Unofficial Rules Of Skate-Spot Tooth Retention

It's all very well skating DIY spots if you are lucky enough to get access to them. But there is definitely an etiquette that should be observed. Helping to build the spot is a pretty good way of making sure you can sleep at night after skating the result of someone else's hard work.

Respecting the secrecy of the spot is another key element to this exchange of skating rights. Never tell people about the spot unless you have cleared it with those who have put the effort in.  Ownership is said to be 9-tenths of the law, when it comes to DIY skate spots it's 10-tenths.

One thing I heard recently that you most definitely do NOT do is rename the spot as if it's magically transferred ownership into part of your property portfolio.  Imagine me rocking up to Burnside and announcing "Lizardside" had a much better ring to it. How many teeth do you think I'd have left in my bloodied and bruised skull on the flight home? 

There are many things in life where I don't practice what I preach but this weekend I'll be paying my dues for skating a certain DIY spot. A bit of hard labour will be good for my soul, and as one of my favourite t-shirt says "Sometimes skateboarding is about not skateboarding".

It also gives me an excuse to buy more tools.

So get out there and get involved, we all need to build more stuff.

[LILAC]

Last Chance to Savour the Flavour, SquatPark Style.

So after getting distracted by Habgood's bit of news on friday, I've finally got round to sorting out the first post of the week.

Obviously I'm doing a classic Lizard-Blog trick of dragging out shots from last week to keep a little bit of interest for the quiet week, that I knew would come.

If you think that's bad, you wait until later in the week when I decide to together a post based the influence of skateboarding on popular street fashion since the early 90's.

I hope to god you know I'm joking.

Meanwhile, here is the last sequence from the SquatPark the other day.

Jeremy Jones flipping out on the quarter

Right, I'm of to do more stuff.

[LIALC]

There Are Matches Made in Heaven, Some Are Made in Hell

Witchcraft have just announced the latest member of thier team.

And it's a killer addition.

Check out Joe's team page here. 

Congratulations to everyone involved, it's going to be a summer of destruction.

[LIALC]

The Panic Sequence From Squatpark

I promised you more stuff from Sunday at Squatpark, so here's another sequence.

You might notice that I just about spotted Marcus heading towards the quarter out of the corner of my eye and could sense that he was set to throw down some skateboarding knowledge... thank christ I had my wits about me.

More tomorrow.

[LIALC]

Dusty Rooms and Sanctuary for Mono Sequences

Yesterday I was focusing on the arrival of the boys/lasses in blue at the SquatPark.  Today I'm bringing it back to the reason for the existance of Lizard In A Lab Coat, ...Skateboarding.

For the 40 or so minutes that I was at the warehouse, before the excitement started, I was having a bit of a skate, knocking together a new wall-ride and shooting some photos.

Here's the first of the sequences from that day.  Jeremy hitting up the quater with a nicely popped F-S Ollie to Pivot.

More form the SquatPark tomorrow, but tonight it's back to The Spot for more janky concrete fun.

[LIALC]

A Secret Session Goes Downhill, In A Bad Way.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened and it certainly won't be the last.

Marcus had been talking about this spot for a while and finally, i could get myself down there to see it and skate it. It's a ten minute ride from my house, really well located and hidden with loads off scope for expansion.

BUT... thanks to some poor timing and a bit of bad luck one of the guys was seen climbing out of the building by passing police. Of course the next bit we are all pretty familiar with.

To be fair the male cop was pretty cool and respectful. He was good enough to give us straight answers to Marcus's questions about legality of skating the place and he even went as far as to say "I'd rather you were skating here than out somewhere causing trouble".

So who knows... with a little bit of care the spot could well survive.

More from SquatPark tomorrow.

[LIALC]

Serious Lurking from Kingston Town - The Movie

I bumped into Marcus, Aaron and Jack up at Bay66 the other night for a Vert and Mini-ramp muck-about. In the pub afterward I was given a sneak-peak of the new Kingston Lurkers promo vid on Jack's lap-top.

Filming for the finished video is going to continue through the summer and Marcus has promised me that it'll be on the shelves ready for Christmas, so technically he's promised you too now and I tust Marcus. After all, what is a man without his word.

I'm hopefully going to have some more stuff of the Kingston crew to show you in the coming weeks so stay tuned for that, meanwhile here's the promo.

[LIALC]

A Smattering of Stockwell Sunday Snaps.

Last Sunday looked like it might have been a lovely, sunny, first day of spring type day.  It wasn't.  It didn't stop the stallwarts from coming out for a skate.  Here are some more crappy phone pics from the end of the session.

•Note to self: Get a fucking grip and stop taking photos with your phone.

Daih, pouting.

Johners with a monster-munch powered Back-D!

Little John practicing his puppy-dog eyes.

Why does no-one stand still for a photo anymore?

Martyn looking guilty, and with good reason.

Life-Force Sucking Skate and Photo Time

Pre-visualization is a valuable technique for all types of photography and familiar to almost all photographers.  Sometimes it's all encompassing, creating the need for props, special lighting, industrial fans, hair and make-up, a tame gorilla and a trestle table. Sometimes it's just having an idea of the framing seconds before putting the viewfinder to the photographer's eye.

Galen Rowell even espouses the importance of Emotional Pre-visualization in his landscape and nature photography.  Grant Brittain sees it being thrown aside by mediocre digital photographers, "I think a lot can be learned with the slower pace of shooting film, the pre-visualization involved while shooting film, processing film and prints in a darkroom and the anticipation of getting film back from the lab".

When I "Pre-visualized" the photo of my phone that I shot at Stockwell last night, I saw the temperature reading -1ºC.  Imagine my disappointment and disgust when Accuweather gave me a very much less dramatic 2ºC.  There's no way it was that warm. Smart-phone my arse.

Armed with this new (if completely untrustworthy) information I decided that lying on the concrete floor of the park would be the perfect place to take up position for the next shot that I'd pre-visualized.  Seriously, I'm considering taking legal action against Accuweather. I could feel the life-force being sucked out of my body as I lay there waiting for Johners to come round for the weird gap ollie that he's currently in love with.

Trying to do this ollie justice with a digital compact camera was never going to be easy, but thanks to Photoshop this mediocre digital photographer managed to "sort of" do it justice.

Next stop, the weekend.

[LIALC]