Welcome to our 5000 Words feature with London-based lensman Rich West. Rich took us through a selection of photos he has shot over the last few years. Find out more about his picks, and the process behind them…
words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Rich West portrait taken at Rafski’s. PH: Rafal Wojnowski
Rich West had a false start when it came to skateboarding, instantly breaking an elbow as a five year old, and vowing never to repeat that mistake. That is until the cultural phenomenon of Tony Hawk’s first video game made waves through his friendship group, rendering resistance futile. Rich’s path had been mapped out, and regardless of more impending injuries, and terrible surrounding spots, he kept going. Interestingly skateboarding media played a minor role in his foundations, Viewfinder 4 proved to be a slightly confusing first video. Rather than delving deeper into what was happening in the UK, or on the other side of the ocean, he consciously chose to maintain a degree of detachment, focusing instead on his own world, and personal progression. Scouring the mags for photos would come a bit later on. Rich’s focus payed off, he is still an amazing skateboarder, although he’ll hear none of it, and we’re regularly stoked by what he allows to greet our feeds. As a sidenote, if you’ve ever skated Uckfield skatepark and enjoyed yourself, you have the persistence of Rich, and his friendship group, to thank for it.
Photography entered the picture organically, an accidental progression that led from shooting his friends, to a few jobs materialising, concurrent with him studying the craft at A level. This fed his obsession and curiosity, skate photos became a wealth of information to be reverse engineered, leading to the investigation of different technicalities he further explored at Brighton University. Brighton proved to be too small, and Rich soon made the logical move to London. Once there he lived at the House of Doom [Death Skateboard HQ] in Harrow, and hit the pause button on skate photography briefly while working as a landscape gardener. It would be his following move to Brixton that reignited his interest, and the streets of London are where he has fine-tuned his craft ever since.
It has been a long time since we ran a 5000 Words article so it was a pleasure to revive the format. All of the photos in this article were shot over the last few years, from the cusp of lockdown to now, a period Rich describes as one of his most productive. They were also taken at a time where he was rediscovering the freedom of photography, leading to a point where he began to be increasingly less disappointed with what he was producing. Any time we are greeted by one of his shots they provoke a pause. This is due to him regularly capturing some of the most interesting skateboarders (including some notable Slam alumni) in our capital, and because his fierce eye for composition consistently produces dynamic, and compelling photos. It’s satisfying to see this diverse selection of photos that have appeared in Grey, Free, and Vague, all in one place, and it was great to hear some of Rich’s insights on the process behind them.
Ben Broyd – tuck knee invert
Ben did this on a trip to Gran Canaria, we went there on a fun, little trip, and it was just a really wholesome week. That bowl was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, a brand-new bowl in a gravel field. No-one was there, and no-one really lived around there, it was really weirdly placed. Ben is always a pleasure to shoot with, he’s super good, especially at skating transition. He’s very consistent, and he pulls good shapes so you know that you’re going to get something nice. He really goes for it. This was one of those really nice skate trips, everything was good, the weather was nice, and everyone was having a good time.
It was just before lockdown happened funnily enough, it was the start of the whole Cover thing, and we nearly got stuck there. Our flight home was a day before all the flights got cancelled. We were hearing rumours via text that London was going to shut down. It was pretty terrifying not being sure what we were coming home to. Looking back we were really unaware of how drastic that whole situation was going to be, but we were all having the best time. It was probably the nicest skate trip I’ve ever been on.
I like shooting tricks on transition, it’s good. I think people underestimate the ability you need to have to be able to use a fisheye well. Everyone seems to think if you shoot a photo with a fisheye, that it’s really simple, and looks great, whatever photo you take. But there’s a lot more going on, I’m not the biggest believer in throwing your camera in there, and not looking through the viewfinder, I don’t really like it. I prefer to be able to look through the viewfinder. For this one I was literally lying on the floor with my head about two inches away from where he was doing the trick. There is a lot of relying on the other person in that situation, relying on them being good at what they do. I don’t want to say it but the whole close-up fisheye thing is probably my least favourite thing when it comes to taking photos. If anyone suggests doing it I’m always reluctant. I’ve just spent £2000 on a camera, I don’t really want you to smash it with your board.
