Firing Squad: September 29, 2009
Last week was a close one, with the former champ holding a lead almost the whole time. But then, the challenger broke out, Dancing with the Stars was over so I called it, and here we have it. A new champ. Meanwhile, Zimmerman headed to Ashland to learn to be the world’s best bike mechanic, leaving me to wade through the submissions and pick a worthy challenger. Well, I’m no Zim, so I grabbed another black and white shot and called it good. You guys pick who wins anyway, so vote for the one you like better.
The Champ
The Challenger
[poll id=”91″]
Think you can do better? Then quit your bitching. The Firing Squad is a weekly photo competition. Winners of a single battle will receive a pair of Da Kine gloves and should a photo survive 4 weeks, the photographer receives a place in the Champions Gallery and a Da Kine Camera Pack. To enter your own photo in the Firing Squad, check out our submission guidelines. It’s almost winter so send some snow shots!
The bummer about the challenger is that the lighting doesn’t do that trick justice. The corner he is airing out of is 9′, pool coping, and a bit over-vert.
Well isnt that the photographers fault?
Photographically, the champ has the better shot.
The challenger shot gnarlier action, but just didn’t light it well enough. That’s my 2 cents.
I don’t know, the challenger’s is kinda cool. Maybe they wanted it to be all dark so that it looked like the skated was going into a pit of darkness. Makes the trick look even more ballsy.
maybe, but it’s impossible to see what’s going on. that’s my beef. ballsy trick but if i can’t tell what’s happening then what’s the point of the photo. if a photo is supposed to tell a story, all i’m getting from this one is guy doing an indy with a wood rail beside him.
The Challenger’s photo is way more of an intense trick..anyone with eyes can see this…forget the photography, its an obvious choice.
i think its funny that Dunno was on right away defending the challenger, from what? as i would like to bash on him its just impossible to know what that spot looks like without having been there. one thing is for sure thats not pool coping so what else is he lying about . . . ill just leave it at that. cool photo though.
gotta go with the Peoples CHAMP!
im diggin’ all these B&W submissions, very cool.
i thought we established that this was about the photo not the trick. shut up crystal.
the challenger photo shows gets my vote for the graphic and more abstract sense of movement and being suspended in space. I like that it is less obvious, and think it could appeal to a broader audience, in other words someone who isn’t a skater could feel like a skater just looking at the photograph.
Maybe it’s because I’m retarded, but it took me a solid four minutes to figure out what was going on in the challenger’s photo. I saw a frontside grab, but was he airing indy or frontside? the darkness and fisheye really messed up the context of the trick for me, and that’s a pretty key element to a photograph, regardless of how cool the idea behind the shot is.
I like that the champ’s photo has the skater out of focus. It reminds me of my fucked up photos, which sometimes come out to be the best.
“Crystal MacGinnis` on September 29th, 2009 at 11:04 am:
The Challenger’s photo is way more of an intense trick..anyone with eyes can see this…forget the photography, its an obvious choice.”
Okay, seriously? How many times do we have to re-iterate that this is a PHOTO contest not a TRICK contest. So “forget the photography…” really doesn’t work here for choosing a winner.
Anyways, I think the challenger is a cool shot, but the exposure is way too low. You can’t even tell that it was shot with a fisheye and a really cool skyline in the background unless you really look for it. The champ just has a more interesting shot
the challenger would be sick if the flash was off-camera and left the railing in the black as well. now i regret voting for the challenger. change my vote to the champ
angles baby!
fisheye’s have become such a cop-out in skate photography. making a fisheye look proper is difficult but that being said most untrained (skateboard/photo) eyes think, “o cool distortions, skateboarding is so radical.”
the CHAMP is keeping it true to both skateboarding and photography. he’s got my vote.
can Tal Roberts’ be resurrected and given a fair battle?
so we got on camera flash, centered crap of solid skating, versus out of focus train track shitfuck. I can’t believe that won. I respectfully choose not to vote this week. this is like a presidential election, which one sucks less?
