Sidewalk 140 – May 2008
2008 photography: Will 'Silent Will' Linford
2022 photography: Andy Horsley
So your first photo was published in May 2008…
I feel like there was probably something that predates this, but I can’t for the life in me think what it was. Maybe there was only my Reaction ad; that would have been 2004, just before Reaction went.
I do remember that; wasn’t it a fakie flip on a bank?
Yeah, it was a fakie flip on a wave in Melbourne. Me and Lex (Kembery) went to Australia in 2003, and that’s when we shot it. It seems like a long time between the ad coming out, and this photo being shot, but I can’t recall any earlier photos that were printed. The ad was shot on a Mark Gonzales Krooked board, with Reaction stickers on it, because I didn’t take any boards with me. The owners of Reaction (NDUK) told us to go to a big warehouse out there, and when we got there, they said, “here’s a shopping trolley, fill it up”. Me and Lex were basically backpacking around Australia, so we were like, “that’s not appropriate” (laughs). It was a dream come true, but we couldn’t carry much stuff with us, so I took a couple of boards and a couple of pairs of shoes. I got that board because it was colourful, and I stuck some Reaction stickers on it…then they ran the photo as an ad.
Back in 2008, the female scene was in its embryonic form in comparison to how large it is now, but it was very proactive. This particular event at Projekts was held for International Women’s Day, right?
It was. I’d been in Manchester for uni, and I’d lived with John (Haines) from Projekts for a little while; he put me up and I worked in Projekts a bit, and skated there pretty much every day. Because Manchester is such a university city, we did get quite a lot of female students coming by to try skating out, so John was always on about doing an event. I don’t remember International Women’s Day being a thing that was celebrated much before that, but for some reason, in 2008 someone cottoned on to it, so John reached out to me to say, “we should do something then”. It was cool because he was talking about doing it on such a big scale, and I said that I could get a band to play. Because I’d come back to Horsham, there was a local band that we sort of followed about down here, and I sorted it out that they would come to Manchester and play at this comp. It was quite mad. Emily (Lucy’s wife) came, my sister came…the band basically brought the fan base up from Horsham (laughs). They were called Mr Fynn, but I think they’ve disbanded now. The comp was busy, but it really pissed it down, as you can see in some of the pictures, so the park got wet; the back bit was drenched. People were standing about in big coats because it was so cold, but it was still a good event.
Was shooting this frontside halfcab flip the first time you and Silent Will (Linford) would have crossed paths?
No, I remember Will being at other events. Whilst I’d been in Manchester for uni, I’d go to Burnley, Bolton…I’d go to all of those parks a lot, go to all of the events, like War of the Roses, and Interact had the Quiksilver comps. I had seen Will, but I probably hadn’t spoke to him much.
Looking at this photo 14 years on, what do you think of this outfit? I know you were amused by it earlier.
Those Etnies Arto’s, I only ever skated those shoes. I’m upset that they are a black pair in the photo though, because I’d have usually skated a white pair with gum sole, or some other cool colourway. That hoody is a Nikita hoody, and the bling speaks for itself, it’s keeping it real, and that hat was a kids New Era hat. Because I’ve got such a small head, I could never wear adult hats, and I wore that New Era one for a good three years I reckon. I got my money’s worth out of that hat (laughs).
I remember thinking, “if this guy is going to shoot a photo of me then I’m going to try something good”...
14 years in the past, Lucy dons her finest bling and halfcab flips the Projekts hip.
Do you remember seeing this photo in print for the first time?
Yeah. I think I was stoked because I didn’t see it at the comp. I was probably too nervous to speak to Will, and he was probably too nervous to speak to me, but we must’ve agreed that we’d got the photo, and that we’d stop shooting (laughs). I remember seeing the article and being absolutely made up, especially because the flip was in the air. When I was shooting it, I was thinking to myself, “come on, I need some more lift”, so when I saw it in the mag I thought, “oh, it’s in the air, that’s ok”. It was popped; I didn’t just roll it from bank to bank (laughs).
That hip was steep, and I didn’t really touch it when I was in uni, apart from a couple of ollies, and maybe a fakie bigspin, but I remember thinking, “if this guy is going to shoot a photo of me then I’m going to try something good”, so the halfcab flip was an NBD for me.
Do you still have a copy of this photo in the archive?
Yeah, it will be in the loft. In that little doco that Andy (Evans) filmed a while ago (A Metre of Air), you see that I get out a box, and everything I’ve kept is in there. I have some quite old bits that are cool, and some funny bits too, but I did stop keeping stuff after a while.
By 2008, female skate events in the U.K. were becoming more and more frequent. What was the first all female event you remember being at?
I went to some of the Etnies European Open events, and they had female contests. I went to one in Paris and that must’ve been before Melbourne and before uni, so 2002 maybe. But after that, when I was in Manchester, there was an event at Porth in Wales, in the Valleys, and a girl called Laura organised a jam at the skatepark there; that must’ve been 2004. Jenna (Selby) was at university in Wales and she knew this girl, so we all went – me, Jenna, Ro (Brannon) and Lois (Pendlebury). I don’t even know how we got there, it was in the arse end of nowhere, but I remember not being able to get home because it was a Sunday. Fortunately, Becky (Davies) and her dad had come, and they lived in Chester, so they took me as far as there, then I got on a train back to Manchester. I can’t even remember what the skatepark was called, but it had quite a good turnout.
Lastly, what would you say is the most memorable photo that you’ve shot over the years?
One of my favourites is from when CJ (Chris Johnson) came to shoot my Haunts, and we shot the switch front shove on the red brick bank. He made that look really cool, cooler than I could have ever imagined, and it was on one of my favourite spots too, so it was good to shoot something there. I also liked shooting some of my Grey stuff with Lex. There’s a photo where I’m ollieing over a bar, and he shot it long, in black and white. I did it a couple of times, and I know that I have a crap looking normal ollie, so I said, “right, I’m really going to bone my front leg on this one”. Lex probably thought, “whatever; you can’t bone your leg, you idiot”, but it just worked. I did it, Lex got the photo, and I was like, “wow, there’s an ollie that I’ll never do again”, but at least I got one (laughs).
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