At the turn of the century, Dominic Marley could be found on the streets of London on a daily basis, camera bag safely in tow, as he earned himself the deserved reputation as being one of the city's most prolific and dedicated photographers. The decade from 2000 - 2010 saw Dom both instigate and capture innumerable moments of legendary London skateboarding, ensuring a strong capital city presence in the pages of magazines such as Sidewalk and Kingpin. From 2010 onwards, whilst still being involved with skateboarding, Dom's eye for photography has led him into other areas of work, though he has decided to revisit that all-important first decade of the new millennium for his soon-to-be-released photo book Naughty.
As you might have gleamed from the title, Naughty presents a monochromatic vision of London skateboarding from 2000 onwards, as Dom helped introduce no shortage of Big Smoke talent to an international audience. If you have any interest in the history of UK skateboarding, or how the London skate scene became the globally revered institute that it is today, then Naughty is 100% deserving of a spot on your bookcase.
Ahead of the Photo Book Cafe launch evening in London next Wednesday - click here for more details - Dom sent over ten highlights from the pages of the book, along with a few words as to why they've been included. Have a scroll below for a taste of what Naughty has in store, then grab a copy next week from any of the Palace stores worldwide, or from your local skater owned shop via Rock Solid Dist!
Olly Todd - 180 fakie nosegrind, Euston.
Olly had just moved to London, and I was just starting to shoot for Sidewalk, so Ben Powell had said, “you guys work on something”. We both loved the idea of a black and white interview, so I hand printed it all in the darkroom and that was my first thing for the mag. Olly knows what he likes so it was good to get that trust. This was the opener for the interview after the portrait, so it felt right that it's the opener in the book and that Olly is in the pic.
Andrew Brophy – ollie, Southbank.
Seriously! Brophy is one of them people; you have to skate with him in real life to get the full experience. The pop, the ease of it.
I remember that day well, he nearly hit the roof. Amazing.
Lev Tanju - switch backside smith on the Southbank.
I like this pic; it's a switch back smith, which is one of them tricks alongside a switch backside 360, never gets old. I like the lines and the shadows, and the stripes on the bag in the background. One of them moments.
Rory Milanes - backside nollie flip, Bloblands.
This is gnarly, Rory is really good at transitions, one of those people who can skate it all. A backside nollie flip on that thing is pretty intense. He did it, and this ran as a cover of Kingpin.
Matt West - wallride.
How high is he going up that wall? It's like Matt went up as high as he could and just eeked that last bit out. Matt was the most fun to skate with. Always so hyped. I remember this day, we were on a mission with Ben Jobe and Snowy also. So fun. Matt moved to New Zealand some years back now, and is still shredding.
Chris Oliver – kickflip, Greenwich.
This is something else. I drove past this a few weeks back, I remember mentioning to someone about just how gnarly this is and the photo doesn't really do it justice. People used to skate the bank itself there and that was enough. But when we went there one night he explained what he wanted to do, and with lights popping and landing in a busy road, he did that easily. I'm pretty certain this was a Kingpin cover.
Benny Fairfax - nollie nosegrind, Chalk Farm.
This was the first shot I took of Benny and it ended up as a cover. That felt like a pretty good cover to photo percentage, ha! We did actually do a back up frame to follow this just in case. You never knew with film. But I like this pic.
Ronnie Creager – frontside grind, Harrow.
I just think of the Eurythmics and the Trilogy part when I see Ronnie Creager, it's a frontside grind in the Harrow halfpipe. I was used to seeing Ronnie doing the most tech stuff, so this was gnarly to see. This had to be in there!
Charlie Young - backside noseblunt, Fairfields.
I like this pic for a variety of reasons; always enjoyed skating with Charlie. This was when I first got into shooting pics and it very much was us going out skating, and shooting pics was definitely secondary that day. But the light dappled and that just seemed to happen, so we shot it and printed it. This was run in Sidewalk Magazine and was an easy pick for the book.
Stevie Williams – London.
It's a portrait of Stevie and had to be in the book for sure. Jake Saywer and myself always used to like Stevie's skating; he has inspired a lot of people on a skateboard. It's great to have him in there. This was on the London part of a trip for Reebok that took us to Serbia and Germany also.
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