CHAMP
Sounds like Carl Mcgnarl is last weeks Mcloser
i was wondering why Carl seemed so agro. Carl, you really think the 2 weeks ago challenger should have undeservingly won again last week or do you just need to learn to watch your mouth? with how stupid you sound im guessing Jimbo is right. well at least Carl thinks the challenger this week has solid skating, rather then that ridiculous “landed” 360 flip from last week.
mike: I wasn’t defending the challenger. I just noticed that I’ve skated that bowl before, and you can’t tell how sick that corner is. And it is definitely pool coping. They painted it black and bondo’ed the crap out of it. Burton bowl in Burlington; look it up.
Gotta go with the champ!
Thanks Dunno. i just check some sweet footy on the world wide web, that bowl looks fun! i saw the corner your talking about but could this shot have been done in any of those many corners without pool coping? just sayin not arguing. sorry holms its easy and a lil fun to get carried away on this especially the two weeks prior with Carl’s Crap. at least we have a pretty awesome battle to focus on this week.
The bowl is super fun. The only corner section with a narrow deck is the pool coping area. The coping transitions from metal to pool coping, and he may be airing over the transition of the two. Sick trick. OK photo. Champ FTW. Check out the bowl: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fUf5elxMtJw/Se1NR_m0nWI/AAAAAAAAAGg/a4S62sPUcUU/Burton+Bowl+VT.JPG
“vert” skating is dead 🙂
this is a close one. too bad they’re both weak
wait, why would you paint over and bondo pool coping? make something cool look like something less cool? i can see the dudes at burton being like, yeah man that pool coping section is sick but all the seven year old backhill kids are scared of it, ahhh well make it look like coping.
i take it back theres no way its pool coping your an idiot. you can see the screws and the grain of the wood deck. or did they paint it to look like wood and paint little screws on it too.
maybe if the shot weren’t so underexposed you would notice that easier . . . . wait, why does this argument matter?
at least we have a pretty awesome battle to focus on this week.
The pool coping is tucked under masonite. Here is the guy who built it interviewed by Juice Magazine.
I don’t know if anyone was threatened. I don’t know anything, but they got pool coping. They buttered up that pool coping so good that it grinds better than the steel coping.
It’s so slick, it doesn’t even feel like pool coping.
You were there. You know. They buttered it up. That was the deal. Let us put the pool coping in there and we’ll make it so you can skate it. CW did a great job on that.
Did anyone from Burton contact you and say, “You were right. Thanks.”
Yeah, we got a couple of those calls. We got a call saying that we should have done the whole bowl with pool coping. There’s another group of guys that we educated. Now they know. The spring thaw is going to happen and there is going to be a huge session out there. We’ll all be up there for it.
Your pool coping is tucked in between your legs, thus hiding any evidence of your manhood…
So now I’m just instigating I guess. Perhaps I’m bored with the whole “pool coping/metal rail” argument since it has nothing whatsoever with how good the quality of the photo is. Perhaps I’m just an asshole…
…The world may never know
This is a PHOTO battle??? I guess after seeing this weeks photo, any point and shoot shot will work…
Weak.
Using the top flash on a camera, and the skater falling into a black hole… nice photo… wtf?
Damn shame… Now that it is snowing, I think this shot needs to spell the end, and some real photographers need to bring it. Tal’s shot should have taken 4 weeks in a row Admin… we all know it.
Zim you with me?
Brian
“can Tal Roberts’ be resurrected and given a fair battle?”
Agreed.
I had nothing to do with this week’s battle choice and I’m not taking sides.
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i don’t know, what to saaaaaaaaaaaaay. i say the challenger.
Gay
Да уж По моему мнению в данном сообщении нет никакой логики 🙂
Да уж По моему мнению в данном Ñообщении нет никакой логики 🙂