Jerome Campbell – Frontside Flip. Photo by Nils Svensson
Our second 5000 Words feature is with Jerome Campbell. Jerome’s positivity and productivity is a constant. When he isn’t busy with projects for Polar and Converse and even when he is, photography is another one of his passions. This made him an obvious choice when putting together the initial list of people to ask. Jerome got back with a set of black and white photos from his travels and set the scene for each…
Pontus and Jakke on a Polar trip to NYC last year. I shot this photo on the night (only night) that we stayed in this apartment. We actually booked this place for 10 days but having arrived and seen the state it was in we had to get out and quick. Basically the place was booked after we saw the brilliant photos on the booking site, however when all 10 of us turned up to find all the rooms on the site already booked. Naturally we started to wonder where are they going to stick us, we didn’t have to wait long, this little guy took us down stairs in to the apretments basement. OMG, this place was pretty rugged, firstly it smelt like someone had just varnished the floor 5 minutes before we turned up, on top of that the bathroom was in such a state that a poo in the back yard would have been more fun. On top of this there was some guy already asleep down there. Any how we decided to stick it out for one night (mice and cockroaches included) all 10 of us in a room meant for 4, haha thinking back on it now it was actually pretty funny. No ones fault and if we had managed to get in the plush rooms upstairs we probably would have stayed longer, I now know how sloth from the Goonies felt.
Jan Kleiwer in Malmo while shooting for the Carhartt/Polar collab. This was a brilliant few days, all the crew plus 15 massive stone statues which I can tell you now were incredibly heavy. We took the statues everywhere we went and strategically placed them at every spot. I was shooting a lot on this trip just because it was something totally new, every thing we skated just looked completely mental. I did find it super hard to skate though i remember that really clearly. The first spot we visited was Pontus’s TBS, now this spot may look fun and when watching Pontus skate it could even look pretty easy, don’t be fooled though its gnarly.
Nils Svenson in Lisbon. A really fun trip to Portugal’s capital Lisbon, We actually stayed way out of the city on this trip possibly because it was slightly cheaper being on the outskirts but we all stuck to the other idea that Neil Chester had booked it so far out so we didn’t roam into town in the evenings and drink till the early hours and wake up feeling insanely rough. This image was shot whiles on a walk to the near by beach, the weather wasn’t the best but the trip was dope.
Javier Mendizabal in Lisbon. This was actually shot on our second trip to Lisbon to shoot for a new Cons shoe. It was just a small group skaters, myself, Javier and Remy Taveira but there was a serious media crew present including French Fred, Neil Chester and Niki Walti. This trip was slightly closer to summer too and the weather was absolutely brilliant. If you ever get the chance to visit Lisbon make sure you go.
NYC. There’s just something incredibly magical about New York, I’ve been lucky enough to visit a few times and it never lets me down. I think for me it has a lot to do with films I watched as a kid, movies like Miracle on 34th Street and Home Alone were incredible back then (actually still dope) but they just seemed special, it was like a different world and in all honesty it is. The people, the food the noises, everything just reinforces the fact that you are miles away from home. NYC is amazing give it a go.
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