In an age when photography gets so washed out that your uncle
the city, each toting a disposable camera. During our two-day spot
can gain online fame by shooting iPhone photos of his cat wearing
rage filled with Mexican meals, mini pool tournaments and of course
underwear, you too may find yourself in a situation where you realize
skateboarding, these 35mm throwaway cameras captured worthy
how much soul has been sucked out of snapping a great flick. In my
moments during their brief stay. With only 27 exposures and no
opinion, it’s nothing to get too bent out of shape over. Let your common
instant preview, there’s no relying on Instagram filter-applying skills to
sense decide what’s cool to look at and what’s not. But when you find
beef up a sub-par photograph and hide poor framing.
yourself bummed out after your little brother says, “Steven stopped following you because you’re a feed clogger,” you must check yourself.
As you’ll see, this photographic-journal provides you with a look through the eyes of these four guys. For some it was their first time
When a few young members of the Lakai Limited Footwear team
experiencing the city, and for some it was their first visit to Canada.
arrived in Vancouver, covering the trip was an obvious decision.
Young Lakai, meet Vancouver.
However, the duration of the trip was only a few days, which led to the decision to take a different approach. So Riley Hawk, Jon Sciano,
lakai.com
Sebo Walker and Miles Silvas took on an action-packed weekend in
supradistribution.com
22
Riley’s laid-back attitude made him fit into the Vancouver vibe right off the jump. Coming from the San Diego area, Riley was pretty impressed with what the city had to offer. “The scenery is super epic and super green,” he mentions. “Other than that, Vancouver isn’t too different aside from the Loonies and Toonies.” Riley played the icebreaker role on this trip as the first one to get a clip and a photo. As we strolled through Hot Spot, he took a look at this rail and returned to it after about five minutes at the Plaza down the street. With local crackheads dancing on the sidelines, Riley made this boardslide fakie happen in no time before rifling off a few more moves. 25
This was Jon’s first time out of the United States. He’s a Florida-to-California transplant, and I’m sure this visit to Vancouver was only the beginning of tour life for him. When he wasn’t skating, he was always hyping up the guys and making sure they stayed motivated. At one point, across the street from where we were skating, there were two young ladies practising pole dancing on a No Parking sign. Lo and behold, Jon was the first one taking pictures and hanging out with these girls while the session continued. It might be the same fearless approach that helped him adapt to Leeside’s unforgiving terrain so well. Jon handled this nosegrind while going about Mach 10. Believe me, it didn’t stop there. 26
Being from the Pacific Northwest, Sebo wasn’t shocked by Vancouver’s landscape or climate. “It reminds me a lot of Oregon,” he says. “Fresh air and clean water; two things that are very important to me.” His lifestyle choices to keep skateboarding consistent in his life are among the best I’ve ever seen. Who else is pushing their way onto some great companies while fully living out of a van? Our friend Willa Holland helped drive us around and she had this rad helicopter hat that Sebo claimed right away, using its lift-off power for this crook nollie frontside flip on a new bench. 28
Miles is one of the newest members of the Lakai family and he’s sure to be a long-lasting name in skateboarding. Arriving a day late from San Francisco, time became an issue on this already short trip, so he went straight from YVR to the streets. Surprisingly, this backside flip over a rail and ledge was not cooperating with Miles at first and left him sliding out repeatedly. By the time he landed it, the cracks in the ground had completely ripped out the back of his pants through to his boxers. Needless to say, this spot was followed up by a hotel visit. 30