[Disclaimer: For this who read a previous blog post I wrote on Push about Scott, this introduction may sound eerily familiar. And it should: I've cribbed the entire thing from my own blog. So if you've already read it, scroll down to the Q&A.]

I've had the pleasure -- as cliche as it may sound -- of knowing Scott Pommier for a long time. Back when I was a young pup and lucked into my first media job in the mid-'90s, editing the free-circulation Canadian skateboard magazine called Vehicle, Scott was transitioning from sponsored skater to skate photographer. Scott and his brother Andrew, now a highly-regarded artist, were from the Northern Ontario town of Sudbury, but had made their way south to the big city of Toronto. Scott was, and still is, an amazing skater, but I believe an injury prompted him to pick up a camera and start shooting his friends in the local scene.

Scott was a steady contributor to Vehicle, and since I knew nothing about editing magazines at the time, I quickly came to appreciate his strong opinions and submissions. A year later Vehicle was but a memory, a victim of rising paper prices and questionable financing, but Scott continued to grow in prominence as an integral documenter of the Canadian skate scene. Two years after that, I began working at SBC Media, editing Snowboard Canada Magazine. A year into my job there, we hired Ryan Allan and launched SBC Skateboard. After the first volume of Ryan and I struggling to release four issues on our own, we got the go-ahead to hire a third staffer and Scott was our first and only choice. Scott became an important early influence on the magazine, helping to shape its identity and build relationships with both the emerging ams and high-profile pros at the time.

The lure of full-time photography proved too strong for Scott to continue working at a desk, so he broke free after two volumes, but remained (and remains to this day) an important contributor to the magazine. He broadened his focus at that point, shooting with just about every big-name pro skater you can think of, and locking down an editorial job at Transworld Skateboarding for an important period in the mag's history: he produced some of my favourite articles, covers and photo features during that time. You see, not only is Scott an ace photographer -- creative and committed like few others -- he also has a great "voice" as a writer. He's funny and clever, and I can vividly recall specific stories he wrote to this day.

Scott eventually settled down after many years on the road, buying a house in Vancouver to establish a home-base, but continued to shoot extensively. His interests evolved over time, specifically to include riding and shooting motorcycles, but skateboarding has remained an important focus and I am always stoked to see his shots in print and online. I checked in with Scott for a chat, not so much to catch up on old times, but to find out what he's been doing lately. Read on to find out.

Ryan Smith by Scott Pommier.

What's an average day like in the life of Scott Pommier? How does that day compare to, say, 10 years ago?
I guess I have a few variations of the average day. There's the average shoot day, and the average office day. Either way I'm starting off with an-email check and a healthy breakfast, which is probably unchanged in the last 10 years. 10 years ago however, there were no real office days. Back then, if I wasn't out shooting I was probably skating flatland on my street. I'm much less lethal in a game of s-k-a-t-e in 2009.

What's on your radar these days? What's interesting to you, in terms of your photography and what you're working on?
I'm working on a few things... I'm trying to get a book of motorcycle photos finished; I think I'm ready to start shopping it around to publishers. I'm shooting skateboarding for SBC, and I'm trying to pursue some commercial jobs.

When you see a skate spot, what is your first instinct? To skate it, or to shoot someone else skating it?
Well, I'm 30-plus now, so it depends entirely on the spot. A bank-to-curb, I'm thinking, 'where's my board.' A double-kink rail, I'm thinking, ‘what time of day does this get the best light?'

What was the last skate photo you shot?
Just yesterday I was out with a group of young ‘borders. I shot a photo of Paul Trepanier. I still shoot film largely, so I'm itching to drop the roll off to be developed at the lab.

If you had never started skateboarding, would you still be a photographer now?
I really don't know... I started skateboarding more than 20 years ago, and I think skateboarding, more than most sports or activities, really defines you and is really sort of all-consuming. I mean, if you're really into soccer, or really into baseball as a kid, I don't think the difference is necessarily all that profound. But if you're a skateboarder it really shapes you. Maybe less so now, but I started in the'80s, when being a skateboarder really set you apart: The clothes, the music, everything... just how you saw yourself fitting into the world. I really just can't imagine my life without all the experiences that went along with starting to skateboard. It's like trying to imagine what your life would have been like if you lived in the 19th century.

That said, I think there are things about my personality that really fit with photography, but I'm not sure what the hook would have been. I definitely picked up a camera to shoot skateboarding, and my motivation for getting good was that I wanted to be able to capture action the way I had seen it captured in skateboarding magazines. I might have discovered photography, but it might have been a little later on. As it was, for a long time I was very much just a skate photographer; I didn't think of myself as real photographer. I was making my living shooting photos, but when someone would ask me -- say a friend of my parents or something -- what I did for a living, I always choked on saying, "I'm a photographer" and would always follow it up with, "I shoot photos for a bunch of skateboarding magazines."

That being said, do you ever wish you'd taken a more traditional path to photography, such as gong to school and grinding it out by assisting?
Yes, when I'm on my own set and I'm the only one who doesn't know what it means to, "fly in an 8-by, silk".

It's sort of a toss-up, because when you're shooting a bigger job and you've got assistants and producers and clients and a stylist, there are a lot of relationships to manage, and there's a lot of protocol to know. And you're working with people who live and work in this world, and they're really familiar with it,

Whose call will you take without hesitation to go shooting?
There are a bunch, of course. And I'm not much of a call screener... tough to answer this one without name-dropping a bit... I really like shooting with Rick McCrank, but it's far more likely that I would be calling him, truth be told. I would drop just about anything to go shoot something with Geoff Rowley. One time we drove from his place in Huntington all night, just to skate a ditch in Tucson at 5:30 in the morning.

You're one of the first people I know who had their own website and essentially "blogged" before anyone knew what it was. Does it still interest you? What do you make of the online world these days?
Do you mean the 184 Quebec Ave, website? [Note: at the time, Scott and his roommates ran a website about their apartment.] Yeah, thankfully that word didn't exist back then, it was just sort of an "online journal". None of us really had the discipline to keep it up. I don't have any interest in blogging, really. I don't have the time and I don't have the interest. I also feel like the photography is enough of an outlet; I don't feel like I need to share my thoughts and opinions with the world, not without someone asking anyways. Of course I have a website to keep up with, photos to e-mail out, correspondence to keep up with, photos to scan and clean, and organize... I'm really not looking for more computer related activities. Back then it was really fun; I just looked at it like making a 'zine. In a week you could have this whole project up and finished.

What about how online is impacting photography? Is it creating opportunities for photographers or is it decreasing quality and standards?
I don't know if I can answer this honestly without coming across a little snobby. Maybe I'll save that one for my blog...

Check out Scott's gallery with commentary.

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Related:
Rich Odam: His Favourite Shots
The Ryan Allan Timeline
Geoff Andruik: From Film To Digital (snow)
Jeff Patterson: His Favourite Shots (snow)
The Dano Portfolio (snow)