“I’m not the biggest believer in throwing your camera in there, and not looking through the viewfinder, I don’t really like it”
I have tried it, and I’m not the fastest mover out there, I’m quite a big person to have to get out of the way of someone as well. I’ve been hit so many times, and it’s fine, I don’t mind, I’d rather I get hit than my camera or my lens. My lens has a massive dent in it, and I reckon 90% of skate photographers have a lens with a dent or two in it, that’s just how it happens, it’s annoying. People often want a fisheye photo but I try my best to avoid it, I hate the process. It’s so hard, and it’s scary having someone do something so close to you, where their wheel is almost touching the frontal optics of your lens. This photo is an exception. The way Ben does any of his handplants looks good, he knows how to pull the right shape. Handplants are dependant on how the person does the trick, there is a gymnastic element to it. You have to be able to throw your body up, hold the weight, and manipulate your body in a way to create a certain shape for it to work. Some people can do it, and some people can’t, I’ve never even attempted one. Ben is a very healthy person, he eats well, stretches, and does yoga. He has an incredible range of movement in his body, and I think that’s important when it comes to tricks like this. You can tell when someone does a good one, they get into a position, it’s held, and that’s the moment.
Billy Trick – Backside Slash
This was a funny one, I guess we were just out, and about. This came at a time when I started to really enjoy taking skate photos more. I wasn’t worrying too much about flashes, and stuff like that. Obviously this is all digital, but I decided to turn my ISO up further, and make it a process I enjoyed more instead of stressing about other things. I got fed up with carrying my flashes around, they were making taking photos really miserable for me. I would get angry if I went out for the day, and didn’t shoot anything because I had carried all this stuff around, and exhausted myself, for nothing. This photo was taken at the start of me realising I could do things a different way. I always thought you had to use flash anytime you used a fisheye, that there was no other choice. I realised there was, you didn’t have to use a flash if you didn’t want to, you could turn the ISO up really high, and do whatever you want basically.
For a long time, the way I composed a photo would always have the skater in the corner. That’s what I was told to do, that’s how you compose a skate photo, the skater is in the corner of the frame. With this I started composing it more centrally, it’s not dead centre but it’s close.
“This photo was taken at the start of me realising I could do things a different way”
What’s funny is what gets picked up on social media, people’s reactions to things. I find that the photos I try less on often get a better reaction. I don’t want to insinuate that anything depends on other people’s opinions because it doesn’t in any way, but at the same time it’s really interesting to hear what other people have to say about stuff. Their opinions are based elsewhere when you’re thinking about quality, and how something is shot. I felt like I was being lazy in the way that I was shooting at this time, but I wasn’t in any way. I was still shooting, still considering the composition, and imagining how I wanted him to look within the frame. There was another element now though, I wasn’t stressing over flashes, and I was starting to really enjoy the process. Before this I was obsessed with technicalities, if I wasn’t using loads of flashes I felt the photo wasn’t worthy because my brain had imposed all of these unnecessary rules.
Conor Charleson – Frontside Rock
This photo is always going to be quite important to me. At the beginning of April this year I had a huge mental breakdown, it took everything away from me. This photo to me will always symbolise my recovery as it was taken during a time when I was feeling pretty awful. I was finding it very hard to get out of the house to do things because my brain just wasn’t letting me do it. I messaged Conor and asked if he wanted to shoot anything, and he came back with this idea. We went there together, and once again I remember enjoying the process as much as possible. I recognised at the time that it was really good, and that I was enjoying myself, I wasn’t making it stressful for myself.
