ollieandshove

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the crew

Today we look at “the Crew”. Each crew is different and each crew is defined by something else, but I took a definition of “The Crew”, from UrbanDic-tionary.com, that just about sums them all up: “A group of friends who are there for each other day in & day out. The Crew is all about keeping their figures through the roof and they always have each other’s back no matter what. The last thing to remember is The Crew has no limitations, because the sky is the limit.” They come in many sizes, shapes and colors. I should say numbers, sets of thinking and ethnic back-grounds instead. They can be a melting pot mentally and/or physically, or homogenous all the way through. These guys to your left and right however,

are 2/3 the parts of a whole pas-sionate about one thing, skate-boarding. I used my tool of obser-vation with these guys. I spent hours with them not only for photos, but to get a taste of what their crew is like. Maybe even as-similate a little because they were just too cool a group of people and I wanted to be apart of them. Within this time spent I did no-tice one thing though, roles. These guys have roles within their crew, and since they’re built around the good sport, their roles are kind of obvious: To your left you see Ernest Atkinson, an eccentric, funny, outspoken black guy, with a wonderful talent. He’s a Photo-journalism Major (P.J.) at West-ern Kentucky University and an upcoming photography star. So yeah, he’s the photographer of the group. A great one at that. He documents before a session, dur-ing a session, and any time else. His passion for photography not only helps his career portfolio, but help our third crew member get exposure via stills. But first I must introduce our second member to your right. This comical character is Terrance Howard. Starting to no-tice the trend that these guys are all actually hilarious. Anyway He also attends WKU but his major doesn’t really pertain to his role in the group. He leads the guys with his creative vision in motion. Yes ladies and gentleman Terrance is the crew’s cameraman.

. He tapes and co-directs the skate films that our third guys in. He’s an all around attributed guy when it comes to crew operations too. He shoots not only film but photogra-phy as well, when Ernest wants in a shot. He also skates when his ankles not sprained. Now next up is a guy who’s kind of like the “Don” of the group, at least demeanor wise.

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Nick Johnson is THE skater of the group. He has been doing it ever since he was a kid and holds the most talent on a board. I watched five plus videos that he and Ter-rance made of him and the crew. Trick after trick the videos got better the longer they went and we were just left wanting more. We almost went out to shoot some skate footage after the photo shoot was done we were so eager. But when you look at nick you see the leader of the group because they’re all so like-minded about skateboarding, the best skater is well, the Don. These guys bring just another branch of the meanings of a “Crew”. They shoot, they laugh, They skate.

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Trick Tips

Boardslides are simply grinds performed from the frontside or backside where your board is sliding in between the trucks. *Tip* work on backside and fontside 180’s to get you confident with turning your body.

A 360 flip (or Tre flip) is a combination of a 360 pop shove-it and a kickflip. *Tip* This trick is quite difficult and takes some time to master. work on your 360 pop shove-it frequently and the kickflip portion of this move will come easily.