When the opportunity came up to converse with renowned skate
photog Mike Blabac during DC's King
Of Vancouver, it seemed natural that the topic-angle should be
associated with his recently released book – Blabac Photo: The Art of Skateboarding Photography. However, being
aware that Blabac's illustrious career behind the lens began 15 years ago
shooting Embarcadero's elite in San Fran, it became a personal priority to
discuss the 35 year-old's shutter roots.
"I went to community college for 3 days in Lansing, Michigan,
and realized I was already past the point of where they wanted to start me,"
says Blabac, who resides in San Diego and has worked at DC Shoes for the past 10
years and counting. "I just figured that rather than spending the money on
college, I'd just go to SF, spend money on film, and just teach myself. It made
more sense. Grant Brittain helped me out a
lot. I would call him quite often with a lot of really dumb questions, and he
answered every single one of them."
From his influences to the surreal experience of shooting Danny
Way's leap over China's Great Wall, the following Q&A explores how Blabac
established himself as an iconic modern skate photographer. We managed to talk
about his efficiently produced photo book, too.
Where are you from
originally?
I was born in Ohio, and moved to Michigan when I was 12.
That's when I started skating, around ‘86. Right when I turned 20 I moved to
San Francisco. I lived in SF for almost 5 years before I moved down to LA. From
'97 through '99 I worked for Mad Circle in SF, then I worked for Girl [in LA],
then I started working for DC. Because of guys like Danny Way, I've had
opportunities to do work for Sports
Illustrated and Sports Illustrated
Kids, ESPN The Magazine, and all
the skate magazines everywhere, pretty much. It's been rad.
What photographers have
influenced your work over the years?
There are a lot of things that push me. There's fashion stuff – dudes like Richard Avedon.
Even some sports photojournalists like Walter Iooss – he's worked for Sports Illustrated for 40 years or so.
He shot a lot of the Micheal Jordan stuff, like that classic photo of him dunking
from above. I love looking outside of skateboarding as well as inside
it to get me psyched on shooting photos, and I enjoy good portraiture. I'm not
really the kind of dude that shoots a photo of a chair in a barn, which is one
of the reasons why skateboarding got me into photography to begin with. To me,
dudes like Grant [Brittain] and Spke [Jonze] pushed skate photography so far
and did stuff I had never seen before like dragging your shutter, using fisheye
lenses and stuff like that. It opened my eyes to what's possible.
What was your first
published piece of work?
It was in Transworld.
I had a photo of Joey Bast in a pull-out poster in '94, and my first full-page
photo was of Edward Devera, also in a '94 TransWorld.
I met everybody from skating in SF, at Embarcadero, like Karl
Watson, Jovontae [Turner], and Mike Carroll. I
didn't show up with a camera trying to shoot photos of them, I just showed up
to skate. I think I got to meet those guys the right way. Skating and
photography were 2 separate things for years. Scott Johnston knew I shot photos
and stuff, so I went out with him to shoot a Pure Wheels ad. It came out, and
he was like, "Man, why don't you just do
this all the time?" That's when I really started skating around SF with a
backpack on, actually trying to shoot skate photos for a living. Within 6
months I started working for Mad Circle, and right after that I started working
for TransWorld. At the time, I was
shooting with a Nikon F4, 105mm and 16mm lenses, 2 flashes and an old-school
radio slave – that was my whole entire kit.
To date, what's been
your craziest and most surreal photography experience?
It would probably be when Danny Way jumped the
Great Wall in 2006, just because of everything involved. We flew over
there, he broke his foot, and did it with a broken foot. The Chinese government
had a mandatory work stoppage while Danny jumped The Wall so everyone in the
country could watch it. It was really insane. After he did it, because there
was a work stoppage, every single person in China knew what he had just done.
When we went back to the hotel, everybody was staring at him, when we left the
country, everybody pretty much stepped aside and let us walk through the
airport. It was crazy. It was a really weird experience.
How did your photo book
with DC come about, and how long were you working towards it?
2 years ago, Ken Block and Damon Way separately approached me
about doing it, and of course I wanted to. One of the things Ken wanted to do
was make a proper coffee table book. I wanted a photo book – just simply that.
No crazy design elements, just photography. People have made amazing books in
skateboarding, no doubt, by no one's really made a larger format book. It took
awhile, between everything going on at DC and finding a publisher who was
willing to allow us to lay out the book. We really wanted to make sure it was
as skate as possible, and done well. A lot of publishers are really reluctant
to have someone else come in and design a project for them, but powerHouse, who published
the book, was willing to allow us to do that. The whole thing happened pretty
quickly. It was 60 days of 20 hours-a-day [laughs]
because the contract got worked out at the end of January '09, and we had until
March 15th to finish it – all the scanning, laying it out, the
writing, proofing it...everything. I'm stoked to have had the opportunity.
Click here for DC's comprehensive mini-site that covers
all things Blabac, including photo portfolios and his limited edition "Blabac
Photo" DC Azure-Mid shoe.
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Related:
Blabac Photo (The Photo Book)