What’s interesting is that looking at this photo now, I see things where before, I would have made him do it again. I would have opted for a different frame. His hand is obscure by the pole, and in the past, for me, I would have thought that wasn’t good enough, everything would have to be perfect. But this time, when I saw the photo I decided that I wasn’t going to get worked up by that, there’s no point. Realistically, I didn’t think many people will see that photo and think that’s unacceptable. Somebody might, but I’m sure there are better things they can comment on.
“This photo is always going to be something to me. I’m still in the recovery process now…but I can look back at this photo as a turning point”
This photo is always going to be something to me. I’m still in the recovery process now, I’m not yet out of the mental stint that I’m in, which is quite scary, but I can look back at this photo as a turning point. This was taken at a time when I had been feeling a certain way, I hadn’t been feeling good about myself, it was the start of my battle with recovery. I have hung onto skateboarding pretty severely throughout the whole thing, it was the only thing I had still, I didn’t have anything else. I have been very reliant on skateboarding to get me through this, and photography as well. I have only shot one photo since this one, but this was the start of me getting back out here.
This trick was a battle for Conor, one he struggled with. I went there with him on a couple of trips so it wasn’t an enjoyable process for him. It’s one of those spots where it’s difficult to show just how hard it is to skate, it’s horrible, not a nice spot to skate. Interestingly when shooting this, as soon as I sat down, and chose an angle, it just worked. That’s pretty rare for me, I found what I was going for straight away.
Jack O’Grady – Frontside Noseblunt Slide
This is probably the most nervous I have been shooting a photo for a long time. Mainly because he did it so quick. He probably did this within four or five goes. He got into it straight away and I realised I didn’t have a lot of time to figure out what to do. That’s the thing with skate photography, you often have no time to think. If someone decides they’re going to give something a go, and they’re going, you can’t hold things up. Their adrenaline is pumping, their body is warmed up ready to go, you can’t ask someone to stop for a bit. I turned up, and before I had even got my camera out of my bag he had 50-50’d it, and within one go he was in noseblunt. I had to quickly figure out what to do. There were loads of people there too, lots of kids, and pedestrians. There is a high kick-out probability as well, anyone who has skated there hasn’t had very long.
“before I had even got my camera out of my bag he had 50-50’d it, and within one go he was in noseblunt”
It has been shot quite a bit, people have done tricks over the hubba, or down the stairs, I needed to instantly figure out a way to shoot it. That’s one thing I always think when it comes to skate photography, if there’s an established spot that has been shot previously, when you go there your first thought is how do I shoot this differently? How do you make your photo slightly different to the last, you don’t want someone to call you out on choosing the same angle as them. Sometimes you end up unintentionally doing that, I have done that in the past, gone home and realised what I shot is exactly the same as something else. Lots of those photos, and the angles they were taken from are drilled into in our heads already, so much so, that you subconsciously feel that’s the way something should be shot. There are obviously many ways to approach the same thing but we are often so stuck in our ways we end up shooting things as they have been previously. I find that really interesting.
This is one of those tricks where you can technically shoot it from both angles but one angle looks more like a bluntslide. That’s always a factor when I’m shooting something too, I always want it to look like the trick it is at first glance with no ambiguity. Sometimes it’s good when something needs a little figuring out though, it pauses someone from flicking through to give the photo more attention. I’m sure people look at skate photos for two seconds now before moving onto the next one. I used to just stare at photos for ages trying to figure out how someone shot it, but now I’m sure an average consumer of skate media is quickly onto the next. I took this photo on Jack’s first trip to the UK, I got to go around with him a little bit but it was pretty short lived. He was amazing though, he’d skate every spot really well, it just naturally came to him. He was extremely modest, and obviously not intentionally going to spots to do the best trick that’s ever been done. It was great to watch.
