THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF nate lacoste
as seen in concrete Skateboarding Issue #126
THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF nate lacoste intro
frank daniello
Fuelled by his solid closer in 2012’s Secondhand Stoke, Vancouver’s Nate Lacoste officially turned pro for Roger last November. Shortly after word got out, he slipped away on his first trip to New York City, which led to an impromptu stateside adventure. “I met my girlfriend Trudy for the first time in New York and ended up staying for a month, then came back to Vancouver for eight days, put all my stuff in storage and criss-crossed the States for six months,” Nate explains. “I was back and forth from New York to L.A. twice over. I stayed in Austin for two months, spent a bunch of time in San Francisco, and made it out to Hawaii.” Sure, most people are familiar with the 28-year-old’s photogenic skateboarding, which is evident in this feature, but his creative background may be lesser known. Nate graduated from the Fine Arts program at Capilano University, where he experimented with sculpture and installation art in addition to the years he’s spent drawing and dabbling with painting. You can also add hobby photography to that stable of visual outlets. “I didn’t really touch photography during school,” he mentions, “it was just something I always kinda did—picking up cameras at thrift stores and trying different films with them. I got stoked on some of the successes and kept it going.” One analog capturing device he has gravitated towards using is a 1962 Olympus Pen EE-2 35mm half-frame camera. Inspired by the photos it produced in Bob Kronbauer’s 2004 book, Beach Glass, Nate enjoys the practicality of the point-and-shoot’s film stretching abilities. “When you’re traveling and shooting a bunch of photos, it gets pretty expensive. Each frame is two shots with this camera, so you’re doubling the film, which is pretty rad. Sometimes the lab assumes you want the frames split up and sometimes the half-frames are together, which I like because you always end up with surprises.” As we sat in Nate’s Mount Pleasant apartment partaking in libations provided by his beverage sponsor, Pabst Blue Ribbon, we went over the following selection of photographs (mostly shot during his U.S. sabbatical) and got the stories behind them. natelacoste.tumblr.com
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kickflip Photo: Brian Caissie
Isolation
“I went through a miserable break-up and needed to get away from the city. My buddy Graham, who’s shooting some skeets here, has some land in Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, and there’s a little cabin off the side of his house. I basically spent a week in isolation there and once in a while we’d go out and shoot some guns [laughs].”
Crazy Light
“During an overnight flight from Vancouver to Philly to visit my girlfriend, I woke up in the morning to some crazy light coming through the window, shining on this passed-out dude. I didn’t know how the contrast was going to work out in the photo, but his face is kind of floating there. I’m stoked on this one.”
Rocket Revival
We were driving from L.A. back to Long Beach, where I was staying with photographer Ben Karpinski. When we pulled on to the Long Beach turn-off we got swarmed by 50 bikes—all crotch rockets and they were wearing hilarious gear. I’m sure they thought they were pretty badass, but they looked like idiots [laughs].”
frontside Tailslide Photo: Brian Caissie
Michael Sieben
“That’s my dog right there. He brought us to one of his favourite Texas ditches, which was basically two banked walls with a curb at the top of one of them. He was having a blast and we were like, ‘What are we doing here? Let’s go skate some real spots.’ He said, ‘This is a real spot.’ Sieben’s a rad dude.”
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Ollie Photo: Brian Caissie
Texas Tail-Drop
“This is my friend Kyle Estes in Austin at 5 Hips—a ditch spot that people have put some work into. This drop-in is gnarly because half the ramp is missing at the bottom, so it’s a tight little path. Kyle goes for it. I stayed with him in Texas for a month, and he actually lived with Spencer Hamilton at 1611 East in Vancouver for a while.”
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Urban Lounge
“A random New York moment cross-processed on slide film. I was cruising around in SoHo and there was a nice chair just sitting in the street. As I got to the corner, this old guy rolled up, sat down and lit up a cigar. I just thought it was hilarious because he was having the best time ever.”
Botched March
“I’ve shot so many photos out of my girlfriend’s apartment window in South Philly. These kids were marching during a practice parade and they were all covered in plastic because it was raining. When the bandleader stopped they all kind of walked in to each other, cartoon style. It was really funny and this is them trying to get their shit together afterwards.”
Better Half
“This is my girlfriend, Trudy Nelson. She’s a G. I met her at a photo shoot the first time I was in New York last November. She’s a stylist and we got along super well. There was a Neil Young concert in Central Park, so her and I barged it and snuck in. Basically, the rest is history [laughs].”