Gone are the days when a skateboarding photographer’s key concerns were misfiring flash or missed trick. From spot-sharing to technology, Giovanni Reda takes us behind the scenes on how social media has affected the world skate photography.
This interview is part of ‘New Year, New Rules’ where Skate Bylines welcomes Ian Browning and his ‘Rules of Skateboarding’ column. The following interview was conducted and originally published in 2018.
Interview by Ian Browning
Headline stills: Giovanni Reda in Chomp On This (2002)
Have you ever had someone poach a trick that you were trying to shoot?
Nah, that’s never happened, but people have shot stuff I was shooting. Like Mike Vallely ollieing the Brooklyn Banks wall with the fence on it — people shot that. I think they might have put it in a zine or something. But that’s never happened. Maybe at contests, but I guess you can’t really count that.
There has been times where I’ve shown up to shoot a trick of somebody and there’s another photographer there and I’m like: “Dude, what the fuck? You called me to shoot this.” Maybe sequences, like back in the film days. I’ve shown up to shoot photos and somebody is already there. They’d be like, “Oh, I didn’t have a quarter to call you,” and I’d be like, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
But nobody has ever poached a photo that I was shooting and then their angle ran over mine or anything like that.
Mike Vallely ollies out of the Brooklyn Banks, toppling part of the fence as highlighted in this scan from Transworld Skateboarding, 1999. Giovanni Reda Reda can be seen shooting the photo in the footage above.
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Do you think it’s harder to keep a trick under wraps now that everyone is walking around with cameras in their pockets?
Yes. And with social media, now everything is instant gratification. It’s tough to keep shit under wraps. I remember in the early days of Twitter videos, I shot this kid back noseblunting down a handrail and then Kerry Getz put [the footage] up on his Twitter. Ben Colen texted me and was like, “Damn, some heavy fucking skating on Kerry’s Twitter!” and I’m like “Take that down bro, what are you doing?” And then he took it down, but you know, shit happens.
With social media and all the digital platforms to run photos is it even necessary to keep a trick under wraps these days?
It depends on what you’re doing and what you want to do, and what the end result is supposed to be. Look, I guess you just gotta ride the wave of technology, it is what it is.
Social media is a presence now. Magazines are better—there’s only like, what, two magazines now? But I think they’re better with curating what they’re putting out, so that stuff won’t have to stay under wraps for as long as it used to be.
I mean, fuck, you didn’t see Marc Johnson for years while he was filming Fully Flared. Everything was just under wraps.
And that’s just not really possible in this landscape anymore.
It’s not. And people just want to see skateboarding, you know what I mean? Maybe it gets too much and you get overloaded with it. Maybe there’s some sort of happy medium. I don’t know.
“You didn’t see Marc Johnson for years while he was filming Fully Flared.
Everything was just under wraps.”
Marc Johnson plus media crew from Fully Flared (2007) including Giovanni Reda (blue t-shirt and right in video; left in background still). Lakai Limited Footwear
Do you think print is still an effective means of sharing photos? Or is it just nostalgia at this point?
Absolutely. I think it is. I mean, print has been around for hundreds of years and social media has been around for what? 10 years? Look at Thrasher and Transworld. I think print has its place.
I mean, that’s the wrong question for me because I’m 44 years old. I came up doing print. I love print. I love magazines still. I still shoot for magazines. It has its place, just like radio or TV. The medium might change a little, but it’s never going to go away. Magazines are smaller now.
“I once didn’t wind film through my Hasselblad … That’s blowing it. That’s not technology. I backfired.”
Magazines are smaller, but the cover of a magazine is still the cover of a magazine.
It’s the cover. It’s nostalgic but it also has meaning. There’s no skater that’s going to see a magazine and go, “I’m not looking at that, that’s some old shit.” People still look at the mag and they flip through. It doesn’t matter if there is one or if there’s twenty. Skaters will look through every single magazine. That’s how it is.
I think they definitely still have their place and they will continue to have their place. There might be new ones, old ones might get thicker. It’s always going to exist. That’s what I think.