Dan Militiadou – Crooked Grind
We shot this relatively recently, maybe it was last year at some point. We had planned together to shoot a whole interview, and it just never worked out. Dan and I were working together full-time at Palace, we would chat about it every day, the different things we were going to shoot. Our missions just never worked out though, we shot this photo and that was it. We had been out to shoot other things but every time we went together he didn’t quite manage to land the trick. It felt like we were just cursed as partners when it came to shooting skate photos. It got to the point where it was stupid, we just weren’t getting anything, this is the photo that broke the curse. We thought we would be on a roll after this one but unfortunately never ended up shooting anything else.
“It got to the point where it was stupid, we just weren’t getting anything, this is the photo that broke the curse”
Dan had done this trick the day before we went to shoot it so it worked out perfectly. It was the first thing he had shot since he moved to London from South Africa, so the first thing he had that ran in a mag for a while. Unfortunately he snapped his ankle the other day so we won’t be back out there together again for a while. This may end up being the only thing we ever shoot, you never know.
I hate being at the bottom of a handrail, it’s so nerve-racking. You’re worried about someone falling on you, something hitting you. I get distracted by other people when I’m skating at the best of times. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have someone standing or sitting at the bottom of a rail while they’re waiting for you to jump down it. When it comes to composition I was lucky with this one that his hand is perfectly within the line of the building, lots of skate photography comes down to luck.
Jamie Platt – Pole Jam – Wallie
Both of these photos were shot at a similar time. It was bleak, and cold outside as you can tell from Jamie’s layers. At this point he had been tasked with filming a lot for the new Polar video (Sounds Like you Guys are Crushing it) so he was out skating quite a bit, and we were trying to shoot some stuff. This pole jam looks classic, it looks like he’s doing it really easily, and he is, but if you saw how big that thing was you’d think it was mental. That thing was huge, I couldn’t imagine making it to the top of it, and it was really difficult to show how hard it was to skate. It was a bleak, UK winter excursion, the pole jam ran as a Polar advert.
This is an example of the fisheye photo I sang the praises of earlier. Jamie was adamant that we shot it fisheye, and quite close. He’s a big fan of that stuff. With fisheye photos, movement, and blurred lines started to become popular. Blurry skate photos had become a popular thing so this was me trying to do that for him. I wasn’t really one for that sort of thing, I didn’t really like the blurry fisheye stuff myself. I was trying to do it to see how I felt about it, and I feel like it works to a degree. All of that movement adds another element to the photo.
“I like shooting with Jamie…he’s another one of those people you know is always going to pull good shapes when he does something”
The wallie photo was Jamie’s big ender in that Polar video that announced he was pro. That was another situation where there was no time at all to come up with an angle. He started throwing himself down it straight away, and you get kicked out of there insanely quickly. Within a couple of attempts he had someone having a go at him outside the building. It was slightly stressful but it was fine, and it worked out. I didn’t use any flashes for that one either, rather than adding that complication to get the desired result I chose to shoot it using natural light. Luckily we had enough light, it was early winter.
It was problematic trying to convey that someone is wallie-ing something and going down a massive set of stairs, I was very concerned about how it was going to look. I’m not a fan of the whole double photo thing, although in situations like this it could be useful. I didn’t have enough time to set up a tripod though, and I was moving around trying to find angles that worked, and trying to stop people from getting in the way. I like shooting with Jamie, he’s obviously amazing at skating, and he’s another one of those people you know is always going to pull good shapes when he does something. It’s almost impossible to get a bad photo of him, he’s never not going to look good.
Josh Nice – Impossible
This was used as an ad for Always Do What You Should Do, they made a poster of it. I hadn’t been to this spot before, and it’s a classic London skate spot. I remember turning up there having seen footage of people skating it in the past, and it was great to see it for the first time. We didn’t have a lot of time there, only a few attempts before we were kicked out by security guards. I had wanted to shoot a landscape fisheye photo for ages but hadn’t had the opportunity. I knew it would work well there, and show the whole of the spot. I knew before we began shooting that they wanted to use the photo for an ad, it has the energy of an old photo about it, I thought it looked cool with the court behind him.
