For this one simple trick
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I think a lot of peoples disdain of photography stems from it not seeming to push its own boundaries or evolving as evidently as other forms of fine art. Its easier to enjoy when you accept that its just someone there documenting the things around them and possibly offering a unique perspective, rather than expecting it to blow your mind conceptually.
I enjoy Eds photography but this collection seems more geared towards garnering interest from non-skateboarders.
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Yeah I remember Big Brother always making fun of Ed and basically calling him queer. I didn't know what was up and wasn't old/smart enough to figure it out, so I actually thought Ed was gay for the longest time until I realized he was just being teased by the industry cool kids. I held Carnie in the highest regard as a 17/18 year-old when Big Brother came out...I was square in the target demographic. So I remember being confused by all of this stuff. I've always been kind-of amazed that he seemed to just roll with all of it and not care. Who knows if that's the case, but from what I could see he just let assholes do their thing while he did his thing.
I actually don't understand the reaction against him. Sexuality is a major part of the human experience...possibly the strongest driving force on the face of the planet. Ed was there for it then and continues to be, but his stuff has never felt exploitative to me beyond capturing what's going on in front of his lense. I've never gotten any kind of sense that he waves $5 bills in front of kids faces so he can take a look at their panties. I don't get all of the pushback beyond old time religion-esque pearl clutching.
I get what you're saying but some people say he photographs underage girls with no consent or even their knowledge. That's pretty bad.
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I think a lot of peoples disdain of photography stems from it not seeming to push its own boundaries or evolving as evidently as other forms of fine art. Its easier to enjoy when you accept that its just someone there documenting the things around them and possibly offering a unique perspective, rather than expecting it to blow your mind conceptually.
I enjoy Eds photography but this collection seems more geared towards garnering interest from non-skateboarders.
I gifted the book to someone and had the opportunity to skim through it before wrapping it. There's a shit ton of illustrations just detailing the routes of various demo tours, among lots of other stuff of course. Point being it's definitely not Teenagers Kissing 2.0 or something, but rather geared towards skaters. To me most of the pics were interesting because I knew the skaters in them, not simply for the photography itself.
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All this shit sucks. Photography is the most overrated artform.
What do you think is the most underrated art form?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1CZMxosvhk
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I think a lot of peoples disdain of photography stems from it not seeming to push its own boundaries or evolving as evidently as other forms of fine art. Its easier to enjoy when you accept that its just someone there documenting the things around them and possibly offering a unique perspective, rather than expecting it to blow your mind conceptually.
I enjoy Eds photography but this collection seems more geared towards garnering interest from non-skateboarders.
I gifted the book to someone and had the opportunity to skim through it before wrapping it. There's a shit ton of illustrations just detailing the routes of various demo tours, among lots of other stuff of course. Point being it's definitely not Teenagers Kissing 2.0 or something, but rather geared towards skaters. To me most of the pics were interesting because I knew the skaters in them, not simply for the photography itself.
I've skimmed through it once as well. I haven't read the interviews yet but I'm looking forward to it. The picture I remember the most is of Ed taking a picture of him and his wife's reflection in a mirror on a train ride. I have a sick mind