LEWIS MARNELL | MELBOURNE | 2007*
While many know Greg Stewart for his unmatched enthusiasm, love of Sav Blanc and ever burning passion for skateboarding, others know him as a major force in the last few decades of Australian skate folklore. His maneuvers have appeared on many a magazine cover and his name has even appeared on many a skateboard. What few may not know is how far his talents stretch beyond Timberland clad Sal flips and into the deep realms of photography.
“I first picked up a camera in 94… I just fell in love with film and the whole process that goes along with it.”
*I remember just hanging out with Lewis this day. He was just really mellow and chillin’. He started reminiscing about when he was younger and was really into graffiti. So, we ended up out in Footscray West in a train yard. He was telling stories about his graffiti days. Pretty soon the conversation turned to hip-hop and then he pulled the grills out and next thing it was ‘Come-on!!!’
SEAN SHEFFEY | OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA | 2009
Dom (Kekich) and I went to the States a few years back and stayed with Jake Brown for a month. This is where we met Sean. He was fresh out of jail, freshly sober and getting right back on the skateboarding tip. We were skating the Oceanside parks everyday and soon became good friends. He was skating pretty damn good too considering he’d been locked up for close to two years. I’ve always been a Sheffey fan, especially when he was on Girl, but as the years went on during that era you saw less and less of him and you’d hear all these crazy stories. He explained to Dom and myself that he was in the ‘party van’, then he got injured and from there, not unlike a lot of crew, he got into some bad stuff. But to us, meeting him all these year later he was just a big friendly dude.
“Can you imagine walking up to Sean Sheffey and pointing a camera at his face if you didn’t know him!!?”
ALI BOULALA AND DUSTIN DOLLIN | MELBOURNE | 2004
This was back when Dustin was living in Collingwood. The area was full of abandoned silos and warehouses. At night time they’d get drunk and just go walkabout and explore these places. They were really into the whole Piss Drunx thing at the time, as you can tell by the fresh paint on the wall. It was right at the height of that whole PD era. Look at that fresh young face!
JASON ELLIS | MELBOURNE | 2005
I think this was when Jason came back from the States to Oz for Christmas one year. It was when he was kind of in the transition of stepping away from skating and getting into his radio career. Him and Tony Hawk used to do a show called Sirius and he got a taste for it from that. Next thing he has his own show, and these days he’s a mega radio star. I heard he was something like the number two radio host in the States, behind Howard Stern. I’m not sure exactly. I am sure he’d be happy to tell you if he was me, me, me-ing on! I’m pretty sure this was just before he started getting into the mixed martial arts stuff. The next time I saw him he was real bulked up and into cage fighting.
DOM KEKICH | MELBOURNE | 2008
Here’s Dom holding one of his prized possessions, an original 1988 mini Hawk board that he thought he’d lost until his brother Bogden found it in his garage. It’s his pride and joy. Mini Hawks were what he rode when he was on Powell. Stacey Peralta use to send him boards direct after hooking him up at the 88 Ramp Riot and for some reason he just decided to hold onto this one. He pulled it out when he heard Hawk was out here for some demos a few years back. At the time he was living near a place they stored the old Hitachi trains. I decided it would make for a good background. So, here he is with his little Hawk board reminiscing about old times after digging it out to get it signed. When Hawk saw it I’m pretty sure he was like “I can’t remember the last time I saw one of these!”. You little ripper.
BEN HARRISS | MELBOURNE | 2006
I shot this right after he’d gotten this tattoo. It was fresh and he was just all about showing that Melbourne pride. loving it. Actually. Ben was telling me a funny story the other day. A few days before the Ramp Riot demo at Prahran he sold all his Star Wars figures and used the money to buy a Natas mini. He ended up going to the demo with his brand new board, where some Borgy looking bastard just walked up to him and racked it straight off him. He was so small he didn’t even know what to do. Bought poor little Benny to tears. His exact words to me were “So there I am, no more Star Wars figues, no more mini Natas… Shattered!”
“One of the most important parts of getting a good shot is that you have to be an insider… It’s like anything in life, if someone isn’t cOmfortable; they’re not going to be natural.”
ANTHONY MAPSTONE | MELBOURNE | 2008
Another day, another skate mission. This one was out to some pipes past the suburbs; turns out they were pretty much unskatable. It was all good though, it was just fun going out and looking for them. We still go on these missions every weekend, and if the planets align with family and work commitments we also skate together every Wednesday night too. We’re always on the mission, have been since 1997.
SHANE AZAR, LEWIS MARNELL, DUSTIN DOLLIN, TRISTAN WALKER | MELBOURNE | 2002
The BMW stairs in Glen Waverley used to get sessioned all the time. This was when Tristan was filming for his XEN part. He was killing it, as was Lewis. I remember Dustin rocked up on this crazy Duane Peters board. I was like “What the hell is that thing!?”. This was when Lewsi first got on Baker and as for Azar this pretty much sums him up as the little trouble maker he was back then. The boys lined up, good times.
“I love the fact I can just set up a dark room at home any time I feel like it and start printing. Time, temperature and agitation; I love it!”
ALI BOULALA | MELBOURNE | 2005
Look at that MJ stance! This was at a time I was hanging with Dustin and Ali and going out to bars all the time. It was also a time where I was fully into Michael Jackson. Ali had just had a pro shoe come out with Osiris and when I saw them for the first time I was like “Look at those things! They are so MJ!”. I just had to get an MJ vibe photo of him wearing them. I wish someone filmed us trying to shoot this. It was impossible for him to hold the pose. In the end the only way he could pull it off was to have someone get a tool and crank the wheel-nuts up so tight they wouldn’t even roll anymore.