“Another thing about this one is that impossibles are impossible to shoot”
Another thing about this one is that impossibles are impossible to shoot. When someone suggests one I always struggle with how to make it look like the trick it is. It’s difficult, and when Josh suggested it I was obviously down to give it a go, but not sure how it would turn out. It’s fully reliant on how the person does the trick, only if they do it well is it going to work. Luckily Josh is really good at impossibles. It was a typical London situation with not much time to think, I had planned this out in my head beforehand though, I already had a good idea of how I wanted it to look. It was convenient that my idea worked because sometimes it doesn’t
Matlok Bennett-Jones – Noseblunt Slide
This was shot during lockdown again, this period of time where I was shooting way more than normally. Matlok was out filming loads at this point in time. This was one of those accidental situations where the photo ended up being composed better than I thought it had been. If you look at the back of the photo underneath the fencing, the building in the background is framed perfectly beneath it. That was a complete accident I hadn’t seen until I got back home. The main thing I saw was the pile of sick on the floor in the front of the photo. I really wanted to get that in the frame, I remember seeing it, and thinking it was gross but kind of funny, and everything else lined up by accident a little bit.
“It turned out well, me focusing on the sick made it a very lucky photo”
Some photos have elements to them that kind of need to be shown. Realistically the run up to this should have been shown but I couldn’t do it, so it doesn’t matter, and I just shot it in a way that I thought looked nice. I was very lucky that it happened, and very lucky how certain things turned out. I remember showing this photo to Joel Peck, and he was pointing out all of the things about the composition I hadn’t spotted. It turned out well, me focusing on the sick made it a very lucky photo.
Mikey Patrick – 5-0 Grind
This is an example of a photo where I shot it in exactly the same way as someone else had. Griff [James Griffiths] had shot a photo of Korahn Gayle doing a frontside noseslide there, and I had no idea that I shot Mikey in exactly the same way. Then I saw his photo, and the angle is exactly the same. To be honest though, there’s really not too much else you could do there to show everything you need to. I don’t mind a drain prop, but at the same time they did get a bit played out for a while. It got a bit annoying, everyone was suggesting we shoot different drain prop photos, a period of time where it became a big thing. To the point where one photo editor completely banned drain props from the magazine, hahaha. I thought that was quite funny, I get it though, imagine being sent a bunch of photos, and everyone of them is a drain prop, enough is enough.
“We have a photo, it works, why stress them out and make them do it again?”
Mikey’s lead arm is in front of his face in this photo. This was one of the occasions where in my head I wanted him to do it again. I asked him if he would do the trick again, to appease my mind but he said no which is fair enough. As a skate photographer it’s common to ask someone to do something again but it’s realistically such an unnatural process for whoever is skating. They have already done the trick, and they don’t want to do it again. We have a photo, it works, why stress them out and make them do it again? This was also shot during a very cold period of time, the bricks make it a very London photo.
Sam Murgatroyd – Manual Roll
This was probably the funniest photo I have ever taken, and has more of a story behind it than any of them. Henry Kingsford had asked for photos that were lockdown inspired, so we shot this one but it wasn’t one he wanted to use in the end. The whole process behind this photo was very long-winded. I had to re-support that table, I drilled a load of slats underneath it because it was made out of such weak wood that if anyone were to ollie onto it, it would have just collapsed. I added these supports to it, and my flatmate was not very happy with me about that. He had a massive go at me, and said I needed to pay for the table. All I had done was make it stronger, hahaha. If someone had seen me shooting that day it would have looked ridiculous. I had filled the whole room behind me with pillows. There was probably a metre-and-a-half of runout before a window. I was squidged between pillows, and we covered the window with pillows too. We wanted to make sure we didn’t break anything.