Skateboarder Magazine covers shot by Giovanni Reda: Guy Mariano, backside kickflip, March 2007; Steve Olson, frontside slash and Alex Olson, boneless, November 2007. Skateboarder Magazine / Scans courtesy of Skate Media Nerd
Have you ever have new technology backfire and cause you to miss a shot?
I’ve had that with not new technology, old technology. Flashes don’t go off. Or the camera breaks. Shit fucking just happens, you know? Like, changing rolls of film and they land the trick. Battery dies and they land the trick. I’ve never had a “I can’t believe I bought this piece of shit and it doesn’t work anymore because this technology sucks.” Shit happens.
One time with Ollie Barton, I remember, Gino [Iannucci] did this crazy backside heelflip and I was like: “Ollie, you missed that fucking shot? What happened?”
He was like, “That’s what we call being in the business of blowing it.”
Every photographer, every videographer has blown it. I once didn’t wind film through my Hasselblad. You’ve got to wind it through, and I was rushing. Somebody did a lipslide down a big handrail and I was like “Can we do that again? I forgot to wind the film through the camera.” That’s blowing it. That’s not technology. I backfired.
Blowing photographs is rookie business. Jaime Reyes, switch heelflip in New York originally published in Skateboarder Magazine (2000) Giovanni Reda courtesy of Womxn Skate History
With DSLRs that can shoot HD video now, do you foresee consolidation to just one guy that’s filming and shooting photos?
I think a lot of that is happening already, but it’s kind of hard to do both. They’re very specific things, so it’s always better to have the photographer and the filmer. I just feel like it makes for a better outcome. Because the thing is, if someone is trying something that is really hard, they don’t want to do it twice. Filmers want their footage to be dynamic, just like a photographer wants their photos to be dynamic, so doing both kinda doesn’t work as well.
You could do it, put the camera on the tripod, press record and walk away, you know what I mean? But I think you need both. What is that expression? Jack of all trades, master of nothing? Do one or the other. You can do both, but do one at a time.
Ian Browning is a journalist and essayist based in New York who writes about the intersection of skateboarding and culture. He has written for Quartersnacks, Simple Magic, PLANK, Closer Skateboarding, Jenkem and Eater. As a columnist for Skate Bylines his ‘Rules of Skateboarding’ series explores nuances with notable characters.
Stories about photography and skateboarding media
““I’m generally only shooting something once it has been landed … I’ve probably been thinking about the photo the whole time I’ve been filming.” — Shari White discusses her forays into photography which are presented in Wet Proof, a new publication by design studio An Endless Supply.
“Cats are pretty hard to wrangle” — A welcoming into the homes of professional skateboarders and their pets in Heckride‘s zine, Tres Leches.
“Pitches have to have a complete meaning. Either a set of photos hat tell a story, a gallery on a specific topic, or an interesting interview that is out of the ordinary.” — The editors of Free Skate Mag, Dolores, Skate Jawn and Mess share what they want to see in a story pitch in ‘Making The Big Leagues, Part 2’.
More from the author
“It’s an accessible first point of, like, ‘How do I connect with this culture?’” — Ian Browning examines municipal space in New York City through the lens of his Quatersnacks story on the Lower East Side Skatepark in ‘The Civic Center of New York City Skateboarding’.
“Why does this story matter? Why is it relevant to the current moment and that publication? Why are you the person to tell it?” — Cole Nowicki, Ian Browning, Josh Sabini, Claire Alleaume, Norma Ibarra, Greg Navarro and Alex White share insights on pitching stories to skate magazines and brands from a variety of creative perspectives and backgrounds in‘Making The Big Leagues’.
“One of the main ideas that led to this series was wanting to be able to bring the type of debate that happens during a slow shift at a skate shop, or on the periphery of a wound-down session, where skate nerds air out their strong opinions.” — Ian Browning discusses the origin of ‘The Rules of Skateboarding’ and his highlights from the series.
This story was originally published by Village Psychic on February 5th 2018 under the ‘The Rules of Skateboarding #5: Giovanni Reda’. Browning joined Skate Bylines in 2026, bringing over his previous columns and continuing ‘The Rules of Skateboarding’ series.