“If someone had seen me shooting that day it would have looked ridiculous”
Sam probably did the manual roll within four or five goes. It didn’t take very long but it was terrifying from my perspective. He knocked over the plant on one attempt, and that went everywhere, so we had to clean that up before he tried again. He almost hit me a couple of times, then his board almost hit the window, it was hectic. It was pretty scary but also the funnest photo I have ever taken. Some excessive planning went into it. I’m glad he was up for doing it, although it instantly felt like a really bad idea. I was envisioning him putting two wheels down on the table, the table collapsing, and my home life further deteriorating. Vague ran the photo eventually, I think this involved the most interesting process behind a photo I’ve taken, while also being the most terrifying.
Ville Wester – Bluntslide
This is another photo at a skate spot that has been shot a million times. With this one I had looked at photos that were shot before, and knew what I didn’t want it to look like. I hadn’t shot anything landscape for a while at this point so I already knew what format I wanted it to be. When we got there and I looked at it, I thought, as I often do, what a bleak spot it is in reality, very miserable. We shot it, and I was happy to get the photo. When I got back and looked at it more closely the thing I liked the most about it was the pigeon that had made it’s way to the top centre. How did it get there? How did it get so central? It’s almost surreal that it made it in there.
“How did it get there? How did it get so central?”
I shot this late last year, and it involves another accident that worked out really well. It’s often the little things in photos that I find most interesting, sometimes more interesting than the trick itself. When something unexpected makes its way into the frame it’s quite nice. We were there for about half an hour and he did three tricks. It’s somewhere most people struggle to just get going, it’s rough as hell, but Ville is another one of those guys who is just super consistent . He bluntslid it, did a flip back tail, and did a one-foot back tail. He skated it like it was a skatepark ledge, it was no problem for him.
Composition-wise it’s a very convenient spot for this photo, the way the wall follows it all the way down and draws your eye to him. If you go there and look at it, you think it’s ugly as hell, but when you start trying to shoot it there is a lot of stuff that works really well.
Zach Riley – 5-0 Grind
The main reason I sent this was the fact that the trick had already been done. Tom Knox had done a frontside 5-0 here already but we had absolutely no idea.I can’t remember now which one ran first. I think Tom did the trick first, had the photo shot, and it was ready to go. Then we shot this and it ran at a super similar time and we were both like “whoops”. Again the photo we shot was taken from almost the same angle. It’s another one of those spots that’s difficult to shoot, so your natural inclination of how to shoot it is one of the only solutions, Sam [Ashley] shot Tom’s 5-0 similarly. Zach and I both felt really bad, we didn’t intentionally go out to shoot something that was the same, it just ended up being that way. We felt really awkward, and silly, but it’s all good.
“If there’s no way in hell I would even touch something, I have to respect the skater even more for doing it”
Zach had the idea of doing this trick in his head, and it was just so gnarly, such a horrible spot. If I got up there and someone dared me to drop in on it, there is no way I’d even try it. I think a lot about that when it comes to shooting. If there’s no way in hell I would even touch something, I have to respect the skater even more for doing it. There are instances where I think I’m capable of giving something a go, but this definitely wasn’t one of them, it’s bonkers. The ledge is so crusty, and the tiles are awful. I was massively worried for him, and didn’t want him to get hurt. This was just before he had a good couple of years out of skating because of injury too. Touch wood, I’ve never had a skater really hurt themselves while shooting with me. Zach’s style of skating has changed since this photo, he is back skating now, but he skates slightly differently having hurt himself drastically. This encapsulates a real moment in time.
We would like to thank Rich so much for his time, and the care he took selecting the photos we talked about. At the time of publishing this Rich is freshly out of surgery and on the road to recovery. We would like to wish him well, and hope it is speedy and trouble free. We look forward to seeing new skate clips on our feed, and new photos in print very soon. Thanks also to Rafal Woknowski for shooting the portrait for this article.
Related reading: Offerings: Zach Riley, Backstory: Conor Charleson, 5000 Words: Dominic Marley